But the meat in a tin, like bully beef from the war, is being spread before I have time to object.

‘Rubbish! Everybody eats Spam,’ she says, making lunch for her adult son in her unit at Fig Tree Village. ‘Your father … everyone eats Spam.’ On the wall, their wedding photo gives 1960s rebellion. A Caucasian woman marrying an Asian man. 

‘It’s eleven years since dad died,’ I remind her. 

On goes the Masterfoods corn relish, yellow as.

She has the television turned up. There is a story on Korean street food, and I’m watching with my father’s Asian eyes. The host is pulling large earthenware vessels—onggi from a cellar in a garden, opening them for the camera. This is kimchi, or fermented chilli cabbage.

‘Yuck,’ my mother says, ‘some people eat funny things.’

Next, Peter Dutton is on, talking about social cohesion.

(Minor revision from the story shortlisted in the Avid Reader “Love Your Bookshop Day Flash Fiction Competition”)