Brits don’t put what we consider to be cocktail sauce on their shrimp cocktail – I mean the red, tomato-y, horseradish sauce that comes with the frozen shrimp ring. Instead, they serve Marie Rose sauce. Marie Rose is very like Thousand Island dressing, but without the little chopped bits, and with a splash of brandy added. I am telling you this to set the stage for yesterday’s run-in with a neighbour.
Okay, so run-in is a misnomer. Bruce is a lovely, elderly gentleman with a pretty spaniel, Freya. They are pretty much the first people we met the week we moved in. We always stop for a chat when see one another in the street, and he is always quick to introduce me to anyone else who might pass by.
Yesterday we saw each other by the school grounds and got talking about my trip to Scandinavia. Discussing Copenhagen (a city we both really liked) led to Stockholm (he’s been; I haven’t) and he said I must go, and when I do, be sure to see the Vasa. I asked what that was and he said, “It’s Sweden’s Marie Rose.” I said, with a puzzled look on my face, “What’s the Marie Rose?” His reaction was immediate and obvious. He started, and then a look of shock and dare I say, judgement came over his face. I tried to recover by saying, “You mean the sauce?” (although I was pretty sure he did not), but that seemed to just be digging myself even deeper. I mean, it was as if I had said, “Who’s Winston Churchill?” His reaction had been quick and slight, just a flicker, but unmistakable: what kind of an education did you have?
Turns out the Mary Rose was one of Henry VIII’s flagships, which sank off the south coast of England in a battle with the French and is now preserved as a museum in Portsmouth. Every school child knows that. In my defense, ‘Mary’, said in an Orcadian accent, sounds very like ‘Marie’. But even so, I still would have been no wiser – it was absolutely not one of the things covered by Mr Beacock in my Grade 7 History class.
Well, I feel I have let Bruce down; I am just a peedie bit diminished in his eyes. The temptation, at the time, was to say, “So, do you know who Laura Secord was? Nellie McClung? Louis Riel?”, but I did not. I just went home and made some shrimp cocktail.