My mother was a good teacher (albeit a tad ogreish) but her cooking skills were much to be desired. All I can remember mother serving was a dry pork casserole consisting of a slab of pork loin and an onion cooked to death in a tin my dad made for her and mixture sandwiches served with milk shake.

Mixture sandwiches consist of boiled eggs, cress, cheese, salt and pepper and our British staple, Salad Cream (NOT mayonnaise) spread on buttered bread. The milk shake involved drinking a glass of milk and being shaken, not something I would advocate nowadays but it was funny at the time.

In the 19th century salad dressings became popular. Heinz introduced the first commercially bottled Salad Cream in 1914 and was initially made by hand in a factory in Harlesden, London. Intended as a salad dressing, this tangy condiment found its way onto sandwiches, fried fish, chips and just about anything and everything. In the early 2000s Heinz’s decision to discontinue Salad Cream was met with a public outcry as it’s not just a condiment, it’s a symbol of British culinary heritage and so was saved.

Garden cress has always been more of an accoutrement to dress plates or a fun thing to grow on window ledges inside egg shells but it’s fab with cheese, especially one of our oldest traditional cheeses, Lancashire.

If the vicar is coming to tea, get out the best china and serve mixture sandwiches with a slice of best ham and a strong cup of English Breakfast Tea #oldfashioned #CA2025