Blue Ocean Bream and Pucker's Jelly

A plump cottage ham basted in bees’-knees honey. ‘With breadcrumbs and curds…’ ‘Whey-curds breadcrumbs and sticks of cinnamon?’ said the shamble leg man ‘of course indeed’. The man in the hat liked cheddar caraway with shallots, blue-ocean bream (Abramis brama) milk-whey and lagan. He sleeved it between slices of hollyhock bread (whole-wheat, rice and oaten) smeared with Pucker’s jelly and hard iced butter (in pats). The shamble leg man (who preferred rye bread stickle with germ and sweet curds) was partial to a simple organic bread. (Mister Gibbs devoured a mile-or-some of toast and jam, with a side-plate of boiled calf’s testicles leafed in peapods and arrowroot). Most bread (thought the man in the hat) is made from flour, yeast, sodas and germ, the mixing and oblation may differ, but the basic principle is identical. (Casserole dishes filled to toppling with carrots and beans, shepherd’s pie and Jell-O, day-old bread and watery fruit juices, a smorgasbord of castoffs and bitter ends). When he thought of food, which he did more often than not, the shamble leg man thought out loud, lisping like a so-chef in corduroy britches and a doubled-cinched ascot.