Bangers & Mash, A Love Story

I don’t really like to eat. The act of feeding myself can be tiresome. Shovel, chew, swallow, repeat. Eventually I’ll feel full, a few hours later I’ll be hungry again. It’s enough to drive one insane, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But here’s the rub: I love food.

A perfectly grilled New York strip steak is heaven; patiently braised carnitas is rapture; a Grandma-baked apple pie is ecstasy. Award-winning writer William Goldman once said that “true love is the greatest thing in the world -- except for a nice sandwich,” and I couldn’t agree more. Spaghetti with meatballs, Christmas ham with peas and potatoes, baby back ribs drenched in BBQ sauce -- hot damn, my mouth is watering.

My dilemma is clear: how do I reconcile these two disconnected feelings, the aversion to eating and the joy of foodstuffs, when they ought to be connected? It is from this awkward position that I offer a simple, standard dish that actually united my divergent views.

Bangers and Mash is simply sausages and mashed potatoes. The dish is rooted in the working-class pub culture of England and Ireland and I delight in eating it. Stuffing my face and filling my belly with those delicious meats and taters is anything but a dull chore.

Though I had eaten my fair share of sausages and mashed potatoes over the years, I had never appreciated the unique taste and pleasure of their combination until a recent trip to Australia. Now I can’t get enough.

The moment of enlightenment was at a pub called The Bellevue, a veritable institution opened in the 1880s, in the tony Sydney neighborhood of Paddington. The sausages, resting on a bed of silky mashed potatoes, were a blend of beef and pork. They were drizzled with a generous amount of rich onion gravy and served with a sweet beetroot relish and an assortment of dark, spicy mustards.

I looked at the meal with a mixture of awe, curiosity and excitement. Yeah, it looked good; but would the monotony of eating it be that same familiar bore? Cutting into one of the sausages, I released an intoxicating torrent of its aromatic juices. They mingled with the mash, dying it a warm brown. I used my fork to collect some relish, thick but not overly chunky, and swept it through the creamy mash and the gravy, taking care to gather a bit of mustard for good measure. Stabbing the slice of sausage, I now had a little of everything on my plate, on my fork -- a melting pot of protein and starch. I put it in my mouth. I chewed. I savored the flavor. I swallowed. I was unprepared for what came next.

I was so floored by the taste, a fusion of sweet and savory with a hint of old-world charm, that all I could think about was piling up the next bite. Again, I got some of everything. Again, I was not disappointed. Perhaps more importantly, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. I was enjoying eating. Heaping the different components of the dish together and consuming them with glee, I began to realize that the satisfaction I derived from eating had just as much to do with what I was eating as how I was eating it. Each element that made up each forkful played its own role on my Supper Stage and I was the director. I decided what went where, how much of this did that. I was in charge.

The awareness galvanized me and, excited by the explosive party in my mouth, I plowed through the meal. The gravy was diluted with mash, the mustard turned beet red, and the sausage abandoned its casing. Even though I took great pleasure in eating my meat and potatoes, I ate it with a shit-eating grin. It was great.