Ruthless Inroads on the Butter

One of my favourite books of all time is A Calender of Country Receipts, by Nell Heaton. It was first published in May of 1950 and is full of a post-war optimism and love of simple delights. Heaton takes the idea of a woman working in her "still room" and modernises the gardener and preserver's calender. The book is charming, idiosyncratic and useful. Here's an extract from the foreword.

As the modern housewife spends her leisure far away from the kitchen, there is no virtue in looking for labour for its own sake; she needs a pleasant, workable, well-fitted kitchen-storeroom, or kitchen with storeroom annexe, as beautifully supplied with chattels as her income will allow, and the ability to combine age-old lore with modern practice and thus to take advantage of every season's plenty. Needless to say, such accomplishments as these are an enrichment to herself and all her family.

The book takes you through the gardener's month - what to plant and when to plant it - and then the cook's calender. Each week of the year is prefaced with an appropriate poem and illustration. Her writing style and choice of poetry is charming and idiosyncratic: I can imagine the Provincial Lady or Miss Buncle using, laughing at, and loving this book. I have always been charmed by her instructions for the housewife in in the first week of July. Here they are.

We have mentioned "classic" jams and perhaps, with lemon meringue pie, this may be termed a "classic" sweet:
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
Make a good shortcake with ruthless inroads on the butter. Take fresh ripe strawberries and mash in a bowl with castor sugar. Fill the shortcake with a good thick layer, place a similar shortcake on top, and cover with cream, the best you can get. Use next day, as strawberry juice must seep into the shortcake.

The book presupposes that one knows automatically how to make a shortcake, and Heaton assumes that a post-war housewife would stinge on the butter, she is right to instruct "ruthless inroads", I made a strawberry shortcake the other day and it was absolutely, wonderfully buttery and good. However, because dear old Nell's receipts are rather scanty on the the old weights and measures front I resorted to the internet and found this lovely recipe.

Other recipes for July include Agrimony Wine, Stoned Cherry Cheese, and Lemon Fig Jam. In the third week of July she quotes this poem:

The lark's long rapture and the yellowing corn,
The household fires and make that circles free
Around the tree-tops; cities, human stress -
The dear familiar thins of earthliness."
ARTHUR L. SALMON

...and then suggests that the reader make Cherry Brandy. I've done this and it was very, very nice and knocked the socks off my sloe gin. I shall make some more when I come back from Cornwall. Here's the recipe if you want to give it a go. I shall quote Nell verbatim so you get the full force of her personality.

The majority of recipes prescribe Morello cherries, but any not-over-sweet ones will serve. Wipe and de-stalk them except for the last 1/2 inch of stalk. Weigh them, then put into wide-necked bottles. Do not cram them in, you'll need room for the brandy. Prick each cherry and drop castor sugar evenly in the jars (3 oz to 1 lb of cherries). Fill up with good brandy, cork tightly, seal with wax. Keep for 2 to 3 months.

There's a sense of joyous gratitude of home and hearth which the book exudes, and I suppose this comes from the fact that the war was over and those husbands, fathers, brothers and sons who have come back fit and well, deserve happy homes and a better future. And, importantly, if you have been through the mill and had tough times it's the simple pleasures of good food and lavender scented sheets which make life sweet and pleasurable.

Well, I must be off and pack for my holidays. I shall see you next week, until then, Anon!

PS. Lest you think me a culinary genious I should admit that the photo of the strawberry shortcake above is not mine own. The Domum shortcake was far more messy!

Dorset Apple Cake and Sloe Gin

Is it me or has it been a really good year for apples? We seem to have tons in our garden, as does my father-in-law, in fact I have so many apples I think I may officially have a glut. I suppose the beauty of apples is that if they are stored properly they will keep for a long time, but if you're like me, and a bit short of suitable storage space (full shed and no garage) it is probably best to think of dealing with them in the kitchen. So soon I will be jelly-ing and chutney-ing and plain old pulping until I have used every morsel of apple-y loveliness.

But before I go full throttle into preserving mania I thought I'd have a go at baking a Dorset Apple Cake. Now, I searched through all of my vintage and regional cookbooks looking for a good apple cake recipes and quite frankly it did my head in. Some recipes used the rubbing in method, some used the creaming method, some were resoundingly anti-spice, and others were very pro-spice. Some added raisins, some added cider, but all of them stated that you should use Bramley apples, which was a complete pain in the rear because my apples are eaters and not cookers. It seems to me that despite the Bramley proviso the Dorset Apple Cake, like most country food, is a movable feast, changing in ingredients and dependent on what a particular housewife had in her pantry from one September to the next. Therefore, gentle reader, I did the sensible and frugal thing and found a recipe which conformed to the contents of my baking cupboard.

The result was the above symphony in brown. I am obviously having a bit of a 1970s kick. Brown plate, brown cake, brown table runner, but you get the idea. You can find the recipe I used here. Yes, I rejected the old (books) in favour of the new (Internet) and I think the result was pretty good. Oh, and you're meant to serve it with clotted cream, which is always my favourite serving suggestion. Also, I did not buy Bramleys but stuck with my windfall eaters and the cake was still moist even though the apples retained their shape. For another good windfall apple recipe please visit Monix.

What could be more wholesome and innocent than a home grown apple? I don't know the answer to that one but I do know that it ain't sloe gin. Sloe gin is wicked, wicked stuff...but I like it. It's a little early to go picking sloes, but I think it may be a good idea to post a recipe now so that anyone who fancies a bit of foraging can get their eye in now a scope out a good bush or two.

Sloes are the fruit of the Blackthorn and are small purple fruits that look like tiny damsons. They're too bitter to eat but are great in cordials, jams and, more traditionally, in gin. The Blackthorn is a thorny old brute and it seems to me that the sloes like to nestle right amongst its inner branches so that foraging for them is always a bit of a painful affair, all in all you need to be dedicated to do it. There are all sorts of bits of advice out there on the best time to pick sloes and how to make the gin, in fact there's forum dedicated to sloe gin! Some say that you must pick them after the first frost, some say that November is the best month, some say October, some say you can pick them slightly unripe in late September and put them in the freezer for 24 hours to mimic a November frost: controversy reigns when it comes to the humble and prickly sloe. I prefer to find a bush and every now and then from late September onwards just have a quick feel of the sloes if they give a little then they're ready. Yes, I'm a secret sloe fondler.

Once you're home you can settle down at the kitchen table, pop the radio on, break out the gin and make the liqueur. Here's how.

If you're lucky enough to find two pounds of sloes, wash and then prick the fruit with a cocktail stick. Pop them in a large glass container - a couple of big kilner jars would do it - and sweeten them with a pound of sugar. Top up the kilner jars with 1 1/2 - 2 bottles of cheap gin. Decant after six months into bottles (I use old pasata jars, but you can get posh gin bottles from Lakeland) and drink. It's nicer the older it gets, but if you make it in October and want a little bit the following Christmas-time then have a fore-taste, it just won't be quite at it's optimum until the following Christmas.

Tips and Alternatives

• I buy Oliver Cromwell gin from Aldi for my sloe gin. It's cheap and cheerful and I like its ironic name. Don't buy good stuff as it makes little difference to the overall taste.
• That being said, some people buy cheap Vodka rather than gin as it tastes of little and doesn't interfere with the overall taste of the liqueur. I can see the sense in this, but I'm just too much of a traditionalist to try it.
• If you can't bear foraging for sloes then try damson gin. You could make it now very cheaply and it tastes incredibly good.
• My friend Zillah makes Bramble Vodka - just crush brambles and add them to a jar with some sugar and top up with vodka. Sounds yummy!
• Finally, proceed with caution! Sloe gin is pokey old stuff!
  

The Long and Rambling Post - Warning This Post May Fill You with a Strange Sense of Ennui

It has just occurred to me that I have not posted for a very long time. Well, what constitutes a very long time in the world of blog anyway. I am assuming that most of you are explaining away my absence by imagining that I finally cracked and garroted the DH with a guy rope is some fit of camping related mania and have been justly sent down for a twenty year stretch. This is not the case. I've just been a bit busy, which is a poor excuse for not blogging, but it's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

The DH has had a lot of time off, which was great, and we've been all over the place, visiting friends and having fun. We've been to the Cotswolds, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Warwick, Worcester, Peterborough (very underrated Cathedral) and been on various second-hand book buying sprees and teas out and yes, even picnics. Now, I do have a few pictures of all of this gallivanting, but I haven't quite got around to attaching the camera cable and software to my new (second hand) PC so I can't post them. Yes, I'm finally blogging on a proper PC and not that bizarre laptop which had half of the keys missing. It's a smashing PC, actually, really fast, it was the DH's old work PC, given to him when his workplace was refurbished. Blimey, I'm rambling. Badly.

It's also been a bit full on with the girls. They've had a lot of friends around to play, and the eldest has had a sleepover. Freya has been Miss Maker all holiday, which is lovely, but those activities need plenty of supervision and we've all got into this rather cosy routine of morning busy-ness, but afternoon slob out movie watching, and this has been great. Favourite movie so far. Hmm, the kids will say Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I will say A Night to Remember (not the orignial Titanic movie - but a bit of 1940s screwball fluff, excellent). Also, Freya has had a course of speech and language therapy over the past week, and this has meant thatI've had to walk her to the clinic every day and wait whilst she sorts out the difference between saying "k" and "t". The good news is that her therapist thinks she's responded so well to treatment that if the work is consolidated she probably won't need any more formal work. I think Freya and her speech problem may deserve a post on all its own. Not that I think many people would be interested in it, but that if our experience helps another worried family out there, then it's worth talking about.

Oh, what else have I been up to? Hmm, I've been knitting like a crazy women (I've gone shrug/bolero crazy and the girls have a shrug for every summer dress they own, but the joys of the "shrug", again, may deserve a post all of its own), I've read many good books (I really, really will do a few book reviews soon), and I've been baking just a little. Here are two good recipes. The first is for Marmalade Cake, as mentioned in the previous post, the second is for Ginger Shortbread - a superb vintage shortbread, a doddle to make and horribly, horribly moreish.

Marmalade Cake

6oz butter, 6oz caster sugar, 3 eggs, 10 oz self-raising flour, 3 level tablespoons of chunky marmalade, 2 oz mixed peel (chopped), grated rind of one orange, 5 tablespoons of water.

Line and grease a seven inch round cake tin. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks one at a time., the one tablespoon of flour. Stir in marmalade, peel, orange rind and water. Fold in the remaining flour. Whisk egg whites until just stiff and fold into the cake mixture. Turn into a prepared tin and bake at 350 F, gas mark 4 for one and a quarter hours until risen and firm to the touch. Icing (if wanted): Blend 4 oz of icing sugar with sufficient orange juice to give a stiff consistency. Pour over cake and allow to trickle down sides. Leave to set. Cut slices of crystallised orange in half and use it to decorate the top.

This recipe was taken from The Farmhouse Kitchen by Mary Norwak. A 1970s book which can still be bought for pennies in second hand bookshops and on Abe Books. It's highly recommended and contains many authentic regional country dishes. Here's an extract from the introduction to the book

Whether the windows of her kitchen overlook a green, growing field in Yorkshire of the tall golden wheat of Kansas, the country woman has a bond with her counterparts all over the world. She knows the bounty of the land, but also the fickleness of the weather and its effect on crops and income...The country woman is perhaps the most creative of all good cooks. She works from a pantry supplied by nature as well as the supermarket...

Now for Ginger Shortbread, a recipe taken from Farmhouse Fare, a fantastic little book from 1947, highly recommended to anyone self-sufficient-ish, or green living or simple living.

2 breakfastcupfuls of flour, 1 breakfastcupful of moist brown sugar, 1/2 lb butter, 2 teaspoonfuls of ground ginger, 1 scant teaspoonful of bicarb, pinch of salt.

Mix all the dry ingredients together, work in the butter until it becomes crumbly. Spread into and well-greased dripping-tin and bake in a moderate oven of 3/4 hour. Cut into finger whilst still warm and lift gently from tin with knife blade. This is an economical shortbread which is quickly made, and is a good stand-by as it keeps well in tins.

Now, I used American cup measures rather than breakfast cups, I baked it in a 20cm brownie tin, and I set the oven to about 150c, I also baked it for about 50 minutes. I didn't cut the fingers until the shortbread was nearly cool, and it cut well. It tasted lovely, like a cross between a ginger nut and left over crumble topping. Don't worry about the fact that you don't bind the shortbread, just press it gently into your tin, the moist brown sugar does the binding in the oven, just like it would a flapjack - for this reason you must not use white sugar.

At this point I'm going to award you a medal for getting this far in my post and not snoozing off. But you'll be glad to know that this disorganised ramble is about to finish as I must iron and pack for a trip to Spain! Yes, we're off to Spain for ten days to see my parents. Quelle joi! But before I go I want to tell you, gentle reader, that you're my little coo chi face, my oochi, coo chi face...no better still I'll let Gert Frobe and Anna Quale tell you for me. Enjoy this extreme piece of silliness, my friends and, until anon!

In Which She Has Strong Ideas on What Constitutes a Good Picnic

Another golden rule is: don't lose your cool. Yogi Bear

A picnic is the Englishman's grand gesture, his final defiance flung in the face of fate. No climate in the world is less propitious to picnics that the climate of England, yet with a recklessness which is almost sublime the English rush out of doors to eat a meal on every possible and impossible occasion...Nowhere does the national passion for picnicking show itself more clearly that in our choice of occasions for high days and holidays. No other nation has so many out-of-doors celebrations...All classes and ranks share in this taste; bank holidays see Hampstead Heat turned into one vast picnic ground, and on Derby Day Epsom Downs are so closely packed with people that thew hole population of London seems to have gone a-picnicking. Taken from English Picnics by Georgina Battis-Coombe

Nothing says culinary disaster more than the average English picnic. Yet we're a hardy race venturing forth into the countryside, proclaiming that he weather will turn eventually, putting up with things and NOT COMPLAINING about the limp ham sandwich, warm pop and slightly crushed packet of cheese and onion we're presented when we need to find a little nourishment. This state of affairs, gentle reader, is not for me, when I picnic I like to have a proper feed, something nice to eat which restores my aching mind and body. This is because when I picnic it is always after I've erected an eight man tent. Let me expand on that. When I picnic it is always after I've erected an eight man ten WITH THE DH. Ah, the DH, the sweariest man in the West Midlands (and that, gentle reader, is saying something). Don't get me wrong, he doesn't swear that much at home, he saves his swears for special occasions: assembling flat pack furniture and putting up the tent: but when it does come out it pours forth in a torrent of foul, if creative, Anglo-Saxon, it's like an x-rated Norse saga of a swear, he can swear in blank verse, it doesn't stop, there are rhyming couplets and sub-plots, characterisation and surreal montage. Basically, the man can really, really, swear. So whilst standing in the middle of 20kg of canvas with my arms holding not-so-lightweight-pole-A aloft for what seems like an eternity I am simultaneously following the DH's foul instruction, attempting to make sure the kids don't listen to DH's foul instruction, and smiling apologies to the couple in the deck chairs reading The Daily Mail who are most disturbed by the DH's misuse of our ancient and venerable language.

After this I need to soothe his savage brow, after this I need to soothe my savage brow (it's either I eat, I do something unnatural to him with a tent peg), after this I need to give a peace offering to tently-neighbours, after this I have to physically remove my kids from the adventure playground I've sent them to in order to avoid their dad's linguistic pyrotechnics and to do all of this I need to be prepared. This is what I don't do.

• I never make sandwiches. They go limp and unless they are made with lovely homemade bread they go soggy. Unfortunately, you need to dislocate you jaw like a python to eat a sandwich made with my homemade bread. Doorstops! Did someone say doorstops?
• Sponge cakes and cakes with nice icing on are a bad idea. They get bashed about, the icing melts away or goes a bit off, they're a pig to cut unless you have a good knife and plate. Avoid Victoria sponges, carrot cakes and so on if you are to have a successful picnic.
• Keep it simple. If you are the chief cook and bottle washer, you don't want to stress out preparing and packing a picnic. Don't bite off more than you can chew, as it were. Have three good dishes and some fruit, as a maximum.

This is what I do.

Pop an espresso machine on the campstove and have it fill with bloody good coffee whilst you dish out:

Tabbouleh*, French bread, hard boiled eggs, apricot muffins, oranges and lemon squash

or

Devilled chicken, potato salad, marmalade cake, apples, and ginger beer

or

Cornish pasties, homemade chutney, apples, lemon cake and squash.

You know, after this repast the DH transforms back into Husband and Father of the Year and flies kites/goes rockpooling/paddling/sandcastle making and I have another cup of coffee and break out the Persephone book I've been saving for my holidays, and all is well, gentle reader, all is well.

Now, if you want any recipes featured on the picnic menus, speak up and I will email you. But do it quick as I'm off to sunny/torrential** Devon in a bit!

Oh, but before you go. Here's how 1940s Americans liked to picnic. A formal, dignified, affair, I imagine, without the not-so-quet hum of dirty words reverberating in the background...

Almost everybody likes a picnic - except mother. But a picnic can be such a pleasant event for the young and old alike that mother should be able to work out a type of picnic which will permit her to enjoy the novelty in the open air as much as everyone.

Prepared Picnic No.2

Fried chicken

Cold Fried Corn

Sliced Tomatoes Cloe slaw

Buttered Bread or Rolls

Apple Pie Cheese

Milk Tea Coffee

Taken from Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking

*I make a big tabbouleh with chickpeas in it and lot of coriander and mint, not so much parsley

**Who can predict the future? Do I really want to know what's ahead? It's best not to mess with the kind of false prophesy they laughingly call weatherforecasting.

So You Feel Like Doing a Spot of Spatchcocking, Do You?

The response I had in the last post regarding the arcane and mysterious art of spatchcocking was tremendous, so I thought I should post the recipe so you could all try a spot of spatchcocking this weekend...I do hope the weather is with you, as it is always best to spatchcock whilst the sun shines.

Anyway, no picture I'm afraid, we sucked the flesh of the poor animal's bones way before I even thought of getting the camera out, and the only pictures I could find of spatchcocked bird on the internet belonged to other bloggers, and I draw the line at passing off someones elses spatchcocking as my own. That, gentle reader, just wouldn't be cricket.

So, a spatchcocked bird is a flattened whole bird. Flattening a whole bird is a good idea for the following reasons.

1. It takes a marinade incredibly well, an unflattened bird does not.
2. It is more economical to spatchcock and marinade than buy various chicken pieces and marinade.
3. You can cook a whole chicken in half the time if it is flattened.
4. You generally grill a spatchcocked bird. This means the skin is crisp and barbecued, the flesh is beautifully moist and you can really taste the marinade ingredients.
5. Keeping chicken on the bone, always makes it more moist and tasty.

So here's how you flatten a bird.

Turn your chicken breast side down. With a stout pair of poultry/kitchen scissors cut along the middle of the chicken, pretty much alongside the bird's spinal column. It is best to start at the side of the parson's nose.

Now, cut along the other side of the parson's nose so you have removed the entire backbone of the bird.

Turn the bird breast side up. With both your hand press down hard on the mid section of the chicken to break its breastbone. I find this easy as I put my, not inconsiderable, weight behind the activity. But featherweights may need to give it some welly, or just give up as it will be fine either way.

Next snip off the wing tips as they burn easily.

Now, make small slits in the skin of the chicken breast and slip the bottom the chicken legs into these skin pockets. This is to make the chicken flat for cooking, but means you don't have to faff around with bamboo skewers.

*********************************************

Congratulations, you have just done extreme violence to a chicken, therefore, my friend, you have spatchcocked. Now, you must bathe the bird in all the herbs and spices of Arabia. Or, pop it in a casserole with some lemon juice, garlic (crushed but still with skin), rosemary (or oregano, thyme, whatever) and a goodly glug of olive oil. Marinade for as long as you can, overnight if possible.

A spatchcocked bird is best cooked on a barbecue. Make sure your coals are just right and cook for roughly twenty minutes each side. Check in its fleshy crevices to make sure the juices run clear before you gobble it up. It's best to let it rest for ten minutes or so before you do eat it. You can grill (broil USA?) the bird, I've done this, but blimey, make sure your extractor fan is up high and all of the windows are open, as, as the song goes, smoke gets in your eyes! I have not roasted a spatchcock, but I hear tell it takes next to no time, compared with an unflattened bird.

So with that I'll say, happy spatchcocking, goode huswives and anon!

By Popular Demand - Turkish Delight!

This is not one of my pictures, but one from Flickr!

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis

For those of you who have never tried the exotic sweetie that got Edmund into such a lot of trouble in Lewis' wonderful book, here's the recipe. We made this during mid term break, because my girls are Narnia nuts, and my eldest loves Turkish Delight. I've taken the recipe verbatim from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Treats from an Edwardian Country House site, and he says that although this is not the way the Turks make their delight, it is an original Edwardian recipe, which for me makes it more evocative. This truly is the kind of sweetie a young "Jack" Lewis would've eaten!

Turkish Delight

2 tablespoons rose-water
25g powdered gelatine
270ml cold water
450g granulated sugar
few drops pink food colouring
25g icing sugar
25g cornflour

Mix 1 tablespoon rose water with 3 tablespoons cold water. Sprinkle the gelatine evenly over the liquid, but don't stir. Leave for about 5 minutes so the gelatine absorbs the liquid and swells into a spongy mass.

Gently heat the sugar in 270ml water in a heavy-bottomed pan, stirring gently until the sugar has dissolved.

Add the gelatine to the pan, stirring constantly until it has melted, then bring to the boil. Boil over a low to medium heat for 20 minutes, stirring fairly often, then remove from the heat and add the remaining rose water and the colouring.

Pour the mixture into a wetted 15 x 15cm tin and chill for 24 hours until set.

Sieve the icing sugar and cornflour together and sprinkle evenly over a piece of greaseproof paper. Turn the Turkish delight out onto the powdered paper and cut it into 2.5cm squares with a sharp knife. Toss well in the sugar mixture.

****

When we made this, we found that we needed slightly more icing(confectioner's) sugar than the recipe recommended. It was such a lot of fun to make! Why not have look at the rest of Hugh's Edwardian concoctions, it's such a great site for the adventurous huswife!

Well, anon, gentle reader, until tomorrow!

Whitsun and Pentacost - The White and the Red

Pentacost, for those not in the know, is this Sunday, and in our church we celebrate by wearing something red for the occasion symbolising, I suppose, the wind and fire that came to the Apostles when they were visited by the Holy Spirit - am I the only one who has a mind's eye picture of a William Blake engraving when they read Acts 2:1-4? Traditionally, in England, Pentacost is referred to as Whitsun, a word derived from the phrase "white Sunday". Pentacost was a time when many were Baptised and Confirmed, a time when many people would wear white - hence white Sunday, Whitsun. Now, just to be confusing, there was a national holiday (Holy Day) on Whitsun Monday for years and years, but in relatively recent times the holiday has been secularised into Spring Bank Holiday, which sometimes falls on the actual Pentacost and sometimes falls a week before or after. However, people still call the Spring Bank Holiday "Whitsun", and get bewildered by what is what. Have I befuddled you? I jolly well hope not!

I do like a nice hot Whitsun weekend. Not just because fiery weather seems appropriate to the coming of the Holy Spirit, but because Whitsun always signifies to me the very start of the summer. We've had a beautiful day today, and we've done a few Pentacost preparations to help us celebrate the festival as a family. First, we've made a starter for a fiery Ginger Beer, somehow appropriate for Pentacost, but not to be imbibed this Sunday but on Midsummer day, when the whole brew will be ready for a picnic (weather permitting). Oh, and Midsummer often falls on the feast of John the Baptist's birthday - what John the Baptist has to do with Ginger Beer I don't know, even I can't stretch the liturgical food link to that extent! Anyway, here's a pretty traditional recipe for Ginger Beer.

In a large jar put:

1 tbs dried yeast

2 cups of water

2 tsp sugar

2 tsp dried ginger

Feed this every day for 7 days with a tsp of ginger and a tsp of sugar. Keep it in the fridge, it's very volatile in hot weather. Don't stir it. After the 7 days are up, strain it through a jelly bag (or somesuch) and add:

the juice of two lemons

2 pints of boiling water

1 lb sugar

Make this mixture up to a gallon with cold water and bottle it (use plastic bottles if you fear explosions) and pop the beer in a cool place for a fortnight. It will be ready to drink by Midsummer if you make it this week.

Oh, you can keep the residue from the jelly bag and use it to start another batch of beer. Just halve the residue and add 2 cups of water, 2 tsp of ginger and 2 of sugar and begin again (just like Finnegan).

You could be understandably mistaken in thinking that the above picture was a steaming bowl of pond weed, but in fact it is the beginnings of Elderflower Champagne, a grandiose name for a very simple country drink. If your elderflowers are out, now is the time to pick them - a nice, dry day.
1/2 - 1 lb of elderflower and their stemmy parts (no leaves)
6 oz sugar
The rind and juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp white wine vinegar
2 1/2 pints of boiling water
Put all ingredients into a large bowl. Steep for two days and two nights. Strain and bottle. My book says to keep "for some years if you wish a still Bordeaux". However, can be drunk young and fizzy on Midsummer along with the Ginger Beer!

Now, if you don't quite feel up to making hedgerow homebrew you can gather those beautiful, abundant white blossoms and still put them to good use. Why not try this Elderflower and Gooseberry Jam I posted about last year? Or, perhaps my beloved Hugh's Elderflower Cordial (if you're a novice freeze, don't bottle, the cordial, just so you don't have to get citric acid from the chemist...the lady from Boots thinks I run a crack den).


How about a bit of Whitsun crafting? We made a mobile of white doves this afternoon, and they dangle gracefully over our kitchen table. You can find the template for the doves on this site, and you can decorate them in any way you wish.

I suppose it would be obvious to decorate them with the Gifts of the Spirit, but eagle eyed readers will spot that we have the Fruits of the Spirit on our doves, simply because I found it easier to explain the "fruits" to my five-year-old. How can you properly define wisdom? What do you say about speaking in tongues!?! Another option would be to put simple prayers on the wings of the doves. Anyway, I'll list the gifts, and then I'll list the fruits, so if you're new to it all you have a bit of a one-stop-shop of Whitsun dove making!
The Gifts of the Spirit are: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning spirits, divers tongues, interpreting tongues.
The Fruits of the Spirits are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.

Now, are you mystified with all of this talk of gifts and fruit and Pentacost and Whitsun? All right then, you're allowed to go and put your feet up and have a nice, chilled glass of Ginger Beer!

Finally, a great medieval poem I like to think of when I see the sap rising and the sun shining!

Cuckoo Song

Summer is y-comen in,

Loude sing cuckoo!

Groweth seed and bloweth meed

And sping'th the woode now-

Sing cuckoo!

Ewe bleateth after lamb,

Low'th after calfe cow;

Bullock starteth, bucke farteth.

Merry sing cuckoo!

Cuckoo, Cuckoo!

Well sing'st thou, cukcoo:

Ne swike thou never now!

Sing cuckoo, now! Sing, cuckoo!

Sing cuckoo! Sing cuckoo, now!

And with that I shall say, anon, gentle reader!

Vintage and Seasonal - Heck, Let's Have Dessert!

One function of desserts is to produce a sense of complete satisfaction at the end of a meal - which is a good enough reason for trying every one of the recipes in this chapter. But you'll probably need no coaxing to do that, for where is the hostess who doesn't love to hear the Oh's and Ah's that are sure to greet a particularly delectable dessert?

The Modern Family Cookbook (Uk 1954, USA 1953) Meta Given

The peculiar looking stuff in the photograph above is the delectable Rhubarb Marlow, the recipe for which I found in my Modern Family Cookbook by Meta Given. Don't be fooled by the list of ingredients, it's quite a sophisticated and light treat and very, very good. And, I ask you this, what could be more 1950s that rhubarb and melted marshmallows, died pink and folded into whipped cream? Here's the recipe. Try it, you'll love it!

Rhubarb Marlow

1 cup sweetened stewed rhubarb

24 marsh,allows

1 cup of whipping cream

Pink coloring if desired

Heat rhubarb, add marshmallows, and stir over a low heat until just melted. Cool. If the mixture is very sweet, add lemon juice to give desired tartness. Chill until thick and syrupy; then whip cream until stiff and fold in rhubarb mixture. Turn into freezing tray of mechanical refrigerator and freeze without stirring. If desired, the whipped cream may be tinted delicately pink before adding the fruit to the mixture. 5 servings.

NB. I think the servings are pretty generous. I also think that it tastes better as a chilled fool that as a frozen dessert, but my kids disagreed. Also,it will taste very sweet as a chilled fool but not so sweet if frozen as for some reason ( which I am unsure). Cheap, easy, fun and seasonal!

Now, I have a real soft spot for my Meta Givens cookbooks. The dark green one on the left of the picture above was the first vintage cookbook I ever bought, at the age of 18 or 19. It propelled me into a world of serious, professional homemaking and I was hooked. It was a 1947 first addition, an American book and American published, so what it was doing in a car boot sale just outside of Birmingham in the early 1990s I don't know! It was volume two of The Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking and full of wonderful recipes, nutritional information, holiday menus and inspirational creeds. However, it was the first volume which contained the baking and every day menus. I bought the first volume two or three years ago now from US eBay, it cost about $30 or so and I love it. Here's one of the creeds.

The Family Hostess' Creed

Happy family relationships are part of my responsibility; therefore -

I will save enough energy to do the job of being a happy and helpful hostess to my family day after day.

My family's satisfaction with my table setting and service is my responsibility; therefore -

I will manage my linens and other equipment, my method of work, and enlist the assistance of my family to the end that the table shall be clean and beautiful and the service easy and dignified.

My family's satisfaction with their food is my responsibility; therefore -

I will manage so that foods shall come to the table in the prime condition developed by previous care in selection, preparation and cooking.

Enjoyment of each other and of their food is an important part of successful family life: therefore -

I shall use intelligence, skill and love in serving food to my family.

Finally, the grey book on the right of the picture is a 1953/4 re-hash of of the Modern Encyclopedia. There are a few new recipes, like the Rhubarb Marlow, and the menus have changed slightly (a little less heavy, simpler breakfasts) but it is essentially the same book, just with much less nutritional and household information. It's in remarkably good condition, so I tend to use it for cooking far more often that my 1940s books. I find the suggested menus very interesting, you can see that the early 1950s was a time when modern conveniences were beginning to be used in the kitchen, but home cooking was seen as the norm. I'll end the post by leaving you with a few 1953 daily, seasonal menus.

April: Friday

Breakfast - sliced bananas on prepared cereal with top milk. Toast with butter, jelly, coffee for adults, cocoa for children.

Luncheon - Green beans au gratin, melba toast, pineapple date salad, tea for adults, milk for children.

Dinner - tomato juice cocktail, braised pork shoulder steak, mashed potatoes, pineapple coleslaw, wholewheat bread and butter, rice pudding, coffee for adults, milk for children.

Well I hope you enjoyed this trawl through one or two of my collection. If you try the Rhubarb Marlow, let me know if you like it too. Anon fellow huswyves!