THE LAST SUPPER

BUSTER BLOODVESSEL :HOTELIER AND BAD MANNERS SINGER Our second volunteer picks his two all-time favourites for a final meal

Scarlett Chidgey
Sunday 15 December 1996 00:02 GMT
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FOR MY last supper, I would have a Portuguese dish called pork and clams. It's one of my favourite dishes of all time. I first ate it when I was in Portugal. On the off-chance, I went to eat at this restaurant, and there was a private function going on. All they had was pork and clams, which I said sounded lovely, so they let us stay. Nobody else eats it because of the sound of it, they don't like the idea of eating fish and meat together. But my girlfriend found the recipe and cooks it for me. I had her cook it for the opening of my hotel Fatty Towers and everyone thought it was the best thing ever.

Three different kinds of pork go into the dish - gammon, normal pork cubes, such as roast pork, and chorizo - which gives a unique flavour. Chorizo is a Spanish sausage which is spicy and lets all the flavours out when it is cooked. All of this is mixed with tomatoes, onion and garlic. It comes up with a lovely flavour and then in the last two minutes of cooking, clams, still in the shells, are thrown in. The shells all open up, containing salt water, and all the flavours come out. Anybody who likes seafood would love it. It's supposed to be served with boiled potatoes, but we serve it with garlic bread.

I also like mojo potatoes, a potato dish with a special kind of sauce. The meal comes only from the Canary Islands. It is a starter which consists of small new potatoes, which are put in a pot with tons of salt and left to soak overnight. Then, the potatoes are boiled and when they appear above the water line, the salt has crystallised on the potatoes. The sauce is 90 per cent garlic. With a mortar and pestle, the garlic is crushed and the juice taken out; add chilli and finely crushed tomato and that makes the sauce, which is very strong. You take the potato, mushy on the inside, and salty on the outside, and then dip it into the sauce. I'm not usually a great potato eater myself, but I think that anybody who likes potatoes would love it. I took my girlfriend on holiday to the Canary Islands so she could learn to make the dish. I had first tried it when I went on tour to the Canary Islands.

My favourite drink is champagne. You can't beat Dom Perignon, so I might as well go for that for my last slurp. The supper would be with my family and friends at Arthur's Cafe, one of my favourite places to eat. But, before supper, we'd first have drinks at Anchor and Hope. Both places are down by the River Lea.

I would arrange to have the French chef Escoffier to cook my last meal. He was the most incredible man I have ever read about - it's worth getting a book about him. Apparently during wartime, he was given the privilege to take any animal out of the zoo to experiment and cook with. He took every animal except the rhino, because it took too long to cut through!

At my last supper, I wouldn't be dressing up - I'd wear shorts. I always wear shorts, even in this weather. I just think it's lovely around the legs. I hate it when I have to wear long trousers. I'd also probably wear a T-shirt.

As for entertainment during my last supper, I'd call on the dead to actually perform. I would have Otis Redding, I don't think you can get better than him, really. I'd also ask Chas and Dave who perform cockney-rock, called rockney. But, my musical tastes change every day. That's it - that's me.

Interview by SCARLETT CHIDGEY

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