Feature

A Spoonful of Sugar

© Lucia Foster-Found 2022 www.luciafosterfound.com

“HFSS. What do you think it means?” Himself was frowning. It sounded familiar. “Is it a bank? No, wait, it’s that thing you get before a web address – I don’t know what it stands for.” She wasn’t being much help. “No.. I don’t think it is.” He shook his head. “Isn’t that htpp something? But I don’t know what that stands for either, although I’ve got a feeling that the P might be for protocol?” They were sat in their car outside the Cinema. Having arrived very early to be able to park outside (it was raining), both were consulting their phones to pass the time before the film started. She looked it up. “HFSS stands for High in Fat, Salt and Sugar. Why?” Himself looked resigned. “I thought as much.” She felt for him. Post-surgery he was intent on shedding some weight, but he looked so sad when, valiantly, he tried to make more healthy choices when they went out. To be fair, the recent publishing of calories on menus was quite helpful, in a deeply depressing way. One frightened look at the dessert menu and they’d stopped eating puddings altogether. “I wondered what these red markings were that seem to have suddenly appeared on food packaging.” He said. She was pretty sure the traffic light system had been there a while, but perhaps he’d been in denial, so she explained. “It gives a separate colour for each group; fat, saturates, sugar and salt. Green means low levels; ‘fill your boots’, I suppose. Amber is medium; ‘pause for thought, shall I, shan’t I’? And well, red is…” “Red is ‘step away from the pain au chocolat’.” He sighed. “What are you looking at?” Curious, she leaned across as he tilted the screen of his phone towards her. Oh dear. Yes – so many different types of pastry, all clustered enticingly on one Ocado page. “These are a few of my favourite things’ as the song goes.” He said, in a wistful tone. Hot water crust was well represented, together with puff, short, flaky and choux. It was like Himself’s greatest hits compilation of pies, pasties, turnovers and eclairs – poor darling.. “Look, it’s not entirely a case of cease and desist - it’s more… all things in moderation.” She said consolingly as Himself gave the delicious pictures one more look of longing before sighing and switching off his phone and remarking. “Seems we’ve come a long way since Elizabethans blackened their teeth – it was actually fashionable to look as if you ate too much sugar. How things have changed.” “Let’s hope that doesn’t come back on trend; black teeth and ruffs.” She shuddered. “Like leg warmers and court shoes. Disastrous.” “Hey - I bet there aren’t many children’s films these days advocating spoonfuls of sugar to help the medicine go down.” He commented. “Probably not – although I think the meaning was more metaphorical than monosaccharide.” She reasoned - and hummed it in her head. “Bread and dripping.” He announced. “There’s another thing.” “Yep. Staple Sunday night tea of my childhood.” She agreed, and salivated. Bet that would flash up a red light if you could buy it in the shops. Shame. So delicious. Her stomach rumbled. As they sat there fantasising about food, it occurred to her that they should have eaten before going to the Cinema. “Come on, let’s go in. We can have some flatbread and hummus or something.” Himself looked momentarily excited, then asked. “Is it HFSS?” “Who knows? It won’t come in a packet, so we’ll have no idea.” She said cheerily, whilst privately wondering if flatbread and hummus was the 21 Century’s answer to bread and dripping. “Either way, it will stop us obsessing about food.” Sat in the comfort and semi-darkness of the movie theatre, they finished their snacks. The endless trailers were coming to an end; she’d now seen all the best bits of half a dozen films. Also annoyingly, ‘the medicine go down, the medicine go dowwwwn’, was still chirping away in her head as she got up from the plush sofa they had commandeered. “I’m just going to nip to the loo. Want anything else whilst I’m out there?” She asked. “Coffee please, but no sugar..” “Not even a spoonful?” Himself assumed a beatific expression of almost angelic proportions as he looked up at her. “No thank you. I believe the phrase is ‘I’m sweet enough already’.” And, she considered, as she smiled down at him, he was right.