It is impossible not to identify with the young Titus, 77th Earl of Groan and heir to Gormenghast, struggling against the machinations of Steerpike, the put-upon kitchen boy turned valet, whose rise up the greasy pole of power appears unstoppable.
Like nearly all the savory dishes, this one depends upon the kitchen's expert sauciers, especially Vincent Robinson, who has been on the job since 1985.
Food was being prepared when we arrived, something my mother always frowned upon, the kitchen a chaos of people and smells and enormous dirtied bowls.
We entered the hut together our bare feet caked with soil our hats already in our hands and there we saw our poor da lying dead upon the kitchen table he were bulging with all the poisons of the Empire his skin grey and shining in the gloom.
Also grimly tolerated is the financier who regularly foists bags of flour and pasta upon the kitchen, in part because he is as paranoid about his food as a Roman caesar, but also because he believes the bread and pasta from Italy are superior to anything found in France.
Alternately, try pulling the unusual little cabinet knob that sits upon a kitchen door.
First they asked Hillary Clinton whether Bill would be leant upon for advice on "kitchen table economics", were she to win the presidency.
A large rubber ball was decided upon because a kitchen chair would be too tacky.
By the time Victoria died, these and other factors had combined, in the words of the food historian Colin Spencer, "to wreak their havoc upon the British kitchen, without the British people being quite aware of what had happened".
One Sunday a month for two years, her 13 grandchildren (give or take a child) and occasionally their parents would descend upon Olga's kitchen in Copley, Ohio, to learn her Hungarian recipes firsthand.
