On the subject of the north‑south dietary divide (Letters 19 May), the late, much-lamented Katharine Whitehorn informed us in the Observer in 1964 that she “was eating a moussaka in Bolton the other day which (though nice) was made with potato, and it suddenly made me realise just how little you can take aubergines for granted out of town”.
Martin Brayne
Whitehough, Derbyshire
• When we moved from Hackney to Bishop’s Stortford in 1977, the greengrocer responded to my request for a red pepper with a nose-in-the-air “there’s no call for that kind of thing round here”.
Lillian Adams
Hereford
