Walking down Parkhurst Road towards the Nags Heads shops, we used to pass a grim building with a cobbled forecourt. "That's Holloway Prison" my Mum would say "All they ever get in there is bread and water" I was actually far more terrified of school tapioca pudding; bread and water sounded quite simple and pleasant. I can now tell you - from personal experience - that the food in HMP Holloway is nowhere near as good as bread and water, and if only for that reason, I recommend you avoid prison at all costs.

These two staples have changed and diversified more than any others in recent years, and have become something of a style statement in many restaurants. In the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, they often keep a store of wine bottles filled with tap water in the fridge and bring you one, without asking, as soon as you're seated. In Britain, tap water - usually room temperature - has traditionally always been free - but have you noticed how they are increasingly reluctant to serve it? When waiters take your order, they are often trained to "up sell" which is to get you to order all kinds of extras for which they can charge like a wounded bull. So you get "Would you like vegetables with that?" Well, of course you want vegetables, you don't just want a mound of protein and complex carbs, do you? I've said it before, and I'll say it again, without vegetables a meal is... (Oh not the veggie lecture again, please. Ed.) Then it's "Would you like a table napkin? Knife and fork? Bread and butter? A chair to sit on?" and finally "Would you like some water - sparkling or still?" and you say still, thinking you'll get tap water. You probably will, but it will come in a fancy bottle and cost two quid. If you do what my friend Ros does, and say "I'd like a glass of plain TAP water please" you'll get it, but you'll get a bit of attitude as well - they don't like it - and it's only a matter of time before they start trying to charge for it.

Bread is slightly different because the restaurant doesn't get an unmetered supply from Thames Bread, and also, it's less easy to see why we want it. After all, when you sit down to eat at home, or as a guest in someone else's house, you don't commence the feast with two great chunks of bread and butter, do you? Imagine cooking for someone and they said "Hang on, must have a coupla doorsteps first!" My Mum always said that bread was for mopping up any good gravy which you hadn't enough potatoes to sop up, and that's the only good reason I can think of unless there's going to be cheese later. But if it's for mopping gravy - oh, alright then, jus - why do they remove it, and your side plate, when clearing the first course, before you've even had a sniff of the gravy-jus? Answer me that. The real reason they bring bread, or poppadoms or popcorn and the reason they rarely charge for it is they want to keep us quiet while we wait. They know we are hungry, because we have walked in and ordered food, but give us a basket of bread and two ounces of butter to play with and we'll be no bother till the food's ready. Better still, it fills us up nicely, so they can get away with mingy portions of the expensive menu items and we'll still waddle out feeling bloated.

The trouble is, we like it too, because we're hungry and now we don't smoke any more (Do we? No, Miss) it's something to do. We don't want them to pop something in the microwave and have it ready in seconds flat because we could do that ourselves at home. We want slow food, and that means waiting. And that means eating the bread. Every now and then I turn over a new poppadom and swear I won't touch it. Well, not the butter, anyway. I'll just have a nibble of crust. Or two...