Guess what I had for dinner?

If, like me, you're a fan of meals that begin in a tin and end up on buttered toast, steer clear of the Rich Italian Beans in the new SPC Bean Cuisine range. The label advertises cannellini beans in a tomato, olive and herb sauce. Alas, a promising aroma of minestrone belies a flavour so subtle as to be undetectable to the human tongue. Even cracked pepper doesn't help - it's just absorbed into the blandness like light into a black hole. A poor excuse for Italian beans, more like!