Savoury mince: reprising the 1980s.

Walls fall; presidents and popes are shot (if not fatally, like musicians); rockets bearing civilians drop out of the sky; clothes grow pads; music becomes a visual medium (on hearing a tune a listener, confusing senses, exclaims,‘I remember that video!’); Roth/Updike/Bellow carry on jousting*.

Meanwhile, you had to eat. Not everything in the 1980s was of the 1980s, such as savoury mince, an example of the kind of mundane dish that became a default meal keeping the beef grinders in business like ‘spaghetti bolognese’ does today, its reddish-beige lava bubbling over cheddar-coloured pasta mountainsides in the bowl-volcanoes of a million family tables. ‘Bolognese again?’

Savoury? That redundant word is one of the cooking clichés that never disappears. What else is minced beef except savoury? What does it even mean? The word is scattered like confetti through the recipe supplements (lift-outs, the publishers called them) stapled into those mid-century women’s magazines that sold in their millions. ‘It’s all in New Idea! Out now!’ Blame me if you like; I wrote some of those 30-second scripts for Dulcie Boling.

Still, the recipe below was an easy meal that could grace the table of the fracturing 1980s family in enough time for individuals to eat and escape … to his or her room in which a flickering personal computer made eerie green shadows; or, dressed in leg warmers, Nike waffles and a Walkman, to go out for a run (or did more film and television actors perform that latter scenario than real people?)

Whatever. I made this the other night. It disappeared in minutes. People seem to like retro things.

Savoury mince with oyster sauce.

Heat enough peanut oil in a large frypan or wok to brown 500g of beef mince. Stir continuously and remove when fully browned. Add more oil to the pan and fry a chopped onion, a scored garlic clove, and a diced carrot. Stir fry for a few minutes and then add a shredded wedge of cabbage (about a quarter of a small head). Keep stirring. Turn on the radio if you need music in the background. Can you hear me calling … out your name … you know that I’m falling … and I don’t know to say.

Add half a cup each of frozen peas and corn kernels, stir, and re-add the browned mince together with three-quarters of a cup of beef stock into which you have stirred two tablespoons of oyster sauce and one of soy sauce. Stir until well combined and fluid reduces.

Serve with steamed rice. Whoa, sail on, honey … good times never felt so good …

*

* ‘Roth … sometimes complained about how prolific Updike was, and about the latter’s habit of collecting even his most minor work in those big omnibus volumes he published every few years. “Honestly,” he said, “do we have to read every fucking word the guy writes?” ’ (The Hudson Review, August 2019)