No 3657 Set by John Crick

Recipes or menus that take food damned by class prejudice - Scotch eggs, pine-apple and cheese on sticks, sandwiches made with white bread, etc - and talk them up so as to give them a bit of tone.

Report by Ms de Meaner

Brilliant. Superbe, mes braves! How I laughed. A black mark to Marco Jerrentrup for talking down French onion soup for the sweatpants- and white-trainer-wearing classes ("those floaters of cheesy toast never quite sink to the bottom, no matter how sodden"). Hon menshes to: Derek Morgan for his sugar sandwich ("non-purists can add an infinite number of variations: organic bread, rye, pumpernickel, low-fat-reduced margarine and demerara or muscovado); Robin Oakley-Hill for his guacamole Mandelson; and Ian Birchall for his talons des vaches. £20 to the winners; the Tesco vouchers go to Watson Weeks.

Menu Gastronomique

Potage en poudre de l'industrie de la restauration

Oeufs alcooliques des auberges en pot de barometre

Saumon Escoffier en boIte

Souffle des pommes de terre reconstituees

Petits pois spongieux

Sauce brunette

* * *

Petards a la creme au fromage dissemine

Tablette martiale maltraitee a la mode

Elizabeth David

* * *

A boire: Tizer, l'aperitif, Vin interessant de pissenlit fait a la maison

Essence de the tout de suite

Cafe affecte

Watson Weeks

Welcome to Spam, the seven-ouncer with the bounce. It's a delectable comestible with a history as sensual as any wet and deliberate tongue, a 67-year-old delicacy which wows the hulas off the Hawaiians. Imagine the heat in Pearl Harbor. Conjure up the cool of Honolulu. That's where they like to slice the Spam, to splice its exotic and secretive spices with a round of roustabout cabbage. We're talking a corking pork shoulder, inmixed with happy ham, and sealed in a can that fits as snugly in your hand as a Colt 45. Somewhere the opener prises open the prize; somewhere the quivering knife steals towards the succulent, tight little, right little delight. More than 100 nations are linked by lips which have lingered over Spam's almost indecent tang. More than five billion cans have been cracked open like smiles. Did it save Russia? It did. Does the memory linger? Oh yes. We know the beast in you, the mightily desirous beast. The critter for the fritter, we call him. Now run your fingers gently round those moulded edges. Let it nestle in a plate of fries, or languish in a generous bun, pink and perfect as paradise. Let's eat.

Will Bellenger

To commence, a potage des tomates des Variations LVII, with precisely cut layers of pain-grille exquisitely produced from ingredients of the highest attainable refinement. To follow, a paquet-artisanal of autumnal root vegetables, tossed with a saute of finely chopped "beef" and alium cepa. This nestles against a profusion of

traditional English legumes de jardin, eased

from their peaceful cryogenic slumber.

(While the mysteries of a kitchen are often concealed from its patrons, we take pride in our ability, requiring significant digital dexterity, of bringing warmth to your meal from its very heart to its outermost layers, maintaining constant angular velocity the while, the whole culminating in an epiphanic musical announcement.)

To drink, we have chilled for you a sparkling herbal cocktail of truly inconceivable rarity, served for you in a vessel evoking 1960s artwork.

If a dessert is sought may we suggest an iced conceit - a minimalist statement ironically referencing the concept of natural ingredients of vanilla and cocoa and fresh cream. The dark abstract exterior artfully concealing an internal snugly fitting confection, whose all-white colour seeks to deny association with its outer shell, yet which has to admit itself as a congruent objet.

(Heinz tomato soup with sliced white-bread toast. Pasty and peas, done in a microwave. A choc ice for afters and Coke)

Jonathan Flowers

Ananas et fromage a l'epee

This most sophisticated of dainties dates back to 17th-century France and still retains the grandeur of that period. There is a colourful story told of the origins of the dish, which concerns the Three Musketeers, those flamboyant swordsmen immortalised by Alexandre Dumas. Among the contests whereby they would show off their skills was one in which each man was required to catch a pineapple, launched across the great hall of the Palais du Luxembourg by a small military catapult, on the end of his sword, with grandiose flourish, perfect technique and minimum damage to the fruit. The next challenge was to catch a flying Camembert on the same sword. It is rumoured that King Louis himself named the dish on observing the musketeers' skill. The modern version tends to involve harder cheeses of Somerset origin rather than Camembert, Brie or the Rocquefort on which the king insisted. Otherwise, however, this cocktail party favourite is little changed from its Gallic forebear. Do: pierce small bite-sized chunks with an 8cm stick; think "fromage first"; serve with a cheeky Lambrusco dolce. Don't: cut yourself opening the tin; pick your teeth with the stick.

David Silverman

No 3660 Set by John Crick

Imagine you have discovered a lost letter from someone famous that will alter for ever our view of his or her character and/or role in history. Max 200 words and in by 21 December.

E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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