Part of King Street, South Shields

Image: © Jeremy Bolwell Taken: 30 Jul 2021

I have just been to a local butchers, called Dicksons, and enjoyed 'a saveloy with everything on', which is a pink saveloy sausage, skinless, in a 'bread bun' (snapped in two, so it fits), and 'everything on' translates as the bread bun ALSO being filled with a generous helping of pease pudding, applied with a pallet knife, plus a helping of sage and onion stuffing and last but by no means least, a healthy dollop of bright yellow mustard. I ate it in the street, whilst walking. It has to be eaten to be fully appreciated. The flavours and textures combine in a slightly miraculous way; it is definitely more than the sum of its parts, and unite to give your taste buds a tantalising tease, tweak and titillate. It is a local delicacy. Though my wife, a local, didn't have one. I received many admiring glances as I ate and walked (no mean feat when you are tasting something very new, and which wants to escape the confines of its bun and jump onto your clothing or make a bid for freedom and fall into the street to become seagull food). I felt like a walking advert for Dicksons - and I may well have been - as passers-by saw me munching and set their faces towards the shopfront to copy me and order their own 'saveloy with everything on'. By the time I reached this part of King Street, I was in a mild torpor or trance-like state, induced by my new experience. I felt a kindred spirit with all my fellow shoppers, as if I had somehow been inducted into a new community of like-minded people. WE all know about the 'saveloy with everything on'. I smiled benignly at teenagers hanging about, bestowed friendly nods at passing elderly couples and felt compelled to pick up passing babies and hold them aloft. I obviously highly recommend the experience. I am replicating them at home. You cannot get anything remotely like it where I live I'm afraid...

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