David White – Cheese Ush and getting drafted to HMS Orpheus because the Captain loved his
‘Cheese Ush ‘is another one, which is like a submarine version of a Quiche Lorraine, tend not to put a pastry case on it because I find you end up with a soggy bottom.
I think it’s an art to cook a pie or a flan with pastry on the bottom and not get it soggy.
What you need is a proper perforated pie tin, and the Navy didn’t run into that, so I didn’t do a pastry bottom so you just get a load of grated cheese, milk, eggs, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper, finely chopped onion, mix it all up in a big bowl, beat the life out of it and pour it into a red hot dish like you would a Yorkshire and bake it in the oven and it comes up and it gets a lovely golden skin on it and it comes out like a souffle, a fairly dense souffle and I got drafted to a submarine because of that.
Ok so I was on HMS Porpoise with a very, very fine Naval Officer called Jim Taylor. He was mad keen on my cheese ush, loved it so fast forward two years and I’m working for Captain Oliphant.
Now Captain Oliphant was the Captain of HMS Dolphin at the time and I was his personal Chef at his house, and every three months, every quarter, he’d have all the Submarine Captains to dinner and by this time Jim Taylor was now the Captain of a submarine, HMS Orpheus and so had their dinner and he said, “Oh, could I just pop down and thank the Chef?” He didn’t know it was me.
And Captain Oliphant said, “Yeah”, and I think generally most of them come down and thank you, so he comes down and he says, “Ah Lead Cook White” he said, “I wondered where you were hiding, I thought you were on a boat.”
I said, “No.” He said, “Do you want to come on Orpheus with me?” I said, “No thanks Sir” and two weeks later I got a draft to there.
Simon: Did you?
Yes.
Simon: After no thanks?
Yeah, and he said, “I miss your cheese ush” and that’s what he said he got me onto Orpheus.
Simon: Ah, right.
I like to think I was slightly more competent than that, but that’s what he always said.
