Slightly emabarrased to say I still make my own version of tuna surprise- great comfort food. Tempted to suggest a tuna casserole bake off. Recipes must be authentic- comsumed in student accomodatiom- and involve tinned tuna.

Jules, I am so glad you like my spatula. Didn’t see till afterwards how photogenic it is. Quite Christmassy really, that shot, don’t you think? Also am intrigued by tofu in the sanger toaster, though it makes me feel a little despondent and brings back memories of university era communal vego food, which always seemed to be some kind of brown sludge with one flavour: soy sauce. Gave vegetables such a bad name, that era … brown rice undercooked so it was like eating little pellets of rock, with the sole flavouring being soy sauce, and barely any fresh veg actually to be seen. Yick. I wonder if 19 year old vegetarians are still cooking that stuff. Mind you, all I ever cooked back then was disgusting one-note spag bol (meat and tomato paste) and recall eating a helluva lot of what one flatmate described enticingly as Tuna Slop. Involved macaroni, canned tuna and cheese. Ugh.

I like silken tofu steamed on the plate- with sauce of chili/ginger/shallots/garlic/soy etc poured over it at the end. The nervous are strongly advised to serve it on the plate it’s cooked on.

At Varuna I once saw a desperate vegetarian slam the lid of the sandwich toaster on a slice of hard tofu brushed with soy. Apparently very toothsome.

Of course i lost the recipe in sharehouse moves and have never been able to find anything remotely like it again.