The joy of Angel Delight and Spam | BBC Radio Solent's Lou Hannan

I’m not talking about wanting to eat everything in sight (the lockdown lard will shift eventually, right?!) but a pudding that I’ve rediscovered and takes me right back to being eight years old.

Angel Delight! I can’t get enough of the stuff.

It started at the beginning of lockdown.

I can’t really explain it, only to think that perhaps it was a knock-on effect of watching everyone else panic buying and, instead of tins and beans and packets of pasta, I felt the desire to have puddings in the house that I knew I could knock up with just a bit of milk.

And now it seems I’m addicted.

I’m trying to ration my intake to half a packet every other day but there’s something about the creamy, chemical strawberry taste that provides so much comfort.

Apparently I’m not alone in this new-found desire for old-fashioned foods.

We spoke about it on the radio show last week and lots of listeners called in to say they too are turning their attention to the emergency foods that we first consumed as kids.

On the list came tinned mackerel, spam, frozen faggots, and condensed milk.

I have to admit, on the latter, there was never a time when I didn’t have at least one standby can of condensed milk in the cupboard. I love it.

Forget boiling it to make a caramel sauce, all I need is a can opener and a tablespoon.

It’s funny how certain foods take us right back to our childhood.

One caller said she’d run out of sweet food in the house and, craving some sugar, opened a can of custard. She told me how she hadn’t eaten it for years but was instantly transported back to Sunday visits to her nan.

It was then I suggested she add a chopped banana for the instant pudding of Banana Custard and she screamed with delight at the thought of it!

As for my Angel Delight, I even had a recipe sent to me which uses the butterscotch flavour added to a biscuit base for an instant cheesecake. That seems a bit too far advanced for my culinary expertise. I’m quite happy with a bowl and a spoon while I indulge my new guilty pleasure.

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