I’ve always taken pride in the fact that I’m the least picky eater I know. Snobby sometimes, but rarely picky. It’s true that when my good friends meet up and get excited about the prospect of going to Pizza Express, I will scoff (sorry, guys, I love you really), especially when there’s an outlet of Fish! a few doors down. But essentially, when you put something on a plate in front of me, I will eat it.

The obvious exception to this might be if the thing is still moving, but I fortunately haven’t been put in that situation yet.

It hasn’t always been this way though. There used to be a few foods, whose mention alone would leave me heaving.

The first of these was macaroni cheese. Specifically the macaroni cheese produced by a certain pre-school in Kingston-Upon-Thames. Think of Kraft Dinner and add more slime.

Funnily enough, it looked remarkably like this picture. It took a good few years before I got over that one. Come on! Look at it! Can you blame me?

But, the most horrible thing for me, the food I would actually have nightmares about, was YORKSHIRE PUDDING!

Aaargh! Yorkshire Pudding! Food of the Devil!

You might think it's more than a little bit weird for someone to have anything against this dish. After all it is one of the more bland things you find in your roast dinner. But let me explain…… (cue floaty harp music and melting pictures)…..

I was five years old and it was my first day at primary school. We'd been led down to the school canteen for a roast lunch by the dragon-like teacher of the year above and were sat in our tables of eight eating toad in the hole. I remember that I didn't think much of it, but I ate the sausages and vegetables. Then I got to the yorkshire pudding. Frankly, it smelt wrong. I cut a tiny piece of the end and tried it. It tasted very, very, wrong. I spat it back out onto my plate, unaware that Mrs Dragon-Like was standing right behind me.

After quite a lot of squawking from her and a few tears from me, it was made clear that I would not be leaving until I had eaten everything on my plate and, to make it worse, neither would the rest of my table. Talk about pressure!

And so, I had to eat more. So I closed my eyes and took a bite, chewed and swallowed, fighting hard against my gag reflexes. The teacher waited for me to continue but by now I had other things on my mind.

I heaved. I heaved again. Then a few seconds later I vomited all over the table. The other girls were screaming. The one next to me was crying. I think Mrs Dragon by this point must have been wondering how the hell she could talk herself out of this one. I was quickly led away to the sick-room.

I didn't touch yorkshire pudding for almost 20 years after that, when James convinced me to try a bit from his plate. NowI actively like it. I'm still very wary of primary school teachers though.

So, why have I been spending this precious time when I could be writing my thesis telling you about my old food phobia? Because it's more fun that writing maths, obviously! Also it is because I was reminded about my food phobias not long ago. Another thing that I used to hate was gammon. A less serious version of the story abve happened a few years later when I ordered the meat in a restaurant. I simply couldn’t eat it because of the salt and then never touched it again…. until last week.

It turns out that gammon is one of Goon's favourite things. He'd had it with his family at Christmas and was missing it when he got back. I wasn't terribly keen on the idea of making it but eventually I was convinced to try.

I guess they do look kind of cool, studded with cloves like that. This was a small smoked gammon joint from Sainsbury. After reading that soaking reduces the salt content of the meat, I popped it in some cold water for about 24 hours, refreshing the water every five or six.

When it was time to cook it, I studded the meat with cloves, refreshed the water again and attempted to bring it to a simmer. Typically, the dumb electric hob wasn't powerful enough, so I had to roast the joint instead.

So I untied it, took of the rind, scored the fat and retied it, then popped it in the oven at gas mark 4-5 for about an hour and ten minutes. Twenty minutes before the end I poured a glaze of honey, cinnamon and cherry juice over it. After resting the meat for about ten minutes, goon carved it and it looked something like this.

We had it with buttery new potatoes and broccoli with the excess glaze tipped over the meat.

Now for the verdict. I still don't think I actively like gammon. Even with all that soaking it was still pretty salty. Admittedly, the glaze made it much better and the leftovers were good in a cream sauce on pasta the next day, but the sliced gammon on its own just didn't do it for me.

I'd make it again, since I didn't hate it as much as yorkshire pudding, but only if someone specifically asked me to. Anyway, I'd be happy to be proved wrong.*

*Please note that this does not apply to any statement in my thesis. If you prove any of those wrong, you will quickly find yourself in a lot of pain.