Quinces re-heated

As it is annual quince-paste-making day in our household, I thought I'd re-heat an old post! Enjoy.

"QUINCE PASTE If the full flavour of the quinces be desired, stew them sufficiently tender to press through a sieve in the prepared juice of page 456; otherwise in just water enough to about three parts cover them; when they are soft quite through lift them out, let them cool and then pass them through a sieve; reduce them to a dry paste over a very clear fire and stir them constantly; then weigh the fruit and mix it with an equal proportion of pounded sugar or sugar boiled to candy height, we find the effect nearly the same whichever method be pursued and stir the paste without intermission until it is again so dry as to quit the pan and adhere to the spoon in one large ball; press it into shallow pans or dishes; cut it as soon as cold into small squares and should they seem to require it, dry them with a very gentle degree of heat, and when they are again cold store them in tin cases with well dried foolscap paper between them: the paste may be moulded when more convenient and kept until it is wanted for table in a very dry place. In France where the fruit is admirably confected the pate de coigns or quince paste is somewhat less boiled than we have directed and dried afterwards in the sun or in an extremely gentle oven in square tin frames about an inch and a half deep placed upon clean slates"

Modern cookery for private families reduced to a system of easy practice, in a series of carefully tested receipts, in which the principles of Baron Liebig and other eminent writers have been as much as possible applied and explained By Eliza Acton, Published by Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864 (via Google books)

There's been a lot of talk lately about eating local foods, and eating them seasonally. And when you do so, it creates a certain rhythm to the year: berry desserts in summer, root vegetable stews in winter, fresh shelled peas in spring.

However, the canny cook from before our time also knew that there was a rhythm to the pickling, bottling and preserving of these foods, which allowed variety on the dinner table all year round.

Tomato-sauce-making-day for instance, continues to be a tradition among some Italo-Australian families I know. Held towards the end of the summer when the tomatoes are cheap and plentiful, a day of chopping and boiling in the company of friends and family creates a store of pasta sauce to carry the family through the year ahead.

In my own family home, I remember the citrus season was marked by a day of chopping and peeling to make jars and jars of marmalade which would be consumed on toast throughout the year and also given as gifts to the less citricly-endowed (yes, I know citricly is not really a word...just indulge me.)

At this time of year in Southern Australia, the rhythm of seasonality dictates that it is quince paste making time.

This is the second year that I have made quince paste. Last year's didn't quite set like it should have, but I now have a legion of fans for my legendary "quince jam". In fact, one friend who I have given several containers to has begged that I make it in exactly the same way this year. If only it were that simple. She seems to think I have some control over the process!

Megan has already posted about her quince paste making experiences and I use the same basic recipe that she did.

One of the great delights of making quince-paste on a cold early winter's afternoon is that it gives you an excuse to loiter around the house. Oh no, I can't go out...I have to stir my quince paste. And the reward for judicious stirring is watching the fruit turn from a light flesh to a deep red colour. Made to perfection it should be as glossy and reflective as rubies.

There is a certain magic in turning a couple of kilos of furry fruit into a delicious dark treat to be enjoyed with cheese the year round, and given to friends as gifts.

What seasonal food preparation days mark your yearly calendar?

Quince of darkness

"QUINCE PASTE If the full flavour of the quinces be desired, stew them sufficiently tender to press through a sieve in the prepared juice of page 456; otherwise in just water enough to about three parts cover them; when they are soft quite through lift them out, let them cool and then pass them through a sieve; reduce them to a dry paste over a very clear fire and stir them constantly; then weigh the fruit and mix it with an equal proportion of pounded sugar or sugar boiled to candy height, we find the effect nearly the same whichever method be pursued and stir the paste without intermission until it is again so dry as to quit the pan and adhere to the spoon in one large ball; press it into shallow pans or dishes; cut it as soon as cold into small squares and should they seem to require it, dry them with a very gentle degree of heat, and when they are again cold store them in tin cases with well dried foolscap paper between them: the paste may be moulded when more convenient and kept until it is wanted for table in a very dry place. In France where the fruit is admirably confected the pate de coigns or quince paste is somewhat less boiled than we have directed and dried afterwards in the sun or in an extremely gentle oven in square tin frames about an inch and a half deep placed upon clean slates"

Modern cookery for private families reduced to a system of easy practice, in a series of carefully tested receipts, in which the principles of Baron Liebig and other eminent writers have been as much as possible applied and explained By Eliza Acton, Published by Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864 (via Google books)

There's been a lot of talk lately about eating local foods, and eating them seasonally. And when you do so, it creates a certain rhythm to the year: berry desserts in summer, root vegetable stews in winter, fresh shelled peas in spring.

However, the canny cook from before our time also knew that there was a rhythm to the pickling, bottling and preserving of these foods, which allowed variety on the dinner table all year round.

Tomato-sauce-making-day for instance, continues to be a tradition among some Italo-Australian families I know. Held towards the end of the summer when the tomatoes are cheap and plentiful, a day of chopping and boiling in the company of friends and family creates a store of pasta sauce to carry the family through the year ahead.

In my own family home, I remember the citrus season was marked by a day of chopping and peeling to make jars and jars of marmalade which would be consumed on toast throughout the year and also given as gifts to the less citricly-endowed (yes, I know citricly is not really a word...just indulge me.)

At this time of year in Southern Australia, the rhythm of seasonality dictates that it is quince paste making time.

This is the second year that I have made quince paste. Last year's didn't quite set like it should have, but I now have a legion of fans for my legendary "quince jam". In fact, one friend who I have given several containers to has begged that I make it in exactly the same way this year. If only it were that simple. She seems to think I have some control over the process!

Megan has already posted about her quince paste making experiences and I use the same basic recipe that she did.

One of the great delights of making quince-paste on a cold early winter's afternoon is that it gives you an excuse to loiter around the house. Oh no, I can't go out...I have to stir my quince paste. And the reward for judicious stirring is watching the fruit turn from a light flesh to a deep red colour. Made to perfection it should be as glossy and reflective as rubies.

There is a certain magic in turning a couple of kilos of furry fruit into a delicious dark treat to be enjoyed with cheese the year round, and given to friends as gifts.

What seasonal food preparation days mark your yearly calendar?

Before our time: when others fought for the right of women to vote

Today I wear purple to remember the proclamation of the Suffrage Act on 21 March 1895 in South Australia which gave South Australian women the right to vote in State elections, the first women in Australia to be able to vote.

Australian women were not able to vote in a Federal election until 12 June 1902 and the first female, Edith Cowan, was not elected to parliament until 1921. Worldwide many women still do not have the vote and many more only received the right to vote in recent years. Click here for a list of countries and the dates on which they granted women's suffrage.

Today I'm sure we take it for granted that women can step up to the polling booth but we should take a moment today to remember those brave people from before our time who took a stand and were active in women's suffrage groups that brought about the changes that enabled us to do so.

March is Women's History Month. Why not wear purple and give some thought to those that thought of our daughters.

****************

Thank you to Fe from Fe...a life for suggesting this subject as part of our series on ideas and skills from before our time we can't do without. Fe describes her blog like this: This blog is where I get to talk about everything and nothing. I'm agonisingly honest and an eternal optimist. Life has thrown some challenges my way, and I discuss them candidly and grittily.

If you have something you'd like us to cover please email us at beforeourtime@bigpond.com

Clearing out the lumber

“… it seems fitting here to devote a few words to another kindred matter, namely, the hoarding up throughout the house of what may literally be designated as lumber. It is astonishing what a number of utterly valueless things are allowed to remain in nearly every household, and it is well remarked that no one ever knows what a collection of rubbish he possesses till he has occasion to remove. There may not be much to be ashamed of in the first load or two of furniture, but at the latter end there is a strong feeling that a dark night would be more adapted for moving—the darker the better. At least every twelve months there should be a regular clearance of worn-out articles, and that miscellaneous collection of odds and ends which can be of no earthly value to anybody, unless he be an antiquary.”

Philip E. Muskett The Art of Living in Australia, 1893
CHAPTER IV: BEDROOM VENTILATION
(Accessed via: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/)

With a house move imminent, I feel it is time to heed the advice of Philip E. Muskett and clear out some of the ‘lumber’ in our home.

It is only two years since we last moved house, and although I felt that we did a reasonable job of clearing out the cupboards at that time, there are always those drawers or shelves you just can’t bear to sort through. So they get packed up and moved.

And moved again.

Eventually, you can’t even remember where some of the stuff came from. And it certainly doesn’t get looked at between house moves.

There’s the items that you once started collecting, but then gave up on…and now they don’t really suit the home’s decor, but you can’t bear to part with them. Like the Wedgewood.

Then there’s the old sporting equipment, that you keep ‘just in case’ someone wants to use it. Of course, by the time someone does want to use it, the item is so old-fashioned it looks like you’re playing with an antique.

And then there's the vinyl LPs and singles from the 70s and the 80s. (Do we even have a record player in the house nowadays?)

What about the boxes and boxes of my daughters' drawings, paintings, schoolbooks? I know I should sort through them and keep just the very best, perhaps photographing some of the rest. But do I ever do that?


This time around, I’m determined we’re going to clear out a little more of the lumber, but it's a fine line between de-lumbering and recklessly stripping away your personal history.

What lumber is lurking in your house?

Hold the mayo

“Mayonnaise sauce is best served separately in a tureen or sauce boat with the salad either cut up or the lettuce in pieces.”

Australian Enquiry Book of Household and General Information
for the Cottage, the Villa and the Bush Home
by Mrs Lance Rawson
first published by Pater & Knapton, in 1894.
Facsimile edition reproduced by kind permission
of the State Library of New South Wales, 1984, by Kangaroo Press

Mayonnaise is one of those foods that I’d always suspected probably tastes better if you make it from scratch, but I’d never actually done so. Then I spotted a recipe for it in Mrs Rawson’s book. (The instructions in italics under each photo are Mrs Rawson’s)

Ingredients: 3 or 4 eggs, 3 teaspoonfuls salad oil*, 1 teaspoonful vinegar, pepper, salt.

Strain the yolks of the eggs into a basin, and set it in a cool place – in the ice chest if you have one.

(well, yes Mrs Rawson...I am somewhat fortunate, and I do indeed have an ice chest. Although they're called refrigerators now.)

Let it stand an hour or two, and then take a spoon and begin to stir round and round (not to beat).

Add salt, stirring well; then a few drops at a time of the salad oil. The quantity of oil depends on individual taste; some people like a lot of oil.

When half the oil is well mixed, put in in the same way some good vinegar and keep adding oil and vinegar in these proportions until you get sauce the thickness of thick cream, then add pepper and more salt, if necessary.

The oil and vinegar must be added by degrees or they will not blend smoothly and the amount of both will depend upon the quantity of sauce, and also the consistency you like it.

At this point I abandoned the good counsel of Mrs Rawson. The mayonnaise was looking a little like beaten egg yolks and tasted just like them too.

So I took to the bowl with a whisk to lighten the colour and aerate the mixture.

To deal with the lack of taste, I added the juice of half a lemon.

And a teaspoonful of Dijon mustard.

I used the finished mayonnaise on a Waldorf salad. In spite in their initial skepticism, the household’s verdict was that it was worth the effort involved. I'm not sure it would meet with the approval of mayonnaise purists, but we thought the taste was more acceptable with the addition of the lemon and mustard.

* Salad oil is any edible vegetable oil: corn oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil, olive oil etc. I used an Australian extra virgin olive oil.

Is 40 the new 25?

I turn 40 years old later today. (Yes, you can leave your birthday greetings in the comments box below...all gratefully received. Cheques attached especially valued...!)

Anyway, in the past few weeks I've thought quite a bit about what it means to turn 40. Am I past it? Am I over the hill? Am I...dare I say it...middle-aged?

In a timely and opportune moment, I spied a small article in The Age newspaper last week which showed that an Australian woman aged 40 is likely to have 44.8 years of life remaining (unfortunately, the on-line version of this article doesn't contain the graphic I refer to) although the article highlighted the sobering prediction that these longer than ever lifespans are also more likely to end in Alzheimer's disease.

Of course, one never knows what lies ahead, but with an average life expectancy for Australian women into their 80s I conclude that 40 is not even the half-way point.

So then I discovered some of the life expectancy calculators at various financial planning websites (I'll let you google those for yourself if you are interested: 'life expectancy calculators') and based on my responses to the various questions asked, was given an age into the 90s.

Which is a big contrast to women's lives before our time.

My great-great-grandmother was born in 1825 in a small Scottish village overlooking the valley of the River Forth. By the time she turned 40, she was married, had moved to another village just nine miles away and had given birth to her seventh child, a girl who was named after her mother.

Just over two years later in 1866, that child died. My great-great-grandmother was to give birth at home one more time, to another daughter (also named after her) and although the baby survived the delivery my great-great-grandmother did not. The cause given on her death certificate is exhaustion after delivery (8 hours).

The baby died two weeks later of atrophy.

It makes you appreciate the advances in medical science, now doesn't it?

So at 40, my great-great-grandmother was nearing the end of her life, a life which had possibly been confined to an extremely small geographic area. A life without electricity, or telephones, or television, or (gasp!) the internet. A life in which advancements like aeroplanes, motor cars and space exploration wouldn't have been even dreamt of. A life in which there were no antibiotics to combat infections, and diseases such as smallpox were still prevalent (another of my great-great-grandmothers died of smallpox in 1872 in Glasgow). A life in which a lot about the world just wasn't understood (another great-great-grandmother died from lead poisoning before she was 40 from the water she drank running off lead-laden hills).

Most importantly, it was a life in which women were much more limited in their choices than we are today.

Compared with life before our time, turning 40 nowadays seems quite a young and fortunate age, indeed. In terms of my great-great-grandmothers' lives, it's more like turning 25.

Happy 25th birthday to me!

Time for a cuppa?

It is used excessively throughout Australasia—for has it not been shown that our four million people use more of this beverage than the millions who inhabit Continental Europe, if Russia be excepted? This fact is much to be deplored, for when taken in excess it causes severe functional derangement of the digestive organs, and prejudicially affects the nervous system. The gentler sex are greatly given to extravagant tea-drinking, exceeding all bounds of moderation in this respect.

Muskett, Philip The Art of Living in Australia, 1893 CHAPTER VI. DIET

By the 1890s, Australians were consuming around 8lbs (3.6kg) of tea per person annually, which was a good fifty percent more than the British and five times as much as the Americans. These were statistics which worried medical practitioner and health reformer, Philip E. Muskett.

He called for a more restrained approach to the drinking of tea. Nowadays we consume around a quarter of the 1890s amount, and it seems every magazine I pick up heralds the anti-oxidant health benefits of tea drinking, particularly the drinking of green tea.

Of particular concern to Muskett was women’s timing of their cups of tea.

“Their favourite time for a chat and the consumption of tea is at any period between ten o’clock in the morning and three in the afternoon. Now, if there is anything of which I am certain, it is that tea in the middle of the day, say from ten o’clock to three, is a deadly destructive fluid.”

I’ve often had a cuppa in the middle of the day, with nary a thought about the deadly destructiveness of my habit. Perhaps it is something about the way the tea was made back then? There is a big difference between a cup of tea made with a quick dangle of a teabag in some hot water, and a pot of tea made with precision in the age-old tradition.

I consulted Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861) to ensure I was making tea in the same way as those extravagant tea-drinking women who attracted Mr Muskett’s disapproval. The italicised instructions under each photo are Mrs Beeton’s.

Warm the teapot with boiling water; let it remain for two or three minutes for the vessel to become thoroughly hot, then pour it away.

The old-fashioned plan of allowing a teaspoonful to each person, and one over, is still practised.

The tea will be quite spoiled unless made with water that is actually ‘boiling’, as the leaves will not open, and the flavour not be extracted from them; the beverage will consequently be colourless and tasteless,—in fact, nothing but tepid water. Pour in from 1/2 to 3/4 pint of boiling water, close the lid, and let it stand for the tea to draw from 5 to 10 minutes; then fill up the pot with water.

The end result? A lovely strong cup of tea. I added the milk after I poured the tea into my cup. I know it is an issue of some contention, but Mrs Beeton didn’t have anything to say about that matter.

I consumed my cup over a chat in the middle of the day. So far I haven’t noticed any ill-effects, but I shall report back if I do.

How do you like to make your tea?

Who is teaching our children to cook?

“First of all we have a scheme of education which fails to provide instruction in a girl’s domestic duties; then we have the wife who undertakes the task for which she has never been properly trained; next, instead of well-cooked and very much varied meals, we have a conspicuous and a disastrous failure; and finally, we have the bread-winner driven to the public-house—and happiness has left that home for ever.”

Philip Muskett, The Art of Living in Australia(1893)
Chapter VIII on 'School Cookery and Its Influence on the Australian Daily Life'

If Mr Muskett is to be believed, bad cooking in the home is a sure-fire way to send the inhabitants on a downward spiral into drunkenness. Some of the meals I attempted to cook in my early twenties verged on the disastrous, but I can honestly say they never forced anyone out the door to the pub.

Muskett’s chapter on school cookery did however highlight the role that domestic education plays in creating a healthy and happy population. In her 1995 article, “When did we teach our girls to cook?” Beverley Kingston suggests that for most of the nineteenth century Australian girls had little opportunity to formally learn about cooking. It wasn’t until the last 20 years of the nineteenth century that cookery and other domestic skills were added to the curriculum (for girls) of schools in the various Australian colonies. Critics of the introduction she says, “argued that both cooking and sewing were things that girls could and should learn at home from their mothers and were a waste of time and money in schools.”

Leaving aside the obvious focus on girls only being the ones for whom domestic education was deemed to be appropriate, this did make me reflect on the role of the education system in the teaching of domestic skills.

In Australian schools, food preparation and cooking now goes generally by the name Food Technology, although none of the high schools we are considering for our daughters offer this subject. A recent article in The Age highlighted that Victoria's peak health promotion agency, Vichealth, has proposed in a submission to the Federal Government’s obesity inquiry that food technology be made a compulsory subject for students up to year 10.

While we wait for cooking to end up on school curricula, perhaps we should look to the wisdom of those 19th century critics: is cooking something children can learn at home from their mothers and fathers?

There is nothing like total immersion to learn a new skill, so at the start of this year we allocated one night a fortnight to our then ten-year-old daughter as her ‘cooking night.’ She has to plan what she wants to cook, write up a list of ingredients she needs and go shopping for those ingredients at the markets. We offer advice and assistance if required during the cooking process, but she is in charge.

Last week, she chose to cook (for the family and two guests):

- Racks of lamb served with herbed mashed potato, steamed beans and broccoli
- A fruit and cheese platter (selection of three cheeses)

Over the past months, she’s learned some really valuable lessons in choosing foods at the market, preparing ingredients, timing and coordinating the cooking process and catering for people with food intolerances.

The pride on her face when (several months ago) she cooked a pork roast with vegetables and all the trimmings for one of her school friends and her friend’s father made the entire process worthwhile.

We don’t see this as a girl/boy issue. If we had a son we would also do the same with him. The ability to cook fresh, tasty, wholesome food is an essential life skill.

And so far, on her cooking night, no-one has been tempted to nip out to the pub!

How did you learn to cook? And who is teaching the children in your lives to cook?

I'm just so busy being busy.

Well before our time, during the Victorian era, a leisured life was something to aspire to. The amount of time a Victorian gentleman could devote to unpaid pursuits was an indication of his social status.

Now, it seems the amount we do and the hours it takes us to do it are instead the status symbols. “Being busy” has replaced “being useful” as a measure of an individual’s self-worth.

I’ve noticed this particularly in the language we use to describe ourselves. Until fairly recently, the expected response to the question, “How are you?” would be something along the lines of:

Very well, thank you.
Fine, thanks, and you?
Not bad, mate.
or even,
Good. Accompanied by determined nodding of the head. (Let’s not start on the grammatical merits of this choice!)

There is however, a creeping tendency for all of the above to be replaced by:

I'm so BUSY.
Keeping busy.
You know, busy as always.

In fact, “How are you?” is also in danger of being made obsolete by the query, “So. Are you busy?”

Busy has become a highly desired state of being.

How many e-mails start with the line, “Sorry I've taken so long to get back to you, I've been busy with [insert appropriate activity here]”?

Busy is worn as badge of honour. There is a degree of smugness accompanying the use of the busy descriptor when it’s used to decline a request for assistance: "I'm sorry I can't help you organise Christmas lunch for 50 of our closest family and friends. I'm just too busy at the moment. How about I bring some Christmas crackers?"

The implication is, “I have important activities to do, and what you request of me is frivolous.”

Let’s face it, we’re all busy. We all have the same number of hours to fill in a day, and we all fill them. If some people choose to spend most of those hours watching television and sleeping, then they are still busy - with their own priorities.

Telling someone you are too busy to do what they request of you is an attempt to illicit agreement from the requester that your own activity is of greater importance than theirs, or to denigrate the value of the activity you have been requested to complete.

A more honest response would be, “I know that spending time with our families during the Festive season is important to you, but I have higher priorities at the moment.”

Try replacing the word busy with the term “out of control”.

Now, being busy doesn't look like such a desirable state of being, does it? It means you haven’t planned and prioritized your day.

So to test a pet theory, I devoted an entire week to declaring a state of non-busy-ness. Every time I was asked how I was, I replied that I was very well thank you, and had everything under control.

When my osteopath asked, “How's your week? Busy?” I replied, “No. Not at all.”

In doing so I discovered a sure-fire way to kill any conversation.

Try it out. Next time you’re asked, “Are you busy?” watch the tailspin the questioner goes into when you respond, “No, not at all. I have stuff on, but it’s all under control.”

It’s just unacceptable for you not to be BUSY and it leaves nowhere for the small talk to go!

When my daughters asked me to do something for them and I was otherwise engaged, I didn’t tell them I was busy, I said, “Sorry. I won’t do that right now. I am doing something else I would prefer to finish first.” This process really made me stop and think about which activity actually was the higher priority.

Without the catch-all ‘busy’ safety net to explain my actions (or inactions) I found I really had to examine my priorities.

The next time I’m asked if I’m busy, I may just reply, “No, I’m not. And how about you? Are you useful?”

Do you have the stomach for blancmange?

One of my favourite books growing up was Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. I read it many times, and I know I wasn’t alone. Although it was published originally in 1868 and is set in the far-off world of four sisters growing up through the American Civil War, it has been a staple on the reading lists of generations of Australian girls.

As is often the case when we read fiction set in another time or place, I encountered in that book things which seemed alien or strange.

What, for instance was the ‘blanc-mange’ that Jo took next door to the neighbour, Laurie in Chapter Five?

“Here I am, bag and baggage,” she said briskly. “Mother sent her love, and was glad if I could do anything for you. Meg wanted me to bring some of her blanc-mange; she makes it very nicely, and Beth thought her cats would be comforting.”

“That looks too pretty to eat,” he said, smiling with pleasure, as Jo uncovered the dish, and showed the blanc-mange, surrounded by a garland of green leaves, and the scarlet flowers of Amy’s pet geranium.

“It isn’t anything, only they all felt kindly, and wanted to show it. Tell the girl to put it away for your tea; it’s so simple, you can eat it; and being soft, it will slip down without hurting your sore throat…”

From these passages, I assumed it was a foodstuff of some kind, that it had to be made, and that it was cool and soft. The only reference I’ve ever heard in contemporary conversation to blancmange was someone in my mothers’ group referring to her post-pregnancy stomach as having the consistency of blancmange which, without being too unkind, I took to mean soft, squishy and perhaps a little wobbly?

So, what is this mysterious blancmange? Armed with my trusty Household Cookery book from the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy in Melbourne (1945), I set about to find out.

Sure enough, Section VIII devoted to Hot and Cold Puddings, contains three ‘Blanc Mange’ recipes: plain, chocolate and lemon.

So I started with the plain. Simple enough ingredients: milk, sugar, cornflour, lemon rind and a bayleaf.

An easy recipe to follow too, although I can’t emphasise how important the word “stir” is in the “stir to the boil” instruction. The cornflour thickens the milk very quickly, and the slightest distraction on the part of the cook could result in a lumpy, burnt mess. (Yes, I almost learnt that the hard way.) The blancmange sets overnight in a wetted mould.

I served it with a strawberry compote. All members of my household were underwhelmed. They said it lacked flavour. I thought the flavour was subtle. I was being kind.

So then I tried the Lemon Blanc Mange, which was a little more complex to make. I’m not sure it really qualifies as a blancmange in the strictest sense, as it doesn’t actually have any milk in it, and every definition I found of the word ‘blancmange’ in various dictionaries contained somewhere within it, the words ‘milk’ or ‘milky’.

The lemon blancmange was made with a water base thickened with arrowroot, and then folded with whipped egg whites.

The addition of lemon rind to the boiling water sure packed a punch flavour-wise, but the end product had the appearance and consistency of snot.

And it certainly didn’t hold its shape when I turned it out of the mould. I’m not sure what went wrong. Perhaps arrowroot today isn’t quite what it used to be in 1945?

The Chocolate Blanc Mange, which is just a variation on the plain recipe (no lemon rind, but melted chocolate instead) I made into small portions as a lunchbox treat. Mindful of the ‘lacking in flavour’ accusations, I doubled the amount of melted chocolate in the recipe. See below for my tweaked version of the recipe.

My oldest daughter was delighted with the end result. It’s a bit like some of those chocolate desserts you can buy from the supermarket, but without any additives in the ingredients. It wasn’t much cheaper than the supermarket options though (I made ten 70gm serves for around 45c each) because I used good quality chocolate. If I had skimped on the amount of chocolate and used a cooking chocolate instead, the unit cost would have been a lot lower.

My overall verdict on blancmange? It wobbles. There is just no other way to describe it. Blancmange would be a great food for someone recuperating from an illness, as it literally slides down the throat. The chocolate version was the most palatable, and kids seem to find it fun to have that as a treat.

In general, however I think it should stay firmly within the pages of classic fiction.

Chocolate Blancmange

600 mls milk
4 tablespoons cornflour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 bay leaf
60gm chocolate, broken into small pieces
Splash of vanilla extract

Blend the cornflour with a little of the milk in a large jug. Heat the rest of the milk in a saucepan, with the bayleaf. Once heated, pour over the blended cornflour.
Return to the saucepan and stir to the boil. Add the sugar and continue stirring while the mixture cooks for three minutes. Remove the bayleaf. Reduce the heat.
Add the chocolate pieces and splash of vanilla and stir while the chocolate melts.
Pour into a wetted mould (or individual containers for lunchbox treats) and leave to set in the fridge overnight.
Turn out onto a pretty dish.