Yesterdays of their lives - Claudio (ii)

After Claudio's summary dismissal from the Covent Garden Catering College for running courses in Cannibal Cookery and Cooking with Grease, he found himself in a difficult position. The thing was, for the first time in his life, he'd been doing something that stopped the dribble from trickling out of the corner of his slack-jawed, constantly ajar mouth; something that made him want to get out of bed before noon; something that he liked to do but didn't have to do. That was the difficult part to accept. He had plenty of his father's money left, and all he had to do was to threaten to come home and take up residence in the family home once again for another massive wad of wonga to wend its way to the nearest Banco Popular de Buenos Aires. Claudio didn't have to cook, or do anything, for a living, yet here he was wanting to charge into a huge overheated kitchen and start barking out orders and getting the evening's special ready and insulting diners who complained about fluff or fag ash in the sauce. 'Listen matey, you don' like a bit of decoration on your food you fack off to Kentucky Fried, you get your chicken like your wife, hot breasts and greasy thighs innit?'

So using practically all of the tiny amount of cunning that was at his disposal, Claudio did indeed mention on the telephone to his parents that funds were a bit low and that maybe he would be on his way home before too long, and with Pavlovian certainty a fat dollop of money was ladled into his account in London, accompanied by a caring paternal message to stay there as long as he wanted, as long as he was enjoying himself, and funds would be available on request. Claudio put a deposit down on a disused fast-food joint under an arch behind King's Cross, and after a month of insulting workmen and catering suppliers, celebrated the grand opening of his first ever venture into the restaurant business: Claudio's Beef Brasserie.

Yesterdays of their lives - Claudio

You'll remember (probably far better than Claudio himself does) that this pampered young man came to England for an operation to remove a tiny particle of brain that was lodged in his skull. His obscenely rich father had slipped him a few months' spending money in order to keep him out of his life and in England during his recuperation period, and so Claudio shortly found himself a flat in London's glittering West End. Bored out of his tiny mind, he wandered the streets of London for days until one day he spotted a job advertisement in the window of the Covent Garden Catering College for a tutor. It was the work of a moment to equip himself with a pair of chef's trousers, a white coat and hat and to present himself before the college principal as London's only expert in Argentine Campfire Cookery. With London cuisine still riding on the crest of a Latin wave, Claudio's flimsily forged qualifications from the Fray Bentos Beef Braising Academy were taken as gospel and in two shakes of an ox tail Claudio was installed as a Speciality Chef.

Now I'm sure that he didn't mean to stray so far from the path, or should I say trail, of gaucho gastronomy. It's just that on the way back to his flat one evening, after about a month of teaching flame searing techniques and how to gut a steer and prepare it for consumption in the middle of the pampas, he walked under a leaky gutter. A few fat drops of water landed slap on the paper plate in his skull and within seconds his mind was racing ahead to the new syllabuses that he would put in place of Campfire Cookery.

So it was that a minor scandal hit the Covent Garden Catering College when it emerged at the end of the semester that two courses had been run, without the knowledge of the principal, in Cannibal Cookery and Cooking with Grease, subjects that were much closer to Claudio's heart than that campfire crap - he'd never been out of Buenos Aires onto the pampas, anyway, much less spent time around the flickering campfire with burly gauchos discussing lassoing techniques. No, he had wanted to inspire his students with recipes like Girlfriend in a Korma, Long Pig Pattie and Poached Bicep of Airsteward in an Andean salsa; and Suet Surprise, Rind Rissoles and Sugared Lard Pancakes a l'Huile de Carbon. Not that his students ever found work, except occasionally, later on, when Claudio opened his own restaurants. But they were tarred with the same brush as Claudio, and his very public naming, shaming and sacking meant that most of them were forced to retrain as undertakers.