January meant marrow-bones in my youth. For most of the year on my housing estate in Chicago, beef featured at best twice a week; after the expense of the holidays it became temporarily an impossible luxury. Beef soup appeared instead, and marrow-bones were the one redeeming treat, the marrow inside the bones creamy-rich; we dug it out with a flat-bladed screwdriver and spread the cooked marrow on salted toast.
As my fortunes improved in adult life, I never lost the taste for this treat. I was glad to learn at some point that Queen Victoria also loved this plebeian food, having marrow on toast for tea; no doubt she used something more elegant than a screwdriver to scoop out the marrow. Today marrow-bones feature in fashionably artisanal restaurants like St John in London.
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