A trick of memory

Back at the beginning of January we had occasion to go to the Delaunay restaurant in the Aldwch, as noticed at reference 1. And on that occasion, BH took as her main course something carelessly described at reference 1 as 'mackerel roulade'.

I must have asked Bing at that time what a 'roulade' was, getting an answer something like that snapped above. Roughly speaking, something, not necessarily a cake, in the format of the Swiss roll which used to be popular with children when I was young. I remember being rather fond of the chocolate version, brown crumb with white goo and with the whole lightly dusted with icing sugar. Usually bought inside a clear plastic wrapper.

Then yesterday (Thursday), we had occasion to back to the Delaunay, and I thought to look up what we had taken on the first occasion, prompting in me a strong visual memory of fish served in a Swiss roll format, no doubt flaked and mixed in with some kind of sauce to enable same.

BH elected to go for the mackerel again and I was rather surprised to find it consisted of a couple of mackerel fillets together with a confection of grated celeriac made into a rugby ball shape with some kind of white sauce, probably some kind of mayonnaise. Maybe three or four cubic inches in volume and quite filling. Nothing like my visual memory at all - although I dare say BH's memory of her dish was spot on.

Checking the menu this morning, I find the dish described as 'Seared Mackerel ... with a celeriac remoulade', much more like what she got than what I had remembered. And more or less consistent with what can be seen in the background in a zoomed version of the relevant snap at reference 1 - a snap which, as it happens, had not yet been recycled.

Bing explains that a remoulade, properly rémoulade, originally French, is nothing to do with a roulade, being instead a sort of sauce rather than a sort of cake.

The snap above being of a US derivative, taken from reference 3. Red rather than white.

I gloss over the further confusion caused by conflation of celeriac with celery, but it is striking how my visual memory was very much a construction after the event, rather than a memory of what actually happened. As unreliable as the stuff generated by AI. For the same sort of reasons?

PS: out of this post to the rather depressing piece at reference 4 in the FT.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/weaver-one.html.

Reference 2: https://www.thedelaunay.com/.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remoulade. '... The sauce is made from mayonnaise with vinegar, mustard, shallots, capers, chopped pickles, and/or fresh herbs (chives, tarragon, chervil, burnet). It is commonly served as céleri remoulade, a mustard-flavored remoulade variation with shredded raw celeriac. Often it is served as a condiment for red meats, fish, and shellfish...'.

Reference 4: Putin’s imperial mission destroys freedom in Russia: Victory in the Ukraine war would serve as the perfect justification for autocracy at home - Tony Barber, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 5: How Tucker Carlson became Putin’s useful idiot: The American TV host and the Russian leader have enemies in common - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times - 2024.