One Fat Man

Peas and Bacon for Candlemas -- Liichtmesdag in Luxembourg

One of the more peculiar highlights of my year is my January trip to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, where I have been privileged to give my 'dame' (in the traditional British Panto sense) four times now --- most recently as the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella. We always do the pantomime rather late in the season, when people and scenery are more easily available. The marvellous thing about this is that it extends the festal feeling of Christmas to the end of January, and towards its proper end at Candlemas.

In the traditional agrarian calendar the return to work after Christmas was gradual too. In England people got sort-of done with Christmas on twelfth night, and returned to work the following Monday (Plough Monday) to have a go at churning up the soil. But really, whilst there was some stuff to do, often the ground was frozen or it was simply too cold to get anything much done at all and so the festivities continued.

Candlemas was that bit later and as a significant feast it became the perfect time to get rid of Christmas once and for all, falling as it did at a cross-quarter point of the year (the days in between the quarter days --- the two solstices and equinoxes). The cross-quarter days were also occasions for paying debts and hiring new servants, and thus were often given to mini celebrations.

Much like our pantomimes now the time from twelfth night to Candlemas was often a time of mummers' plays and revels. Light was a big theme, largely because of the way the feast falls between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The feast heralds the coming spring in many ways and all over Europe the blessing of candles, and processions with candles, is traditional.

It's very traditional -- certainly in France -- to eat pancakes at Candlemas, partly as it can often fall close to the start of Lent and so the need to use up good things in advance of the great fast was frequently an issue. But pancakes have been featured twice on this blog before and thus are not an option.

So... in quiet desperation and looking back to the joys of panto I thought, 'I wonder if they do anything for Candlemas in Luxembourg?'

 

It turns out, they do! The children basically go 'trick-or-treating'. They sing a very traditional song, which references St Blaise (tomorrow) and asks him to feed them well:

Léiwer Härgottsblieschen,	Dear little St. Blasius,
Gitt ons Speck Ierbessen	Give us bacon and peas.
Ee Pond, Pond Zwee,	One pound, two pounds,
Dat da anert Joer gitt der gesond,	So that next year you will be healthy.
Da gitt der gesond.	You will be healthy.
Loosst Déi jonk Leit liewen.	Let the young people live.
Loosst Déi al Leit stierwen,	Let the old ones die.
Kommt der net ball	If you don’t come fast,
On Feiss ginn kal ons.	Our feet will get cold.
Kommt Der net gläich,	If you don’t come at once,
Wed da gi op Schlaich.	We will slip away.
Kommt der net geschwënn,	If you don’t come soon,
On Feiss ginn ons Denn.	Our feet will get thin.
Kommt Der net gewëss,	If you don’t come for certain,
Da Der Kritt e Schouss voll Ness.	You will get a lap full of nuts.

 

It's a bit blunt, isn't it? It speaks of needing the spring, and perhaps in cold winters it was necessary for the children to remind the adults that it was in them that the future lay... not in their grandparents. Anyway, I decided to bypass the 'lap full of nuts' in favour of 'bacon and peas' which always go down well.  So here's an idea for a souped up version of petit-pois a la francaise with added cabbages and leeks and bacon. In the spirit of ridding the house of the last bits of Christmas greenery you could also throw in a few miserable sprouts if you have them left.

Fry some bacon in cubes/small gobbets, then fry sliced leeks, halved sprouts and shredded cabbage until tender but still crisp. Add frozen peas and a little sherry and cream/milk. Grate on some nutmeg, and a little black pepper. Bubble it away for a few minutes. This all goes very nicely with roast pork and a Moselle valley wine.

It occurs to me now that perhaps the rhyme refers to a very traditional Luxembourgish dish of broad beans with pork (Judd mat Gaardbounen). But I think this dish of bacon and peas every bit as delicious.

St Lucy Buns and Gaudete!

Yesterday was the feast of St. Lucy and to aid me in my blogging duties (which I'll admit I have not been attending to of late), the brethren of my spiritual home St Louis Abbey, MO., have set to it and baked St. Lucy Buns and sent me photographs of them. There was no message included with the photographs to say 'put these on your blog', but I felt the imperative, and so here I am.

St. Lucy is one of those early Christian virgins who met a sticky end for refusing to part with her honour, much like St Agatha and St Agnes. In Lucy's story is the rather gruesome detail that her eyes --- which were so fine that they tempted many a man --- were gouged out. The tradition is that they were either removed as part of her torture, or that she removed them herself to ward off the unwanted advances. Given that she was Sicilian, and thus no doubt given to grand gesture, I find the latter more plausible.

The whole business with the eyes has meant that St. Lucy has come to be associated with light, and sight. Whilst some say that the story about her eyes being removed is late, the fact that her very name means light suggests that this has always been part of what she has to teach us. Lucy's feast falls during Advent, close to the solstice, and she points us towards Christmas with particular hope. It is beautiful that this year St Lucy's feast day fell the day before Gaudete Sunday, when with Rose vestments we take the edge off Advent a bit and look forward to Christmas with hope. There is a wonderful sense of looking forward, of seeking, of expectation. It is interesting to remember that Lucy was blinded... she could not see and indeed we do not yet 'see', rather we look forward to 'seeing', to the new vision that will come in and through the Incarnation.

I've been reading the Chronicles of Narnia of late, and I think it's no coincidence that the youngest of the Pevensie children --- the one who first discovers Narnia, and indeed the one who is first to see Aslan when they return in Prince Caspian --- is called Lucy. It is Lucy who looks forward, Lucy who points us towards Aslan.

In Scandinavian countries they are particularly fond of Lucy, and with such miserable dark winters well they should be. Lucy is venerated solemnly with all sorts of pagan-looking festivities involving girls who pop advent-wreath type things on their heads. I'm sure many poor young Swedish girls have set fire to themselves at this time of year --- it must have been particularly dangerous in the 1970s with all that polyester around.

In addition to all this larking about, the Swedes also make lovely buns for St. Lucy, which they enjoy with coffee. And this is what Br Dunstan and Fr Ambrose made yesterday. The bright saffron in the mix reminds us of light, and the raisins are perhaps eyes --- I'm not certain on this point, but it sounds convincing so it's good enough for me.

 

Here's the receipt:

200 g unsalted butter, plus extra, to serve
450 ml milk
50 g fresh yeast
1 egg, plus 1 extra, lightly beaten, to brush
165 g (¾ cup) caster sugar
¼ tsp saffron threads, finely chopped
900 g (6 cups) plain flour
64 (about 85 g) raisins

 

Method:

Melt butter in a pan. Add milk and heat until warm. Pour into a large bowl and add yeast, stirring to dissolve. Add egg, sugar, saffron and 1 tsp salt. Gradually add flour, stirring constantly, until mixture forms a smooth but sticky dough. Cover bowl with a clean tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for 40 minutes or until double in size.

Punch down dough and knead until smooth. Divide into 4, then divide each piece into 8. Shape each piece into a 20 cm length, then form into an S shape, tucking ends into dough and pressing to join. Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper, cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to prove for another 40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200°C. Place a raisin into each circle created by the S shape, brush with beaten egg.

Bake your buns for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm with nice hot coffee, and perhaps some butter.

 

Mince Pies for not-the-Annunciation: 25th March

Easter is coming. Now, I tend to focus on Christmas quite a bit at Easter. I remember once having a conversation with an Anglcian friend of mine about the Incarnation. We were talking about whether humanity could have been saved by the Incarnation alone – that is, is the Incarnation by itself enough to restore humanity? In the Christ child is human flesh perfected already, are we saved? Of course, we both knew that the answer is both yes and no… In the Christ child is our redemption, and the potentiality of it, but it is only in the cross that Christ draws all things to himself, and achieves our redemption.  But thinking of the Incarnation at Easter and of the Cross at Christmas is a nice exercise. The Incarnation is pointless without the Cross, the Cross impossible without the Incarnation.

This Easter these thoughts have been more pronounced than usual. This is partly because Monday would have been the feast of the Annunciation (because it’s Holy Week the Annunciation is transferred to 8^th April… but it’s difficult not to think of it). Indeed, as we make our last steps towarsd Easter it is wonderful to remember the first steps of the Incarnate Logos towards the Cross too, we can remember that in the Virgin’s womb was the potential for our salvation.

It’s also been feeling Christmassy. Certainly the Almighty has decided to make us think of Christmas:

So now seems as good a time as any to finally give you some pictures of me making Mince Pies this Christmas with my dear MaMa. In the pictures you’ll note the following:

A splendid Christmas apron – given to me by the wonderful Mrs Joan Casey of St Louis, MO.

 

My mother.

 

We used my granny’s recipe for rose crust pastry. It can't be beaten, and here it is:

The pastry is very short, so be sure to chill it, and avoid overworking it (or use marg instead of butter - but it'll taste awful). Full details of mince pie making can be found here.

And whilst you think of the symbolism of the mince pie next Christmas, the pastry manger, the holes on top for the wise men, keep in mind that those piercings might just as well – if it doesn’t seem too crass a connection – remind us of Zechariah’s prophecy; ‘the shall look upon Him whom they have pierced’ (Zech 12.10 - quoted in Jn 19.37) for in the joy of Christmas we must also detect the desolation of the Cross.

Dutch St. Nicholas Cake - for St. Nick, 6th December

Today is the feast of St Nicholas, from whom we ultimately get Santa Claus. Beloved across Europe it consistently surprises me that jolly old St Nick was actually Turkish.

He was born in Myra in what is now modern day Turkey. He was a bishop, and a worker of many miracles. He was also know for his stealthy giving of gifts... or more accurately, alms.

Nicholas was buried at Myra, and there has been a church there since the 6th century, which I had the pleasure to visit some years ago. It is very impressive despite the fact that it needs restoration work. Sadly I don't think the relics of St N are in Myra , I have a vague recollection of reading that they were ... wait for it... nicked!

Nevertheless, Myra remains a site of great devotion (and tourism). We have a rather jolly gourd from Myra painted to look like a Christmassy St Nick. We also have a Christmas Kilim rug with him on it which I imagine some enterprising teenaged carpet shop owner fleeced my father for.


I remember reading in the official Myra bumpf about St Nicholas dropping purses of money secretively into the house of three daughters whose father had died - thus giving them dowries and enabling them to marry. N's quiet giving wonderfully embodies our Lord's instructions about almsgiving in Matthew 6... although somehow we do all know about it, so it can't have been THAT secret.

It is from these early traditions that come the tradition of St Nicholas filling the shoes of children with sweets on his feast, and of Santa filling our stockings at Christmas.

The shoe-filling brigade are mostly European, and so today's recipe comes from Holland. It came as a surprise (a surprise gift if you will) as my mother made it and surprised me with some photographs of it. She got the recipe from a lady in our home parish. She's had the recipe for some time, but hadn't made it because it turned out to be rather difficult to get ground cardamon here. Luckily my father was able to charm one of his lorry drivers into bringing some over. Always good to have a spice mule.

So here, thanks to parents, parish and lorry driver is a cake for St Nicholas:

Spices:

2 1/2 tspns ground cinnamon

1/2 tspn cloves

Good pinch nutmeg

Good pinch ground anniseed

Pinch of pepper

Pinch of ground cardamon

 

Pastry:

6 oz soft light brown sugar

6 oz butter

1 egg yolk

10 oz SR Flour

The spices - above

10 oz ready-made marzipan

 

Preheat the oven to 170C. Cream the butter and sugar together, add the egg yolk, and sift in the spices and flour. Form together into a stiff dough. Cut the pastry in half and roll two thickish squares, to fit a 7 or 8 inch cake tin. Grease the tin, and line it with greaseproof paper. Put the first half in the tin, and then roll the marzipan into a square to fit on top, add it on top of the first layer of pastry, and then put the second layer on top of it. Press it down a little. Brush with egg white or milk, and decorate with almonds if desired. Bake for 45 minutes. It will sink a bit when it comes out of the oven. Apparently this is normal.

A Michaelmas Feast - 29th September: Cheese and Dessert

As I’m quite avant garde I fused the cheese and dessert courses together. Shocking, I know.

I didn’t do very much for these. I just bought things.

For the cheese I bought a delightful wedge of Stichelton from the lovely people at Neal’s Yard Dairy. It is my favourite cheese.

Laura picked up some other cheese in case anyone wasn’t a fan of blue cheese.

I also bought some Bath Oliver biscuits to have the cheese with – again a favourite.

For dessert I served some wet walnuts (that is, fresh walnuts) to which I am partial, and what must have been pretty much the last of the Kentish cobnuts. I obtained both of these at Borough Market.

I also got some nice fat quinces which I lightly poached in rose water and vanilla sugar.

Because of the quinces I thought a Madeira wine would go better with this course than Port. So I forced my friend William to bring a bottle of Madeira. We also had some port going too, we are not barbarians.

For the quince:

Three large quinces – peeled, cored and sliced (they can be quite woody, so make sure you have a good sharp knife).

A few teaspoons of vanilla sugar – I used my lovely Greek stuff again

¾ tablespoons of rose water

3 oz sugar

Put it all in a pan just covered with water. Simmer on a low heat for about 40 minutes. Leave to cool and then chill. Well, that's it... I've given the whole Michaelmas menu below.

A Michaelmas Feast

Smoked salmon with blinis &c

Soupe a la Reine

Roast Goose with Forcemeat and Sage and Onion Stuffings, baked apples, chipolatas with bacon, red cabbage, seasonal vegetables a la Francais, roast potatoes, apple sauce, bread sauce, and giblet gravy.

Blackberry Meringue Pie

Stichelton Cheese, other cheeses, cob nuts, wet walnuts, and quinces poached in rose water and vanilla sugar.

I had a jolly Michaelmas, and I'm grateful to the friends who came to share it with me. All that remains is to utter a hope for everyone, and myself, for the coming year in the form of the traditional prayer to St Michael:

Holy Michael Archangel, defend us in the day of battle, be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray, and do thou, prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God thrust down to Hell Satan, and all the wicked spirits who roam the earth for the ruin of souls. Amen.

 

 

A Michaelmas Feast - 29th September: Accompaniments

One of the difficult things about a large meal with a large bird can be timings. Vegetables that can be prepared in advance are good, particularly where it’s a two part cooking process. You can par-cook the green vegetables, cool them quickly and then reheat (with a quantity of double cream as in the case of the petit pois a la Francaise recipe). Red cabbage can also be made in advance.

Space in the oven can be difficult too. The only way to get around it – if you have a small oven – is to cook some things ahead of time. Chipolatas wrapped in bacon can easily be cooked in advance and reheated whilst the bird rests. The same is true of baked apples.

Baked Apples

Baked apples are a traditional thing to serve with a Michaelmas Goose, being perfectly in season.

They are simple to make.

Apples – 1 per person

Prunes – 2 per apple

Nutmeg – a little

Gin – a jigger

Earl Grey tea

Butter 4oz, melted

Soak the prunes in the tea and gin, together with the nutmeg. Meanwhile core the apples. Pop two prunes into each apple. Pour over melted butter and bake for 45 minutes.

The baked apples were not the hit of the meal, but I rather liked them.

 

Seasonal Vegetables a la Francaise

See my earlier recipe here. This time I used peas, runner beans, kale and leeks.

Red Cabbage

(feeds about 20 – worth doing lots as it freezes well)

Two red cabbages

An onion

A couple of large cooking apples

Nutmeg

Cinnamon

A couple of ounces of sugar

¼ pint of port

A little water - perhaps

A little red wine vinegar

Butter

Shred the cabbage, and finely chop the onion and apples. Melt butter in a very large pan. Fry cabbage, onions and apples a little. Add spices and sugar, and then the liquid. Bubble it about a bit. There shouldn’t be too much water.

Put in a lowish over (150 ish) for three hours, checking every forty minutes, stirring, and maybe adding more water if necessary.

Roast Potatoes

Par-boil these and then give them about 45 minutes in a hot oven. Put a tin of goose fat in the oven for 15 minutes before you need to put the potatoes in. They can go in 15 minutes before the goose is ready and then finish off whilst it rests.

Sauces

Bread sauce and apple sauce are both very easy, and I can’t be bothered to write about them... except to say that I love bread sauce. Giblet gravy is made by simmering the giblets with carrot onion and herbs the night before the feast, and making a stock. Then use the stock, together with pan juices, to make a gravy.

A Michaelmas Feast - 29th September: The Goose

It has long been traditional to eat Goose at Michaelmas. This is for several reasons. The first is quite clearly that late September is the first point of the year when the geese are big enough to eat, they are also still young and not too fatty, which arguably makes them rather nicer than they are at Christmas. The second is that Michaelmas was one of the four ‘quarter days’. That is, it was a day when servants were hired and debts were paid. These quarter days (the others being Lady Day, Christmas and Midsummer) also fall on or around the two equinoxes and the two solstices – this year’s Autumn equinox having been on the 22nd September – so it is clear that feasting has long been traditional at these times of year. Often the quarter day debts, rents, and pay packets, were paid in kind rather than in cash, and a common form of currency was the goose, which contributed to the tradition of eating a Michaelmas Goose. It is said that eating goose at Michaelmas ensures a prosperous year financially. We can only hope.

My first goose memory:

I remember having goose for my uncle’s birthday, which falls on the 30th December. It was decided one year (probably by my Granny) that we would have goose, I must have been about three at the time. The best thing about this for me was going to collect it from my Great Aunty Mary who has a small-holding in Lingfield. As a child it was always a source of great excitement to visit Aunty Mary. This was for several reasons... the food (usually her own excellent North Ronaldsay lamb), the chickens – which usually resulted eggs to take home, and the tractor, which was inedible but majestic... even though it was invariably in the garage. Collecting the goose was a wonderful moment, and I have a very clear memory of it. It was also the moment when I really started to connect food on the plate with food in the farm. I got some of the feathers from the goose to take home and I remember seeing Uncle David bring the goose out. There were still some feathers on it and it's long neck too. I knew exactly where that goose had come from and I knew it was a goose. I’d possibly even met it. In these days of supermarkets and homogenized... everything, this must be increasingly rare for children. Such a pity.

On with the meat of the thing:

I served Michaelmas Goose with Forcemeat Stuffing, Sage and Onion Stuffing, Chipolatas and Bacon, Roast Potatoes, Baked Apples, Red Cabbage, Seasonal Green Vegetables a la Francaise, Bread Sauce, Apple Sauce, and Gravy.

The first step is to order your goose. I ordered mine from Goodmans Geese, because I saw them on the Two Fat Ladies many years ago (and more recently on DVD, given that I have the box set and that it’s usually on in the background). Goodmans also do a Michaelmas delivery service, and I got a large goose (12 and a half lbs) for £70 delivered, which I thought was actually pretty good. I had wanted to support my local butcher but they could only get me a frozen goose – a pain to thaw, but they freeze very well – for over £100! Here is how the goose looked when she (I don’t know her gender, but she seemed female) arrived:

Get the bird oven ready the night before. This involves stuffing her and putting her into her tin. The stuffings are as follows, the quantities are somewhat approximate as I tend to do it by feel. But you can find stuffing recipes all over the internet:

Forcemeat:

An onion – finely chopped

8oz good sausage meat (mine came from the nice chaps at The Ginger Pig)

Sage and Parsley, quite a lot of the latter

A handful of breadcrumbs

Salt and pepper

The liver of the goose chopped finely

 

Mix it all up and pop it in the bird. Neck end.

 

Sage and Onion:

Another onion – finely chopped

A good quantity of chopped sage

Salt and pepper

A good bowlful of bread crumbs

An egg to bind

A couple of knobs of butter – melted

 

Mix it all up, it should cohere together well but not be too wet. Pop it in the bird – other end.

Some people don’t like to stuff both ends, but if you’ve got the oven hot enough and the whole thing is at room temperature before you begin then it will certainly cook. With this in mind, when the bird is stuffed leave out of the fridge for 12 hours or so before cooking. Often a good place to leave it is in the oven – provided that the oven is stone cold.

Before putting the goose on to cook prick the skin all over, and particularly under the wings. This is so that the fat drains out of it, and there is a lot of fat. Roast on a rack, so that it’s not sitting in its fat.

A goose of 12lbs will take three hours at about 200C. Every 20 – 30 mins pour the fat off into a basin, and baste the goose with boiling water. You can use the fat for the roast potatoes and you can freeze it to use at other times too.

When the cooking time is up and the juices are running clear take the goose out and leave covered with foil to rest for about half an hour.

I must admit that I’d never cooked a goose before, but the combined knowledge of duck cooking and turkey cooking seemed to work to my advantage and it was very nice... and the leaflet from Goodmans was very helpful too. Of course, what I should have done is call Aunty Mary, and ask for her advice.

A Michaelmas Feast - 29th September

Saturday was Michaelmas, the feast of Michael the Archangel. I decided a couple of months ago that I would do a traditional Roast Goose. This, over the weeks that followed, developed into a rather elaborate affair, but I think it worked quite nicely. I certainly had a lovely time.

We managed to squeeze eleven of us round the table – William, Tom, Guy, Lettie, Ed, Henry, Nick, Freddie, Tris, Laura and me – all mentioned by name because I think that’s important.

Quite a lot of prosecco, red wine, and port and madeira went into making the evening a hit, but hopefully the food contributed as well. Over the next few days I’m going to post blogs on the various courses. In the meantime here’s a picture of the goose to whet your appetites.

I hope you had a very happy Michaelmas!

Pigeons for the Purification of the BVM – 2nd Feb.

Last week it was the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Presentation as it’s now known… or Candelmas as it was traditionally known in England, even though that tends to have an Anglican sort of ring to it now.

The reason it’s called Candlemas is because the priest blesses candles and they get distributed to everyone, and the choir merrily sings the Nunc Dimittis – which obviously includes the following; ‘Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel’. Along with Simeon we celebrate the arrival of the Light of the World. It is also, sadly, the end of Christmas. Or it traditionally was, and is the day we put the crib scene away.

The reason I decided to do some dainty little pigeons is because in Luke ch 2 we hear about the two young doves or pigeons brought by Mary and Joseph to the Temple as a sacrifice for their first born son.

I feel a bit bad having taken so long to get the recipe up here. But it’s been a hectic sort of time of late.

Pigeons with Honey-Roast Beetroot and Cumberland Sauce

3 pigeons (I was cooking for three people)

6 rashers smoked streaky bacon

Butter

1 onion

4 sticks of celery

2 shots of gin

A handful of Juniper berries

Some good chicken or game stock

4 good-sized beetroots (raw)

Honey

Olive Oil

For the Cumberland Sauce -I’m sorry dear reader, I just followed St Delia for this. Make this the day before, or earlier in the day, you can reheat it a little before serving – the microwave (sorry) works best for this. This is a classic sauce to have with game. It's also good cold.

Method

Chop the bacon, onion, and celery and fry in a large casserole. When they have just started to get some colour remove from the pan, and melt about a tablespoon of butter. Now add the little pigeons. Brown them on all sides, don’t be afraid to give them some good colour. Now return the onion, bacon, and celery to the pan, move the pigeons to the top, and allow to heat through. Pour on the gin and let it evaporate. Then add the juniper berries and the stock, leaving the liquid level about half an inch below the top of the pigeons. Turn the pigeons over so that they are breast-side down. Cover, and pop in the oven at about 160C for about 25 minutes. Meanwhile wash the beetroot well, you may need to peel it a bit, but not all of it. Whatever you do be careful – beetroot stains! Chop the betroot into thick slices of just under half an inch thick. Lay them in a roasting tin or pyrex tray. Drizzle liberally with olive oil and honey.

When the twenty-five minutes are up take the pigeons out of the oven, remove the lid and turn the pigeons over. Brush the breasts with butter. Put back in the over uncovered, together with the beetroot. Turn the oven up to 200 and time for 15 minutes. When this time is up turn the beetroot slices over and return to the oven for another 15 minutes. If after this time the beetroot seems a little hard then give it a bit longer, reserving the pigeons out of the oven with the lid on.

Serve the pigeons on a bed of the bacon, onion and celery mixture, together with Dauphinoise potatoes, and sprouting brocolli, and put the Cumberland Sauce on the table so people can help themselves.

Leftover Cumberland sauce will go deliciously with ham.

Yoghurt Muffins with yoghurt, honey and rose water icing, served with Pistachio, Pomegranate, and Cardamon: for Queen Catherine of Aragon (d. 7th January 1536).

 

Now. I know what you’re going to say. Catherine of Aragon is not a saint… and no I suppose she’s technically not, but in my book she really is, and I have a deep love for her and a deep devotion to her. I think there MUST have been some early cult of sanctity around her, swiftly stamped upon by those nasty protestants. Indeed, vestiges of a cult surrounding Catherine remain, evidenced by the fact that to this day people leave pomegranates (her heraldic symbol) on her grave in Peterborough Catherdral. The events of Catherine’s later life, her marriage to Henry the VIII and the bogus divorce which led to the foundation of the Church of England, are familiar to most people. Fewer know of her role as a magnificent queen, the talk of England (she was held in such esteem that many hold to the theory that after her fall from grace the many pubs named in her honour were most conventionally renamed ‘The Cat and the Fiddle’ - a pun on 'fides' meaning faithful - Catherine the Faithful), a trusted regent in the King’s absence. Some of her fire is captured in a scene before the Legatine court in the play The Most Famous Life of Henry VIII (attributed to Shakespeare).

 

'In what have I offended you? what cause
Hath my behavior given to your displeasure,
That thus you should proceed to put me off,
And take your good grace from me?' (Act 2 Scene 4) 

This records a scene which happened in real life, and Catherine was famously stubborn in resisting Henry’s (ultimately successful) attempts to pension her off as the Dowager Princess of Wales (her title as Henry's brother Arthur's widow). She lived and died a queen, because she lived and died married to the King – after all, she’d spent a good twenty years being almost constantly pregnant by the fat b*stard.

Catherine’s childhood was no less extraordinary, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, she must have had a crazy upbringing in their travelling court. She was there when her parents finally ‘liberated’ Granada from the Moors in the same year that they authorised that Columbus fellow to go off and find America. A child of 7, already four years into her betrothal to Prince Arthur of England. How dismal mediaeval England must have been, how primitive after the wonderful tastes, and smells of the Alhambra. It is for this reason that I’ve adapted an arabic pudding for Queen Catherine. This is a recipe that I’ve sort of recreated from the wonderful restaurant Moro. However, theirs is much ‘wetter’ and sort of crumbled up.

  For the muffins:

 10 oz plain flour

8oz caster sugar
1 1/2 tspn baking powder
1/4  tspn bicarb

Two vials of vanilla sugar (I buy this stuff in Europe, it’s cool. No matter if you don’t have it).

Two tspns cardamon

1 tspn ground ginger

9oz plain yoghurt
4oz unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs
2 tspns of good quality vanilla extract (not essence)

1 tablespoon honey

 

 

 

To finish:

 2 oz of yoghurt, tablespoon of honey, two teaspoons of rose water and one of icing sugar, a little cardamon and a tablespoon of thick cream to make icing.

Pomegranate seeds (Catherine’s heraldic symbol, remember), chopped pistachio nuts, and cardamon pods.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Mix the wet ingredients (except the honey) together in a jug, starting with the eggs so that you can beat them together before adding other things. Now pour the wet mixture onto the dry mixture and fold together using a metal spoon. Drizzle the honey on top and fold that in too. Put the mixture into muffin cases in a muffin tin, being careful not to overfill. Bake in a preheated oven (190 C) for 20 minutes – check sneakily after 15 as they might be done.

Leave to cool. Mix all the icing ingredients together to make the icing. Take the muffins out of their cases and put them on plates, pour the icing luxuriantly over the top of each muffin. Sprinkle with pistachios and pomegranate seeds. Eat whilst thinking how wonderful Catherine was, and how different England might be had she borne a son who had lived beyond infancy.