Pappy did most of the cooking at his house. Unlike the European abundance of Grandma Maes, Pappy was a short order cook, simple, basic foods. And not expensive. I remember some things in particular – hash, stretchem and macaroni & cheese.

On Sunday morning, Grammy or Pappy would put a lump of corned beef, a cabbage cut into 4 quarters, some carrots, onions and potatoes in a large stockpot, with bay leaves and pepper for seasoning. This would be left to simmer away while they went to church.

This culinary marvel was known as a New England boiled dinner. It had its origins in Ireland, and the religious practice of not working on Sundays. Originally, the pot would have been assembled on Saturday evening and quite probably left on a wood stove overnight. The only thing left to do was to serve it up for the midday meal on Sunday.

It was one of the few meals to which I was indifferent, to say the least.

My father grew up to loathe the smell of boiling cabbage. Once, my mother was boiling a whole cauliflower but she had to run out to the shops or something, so she asked Dad to watch the cauliflower.

When she came home, the pot was still on the stove but the cauliflower was in the kitchen sink on the other side of the kitchen.

Dad had watched it, alright, but the smell got to him, bringing back memories of the boiling cabbage smell of the Sunday dinners of his childhood. He prodded it with a fork to test whether it was cooked. It wasn’t. Aware of how much he really hated the smell of boiling brassica, he hoiked the offending lump out of the pot and threw it across the room to the sink.