“He was just a bit bland,” my mum once said of an ex-boyfriend. “A bit vanilla,” she went on, as if she’d not made herself clear enough. Vanilla was harsh, I replied. Not on him, but on a flavour which is far from boring. Who can resist the sweet, aromatic warmth of vanilla beans steeped in stewed plums or stirred through fresh custard? But I took her point: from the menu of life, I had settled for drab.
We do this a lot with flavour: use it as a metaphor for our lives and loves. I can see why. Many of our most memorable moments are centred on mealtimes – food and drink are the focal point of big celebrations, meals the punctuation in mundane working days.
