Of Omelettes and Spies

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Back in the mid/late sixties, we had several [actual film] film showings at school in the assembly hall and the one that still sticks in my memory is the 'Ipcress File', starring Micheal Caine, based on the book by Len Deighton. At one point in the storyline, we get the obligatory seduction scene in which Caine's character, Harry Palmer cooks an omelette for Sue Lloyd's character, Jean. Until this point in cinematic history, seduction scenes generally revolved around alcohol, if anything: the question of a 'real bloke', especially a working class one, cooking food for the purpose - cooking decent food at all - was simply alien to most. However, Len Deighton was an accomplished cook himself, and taught Caine at some length to cook a decent French omelette for the purpose of the scene. The hands seen in close-up cracking two eggs simultaneously were Deighton's own, as Caine's level of dexterity wasn't up to it. Deighton for his part, produced several cookbooks of his own, and his 'cartoon' strip renditions regularly appeared in The Observer. The book in the foreground above is my copy of one of his books from the period, dating from around 1965. I still shudder at the price of the thing: ten shillings and sixpence - in the mid-sixties! Such a lot for a paperback at the time...

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