Five exotic culinary ingredients that aren't as good as a potato

YOTAM Ottolengi has foodies in a chokehold with his exotic ingredients, but are they any good? These gastronomic marvels are still inferior to the starchy king:

Asafoetida

This southern Iranian spice adds a similar depth of flavour as onion or garlic, which really compliments roasted meat. And its unique savouriness will definitely be what everyone is looking forward to most at Sunday dinner and not, say, an enormous tray of crispy roasties.

Longaniza

Import your sausages all the way from Argentina if you want, you climate destroying ponce. But do you think eating them will be at all enjoyable without a mountain of buttery mashed potato underneath? It won’t, and you can enjoy your King Edwards without feeling guilty about the air miles, because they came from Norfolk.

Broken rice

We get it, it’s a variation on the classic staple. You know what else is a variation on a classic staple, and a fun one at that? Curly fries. Keep your tiny rice, it’s much more fun to find the longest fry in the bowl and wiggle it around like a big spring, especially if you’re pissed.

Marcona almonds

Sure, it’s the best almond a man can buy, and a healthy carb alternative. But the thing is, carbs taste nice. Unless you can find an almond that tastes as good as a reformed-potato-and-chemical creation sold by McCain, like waffles, you can shove them where the sun doesn’t shine.

Fish sauce

Want to add a vaguely unpleasant fishy element to a meal that doesn’t actually contain fish? Knock yourself out. However, everyone knows that the best way to add an out-of-context fish taste to your diet is to gobble two packets of prawn cocktail Walkers, followed by some Skips.

Couple regret hot tub and regret f**king in hot tub

A COUPLE have admitted they regret buying their hot tub and regret shagging in full view of their neighbours in their hot tub. 

Tom and Isla Booker bought the hot tub during lockdown and immediately began to use it as a venue for sex despite its strong lighting and prominent garden position.

Tom said: “Yeah. We’re calling it Lockdown Derangement Syndrome. Both the purchase and the subsequent months of free-to-view f**king.

“I don’t blame the neighbours. They were trapped in their homes and bored and clapping the NHS only took five minutes a week. Apparently round our way we were more popular than Tiger King.

“I’d claim that we just planned to relax in it but truth is I was hard watching it being installed. It might as well have been a butterfly sex swing hanging from a bough of the apple tree.

“Now we never use it and we’re still paying it off, and we never have sex because we’re haunted by the neighbours saying ‘Not in the hot tub anymore? Pump gone erratic?'”

He added: “Mind you at least we got some use out of it. Not like that pissing breadmaker.”