I AM fed up with reading and listening to so-called experts talking about food and wine.

I recently watched a programme on television where one of these so-called experts was tasting wine.

This is how it went.

He swirled it round the glass, smelt it, then took a mouthful.

Then he swirled that around and spat it out.

He then went on to talk the biggest load of rubbish I have ever heard: “Oh, yes,” he said, “I definitely get the taste of summer with this wine, with a hint of new mown hay.

“I taste oak leaves and acorns with just a hint of cherries”.

Well, first and foremost, there is no such thing as ‘new mown hay’. There is freshly cut grass that will turn into hay.

And I have never in all the years I have lived in the country, ever seen or heard of anyone chewing oak leaves and acorns.

He then proclaimed that for the very cheap price of £34 we could bring summer into our house. What a load of rubbish.

A few weeks later I was behind two middle aged ladies who were discussing their previous Saturday night meal.

“How did Sarah’s dinner party go?” asked the first.

The other replied: “Well the food was quite nice but she made two horrendous mistakes... She served white wine with the fish starter and rose with the venison — and it had not even been decanted.”

Oh well, she obviously won’t be invited to join their diners club, I imagine.

As far as I am concerned, I drink what I like the taste of, regardless of what it accompanies and I suppose I’m a bit of a rebel because I do things that would send the snobs of the food world apoplectic.

Believe it or not but I sometimes put apple sauce on lamb, mint sauce on pork, redcurrant jelly, cranberry sauce and horseradish on anything I fancy and not what some so-called ‘expert’ tells me.

I don’t let a nice hot joint of meat ‘rest’ because when it is served it is cold.

I don’t have to drink red wine unless it is at room temperature, so let’s stop all of this messing around with good basic cooking.

If I want to see little blobs and swirls of some brightly coloured sauce painted all around my plate, then I’ll go to an art gallery.

A CURTIS Kingsley Avenue Royal Wootton Bassett