I found it!

Having to explain Branston pickle is like having to explain Marmite. The natives love it, everybody else hates it. It's terrible on its own but makes yummy anything that you put it on.

I was introduced to Branston pickle when I was a university student, at the Third World Lunches at the campus chaplaincy. You paid a nominal sum for a ploughman's lunch of bread and cheese, and the money goes towards good causes in the developing world. An industrial sized jar of Branston stood next to the bread and cheese, I learnt very fast what a piquant pickle can do to liven up a dry cheese sandwich.

And then I had a 20-year drought of Branston in this part of the world until last summer's holiday in Britain. I think I must have put Branston on almost anything that I ate (unless I was eating out), chiefly to finish off a bottle in the few weeks that I was there.

I do remember standing at Tesco and wondering whether to buy a bottle home but decided against it as I wasn't going to risk a broken bottle and pickled clothes.

And then today, I found it here. In an expensive upmarket supermarket that catered mostly to expatriates.

L isn't going to touch this, there are apples, which he is alllergic to, in the pickle. This one is mine. All mine.