sweet and bitter treats

Coffee
The pungent aroma of ground coffee reminds me of home, when as a small boy I would sit by the open fire with my brothers and sisters listening to my Father tell stories, while the coffee pot sat on the hearth and bubbled and sang to us as it boiled in the old Billy pot. My Mother would be in the kitchen working and listening to Dad ramble on about when he was a boy and the adventures he and his brother had. Their trips down the Manchester Ship Canal and onto the Potato Wharf, watching the Dockers unload the fruit from the bowels of the ships, mostly by hand in those days, or using the big donkey engine to drag up the cargo nets from the hold. On occasion there would be an accidental dropping of a crate of oranges and they would quickly secrete the spillage among their clothing to take home.

The wharf was a very busy place in those days bringing in all manner of goods from all over the world, cotton from America and Egypt, grain from Canada, meat from Australia and New Zealand, spices and herbs from the far east, tea from India and China. There was a large tea warehouse in Ordsall lane and they would climb over the wall to go looking in the empty tea chests for rolls of rubber tape, this they would make into balls that were excellent for playing cricket. We never knew of course how much of these adventures were true and how much was the product of his fertile imagination.

All these memories and more evoked from the smell of ground coffee.


by Old Salfordian



It tasted like nectar from heaven, or at least what I imagined nectar would taste like!
It was so soft and sweet and fluffy, with a delicious sugary smell hmmmm...

My hands and face were sticky and I licked my fingers with sheer pleasure to capture the last minute strands of this tantalising confection!

So that was candy floss!!!! Oh what had I been missing? It was perfectly pink bliss! I WAS HOOKED!!

- by von