Monday 22 December 2014

A Christmas Interlude



As Christmas approaches, I thought it would be fitting to take a break from my chronological journey through literature and come up with something a little festive.  Obviously Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843) has the Christmas meal par excellence, but with the school term having only ended on Friday I don’t think I really have time to roast a goose or make a plum pudding in order to replicate the meal enjoyed by Bob Cratchit and his family. 

But I was pleased to find a much simpler idea when I was teaching Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) to my Year 10s.  In chapter 9 Mrs Bennet and her two youngest daughters, Kitty and Lydia, have come to visit Jane and Elizabeth who are staying at Netherfield, guests of Mr Bingley, whilst Jane recovers from a heavy cold caught when she rode over to visit the Bingleys in a rainstorm.  During a rather awkward conversation, in which Mrs Bennet frequently makes digs at Mr Darcy’s pride (having not forgiven him for refusing to dance with Elizabeth at the Meryton assembly), Elizabeth attempts to change the subject by enquiring whether Charlotte Lucas has visited the Bennets at their home, Longbourn.  On hearing that Charlotte called on the previous day, Elizabeth enquires whether she stayed for dinner, only for Mrs Bennet to say: “No, she would go home.  I fancy she was wanted about the mince pies.” 

Sunday 7 December 2014

The Civilizing Effects of Food



When I first blogged about food in Robinson Crusoe I promised that I would - like the eponymous protagonist - try cooking with goat, as soon as I sourced some goat meat - see http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/food-survival-manual.html  Well, goat meat has arrived at my local farmers' market, so I couldn't resist the opportunity to try it out. 

Goats provide Crusoe with his main protein source on the island.  And not only does he consume their flesh, but he also drinks their milk and uses it to make butter and cheese, all part of Crusoe's attempts to plant an area of Western civilization on this uninhabited desert island in the southern part of the Caribbean. 

The link between food and civilization is developed further when Crusoe encounters Man Friday on the island, rescuing him from his captors who are on the point of killing and eating him.  Realising that Friday himself is also a cannibal - he suggests to Crusoe that they eat his dead captors - Crusoe embarks on a mission to civilize and Christianize Friday.  He does this through teaching him how to cook, thereby persuading him of the tastiness of non-human flesh.   


Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday by Carl Offterdinger (1829-1889)

Sunday 16 November 2014

Pea Soup

One of the starters at the First World War Supper Club - see http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/first-world-war-supper-club.html - has a fairly long and distinguished history in literature.  Pea soup - which appears in May Byron's Pot-luck, our source recipe book for our 1914-inspired menu - is mentioned in the Ancient Greek play, The Birds, by Aristophanes (first performed 414BC).  The servant of Tereus, an Athenian prince who has been turned into a bird, explains how he must serve his master and bring him all types of food:  "Again he wants some pea-soup; I seize a ladle and a pot and run to get it." 

Tereus's pea soup was probably made from dried peas, as it is only really since the Early Modern period that people have been eating fresh garden peas - Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat notes in A History of Food that fresh peas in their pods were introduced to the court of Louis XIV in January 1660. 

Sunday 2 November 2014

First World War Supper Club

If you're heading out for dinner in the rather exclusive North London area of Primrose Hill, a church might not be your most obvious choice of venue.  However, last night my friend Lou and I took over the kitchens of St Mary-the-Virgin, Primrose Hill, to hold our first ever supper club.  Taking the First World War as our theme, we served up 3 courses - all inspired by dishes eaten widely in 1914 - to 21 paying guests, with all the profits going to the church's youthwork.   



About a year ago, Lou and I began discussing the idea of trying something a little more ambitious in the kitchen than just cooking for family and small groups of friends; so BeckyLou's supper club was born!  Having decided to structure our menu around a theme, in this centenary year 1914 was an obvious choice.  Scouring the internet for inspiration we found an online edition of a cookery book first published in 1914: May Byron's Pot-luck; or, The British home cookery book; over a thousand recipes from old family ms. books.  This book provided a helpful reference point for recipes that would have been eaten in the war-time period, but rather than sticking slavishly to the dishes as they would have been made in 1914 we updated them and added a modern twist to create 1914-2014 fusion-style dishes. 



Sunday 12 October 2014

Quinces

For this post I am going to break my rule of literary chronology, leaving the early 18th century novel for the time being in order to revisit the late 16th century and an author who has featured frequently in this blog, namely Mr William Shakespeare.  And the cause of this literary rewind is the quince, the strange, knobbly pear-like fruit which, as the Observer food writer Nigel Slater says, “can’t be eaten raw” and is “a devil to peel”.[1]  We have a quince tree in the garden and about a month ago my landlady challenged me to find some literary/culinary uses for the plethora of fruit that ripen and rot very quickly if not picked and made good use of; I like a challenge, so the research began.

Quinces come from the same family as apples and pears.  They are thought to have originated in parts of Asia, including Armenia, Georgia, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan, and were subsequently introduced to parts of the Middle East and eastern and central Europe, including Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece.  The quince’s early arrival in the countries of the Middle East has led to speculation that references to fruit in the Bible which have often been translated as “apple” may in fact be references to quince: examples include The Song of Solomon 2:3 “As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men” and most famously the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 3 with which the snake tempts Eve, and Eve then seduces Adam.[2]  Though were the snake to have tempted Eve with a quince, we have to assume he would have cooked it first as it’s impossible to believe that Eve would have succumbed to the sour inedible raw fruit!  Once cooked though, with the addition of sugar or honey, the quince softens and becomes far more appetising. 

Sunday 21 September 2014

The Luxury of Time

One of the most interesting features of Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe is the detailed accounts of how the protagonist learns to survive on an uninhabited desert island.  Once he has built and furnished his shelter, he begins a journal (using paper and ink that he had found on the wrecked ship) and, through this, documents his attempts to build his own version of English society on the island.  He describes making different shelters, building a boat, civilizing a savage – Man Friday whom he rescues from cannibals - and, most importantly for my purposes, growing and cooking food.

In my last post – see http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/food-survival-manual.html - I wrote about the goats that live abundantly on the island which are Crusoe’s principal source of meat – he does also eat turtle and wild fowl – and his only source of dairy food.  But whilst the goats provide ready food – they just need to be captured or shot, then cooked – other food requires time.  Fortunately Crusoe – who spends 28 years on the island – has plenty of that.

Sunday 31 August 2014

Food: A Survival Manual

The summer sun and the holidays mean I haven’t blogged for a few weeks.  But whilst I was sitting on my tropical holiday island – well, okay, the Costa Brava – one of my chosen books for holiday reading was the account of a man’s experience on a desert island, namely Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe is one of the earliest novels written in English.  A first-person account of the protagonist’s experience of being shipwrecked on an island off the coast of South America for more than 28 years, the novel can be read in a number of ways.

Thursday 24 July 2014

Food for Angels

In my last post on Milton's Paradise Lost I referred to the episode where, prior to the Fall, the archangel Raphael visits Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and dines with them - see http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/forbidden-fruit.html

Eve crushes grapes to make a non-alcoholic drink and makes mead - presumably also without alcohol - from berries, and also "from sweet kernels pressed / ... tempers dulcet creams" (Book V, ll. 346-47).  I assume that by kernels Milton means nuts and that Eve makes some form of nut cream to feed Raphael.  

As luck would have it, there are seventeenth-century recipes for almond cream, a dish that I am familiar with. The Accomplish'd Lady's Delight In Preserving, Physick, Beautifying, and Cookery - how's that for the title of a cookery book! - published in 1675, provides the following recipe:  

Sunday 6 July 2014

Forbidden Fruit

In my previous two posts on Jacobean revenge drama I explored the way food adopts more negative connotations, being used for nefarious purposes or to symbolise corruption (see   http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/apricots.html and  http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-corrupting-effects-of-food.html).  In Paradise Lost (published 1667), John Milton retells in a long epic poem the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, a narrative with food at its heart.  As originally narrated in chapter 3 of the Biblical book of Genesis the serpent, the most cunning of all God's creation, tempts Eve to eat from the one tree in the Garden of Eden that God has forbidden her and Adam from eating from, namely the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Eve subsequently persuades Adam to eat; cursed by God, Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden and sin is brought into the world. 

In his twelve book epic treatment of this short Biblical myth, Milton indulges the reader with long descriptions of the naturally-occurring fruits in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve’s pre-lapsarian meals and then the actual consumption of the forbidden fruit.  In Book V the archangel Raphael visits Adam and Eve, and Eve – like a model 17th century housewife – prepares a meal. 

She gathers, tribute large, and on the board
Heaps with unsparing hand; for drink the grape
She crushes, inoffensive must, and meaths
From many a berry, and from sweet kernels pressed
She tempers dulcet creams.  (ll. 343-47)

There is an emphasis on abundance – food grows plentifully in the Garden of Eden, and earlier in Book IV Adam and Eve are described as eating nectarines which the “complaint boughs / yielded them” (ll. 332-333); the food is freely offered up to them.  The only food referred to is fruit, and no actual cooking is involved (there is no reference to heat being applied to the fruit).  Instead, Eve crushes grapes to make unfermented (non-alcoholic) juice, makes mead from berries and from seeds or nuts produces some type of sweet cream.   


 Raphael dines with Adam and Eve from a painting by William Blake


Sunday 15 June 2014

The Corrupting Effects of Food

In my last post I wrote about apricots in The Duchess of Malfi and how they were used to ascertain the Duchess's suspected pregnancy.  Once the pregnancy - and the Duchess's marriage to her steward Antonio, her social inferior - were confirmed, the Duchess's villainous brothers set out to destroy her and her family (see http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/apricots.html).

The idea that food, rather than being a form of celebration or sustenance, can have a more malevolent side to it, seems to be a popular idea in the early 17th century Jacobean revenge drama.  At times it is used metaphorically, particularly in relation to sex.  In Thomas Middleton's play, The Changeling (c. 1622), the villainous servant, De Flores, afflicted with a facial deformity, considers the possibility that he may be able to persuade his mistress, Beatrice-Joanna, to sleep with him in return for his killing her unwanted suitor, Alonzo.

Sunday 25 May 2014

Apricots

As we bid farewell - for the time being - to Shakespeare, and move on a few years into gory Jacobean revenge drama, we say hello to the apricot. It has been speculated that the apricot originated in either Armenia - about 50 different varieties of the fruit are grown there nowadays - India or China. By Roman times apricots had spread into the Mediterranean region, and they have been known in England since the 16th century; one story says that Henry VIII's gardener introduced apricots to England from Italy in 1542.

In fact Shakespeare does make reference to the apricot more than once.  In Richard II (first performed 1595) in a scene set in the Duke of York's garden, gardeners, overheard by Richard's queen, discuss the neglect of the garden with clear parallels being made to the disordered state of the kingdom.   The senior gardener instructs his companions to "bind ... up young dangling apricocks" (III, 4, 29), the weight of which are forcing the tree's branches to bow down, just as unruly children (ie. subjects) oppress and burden their parents (ie. the monarch).  Then in A Midsummer Night's Dream (written c. 1594/5) the Queen of the Fairies, Titania, bewitched by a magic potion to fall in love with the donkey-eared weaver, Nick Bottom, tells her fairy attendants to feed her new lover with "apricocks and dewberries, / With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;" (III, 1, 144-45)

Whilst Shakespeare's references are rather slight and undeveloped, apricots - and the eating of them - play a more important role in John Webster's play The Duchess of Malfi (written c. 1612-13).

Saturday 10 May 2014

Shakespeare the Vegetarian

I’m not suggesting that Shakespeare – or indeed any of his characters – was a vegetarian, but having a number of veggie friends and family-members who follow my blog, and being rather partial to meat-free days myself, I decided to research what Shakespeare has to say about the eating of vegetables.  The answer was very little!  Meat – including Falstaff’s beloved capon – is in abundance, prawns and eel are referenced in Henry IV, Part Two, and then there are references to cakes and spices, as noted in some of earlier posts. The only savoury food item mentioned that counts as vegetarian is toasted cheese – referred to in Henry V, Henry VI and King Lear - but I didn’t think a recipe for cheese on toast would be that impressive!  Having said that, vegetables are referred to in some plays – albeit not as food items - and there are recipes from the period for vegetable-based dishes, so I feel I can still justify writing this post.

Leeks: 

I begin with the leek, the national symbol of Wales, a vegetable which is thought to have been introduced into Britain by the Phoenicians who traded it for tin with the Welsh.  One legend says that in the 7th century AD, when the Welsh were fighting the Saxons, the Welsh king, Cadwallader, instructed his soldiers to wear a leek as a badge to distinguish themselves from the enemy.  And the cultural value of leeks is what Shakespeare writes about in Henry V (c. 1599).  This history play sees the dissolute Hal from the Henry IV plays – see http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/falstaff-first-literary-foodie.html - in his new guise as King of England, leading an army into France in order to reclaim parts of France that he believes technically belong to England.  Henry and his men are eventually victorious, sealing an unexpected victory on the battle field at Agincourt despite being vastly outnumbered by the French troops.  Henry’s winning army contains – for symbolic purposes – officers from all regions of the British Isles: Captain MacMorris hails from Ireland, Captain Jamy is the Scottish representative, and from Wales there is Captain Fluellen.  Shakespeare has fun reproducing their accents, but the fun extends further with Fluellen, who proudly boasts his Welsh heritage –and that of his King (Henry V was born in Monmouth in 1386) - at any opportunity, and who is derided by Pistol, another soldier, for that.  Fluellen proudly notes (dubious) parallels between Macedon, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, and Monmouth – “There is a river in Macedon, and there is / also moreover a river at Monmouth” (IV, 7, 28-29).  Then, when Henry announces the battle victory and names the battle Agincourt, after the castle nearby, Fluellen reminds him of his ancestors’ great battle victories and the role played by the Welsh: 

If your / majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen / did good service in a garden where leeks did / grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; / which, your majesty know, to this hour is an /honourable badge of the service; and I do be-/lieve, your majesty takes no scorn to wear the / leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.  (IV, 7, 102-09)

To Fluellen’s delight Henry proclaims his national pride in wearing the leek – “I wear it for a memorable honour; / For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman” (IV, 7, 110-11).  Boosted by the King’s comments, Fluellen gets his own back on Pistol’s disrespect for his nationality and forces the verbose, boastful commoner to eat a leek.  


Fluellen forces Pistol to eat a leek. 
(a 19th century illustration by H. C. Selous)

If the leek is good enough for the king, then it’s good enough for me.  Recipes from the period – and earlier - include White Leek Sauce, and Leek pottage, but I wanted to make something that would showcase the leek in all its glory, as Fluellen would want.  So when I found a recipe for Spinach Tart in The Good Huswifes Jewell (1596) -  the recipe can be found transcribed online by Daniel Myers (2008) at http://www.medievalcookery.com/notes/ghj1596.txt - that inspired me to make my own leek tart, adapted from a recipe by John Torode (BBC Good Food).

HENRY V’S LEEK TART (makes 8 pieces)

Ingredients: 

For the pastry: 
200g plain flour
100g cold, diced butter
Pinch of salt
Cold water

For the filling:  
800g leeks, trimmed, washed thoroughly and sliced.
50g butter
½ tablespoon plain flour
300ml milk
200ml double cream
4 eggs beaten
100g grated cheese – I used gruyere
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Method: 
Make shortcrust pastry by rubbing the butter into the flour (seasoned with salt) in a large mixing bowl, until it resembles breadcrumbs.  Using a knife, stir in sufficient cold water until the mixture begins to clump together.  Gather into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for at least one hour.

While the pastry is resting, start the filling.  Cook the leeks in butter in a large saucepan over a low heat for about 20 minutes until soft.  Then stir in the flour and cook for 3-4 minutes.  Stir in the milk and cream and simmer for about 15 minutes.  Season well and cool slightly before stirring in the beaten eggs, grated cheese and mustard.  .

Pre-heat the oven to 190C, Gas 5.  Roll out the dough on a floured surface to a thickness of about 5mm.  Use it to line a large greased tart dish.  Line the pastry with baking paper or foil and fill with baking beans – or dried beans, rice and pasta.  Bake blind for 15 minutes, and then remove the paper and beans and return to the oven for another 5-10 minutes until the case is a pale golden colour.  Remove from the oven, and reduce the temperature to 180C, Gas 4.  Spoon the leek mixture into the pastry case and bake for approximately 30 minutes until set and golden.

Peas and beans: 

As noted above, leeks are mentioned in recipes for pottage, a vegetable soup or broth thickened with oats or other grains, that might also include meat, depending on the wealth of the household.  Pottage is a very old dish that would have been commonly eaten by poorer households in Shakespeare's time.  When I found a reference in Henry IV Part One to “peas and beans” (II, 1, 8-9), albeit t used metaphorically, it inspired me to make a 21st century twist on this ancient dish to accompany Henry V's Leek Tart.

PEA AND BEAN “POTTAGE” (spoken with a French accent to sound more sophisticated!) (Serves 2 as a main dish, or 4 as a side dish)

Ingredients: 
1 onion chopped finely
1 clove garlic chopped finely
1 tablespoon olive oil
70g peas (fresh or frozen)
50g broad beans (fresh or frozen)
150g pearl barley
Water or veg stock
Grated parmesan (optional)

Method: 
Fry the onion in olive oil over a moderate heat until translucent, and then add the garlic and cook for another minute or so.
Add the barley, stir around to cover in oil and then – as if you were cooking a risotto – begin adding the water or stock a ladleful at a time.  Keep stirring the “pottage”, adding more liquid as necessary.
Boil the peas and broad beans for about 5 minutes in boiling water; drain and plunge into cold water to stop them continuing to cook.
After the barley has been cooking for about 20-25 minutes it should be approaching completion: it needs to be soft with a bit of bite.  Add the cooked peas and broad beans to the barley to warm through and finish cooking.  Season the barley mixture to taste – it will probably need a fair amount of salt – and, if you wish, add some grated parmesan to taste.



Saturday 26 April 2014

A Shakespeare Feast

Something a bit different this week.  I thought - following the suggestion of a friend - that it would be a nice idea to get together a group of my friends who live locally and have been complimentary about my blog, and feed them.  Thus, the Shakespeare Feast was designed.



Quite simply, I devised a menu in which I pulled together all my Shakespeare-inspired dishes (plus two new ones which I will write about in my next post), cooked them over two days in the Easter holidays and then invited 11 friends, plus 3 children, to come and partake.  We ate, we drank, we talked... and nobody complained about the fact that I hadn't considered the shortfall between the number of chairs in my flat (10) and the number of guests! 




A Shakespeare Feast: the menu

MAIN COURSES

Falstaff's Fricassee: "Item a capon...2s 2d,,,Item sack two gallons...5s 8d." (Henry IV Part One)

Henry V's Leek Tart: "the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps." (Henry V)

Pea and Bean 'Pottage': "Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog and thatis the next way to give poor jades the bots." (Henry IV Part One)


Henry V's Leek Tart

 
DESSERTS

Richmond Maids of Honour: "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale." (Twelfth Night)

Gingerbread: "An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread."  (Love's Labour's Lost)

Beatrice's 'Civil' Orange Cake: "The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but civil ... civil as an orange." (Much Ado About Nothing)

Richmond Maids of Honour


 Thank you to all my guests for their support and all the wine - Falstaff would be proud of you! 


Thursday 17 April 2014

Food as Metaphor in Shakespeare



As well as using food and meals to create character and add dramatic impact, Shakespeare litters his plays with food references used metaphorically.  Perhaps that is no surprise given Shakespeare's interest in playing with the English language and finding ever more inventive ways to express ideas and thought.  Whether it be Falstaff's derogatory description of the cowardly men he has pressed to fight for him as "toasts-and-butter" (Henry IV Part One, IV, 2, 20), or Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream using the image of a "double cherry" (III, 2, 209) to describe her former intimacy with Hermia, such images add poetry and resonance to Shakespeare's language. 

Two plays - Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing - make particularly interesting use of food metaphors and imagery.

Hamlet (c. 1600), probably Shakespeare's best known play, tells of the eponymous protagonist's attempt to avenge the murder of his father by his uncle Claudius, who has subsequently taken the throne of Denmark and married his brother's widow, Gertrude.  Hamlet's tragedy lies in his inability to act quickly and decisively - his delay, whilst the trigger for beautiful, philosophical musings (“To be or not to be” being one such example), also leads, both directly and indirectly, to an extremely high corpse count by the end of the play, with eight characters dying either on or off stage, including Hamlet.  In a play obsessed with life and death, the body and the soul, the frailty of human flesh and the divinity of human reason, it is perhaps no surprise that the characters, and particularly Hamlet, are preoccupied with images of food and eating, an activity that Hamlet notes puts us on a par with animals: 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed?  A beast, no more.  (IV, 4, 33-35)

At the start of the play Hamlet – not yet apprized of the truth of his father's death, but decidedly unhappy at his mother's prompt remarriage to his uncle - bitterly tells his best friend Horatio, who comments on the short period of time between Hamlet's father's funeral and his mother's remarriage: "The funeral baked meats / Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables" (I, 2, 180-81).  When, three scenes later, Hamlet encounters the ghost of his dead father, he learns the reality of his father's death, namely that he was murdered by Claudius whilst sleeping one afternoon in his orchard.  The ghost describes how his brother poured poison into his ear which "with a sudden vigour it doth posset / And curd, like eager droppings into milk, / The thin and wholesome blood" (I, 5, 68-70).  A posset was a popular drink made of hot milk curdled with wine or ale, and sometimes spiced, whilst curd is a dairy product created by curdling milk with rennet or an acidic substance such as lemon juice and subsequently used as the basis of cheese.  In both cases the food references illustrate the effect the poison has on the king's blood, thus causing his death.   

 The Murder of King Hamlet by his brother, Claudius


 Later, in Act III, Scene 3, as Hamlet watches his uncle pray and considers whether to kill him or not - concluding that this is not the time as to kill someone in the act of prayer would send their soul to heaven, a fate Hamlet does not want for his murderous uncle - he laments the fact that Claudius killed his father without warning, giving him no time to repent of his sins and prepare his soul, describing his father as being “full of bread” (III, 3, 80), an echo of Ezekiel 16: 49 where it is a reference to the sin of gluttony.  The Biblical reference – and its interpretation – may explain the ghost’s description of how, because he was given no time to repent his sins before his death, he is currently in Purgatory where he is “confined to fast in fires, / Till the foul crimes done in [his] days of nature / Are burnt and purged away” (I, 5, 11-13): fasting would be the entirely appropriate punishment for the sin of gluttony.  And in Act IV, Scene 3, after he has killed Polonius, his girlfriend Ophelia’s father, who was hiding behind the tapestry in the Queen’s chamber and eavesdropping on a conversation between Gertrude and Hamlet, Hamlet uses food analogies to describe Death as the great equaliser. When asked by his uncle where Polonius’s body is, Hamlet wittily states: “At supper... Not where he eats, but where a is eaten” (17-19), and then proceeds to describe how “A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and / eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm” (25-26). 

Much Ado About Nothing – probably written a year or two before Hamlet – a comedy of warring couples and foolish misunderstandings, is also steeped in food metaphors, but to an entirely different end.  Beatrice and Benedick, one of the play’s central couples who, at the start, delight in hating one another and share a mutual antipathy to love and marriage, but who through trickery are persuaded to fall in love, use references to food and eating as part of their self-proclaimed “merry war” against one another (I, 1, 57).  When they meet up at the beginning of the play, after Benedick has been away fighting, Benedick declares his surprise that Beatrice – whom he dubs “Lady Disdain” is still alive.  She retorts: “Is it possible disdain should die while she hath / such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?” (I, 1, 112-113)  Later on, after a bruising encounter with Beatrice at a masked party, Benedick declares to his superior, Don Pedro, that he will not hang around in Beatrice’s presence: “O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not; I cannot / endure my Lady Tongue.  (II, 1, 251-52)

As well as these general images of food and feeding, Shakespeare makes use of the image of an orange at two points in the play.  When the young soldier Claudio – half of the other central couple in the play – is sulking because he thinks Don Pedro has courted Beatrice’s meek cousin, Hero, for himself, rather than for Claudio as he had promised, Beatrice notes of him: 

The count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry
nor well; but civil count, civil as an orange, and something
of that jealous complexion.  (II, 1, 269-271)

Here the Seville orange metaphor encapsulates Beatrice’s sharp wit and tart satire, as well as the rather unattractive sulky jealousy that characterises the easily gulled Claudio.  But the image of an orange will be used later in the play for far more cruel ends.  Persuaded to believe (wrongly) that Hero has been unfaithful to him, Claudio rejects her on their wedding day, comparing her to a “rotten orange” (IV, 1, 30) which looks virtuous and honourable on the outside, but is decayed and corrupt within.  Fortunately, since Much Ado is a comedy, Claudio is led to see the error of his ways and to realize that Hero is as chaste and pure within as she appears on the outside.

In honour of the fact that Beatrice uses her orange metaphor appropriately – unlike the foolish Claudio – I also responded metaphorically to these metaphorical references and devised a cake for this great female wit.   

BEATRICE’S CIVIL ORANGE CAKE (makes approximately 8 slices)

Ingredients:
200g soft butter
200g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs
40g plain flour
2 tablespoons Seville marmalade
140g ground almonds
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
6 tablespoons (approx) of icing sugar

Method:
Line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper or baking parchment.  Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Gently beat in the eggs one at a time, adding some of the flour between each addition to stop the mixture curdling.  Then fold in the marmalade, orange zest (not the juice) and ground almonds.
Spoon the mixture into the lined cake tin, lightly smoothing the top, and bake for 45-60 minutes at 180C / Gas mark 4, until a skewer leaves the cake without any mixture stuck to it.
Leave the cake to cool in its tin. 
When the cake is cold remove it from the tin.  Make an icing by mixing the sieved icing sugar with sufficient orange juice to make a thin, smooth paste.  Drizzle this over the top of the cake and leave to set.  



Saturday 29 March 2014

Falstaff: The first literary foodie?



A few posts back, when I was still on the Middle Ages, I wrote about Geoffrey Chaucer's innovative literary creation of a cook as a storyteller - see  http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/food-for-stories.html  Now that I've moved onto Shakespeare, I wonder if there's another literary first here, namely the first foodie in English literature, Sir John Falstaff. 

Admittedly, one of Chaucer's pilgrims, the Franklin (a landowner, but not of noble birth), is described as a man who finds delight in food and drink; describing him in the General Prologue, the narrator writes "It snewed [snowed] in his hous of mete [food] and dryke / Of alle deyntees [delicacies] that men koude thynke" (lines 345-46).  However, there are just a few lines of description and, when the Franklin starts talking and telling stories, food is nowhere to be found. 

However, Shakespeare's Falstaff - a character thought to be based on the real historical figure of Sir John Oldcastle, a leader of the Lollards (a proto-Protestant religious movement), who was executed in 1417 following  a failed rebellion against his former friend, King Henry V - is quite another matter.  Falstaff appears in three of Shakespeare's plays, Henry IV Part One (c. 1597), Henry IV Part Two (c. 1598) and The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597) and is referred to in a fourth, Henry V (c. 1599), in which he dies.  In all these plays he is associated with food and drink, with his gluttony being a key aspect of his character: it defines his physical appearance, permeates his speech and his actions and also highlights his moral character.  




Falstaff examining his recruits by William Hogarth (1730)

 Falstaff's gluttony makes him fat, and his bulk provokes much humour.  In Henry IV Part One he jokes, when told to lie down on the ground by Prince Hal (the future Henry V), that he will only do so if there are "any levers to lift [him] up again" (II, 2, 33).  In turn Hal calls him a "huge hill of flesh" (II, 4, 239) and in the same scene another character addresses him as "fat paunch" (139). 

Food and drink also permeate Falstaff's speech and behaviour.  It is no coincidence that in Henry IV Parts One and Two Falstaff is frequently found at the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap, a place where food and drink are readily available, and where he frequently calls for food and drink: "Hostess, my breakfast" (H IV Part One III, 3, 202); "Give me a cup of sack, boy" (H IV Part One II, 4, 112).  Sack was a strong, dry white wine from southern Spain and, in Henry V, the hostess confirms that Falstaff called for sack whilst on his deathbed.  In Henry IV Part One much merriment is provoked by the discovery of a bill, about Falstaff's sleeping person, itemising all the money he owes the tavern:
                                               
                                                Item a capon ......................................2s 2d
                                                Item sauce..............................................4d
                                                Item sack two gallons...........................5s 8d
                                                Item anchovies and sack after dinner......2s 6d
                                                Item bread................................................ob  (II, 4, 520-524)

"Ob" is an abbreviation of 'obolus' meaning "half-penny", as Prince Hal notes: "O monstrous!  But one halfpennyworth of / bread to this intolerable deal of sack?" (II, 4, 525-26). 

Whilst the disproportionate amount of alcohol to food is amusing, Hal's reaction also points to the way Falstaff's gluttony shapes his moral character.  As well as being amusing and jovial, Falstaff is lazy, cowardly and deceitful; he even takes the credit for killing Hotspur, Hal's arch-nemesis, at the end of Henry IV Part One.  And the two parts of Henry IV trace Prince Hal's gradual distancing of himself from his old friend and surrogate father as he prepares to become King Henry V.  At the end of Richard II the new King Henry IV (Hal's father) complains that he hasn't seen his "unthrifty son" for "three months" and that he is known to be frequenting the London taverns with "unrestrained loose companions" (V, 3, 1-7), and at the beginning of Henry IV Part One we discover that Falstaff is one of these reprobates.  However, early on in the play Hal tells the audience that he is intending to reform and that, owing to his dissolute behaviour, his transformation will be that much more impressive.  Hal's eventual estrangement from Falstaff is foreshadowed in a comic role-play he and Falstaff engage in, in which Hal plays his father and Falstaff plays Hal.  Reprimanding his 'son' for his relationship with Falstaff, Hal - as Henry IV - refers disparagingly to his physical excesses, calling him "that trunk of / humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen / parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed / cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the / pudding in his belly..." (II, 4, 437 - 441).  At the end of Henry IV Part Two comes one of the most moving scenes in Shakespeare when the newly crowned King Henry V, as he processes out of Westminster Abbey, snubs Falstaff who is waiting to greet him, saying "I know thee not, old man ... Leave gormandising" (V, 5, 51-58). 

I doubt Falstaff would ever be able to leave 'gormandising' and, in honour of this great dramatic creation, I have used two of his favourite items - capon and sack (namely chicken and white wine) - to make Falstaff's Fricassee, my version of the "white ffrigasy" found in Mrs Sarah Longe her Receipt Booke of 1610 and reproduced in Andrew Dalby and Maureen Dalby's The Shakespeare Cookbook (British Museum Press, 2012). 

FALSTAFF'S FRICASSEE (serves 2 - 3)

Ingredients:
1 onion (finely chopped)
1 clove of garlic (finely chopped or crushed)
1/2 red pepper (chopped into small pieces)
300g cooked chicken (in pieces)
6 mushrooms (quartered)
100ml dry white wine
1 tablespoon plain flour
salt and pepper
100ml creme fraiche
chopped parsley - handful

Method:
Fry the onion in olive oil over a moderate heat until translucent.  Then add the garlic and red pepper; fry for another 10 minutes to soften.  Add the mushrooms and chicken and cook for a few minutes.  Stir in the tablespoon of flour and cook for a couple of minutes; then add the white wine and cook for 10 minutes.  Stir in the creme fraiche and warm through; add salt and pepper to taste.  Sprinkle with a handful of chopped parsley. 

Tip: on the second day I used this as a filling for a chicken pie using ready-made puff pastry; yum!