Let’s set aside for a moment the presumption of his question (presumption delivered with earnest politeness, I must add). What I want to understand is how, at his tender age, could slices of greasy pink fish trump a dollop of Nutella?
Then again, when you’ve been brought up swimming, ahem, in the stuff, perhaps it’s a choice to be expected.
From vacuum-packed scraps to finely cured gravlax, his dad is a hardcore smoked salmon devotee. Plus, at every Jewish get-together from simchah kiddushim to bagel brunches, smoked salmon has been on the table.
What then to make of the Food Standards Agency’s recent health warning about the risk of eating cold smoked fish? People with weakened immune systems, the pregnant and the elderly have been warned off the stuff because it could contain listeria.
As I write, I can feel the shudders of fear in the aisles of suburban kosher delis across the land.
But is it really such a sacrifice to give up smoked salmon?
Have you ever stopped and asked yourself whether it’s actually mouth-wateringly special or whether your Jewish sensibilities are simply operating on auto-palate?
I for one have always disliked the stuff. I hate the clammy way it slides round the mouth. I hate its undeserved arrogance at being considered such a delicacy.
To my mind it’s nothing more than a bland bit of fish with excellent PR.
Smoked Salmon has divided opinion (Photo: Getty)
Now, a psychoanalyst might ascribe my disdain for the prized fishy snack to my background .
Yes, I am Jewish. But the somewhat modest circumstances of my childhood mean that it was not a food that was often found in the family fridge.
In my formative years, smoked salmon was regarded like that other northern Jewish delicacy, Vimto. It was something for the more comfortably off.
Did I resent this fishy line of demarcation, this salty separation between the haves and have nots?
I can’t actually remember, but if I did then surely my entrée (sorry)to the middle classes through journalism and my marriage to an accountant (chartered, noch) should have long ago jettisoned any such food envy.
But the truth is that though our fridge is routinely home to packets of the stuff, it fails to entice me.
I suspect my smoked salmon aversion has been compounded by countless budget flights to Israel. As you hardly need me to tell you, it’s the go-to sandwich filling for the Jewish passengers who would rather take a packed lunch than chance the trolley service. For which, incidentally, I have some sympathy. Who wants a sandwich that has likely been to Malaga more often than you?
And so, as soon as the seat belt sign is switched off you can hear the whisper of cling film and the rustling of tin foil as the air fills with the salty gust of a smoked salmon lunch. (I must be honest here and confess that I have been part of the problem: in the days when I used to prepare multiplesandwiches before family holidays smoked salmon was often my sandwich filler of choice too).
So, as my son, now 30, demonstrated a quarter of a century ago, cold smoked salmon has become a self-fulfilling prophecy for Jewish taste buds. We like it because we always have.
But if I never had it again, truthfully, I would not miss it. Now Nutella, well, that is an entirely different story. See also strawberry jam. And as for Vimto, let it flow.
