Feasts and Festivals: St. Bartholomew's Day

John Everett Millais- A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day, Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge (via Wikipedia)

St. Bartholomew was born in the 1st century in Palestine and became the patron saint of butchers and tanners due to the fact that he was flayed alive. Happy thought, indeed. St. Bartholomew also became the patron-saint of bee-keepers and honey-makers.*

In 1572, the feast of St. Bartholomew became inextricably linked to the religious wars in France (and, indeed, throughout Europe). Francis Walsingham, one of Queen Elizabeth's advisors, encouraged Charles IX of France to support a Huguenot (French protestant) raid in the Spanish Netherlands in July 1572. It was a disaster and caused Charles to turn from his Huguenot admiral, Gaspard de Coligny, to Henri de Guise, founder of the Catholic League. On St. Bartholomew's Day 1572, Charles allowed the massacre of protestants gathered in Paris for the marriage of Charles's sister, Marguerite, to Henri de Navarre, a powerful protestant leader. The brutal act solidified English protestant support for Elizabeth, due to fears of what could happen to them should Mary Stuart become queen of England.** As a result of the massacre and continuing religious tensions in France throughout the early-modern period, tens of thousands of Huguenots emigrated from France, often settling in England or the English colonies in America.***

In honor of St. Bartholomew's Day, I made Honey Toffee Apples, adapted from the recipe in Cattern Cakes and Lace. Here's where I'm going to give you the opportunity to learn from my experience: taste the honey you're going to use before you try this recipe. Please. Not that the taste of the toffee was unpleasant, it was just weird.  I usually buy local honey, but it doesn't usually taste like this! So, I believe that the problem I had with the recipe was my funky honey (It had a strong and savory taste when I tried it, which was, naturally after I'd made toffee...) and not the method, so I've included the recipe if you feel brave enough to attempt it!

I really love the burnished sheen of the toffee and the juxtaposition between the crisp crackly candy shell and the sweet-tart apple. I think next time I'll either try a different honey or use golden syrup instead. The honey toffee (leftovers from making the apples) isn't bad; I think it would do really well as a cough remedy and thus may start selling it as a patent medicine. Any takers?

Honey Toffee Apple sitting on shards of Honey Toffee

I used twigs from the yard (I washed them!) for dipping sticks.

Honey Toffee Apples

*Julia Jones and Barbara Deer, "St. Bartholomew's Day" in Cattern Cakes and Lace: A Calendar of Feasts (London: Dorling Kindersley, 1987), 94.
** G.R. Elton, "The Growing Conflict, 1568-85" in England Under the Tudors (London: Routledge, 1991), 301.
***G.M. Trevelyan, History of England Volume II: The Tudors and the Stuart Era (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956), 233, 265-66.

Yesterday on The Past on a Plate: "The Basics: Poached Eggs"

The Basics: Poached Eggs

Poached eggs, if you've never seen them made, can be quite intimidating, especially when not using the little egg-poaching cups. However, I didn't want to buy an egg poacher and I used to hate cleaning the little cups in the one at my parents house, so Paul and I had to learn how to poach eggs. Thankfully, I have a 1946 copy of The Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book! Here are photos of Paul doing the honors so I could take the photos.  He's a much more patient egg-cracker than I am and somehow manages to almost never break a yolk. That's why he's the egg-poaching master. No worries--you can be, too.*

1. Using a 13" covered skillet, bring salted water to a boil. It should be enough water to fill half the skillet and enough salt to be about 1/2 tablespoon per 1 quart of water. Just estimate.

2. Carefully break an egg into a saucer (be sure this is a saucer that can withstand boiling water). You need to be sure to keep the yolk in tact.  Very fresh eggs with hold together better.  (You can use the older ones for boiling.)

3. Slip the egg into the salted water.

4. Repeat until all eggs are in the water (you should be able to poach 4 to 6 at a time).

5. Turn the heat down to medium, cover the skillet and cook the eggs 3 to 5 minutes. We usually only do three minutes if the eggs are going into a dish that is cooked after the poached eggs are added.

6.  Place a cloth over a plate. Remove the eggs from the water with a slotted spoon and drain on the cloth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

*If you do happen to break a yolk, you can use that egg to make:

• Apfelkuchen
• Artichoke, Bacon and Cheddar Quiche
• Chicken and Mushroom Pie
• Come-uppance Cake
• Creole Cake
• Easter Biscuits
• Kerry Apple Cake
• One-egg Cake
• Parkin
• Sussex Potato and Cheese Cakes
• Treacle Tart
• Victoria Sandwich
• Yorkshire Pudding

Yesterday on The Past on a Plate: Salmon with Lemon-Dill Butter and Life This Week: August 22, 1938

Salmon with Lemon-Dill Butter and Life This Week: August 22, 1938

Salmon with Lemon-Dill Butter is served on a bed of buttered rice with Perfect Steamed Broccoli and

Carottes étuvées au beurre.*

This salmon dish is quick, simple and tasty.  The only advanced preparation required is to make the lemon-dill butter, which comes together in no time and freezes firm in about 20 minutes.  You'll want to check your salmon a couple of minutes early, just to make sure it doesn't overcook.  Few things are worse than overcooked fish!  Serve salmon on a bed of buttered rice.

One last thing--this recipe makes enough butter for 8 people.  Just keep the leftovers in the freezer for a quick salmon dinner whenever you want!


Salmon With Lemon-Dill Butter

Salmon with Lemon-Dill Butter on buttered rice with chilled Chardonnay and a green salad with Walnut Vinaigrette--it's best made with sea salt

We ate this meal while watching Gunga Din last night on TCM!

Edited 8/25/11: This post is now linked to Fat Tuesday Forager Festival at Real Food Forager.

*****

"Astaire and Rogers Do the Yam"

Since we really ate salmon while watching Gunga Din, I suppose that's the real movie tie-in, but the movie in Life this week is the Astaire-Rogers flick Carefree. I tried desperately to somehow connect my Scottish salmon to Carefree. Here goes: psychoanalyst Astaire gets his patient (Ginger Rogers) to eat an awful lot of seafood in an attempt to induce dreaming. And, Astaire dances and drives (golf balls, that is) to Irving Berlin's "Since They Turned 'Loch Lomond' Into Swing."

Carefree is the Astaire-Rogers film that doesn't really fit in with the others. First off, it's the only one that doesn't take place in the realm of showbiz. Yes, Ginger Rogers plays Amanda Cooper, a radio personality, but Fred Astaire plays a doctor, Tony Flagg. Secondly, it's Amanda who chases Tony in this film. Thirdly, Carefree comes off more as a screwball comedy (it even co-stars Ralph Bellamy) than a musical. It's rather an oddball in the Astaire-Rogers canon, but it's fun to watch nevertheless. Plus, it has a lot of scenes in a very "1930s Connecticut"-style country club. I love all the stone walls and big fireplaces.  Lower your expectations slightly: Carefree doesn't quite stand up to the earlier Astaire-Rogers films (although I definitely prefer it to The Barkleys of Broadway) or to the other RKO screwball comedies (like Bringing Up Baby, released earlier the same year).  However, it's better than most of the films that have come out in the last few years (in my humble opinion!) and you should be able to rent it, which is cheaper than going out to see a movie.  Win-win!

Dancing the Yam at the country club

More Yam-dancing

*I've used the recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Very Good Recipes tags: salmon, lemon, british, dill

What's in my (grocery) bag?

The sad thing is, I have tons of reusable grocery bags, but I don't always remember to get them out of the car when I go in to shop! We've started using grocery-store plastic bags as our trash bags, so we haven't actually purchased trash bags in years, which is fabulous.  Anyway, from a visit to World Market we have:

• Gray scarf- to replace one I bought on the Boul'Mich, which sadly disappeared over the course of two moves
• PG Tips- my favorite cheap tea; I love the top-hinge cardboard box, as well
• Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Gold- bought to try it out; it has a warrant from the Prince of Wales, which screams out from the shelf to a snob like myself (I keep saying I'm going to buy the organic gin that Prince Charles drinks some day, but I'm a wee bit attached to my Tanqueray, which has a royal warrant from the Queen)

Please be sure to check out yesterday's post: "Potato Scones and Entertainment for the New Economy"

Have a great weekend!

Potato Scones and Entertainment for the New Economy

So, driving back from the farmers' market Saturday morning, I heard an economist on NPR* talking about how we didn't really have a recession--we had a contraction, which is even worse news. Not being an economist, what I could figure out is that while a recession is a blip that doesn't change the projected growth of the economy (i.e. it fits in the "best fit graph" equation for the economy), a contraction actually alters growth projections. I've decided to do my bit and point all of you lovelies in the direction of nearly-free entertainment. You'll have to keep paying for your electricity and internet access, though, which is a total bummer.

Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat in a still from The 39 Steps

Image from Doctor Macro

One of my favorite websites is Internet Archive, which is all about public-domain awesomeness. Did you know they have The 39 Steps available to download for free? How awesome is that? (Or, you can watch it on this page** if you don't want to download it.) And besides, who doesn't love Robert Donat? The 39 Steps is actually the first movie Paul and I watched after moving to Wichita. We had already changed the address on our Netflix subscription and the disc arrived shortly after we did! After we had unloaded the last box from the moving van and our family members had left for Oklahoma City, Paul and I rolled the TV cart (no big flat-screen then!) next to the bed, propped ourselves up with pillows and vegged out.

While not very faithful to its source material (Alfred Hitchcock was bad about that.), The 39 Steps is an entertaining chase through London and the Scottish highlands when Robert Donat's character (Richard Hannay) is wrongly (of course!) suspected of murder. He meets Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) along the way and she gives him almost as much trouble as the police. Both Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll learn that things aren't always as they appear...

*****

It looks like a biscuit, smells like a biscuit, tastes like a biscuit, but it isn't a biscuit--it's a Potato Scone!  Thankfully, a scone that stealthily conceals one of its ingredients isn't insidious like the villains in The 39 Steps--it's just tasty.

1. Work the softened butter into the flour mixture
2. What dough looks like after butter is mixed in
3. Mash the boiled potatoes
4. Add potatoes to dough
5. Make a well for the milk
6. Mix in enough milk so that dough becomes cohesive (keep checking; it happens more quickly than you'd think!)
7. Cut dough into twelve triangles
8. Bake on a floured baking sheet (Don't forget the little bits you've trimmed off the scones!)

I've been eating these for breakfast this week.  So I have fresh scones every morning, I wrapped each square (two triangles) in plastic wrap and then put them in a container in the freezer.  When I get up, I place the two scones on a baking sheet and preheat the oven.  It takes about twelve minutes (instead of ten) to bake them from their frozen state.
Potato Scones

These delicious scones are for Breakfast Club #14: Potatoes.

Breakfast Club was created by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

Thanks to Scrumptious Sally for hosting this month!

A closer look at my vintage Staffordshire cup and saucer:

I'm incapable of passing up gorgeous transferware if it's a decent price (or downright cheap). Unfortunately, I only have this cup and saucer in this particular pattern! I'm keeping an eye out for it, though, and hoping I can find a good deal on some other pieces.

*****

*Farmers' markets and NPR?!  Now you'll only need one guess as to my voter registration...  ;-)

**

Brandy Cheesecake

The table laid for Paul's birthday: Lemonade*, Brandy Cheesecake and Bourbon Pecan Pie

Showing off my vintage tablecloth

A slice of Brandy Cheesecake

Brandy Cheesecake

1. The 9" springform pan is coated with 2 tablespoons of very soft butter.
2. The butter is coated with soft breadcrumbs (from my English White Bread) and a teaspoon of sugar.
3. The cream cheese should be softened enough so that sugar can be stirred in with a spoon and you don't have to get a mixer dirty!
4. Stirring in eggs and vanilla
5. Sifted flour is folded in.
6. After batter is poured into pan, nutmeg is grated over the top.
7. Just out of the oven
8. Chilled and ready to cut

*from the recipe in my 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook