Geriatric OE

The weekly musing of a couple of Kiwis on their geriatric OE in The UK






Thursday, 6 December 2012

Food again!!



 I didn’t bring it up this time; well not really One of my daughters was writing about peanut butter biscuits. That reminded me about something I wrote ages ago. 
 
So in the words of many great cooks, here is one I prepared earlier.

One of my friends only wants red jelly when she’s sick. Me, I crave homemade black currant jam sandwiched between thin slices of buttered white bread. Cut into triangles too. A few years ago when I was gluten free this comfort foo was out of the question. But I am cholesterol savvy so butter is a no no. And none of your store bought jam either, only mum’s home-made jam was good enough. I can just about  smell the rich purple-sweet aroma and almost  taste the purple-summer of it. Mmmmmmmm
 
Special foods, included Mums grey stodgie bread pudding full of fat flavour bursts of sultanas. I’ve tried to make this a couple of times, but never up to Mums standard; she didn’t pass the secret of it on before she died.  
 Were they raisins or sultanas?  They’re all the same, aren’t they? Well I think they are, and so that I don’t get myself into a culinary confusion I only buy sultanas. Let a recipe call for raisins or currants, I’ll use sultanas. It’s called simplifying life.

 Christmas cakes, when I used to bake them that is, were a different kettle of fish, or bowl of cake mix. Mixed fruit comes in nice neat bags, one or two per cake. Soaked in the brandy overnight, if there was any, and then mix it all together. Then galump the spicy-fruity mix into a tin lined with greased paper and umpteen layers of brown paper, newspaper would do at a pinch, to stop the cake burning. The house would fill up with the tummy gurgling baking aroma.

I used to bake a lot. Afghans, peanut cookies, instant pudding biscuits, spice cake, chocolate cake, coconut cake. That was when there were hungry mouthed lunch boxes to fill and not much money to fill them.  It’s a long time since I baked anything. 

Getting back to food, mmmm. As a kid, and occasionally as a grown up too, golden syrup on doorstep wedges of thickly buttered bread. Better still was condensed milk, sluggish and cold from the fridge spread thickly on the bread, or spooned straight from the tin; when no one was watching. Yummy. Either way it would sticky up the fingers. Just goes to show that he white suited colonel doesn’t have a monopoly on finger likin’ good

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