A blow.
Lovely Anna who has made our astonishingly good fruit cake for many a long year has decided to close her recipe book and put aside her mixing bowls.
The search is on for a replacement but Anna is a hard act to follow.
And she's keeping her recipe secret.
Monday 30 January 2012
Friday 27 January 2012
Sandwiched
I am between seasons.
I've done some work towards the reopening in March but am still in the joy of my Winter rest and enjoying sitting and reading during the day - something I see as decadent and almost slovenly especially when my house looks the way it does.
Still, one of the books I'm reading may count as work.
It's called The Dudley Book of Cookery and Household Recipes collected and arranged by Georgiana, Countess of Dudley, who lived at Witley Court. My copy is the third impression from 1909.
In it she details how to make a sandwich. Well more than one. She describes how to make all sorts of different types including "Egg sandwiches for tea or travelling" and "Sandwiches of pounded ham for tea or luncheon baskets". I'm not sure, given what I know of large country houses with staff (see Downton Abbey) that Lady Georgiana would actually have made any of the food herself....
What I have learnt is that they did make a meal out of making a sarnie. Georgiana's lot didn't butter the bread, they mashed up whatever was going in the sandwich with the butter and then spread it. Minimal chewing seems to be the aim. Ham, tongue, shrimps, cheese, game and anchovies are all beaten to a pulp with a pestle and mortar then squished through a sieve. I thought chewing was probably seen as vulgar but someone suggested their teeth couldn't handle it.
So, given that we are the Court tea rooms, in my Lady's own garden, should I get a job lot of pestles and mortars from ebay and radically change the menu?
And what would the regulars say if faced with a special of "Sheep's Trotters Maitre D'Hotel"?
Oh if there's anyone who needs to know how to remove iron stains from white marble mantelpieces, that's in there too.
I've done some work towards the reopening in March but am still in the joy of my Winter rest and enjoying sitting and reading during the day - something I see as decadent and almost slovenly especially when my house looks the way it does.
Still, one of the books I'm reading may count as work.
It's called The Dudley Book of Cookery and Household Recipes collected and arranged by Georgiana, Countess of Dudley, who lived at Witley Court. My copy is the third impression from 1909.
In it she details how to make a sandwich. Well more than one. She describes how to make all sorts of different types including "Egg sandwiches for tea or travelling" and "Sandwiches of pounded ham for tea or luncheon baskets". I'm not sure, given what I know of large country houses with staff (see Downton Abbey) that Lady Georgiana would actually have made any of the food herself....
What I have learnt is that they did make a meal out of making a sarnie. Georgiana's lot didn't butter the bread, they mashed up whatever was going in the sandwich with the butter and then spread it. Minimal chewing seems to be the aim. Ham, tongue, shrimps, cheese, game and anchovies are all beaten to a pulp with a pestle and mortar then squished through a sieve. I thought chewing was probably seen as vulgar but someone suggested their teeth couldn't handle it.
So, given that we are the Court tea rooms, in my Lady's own garden, should I get a job lot of pestles and mortars from ebay and radically change the menu?
And what would the regulars say if faced with a special of "Sheep's Trotters Maitre D'Hotel"?
Oh if there's anyone who needs to know how to remove iron stains from white marble mantelpieces, that's in there too.
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