I’m not sure what your experience with builders and contractors is, but mine has always been pretty congenial. We’ve built restaurants for 15 years now, and before that we ‘did up’ and sold, I think, 5 houses in succession. I can’t think of a year when I haven’t had to deal with trades professionals and a lot of that time I’m on site with them.
Quite early on, one of the culinary myths of the construction trade was shattered for me. Early projects I worked on usually had Eastern European crews and later Aussie or Kiwi teams. None of them seemed interested in fry-ups.
Since Brexit, almost everyone in a hardhat is a Brit and, though I had high hopes, they were shattered when I realised that most young tradespeople these days go to the gym or run bloody marathons and are as likely to feature avocado and quinoa in their lunchboxes as the architects or interior designers.
Today, though, I had to go to TLC, an electrical supply company, to pick up a couple of spools of CAT6 cable, and I realised, to my utter delight, that The Soup had returned.
All trades are different in the way they get their supplies. Carpenters and brick/block layers will get their stuff delivered to site on a ‘Hiab’, one of those flatbed trucks with a built-in crane. Plumbers write long shopping lists, visit the suppliers once a week and keep stocks of parts ‘on-the-van’. Plasterers are a law unto themselves. But electricians will often nip off at the beginning of each day to pick up a component they’ve discovered they’ll need.
As a result, TLC, one of the better supply shops, on a small industrial estate near the bakery, is a positive social hub of a morning. You very often run into a ‘sparks’ you know from another job, and there’s always time to stop and chat. They’re also incredibly helpful with advice.
A while back, the suppliers caught on to this unanticipated social aspect of the electrical trade, and some began to supply food or drink. Initially, it was a pot of sweets on the counter, bars of chocolate, then someone started putting out boxes of doughnuts, but after a while, things really escalated. The day that Edmundsen’s, in a little industrial estate right over the other side of town, started giving away pies.
The news passed through the trade like a shock. Every other store emptied, and there was a queue for the carpark at Edmundsens. The staff had dreamed up the scheme themselves. They picked up a ‘Piequarium’ on eBay and organised a rota to pick up a flat of frozen pies from the Cash and Carry over the road every morning.
TLC, my local and favourite, struggled to compete. All they had was ‘The Machine’. It dispensed free tea and coffee but also mirabile dictu, Knorr Vegetable Soup.
I don’t know if you’ve ever come across KVS. I’m not sure many civilians ever would. Some of the electricians were scathing about it... one of the guys behind the counter said it was ‘like runny sick’, a phrase so apposite it should make any working restaurant critic’s eyes bleed with envy - but I bloody love it.
The soup is stored in the bottom of a cup in the body of the machine. The only ‘seal’ that protects it from the air is the next cup up in the stack. Stock is replenished ‘when it runs out’ which, as far as I can tell from the guys behind the counter, is ‘maybe once a month’ for the less popular menu items.
The machine takes 15 seconds from selection to service, so in that time, the dessicated ingredients need to have entirely dissolved or reconstituted - no lumps - in water cool enough to avoid any burn risk. It’s a technical miracle.
The broth is fascinating. It really tastes strongly of both salt and chicken, though it appears, from the ingredient list on the machine bulkhead, to contain neither. That means quantities of dietary yeast and MSG at the very least. Much like methamphetamine, it’s designed to be delicious, and by God, it is.
They’ve obviously moved on from the French inspired dried veg ‘Macedoines’ of the glorious old-school Cup-a-Soups and instead leaned into the freeze-dry technologies of Japanese *kappu men* (カップ麺). No longer the chewy cubes of carrot that would remain stubbornly unsoaked in the time it took the soup to congeal. No longer the mystery flakes of unidentifiable root veg. Today there is a fine dusting of chive, perhaps an evanescent hint of dried onion flake and, O Sweet Baby Jesus... croutons.
And no ordinary croutons at that. Dolly little micro-croutons, in mathematical 2mm dice, fried to ‘Trump-Skin Caramel’ (Farrow & Ball FB4879) and shattering crisp throughout.
Oh yes. I loved the soup.
But then disaster struck Edmundsen’s. The EHO dropped in and pointed out that if they were serving (or even giving away) food to people (or even electricians), they’d need a compliant kitchen in a separate room, with washable walls, a handwash station, an accident book, first aid training and an annual inspection to award them stars.
Perhaps it’s something to do with a job in which a simple, unforced error can blow your customer to ratshit that makes Sparkies different. There is no trade more schooled in compliance and as assiduous in voluntary self-enforcement.
The next day the pies were gone, and with them died The Electrical Pie Wars of 2023.
With no-one to vie with, my beloved TLC sadly lost all competitive drive, and next time the soup ran out, someone put an X over the button in red insulating tape. I alone mourned its passing.
But then, this morning, for no reason I can adequately explain, The Soup had returned. Not only that, but the next button along bruited a lurid fire-engine red “Knorr Spicy Tomato Soup (with Croutons)”.
I drank the veg one like, man starved for years. I ‘forgot’ the cable clips, so I’ll just have to come back tomorrow for a quick chat and a pass at the Spicy Tomato one... but, as soon as I’ve thumbed this in, I’m driving over to Edmundsen’s.
I’m going to tell them.
...and then I’m going to sit back and pray for escalation.
We had one of these machines at school, and when you're 14 and a girl, the veg soup makes a healthy, nutritious, filling lunch for about 78 kcal.
I completely get this. Despite being a decent home cook, (I cook tasty, mostly very healthy, dinners every day), I can't help loving the occasional bowl of Koka noodles, and adore Vesta Chow Mein with Crispy Noodles; it's hard to find now and a rare indulgence of crap that ticks all the flavour and texture boxes, including the one it comes in.