GRANOLA, GRANOLA!

Granola is big business in our house. Missus Moonbase can't get enough of the crunchy nibbles.

Now when I was a kid I'm pretty sure we had something similar called Grape Nuts. I've no idea what Grape Nuts came in and whether it was a breakfast cereal or not. I remember eating it dry in the hand and really loving the stuff. Jordans springs to mind so I imagine they were the makers. Jordans Grape Nuts. Sounds like a character in Viz! 

I associate my Grape Nuts with the wholefood revolution of the Seventies as well, when Muesli became the natural choice for all peckish hippies. I always preferred Grape Nuts as I appreciated the crunch. I got a similar crispy buzz from Sesame Snaps, little glazed biscuits made entirely of toasted sesame seeds glued together. They came in small cellophane packs of maybe three or four. Fab for the starving minstrel on the move between busking spots!

I always got my nuts and snaps on Saturdays from a brill earthy shop called Fly in Amber way down Preston high street, so far down that no-one else went! Whilst in the herb-scented shop I'd stock up on Earl Grey tea leaves and cucumber soap, whilst pondering the meaning of exotic words like fenugreek, aduki, mung and agar agar. Oh and I'd get the latest issue of THE hippy rag, Undercurrents, of course!

On the way back into town I'd call into a neat little funky boutique called Spinning Jenny, opposite the train station, largely because I fancied the girl sales assistant. Whilst loitering I'd buy patchouli oil, the fuel of the Seventies and maybe a new pair of dungarees, yellow ones! I had money in those days. I was working when I was 17 at General Accident's claims office. I got £70 a week I think. I wuz loaded!

Anyways, Grape Nuts-Granola always makes me think of Tiger Nuts. These were a fave tidbit of my old Dad's. He'd have a paper bag of them on the go often. I've no idea what Tiger Nuts were. Incredibly chewy, they looked like dried-up rabbit droppings never mind anything from a tiger! In fact my Dad also used the name Tiger Nuts for that less than savoury phenomenon of what we would now refer to as klingons, an inevitable hazard of the hairy behind. Why we discussed these things I've no idea! He was a humorous fella though my Dad and his expressions often made me laugh.

So, nuts, grapes, tigers and granola. Do these desiccated grains grace your kitchen table too readers or perhaps they satisfied your masticating youth like mine?