A Hackney man has come to the devastating realisation that his attempt to save money by cooking Middle Eastern food at home has cost him approximately 23 lunches at the perfectly good falafel shop he walks past every single day.
Tom Richardson, 32, a graphic designer, embarked on his homemade falafel journey after watching a YouTube video titled “AUTHENTIC Lebanese Falafel – So Easy!” which failed to mention that achieving authenticity would require purchasing 11 different ingredients he’s never heard of from three separate shops.
“I thought I’d just need chickpeas and, I don’t know, some herbs,” Richardson told reporters whilst staring mournfully at a £6.50 jar of tahini that he used two tablespoons from. “Turns out you also need dried chickpeas specifically, not tinned. And something called sumac. And pomegranate molasses, which sounds made up but costs £4.80.”
The ambitious cooking project also required cumin seeds, coriander seeds, a bunch of parsley he’ll definitely not use before it goes slimy, cardamom pods, and a bottle of pomegranate juice for a ‘zingy dipping sauce’ that he ended up not making because he’d already spent 90 quid on the main event.
Richardson’s partner, Emma Hartley, 31, watched the fiscal disaster unfold in real time. “He went to Waitrose first, which was his opening mistake,” she explained. “Then he went to that fancy Middle Eastern shop in Dalston because apparently our Tesco Metro sumac ‘wouldn’t be the same’. The Tesco Metro doesn’t even stock sumac, but that’s beside the point.”
The final falafel yield was eight slightly dense balls that Richardson described as “pretty good, actually” and Hartley described as “fine, but you know, Jonny’s Falafel Shack does them for £4.50 with salad and houmous and those pickled chillies you like.”
When confronted with the maths showing he could have eaten falafel for lunch every workday until July for the same price, Richardson insisted the remaining ingredients wouldn’t go to waste. “I’ll definitely use that tahini again,” he said, gesturing towards a cupboard containing four other partially used condiment jars with best before dates in 2019. “I’m thinking of making houmous next week.”
At the time of publication, Richardson was googling “what to do with leftover pomegranate molasses” and coming to terms with the fact that every single search result is for recipes that require buying six more ingredients he doesn’t have.
Jonny’s Falafel Shack declined to comment but did post their opening hours on social media shortly after this story broke.