Christopher Gray ponders what even constitutes a 'serving'

Something strikes me as distinctly odd about the labelling on the carton of Bisto parsley sauce pictured above. Anyone see what it might be? That’s right — the mention of “23 servings”. This is such a curiously specific number — enough, say, for two football teams and the referee but not for the poor old linesmen.

The product was acquired from the Oxford branch of 99p Stores (times are hard!). This suggested to Rosemarie and me that it might have been stock sold cheap because of a printing error. It seemed probable that ‘2-3 servings’ was intended.

But a check on Bisto instant sauce containers in Tesco this week showed there had been no error. Other products in the range — Cheese, White and Chip Shop Curry — all had weirdly exact numbers too.

That 23 hardly seems an achievable number of servings is suggested by the instructions for the sauce’s preparation: “For 4-6 servings put 4 heaped dessert spoons in a measuring jug and add boiling water up to the 250ml mark. Stir until it thickens. — and that’s it.”

I doubt there is sufficient of the mixture to make more than two such batches. (We have yet to enjoy the gourmet repast at which this could be tested.) An important question associated with this whole subject is what actually constitutes a ‘serving’. Dictionaries define the word as “a quantity of food or drink”, some adding “for one person”.

But appetites vary, and you could easily find the jug of parsley sauce has emptied long before the magic number (prime, actually) of 23 is reached.