As one of the French priests told me, the food in Australia has been very strange: this is my ode to the pilgrim lunches provided, to parody Guy Sebastian's little ditty "Receive the Power":
Ev’ry person ev’ry time
Come together, in groups of six:
In this lunchbox you delight,
Filled with tasty, tho’ curious choices!
I love tuna! And cold baked beans!
Receive your lunch, from all the volunteers!
I love tim-tams! And wagonwheels!
Receive them now, to be your lunch for World Youth Day!
Packed bread rolls and lamingtons;
Packs of Snow-White sugary cupcakes;
Cadbury chocolate bars supplied;
And cans of carbonated drinks.
I love tuna! And cold baked beans!
Receive them now, from all the volunteers!
I love tim-tams! And wagonwheels!
Receive them now, to be your lunch for World Youth Day!
Benedict we give you thanks,
Uncle George, we give you thanks,
Anthony, we give you thanks,
Volunteers, we give you thanks,
Uncle George, we give you thanks,
Anthony, we give you thanks,
O but while we give you thanks,
What on earth were you thinking of?
I love tuna! And cold baked beans!
Receive them now, from all the volunteers!
I love tim-tams! And wagonwheels!
Receive them now, to be your lunch for World Youth Day!
BTW, for non-Aussie non-pilgrims: Tim-Tams and Wagonwheels are chocolate biscuits; Lamingtons are cubes of sponge cake rolled in jam and desiccated coconut; Anthony is the inestimable Bp Fisher, O.P., WYD organizer; and Uncle George is of course His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney.
Which reminds me of the nickname for the WYD merchandise emporium next to the Cathedral:
Uncle George's Rip-Off Shop.
It even traded on Sunday (very conveniently for me).
*Only teasing, of course!*
Ev’ry person ev’ry time
Come together, in groups of six:
In this lunchbox you delight,
Filled with tasty, tho’ curious choices!
I love tuna! And cold baked beans!
Receive your lunch, from all the volunteers!
I love tim-tams! And wagonwheels!
Receive them now, to be your lunch for World Youth Day!
Packed bread rolls and lamingtons;
Packs of Snow-White sugary cupcakes;
Cadbury chocolate bars supplied;
And cans of carbonated drinks.
I love tuna! And cold baked beans!
Receive them now, from all the volunteers!
I love tim-tams! And wagonwheels!
Receive them now, to be your lunch for World Youth Day!
Benedict we give you thanks,
Uncle George, we give you thanks,
Anthony, we give you thanks,
Volunteers, we give you thanks,
Uncle George, we give you thanks,
Anthony, we give you thanks,
O but while we give you thanks,
What on earth were you thinking of?
I love tuna! And cold baked beans!
Receive them now, from all the volunteers!
I love tim-tams! And wagonwheels!
Receive them now, to be your lunch for World Youth Day!
BTW, for non-Aussie non-pilgrims: Tim-Tams and Wagonwheels are chocolate biscuits; Lamingtons are cubes of sponge cake rolled in jam and desiccated coconut; Anthony is the inestimable Bp Fisher, O.P., WYD organizer; and Uncle George is of course His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney.
Which reminds me of the nickname for the WYD merchandise emporium next to the Cathedral:
Uncle George's Rip-Off Shop.
It even traded on Sunday (very conveniently for me).
*Only teasing, of course!*
Tuna and baked beans? Perfect protein. I love it on toast for breakfast - but, um, not necessarily together.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I had the image of emptying the tin of tuna (aka catfood) into one hand, and the cold baked beans into the other, then mushing them all together and pushing the nauseating mixture into my mouth...
ReplyDeleteI ate the tuna and b.b. (separately) the first time, but the second time I just couldn't face eating them.
Oh, apparently I missed the cold meat pies...
(Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticising, just having a laugh at a quizzical element of WYD!)
And Kettle chips!
ReplyDeleteO how could I forget!
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should contact our French confreres, so as to produce an international version of this song...
My thoughts were that the idea was to fill us up with carbohydrates and sugars to keep us going... When we finally got home on Sunday night to our homestay hosts, we said "thank you" to them by taking them out to the local Thai restaurant!
ReplyDeleteWe sort of got our own back on Bishop Anthony though--while saying thank you at the same time. Using one of the WYD green lunch bags we made up a "WYD Recovery Kit" filled with coffee, headache tablets, earplugs and eyecovers, a little bottle of gin and tonic, some holiday brochures, etc. AND a few left over samples of the WYD lunches "so you don't have to cook for the next few days".
PS. Good to bump into you at Barangaroo. Sorry to here you are not well either, though. So did I give it to you or did you give it to me?
Dear David,
ReplyDeleteI dunno - I was sick with cold or flu or wog or lurgy or whatever in the week before WYD, had some sort of the same thing during the Sydney time, and now am sick again, being told by my Doctor to take the rest of the week off and rest.
It's probably just the typical winter array of disease.
On a more positive note, I'm delighted that you lucky fellow got to stay at Bp Fisher's place, and gave him such an amusing parting gift!
*Referred to your blog by a pilgrim*
ReplyDeleteAs a WYD volunteer working at odd hours I never had a chance to even eat the WYD food but I did see what was being distributed. Think the only food that ever tempted me were the lamingtons (didn't know there were timtams and wagonwheels!). & the sight of microwave oven "walls" at Barangaroo will probably stay with me for a very long time...