Oddities

  • How to make pancakes, 16th century style

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities

    The Good Huswifes Jewell was an English recipe book written by Thomas Dawson which appeared in the late 16th century, of which the British Library has helpfully provided a transcript of the page covering pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, otherwise known in secular Britain as Pancake Day.

    pancake

    The transcript of the pancake recipe is as follows:

    To make Pancakes

    Take new thicke Creame a pine, foure or five yolks of egs, a good handful of flower and two or three spoonefuls of ale, strain them together into a faire platter, and season it with a good handfull of sugar, a spooneful of synamon, and a little Ginger: then take a friing pan, and put in a litle peece of Butter, as big as your thumbe, and when it is molten brown, cast it out of your pan, and with a ladle put to the further side of your pan some of your stuffe, and hold your pan …, so that your stuffe may run abroad over all the pan as thin as may be: then set it to the fire, and let the fyre be verie soft, and when the one side is baked, then turn the other, and bake them as dry as ye can without burning.

    This is the first time I’ve ever come across a pancake recipe featuring ale. 🙂

    As regards the author, Thomas Dawson wrote a number of popular and influential recipe books including The Good Huswifes Jewell (1585), The good Hus-wifes handmaid for the kitchen (1594) and The Booke of Carving and Sewing (1597). These books covered a broad range of subjects, including general cookery, sweet waters, preserves, animal husbandry, carving, sewing and the duties of servants.

  • Bristol Post Balls – the invisible Widdecombe

    Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities, Politics

    The Bristol Post has for years given favourable coverage to a North Somerset ‘zoo’ which has an interesting sideline in promoting creationism.

    Today’s edition continues this trend.

    Noah’s Ark ‘Zoo’ Farm has just taken delivery of a new African elephant and former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe was allegedly there to welcome its arrival, according to the photo caption in the report.

    Bristol Post screenshot

    I’d like to congratulate Ann on her choice of camouflage outfit!

    If you can see Ann in the picture, please let me know via the comments below.

  • Confusion in Castle Park

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

    So far winter in Bristol has been not like winter at all; it’s been mostly mild and rather wet.

    As a result some of the local trees – like this cherry in Castle Park (picture taken this morning. Ed.) – are somewhat confused and believe it’s spring already, judging by the display of blossom.

    Cherry tree in blossom in January
    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now is hung with bloom along the bough… (A.E. Housman)

    However, where Castle Park is concerned, it’s not just its cherry trees that are confused. Its custodians – Bristol City Council – are confused too.

    According to the council’s Central Area Action Plan (CAAP) the western end of Castle Park is a prime development opportunity and has been earmarked for covering in concrete at a time when the city has enough empty shops, offices and other commercial space to cope with another recession besides the one that is allegedly now at an end.

    This act of municipal largesse to developers comes in spite of the fact that over 95% of CAAP consultation responses relating to Castle Park were against any development that would mean building on the park and that it’s only some 5 or 6 years since the council encountered firm opposition from Bristolians the last time it proposed developing this bit of Castle Park.

    Once again, there’s a petition against the development of Castle Park. Its preamble reads as follows:

    As a resident of Bristol, I am dismayed at and object to the proposals in the current Bristol Central Area Plan to build on green space and to cut down some 40 mature trees in the St Mary le Port area of Castle Park and in the High St and Wine St which border it.

    Whilst the old disused buildings there are indeed in need of refurbishment and bringing into use, I do not accept that to do so it is necessary to build on any of the existing green space surrounding the buildings or to cut down the trees, which is what the proposals would mean.

    Further, this is hardly in line with Bristol being the European Green Capital in 2015.

    Sign the petition.

  • Piper and penguin

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

    I’ve been aware of Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton et al. and their expeditions to Antarctica since my childhood and on Christmas Eve this year was made aware through social media of the exploits of the 1902-1904 Scottish National Antarctic Expedition.

    Although its work was overshadowed by more prestigious expeditions, the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition nevertheless completed a full programme of exploration and scientific work, including the establishment of the first manned meteorological station in Antarctic territory, as well as the discovery of new land to the east of the Weddell Sea.

    Below is a photograph taken on that expedition; a suitably light-hearted one of piper Gilbert Kerr serenading a penguin.

    Gilbert Kerr, piper, with penguin. Photographed by William Speirs Bruce during the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902-04
    Gilbert Kerr, piper, with penguin. Photographed by William Speirs Bruce during the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902-04. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

    However, penguins did more for the expedition than provide an audience for pipers. They were a regular item on the menu too!

    A typical day’s diet there might have been: breakfast of porridge and penguin eggs, with bacon on Wednesdays and Thursdays and coffee or cocoa week about. Lunch of eggs with bully beef or bread and cheese and tea. Dinner of penguin “hare soup”, then stewed penguin, with some farinaceous pudding or preserved fruit to follow.

    The above comes from the text accompanying a splendid photo of Bill Smith, the expedition’s cook from Glasgow Digital Library, which has a fine collection of photographs from the expedition. I also love the final sentence on the page too for its description of Smith:

    Smith’s substantial physique is a good advertisement for the value of his own work.

    Season’s greetings all.

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