Unless you’re a Flopsy Bunny, of course.
It is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is ‘soporific’. I have never felt sleepy after eating lettuces; but then, I am not a rabbit.
As well as being familiar and comforting, food can also be a great shortcut to finding out about another place. Considering all food is either Meat, Fish or Veg., it’s astonishing how different food is different various countries. I like spinach and cheese, for example, but I’d never thought of putting them in a pie until I bought one on a Berlin railway station caff. (Train stations in Germany are great – full of food!) Curried sausage, again in Berlin, was weirdly nice and my local railway station does black peas and liver, onions and mash to a turn.
Just as food is a shortcut to another country, food in books can tell you a lot about character and place. When Death in Terry Prachett’s Discworld tells us he could murder a curry – sorry, that should be, “I COULD MURDER A CURRY,” – we know that Death may come to everyone but he isn’t out to get you. When Mrs Lacey in Agatha Christie’s The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding starts detailing the menu, we know that’s she essentially a nice, kindly woman with a large guest list. OK, we could probably get to know that anyway, but it’s an economical way of getting the information across:
“…the oyster soup and the turkey – two turkey, one boiled and one roast – and the plum pudding with the ring and the bachelor’s button…. All the old desserts, the Elvas plums and Carlsbad fruits and almonds and raisins and crystallised fruit and ginger.” As we’ve previously seen Hercule get to grips with the calories, we’re not surprised when he says, “You arouse my gastronomic juices, Madame!” Later, in the same story, when he goes to interview the cook, yes he’s detecting, but his heartfelt praise of Mrs Ross’s cooking touches on lyrical. “Above all puddings,” continued Poirot, well launched now on a kind of rhapsody, “is the Christmas plum pudding such as we have eaten today.”
One of my favourite books of all time, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, uses food a lot, from Edmund’s acceptance of The White Witch’s Turkish Delight (incidentally, Lord Peter Wimsey traps a villain with Turkish Delight in Strong Poison) to the fish supper the Pevensey children share with the beavers in Narnia (…There’s nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago. And when they had finished the fish, Mrs Beaver brought unexpectedly out of the oven a great and gloriously sticky marmalade roll…”) to the sadness evoked by picture Lewis paints of the happy tea-party with Fox and Squirrel and the other animals destroyed by the White Witch.
A hugely enjoyable bit (and a deeply Roman bit) of Jane Finnis’s excellent A Bitter Chill is her description of the Saturnalia feast enjoyed in Ancient Brit Land. “…Roast piglets, which they arranged around the sow, and platters decorated like birds’ nest containing chickens, ducks, geese and doves…. There were rich custards…and fruits to go with them, peaches and cherries in wine. Hazelnuts and walnuts, already shelled, were brought round on silver trays, and I counted nine kinds of cheese, offered with fresh warm bread.”
It’s good, isn’t it? I was right there, reading that description. When Matthew, in Anne of Green Gables buys Anne some little chocolate sweeties, we’re as touched as Anne and – as we’re talking about Canadian authors – I can’t think of Louis Penny’s Three Pines without my mouth automatically watering, so loving and lavish is the description of the food. It’s no wonder houses don’t come up for sale very often in Three Pines; you’d have to move me out with a crowbar, the food’s so good.
A good few subscribers to DorothyL were interested in a recipe I mentioned for Steamed Syrup Pudding done in the microwave. Here it is. Happy eating – and reading!
Steamed Sponge Pud (microwave)
You need a 1 ½ pint or 900 ml pudding bowl that can go in the microwave. Plastic is great.
Some cling film (food wrap?) That clingy plastic film for food, anyway, OR a microwave plate cover.
4 ounces/100grams of self-raising flour
2 ounces/50 grams of suet.*
2 ounces/50 grams of sugar, dark soft brown for preference
1 teaspoon of baking powder (about 2 pinches)
3 fluid ounces/75 ml milk
1 beaten egg
1 teaspoonful (about the lid of the bottle full) of vanilla essence
*The recipe calls for suet. I don’t know if you have suet, but if not, melt butter or margarine and use that. The point is to get the fat distributed throughout the pud.
Lightly grease the pud bowl
Put about 3 tablespoons of syrup in the base. Give it a nice good dollop. Golden syrup or Maple syrup (is Corn syrup sweet and golden? If so, then I bet that would work fine too.) Then give it 30 seconds or so in the microwave to make it more liquid.
Mix all the ingredients together and put them in the bowl
Cover with film or the plate cover
Cook at ¾ power (Power Level 6 or so) for 4 minutes, then at full power for 1 minute.
As microwaves vary, just have a look and see if it looks cooked but it doesn’t take long.
Take out of the oven, leave to stand for about two minutes, then turn upside down onto a plate and remove the pud basin. All the yummy syrup comes down the side of the pud.
This lovely served with cream, custard (if available!) or vanilla ice-cream.
It’s dead easy to do a chocolate version of this by putting cocoa (chocolate powder) to the mixture and replacing the syrup with melted chocolate. A fruit version is nice, too, with pineapple or whatever added to the syrup
I've discovered a fantastic book about literary comfort food - well childrens literature to be precise - it's Cherry Cake & Ginger Beer by Jane Brocket. If you ever get the chance to pick it up it is totally scrummy!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.janebrocket.com/books_cherry-cake-and-ginger-beer.asp
Well, lettuce was soporific for Peter Rabbit.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that Death was stalking curry. Have you read the recent articles in the Telegraph (probably other places, too) about new research showing that curry can forestall, even sometimes reverse Alzheimers? Apparently they've known for years that the incidence of Alzheimers was really low in India, but didn't know why. Hmmm.
Donna Fletcher Crow
Death goes for a curry in Soul Music (the sequel to Mort) which is a wonderful book. I didn't know curry could fend off Alzheimers. To be honest, I'm a bit sceptical about Alzheimer preventatives, as so many things seem to have been suggested. The real problem is that people are living so much longer. I've just read a biograpghy of Jane Austen where people drop like flies all the time! And that's not a very cheery alternative....
ReplyDeleteWow! I'm going to try that yummy treacle pud recipe - so quick and easy, and only about a thousand calories a portion I expect! I could just fancy it now, but it's 10.15 at night and I've already had a good supper, so I'll restrain myself.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about food in books being a useful way to introduce different times and places. I'm glad you enjoyed my Saturnalia banquet scene - I had fun writing it, and one of my "must have" research books is a classical cookbook which has modern renditions of classical dishes, using the right ingredients or as close as possible, but substituting modern cooking appliances and tools for kitchen-slave-power! Speaking of curry, I've a 1907 Mrs. Beaton (my grandmother's) which includes a recipe for curried kangaroo tails - doesn't that just sum up the British Empire pre WW1 - a book for the British household including meat from Down Under and a cooking technique from India?