Tuesday 07 March 2006
Bush foods: Tuesday's food quotation
Rosie continued on the imaginary walkabout. Cutting out a palm-heart, and some lawyer cane, and boiling them up. Looking for eels by torchlight at night. Getting walnut and green ginger. Chopping grubs out of an acacia tree.
1984 R. M. W. Dixon, Searching for Aboriginal Languages, p. 81
Monday 06 March 2006
Improving frozen chicken: Monday's food quotation
Here is a kitchen improvement, in return for Peacock. For roasting or basting a chicken, render down your fat or butter with cider: about a third cider. Let it come together slowly, till the smell of cider and the smell of fat are as one. This will enliven even a frozen chicken.
1967 Sylvia Townsend Warner, Letter to David Garnett, 21 December 1967 [ Sylvia and David: the Townsend Warner / Garnett letters. Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994, p. 134]
Sunday 05 March 2006
Harvest Home supper: Sunday's food quotation
On the morning of the harvest home dinner everybody prepared themselves for a tremendous feast, some to the extent of going without breakfast, that the appetite might not be impaired. And what a feast it was! Such a bustling in the farmhouse kitchen for days beforehand; such a boiling of hams and roasting of sirloins; such a stacking of plum puddings made by the Christmas recipe; such a tapping of eighteen-gallon casks and baking of plum loaves would astonish those accustomed to the appetites of today. By noon the whole parish had assembled, the workers and their wives and children to feast and the sprinkling of the better-to-do to help with the serving. The only ones absent were the aged bedridden and their attendants, and to them, the next day, portions carefully graded in daintiness according to their social standing, were carried by the children from the remnants of the feast. A plum pudding was considered a delicate compliment to an equal of the farmer; slices of beef or ham went to the 'bettermost poor'; and a ham-bone with plenty of meat left upon it or part of a pudding or a can of soup to the commonalty.
Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford [Penguin modern classics, 1975, p. 237]
Saturday 04 March 2006
The worst traits of English cooking: Saturday's food quotation
The meal was already on the table when they entered the room. A dish of mince with tomato sauce spread over the top seemed to be the main dish; boiled potatoes and ‘greens’ were on the trolley. Mrs Sedge, who had come to England twenty years ago from Vienna, had apparently retained little knowledge of her country’s cuisine, if she had ever possessed it; Dulcie was always surprised at the thoroughness with which she had acquired all the worst traits of English cooking … The second course was stewed apple and semolina pudding, dishes which Mrs Sedge had mastered to perfection.
1961 Barbara Pym, No fond return of love [Grafton Books, 1987, pp. 107-109]
Friday 03 March 2006
Ideal and real nutrition: Friday's food quotation
I can take Katherine Whitehorn's remark a stage further: foods are fattening because they are nice. If one ate exclusively things one didn't like, one would be as thin as a rake. I have demonstrated this to my own satisfaction time and time again: were I to start the day with unfrozen pineapple juice, crispy ricicles, cod steaks and malted bread and margarine, together with very strong cheap Indian tea, and carry on the day in the same fashion, I should have no weight problems at all. Unfortunately the flesh is weak. Don't you find this?
1972 Philip Larkin, Letter to Charles Monteith, 13 January 1972 [ Selected letters of Philip Larkin 1940-1985, edited by Anthony Thwaite. Faber and Faber, 1992, p. 452]
Thursday 02 March 2006
The ultimate destiny of a goose: Thursday's food quotation
The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it should be eaten without delay. Its finder has carried it off therefore to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose.
1891 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The blue carbuncle'