Archive Article: 2001/02/23
Letter
THOMAS Cooks recent advertisement using the image of a bowl of sprouts as a reason to depart to far-flung holiday destinations ruffled a few feathers in sprout-growing areas. Heres one of the letters we received:
I cant remember when I tasted my first brussels sprout but it must be some 80-plus years ago when my mother gave me the first of the seasons crop from our village garden.
Now, aged 90, I still eagerly look forward to the appearance of the first sprouts in the shops and regret their disappearance at the end of the season.
Some of my earliest memories relate to picking these delectable vegetables with frozen fingers. "They mustnt be picked until the frost has been on them," was the rule. Another decree was: "Pick the big ones from the bottom first."
Reaching mans estate, I grew my own vegetables on an allotment, with regular taunts from fellow allotment holders when I set out some 200 plants at a time!
Now the supply comes from greengrocer or supermarket, but enjoyment of my daily ration of my favourite vegetable is undimmed.
All power, then, to the British Sprout Growers Association on any action they may take to combat this insidious onslaught on a major British institution.
In fact, they might go further and mount a series of protests like all the other pressure groups, with petitions to Downing Street, a rally in Trafalgar Square and by suspending sacks of sprouts on the London Eye! After all, theres a ready-made slogan to hand, with a long and successful track record in another field – SOS or Save Our Sprouts.
Eric Ford
Address supplied.