Binge on the Fringe

As someone who is as obsessed with food as it's possible to be without it becoming a worrying health issue, mealtimes as a performer during the Edinburgh Festival are a major priority. In my opinion, food is worth spending a fair proportion of your time and money on. Back home, for instance, I bake bread, which is a treat. You can write while it rises - or stare into space. It's quicker than going to the shop, tastier and you know what's gone into it. We also get a locally grown, organic veg and fruit box delivered (it's like Christmas every week, really poncy sounding but ever so tasty and honestly cheaper than the shops) and have boycotted the neighbourhood-destroying Tesco completely for the past year and counting.

By the way, I have turned into my own characters: you know, the middle class leftie anarchist bongo-playing one crossed with Celia Johnson. I love old-fashioned community spirit, the WI and contemporary dance.

Anyway, all these values go out of the window during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Apart from boycotting Tesco. Apparently, loaf and cake tins are not basics included in an inflatedly-priced student flat for the month of August. I'd love a bit of homemade cake but didn't bring the equipment, and the communal stairs with the front door that keeps being left open wouldn't withstand the test of a box of food sitting in it. We're in danger of coming home to a stranger weeing on the carpet - or worse - as it is. (I'm not being mean, there's a warning sign on the wall.)

So little things make our temporary festival flats more homely: like slippers, a radio and a loom.

Being away from home is discombobulating for other reasons. Not knowing the bus routes or destinations, and being a tourist. I grew up in Cornwall and have spent most of my adult life living in a seaside resort. Now I'M the idiot wearing sandals in the rain, admiring the colour of the local stone and wondering where the locals eat. I have a friend - Dave 'Two Pies' Bartlett (so called because he once had a two pie sandwich) who prides himself on being able to quickly find the locals caff that the other tourists don't know about in any town or city. Apparently, round the back of the shops near the bins is a good place to start. 

I love those places too, but find it easier to stick to the instantly accessible cafes. In the first week, I went to the City Restaurant three times. It might have been more, but that would have been too many treats. I love that place: the staff, the homemade steak pie, the layout, everything. A few years ago, on my first visit, I ordered a takeaway salad in a final bid to receive nutrition and was startled when they put salt and vinegar on it. It's only a step away from Delia's garlic and mustard dressing but, you know. After weeks of laughing at the deep-fried cuisine,  it was like a cartoon Scottish salad. I'm sure the salads are great there, but when somewhere specialises in fish and chips it seems churlish...

It all gets a bit studenty when you're cooking away from home without store-cupboard basics. Or pans. Dishes of old included: egg noodles with tuna and grated cheese; some onion and marmite in a pan of hot water (onion soup); jacket potatoes with whatever else is in the cupboard. Or, in my friend Graham's case - two fish fingers and a HobNob. And Pot Noodles, paid for individually by cheque. My best friend once put a whole leek into a pan and turned the heat on (no water), expecting it to turn into her mother's prize stew. My first meal in halls of residence was a bit of toast made from bread which Becky took out of the dustbin and buttered with her finger. Then she held her greasy finger up and said "marmite?" I fainted.

Cooking and baking are my hobbies now. Restraint is required or you will become the size of a house. But every time I come to Edinburgh for the whole of August, there are no rules and if I like, I am allowed have haggis every night. After having to be inventive with a pound of beetroot, a celeriac and four broad beans once a week for the rest of the year in order to get my money's worth out of that poncy veg box, the Fringe is a welcome holiday.

So. Time to get ready for my show. Strength and nutrition are needed. What is a white pudding?