Five years without one.

Bananen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was a child during the 2nd World War* and lived in the north-east of England far from the warfare. The shortage of food in the UK was an effect felt by all, and the rationing of it by an allotment of coupons to families was a great administrative feat. But, of course, the only food available was produced within our shores.

Bananas, of course, do not grow in the latitudes occupied by the British Isles so for 5 years we didn't even see any. I can remember the day that bananas arrived back in our village. My pal, John Atkinson, was the son of parents who kept one of the two general stores in the village. I went to call on John at the back door of the house and shop. He came out to join me in the back yard with this unfamiliar fruit and announced that it was his 12th that morning. I used to believe everything told to me in those days but I made an exception in this case. Anyway my disbelief probably helped me to savour my first banana for 5 years when John went back into the house and came out again with one of the yellow-skinned monsters for me. And another for himself.

Green tea (matcha) ice-cream with red bean. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ice cream also went missing for 5 years but for a different reason. Its ingredients were needed for more vital foodstuffs than ice cream cones. The ice cream van did keep the memory alive by coming to the village on Sundays with the well-remembered chimes that carried indoors to alert everyone. But a cone full of red jelly was not nearly good enough to replace the real thing that we kids remembered and yearned for.

I do not recall my first taste of ice cream when it was available again. The bananas I do!

*Memories of the war years were stirred by the current D-Day 70 years Remembrance ceremonies in  Normandy.