Heinz Beanz

Brand: Heinz

Cost: 85p

Found at: Sainsbury’s

I don’t know what it is, but during this lockdown, all I want to watch are Westerns. It might be sweeping vistas and wide-open prairie lands that are so inaccessible from my dorm room. It might be the visibility of an enemy dressed in a black cowboy hat and a twirly mustache. Or I might just be missing the saloon. Whatever the reason (conscious or otherwise), I’ve been binging my way through the genre like a little kid in the 50s – and swaggering into the communal kitchen with the bravado of a mysterious stranger with nothing to lose. Udwak is, understandably, somewhat concerned by this.

So, in an attempt to marry my current obsession with the fictional Old West, and my current residence in Glasgow, Scotland, I went out and bought some baked beans. There is possibly nothing less authentically “cowboy” than two international students microwaving a can of beans in an IKEA bowl, but campfires are generally discouraged in student accommodation, so we had to make do. As we sat in the kitchen and watched Jeff Bridges drink whiskey on a small laptop screen, we agreed that the beans were quite good. They are not as sweet as American baked beans and the sauce is a little more tomato-y, but in principle, they are the same. We ate them on toast, as recommended by several British YouTubers, and though I would not personally eat them as a breakfast food, I can understand why the Brits might. They certainly hit the right nostalgic note as we sat together in our standard student kitchen, watching True Grit. Thrown together on this isolated adventure, we felt a certain kinship with these outsized heroes in a strange country, gathered together in our little camp, and wondering when we may next see civilization. ‘At least they get to see the stars.’ we agreed, as the camera panned across the landscape, ‘All we have is Matt Damon.’