Green Eggs and Ham

I loved Dr. Seuss as a child, I think it was the rhyming scheme that I enjoyed the most. My sister and I have a tradition of watching The Grinch every Christmas and every year I wish I knew what Roast Beast tasted like. Dr. Seuss writes in a way that is fun, wacky and utterly addictive to children. The rhyming scheme makes it easy to memorise his tales and even now I know lines of some of his works off by heart. 

For my last post I have a bit of a Sam theme, considering it is my name. Green Eggs and Ham was always my favourite because of the appearance of my name. Looking at it now I also see it has a fantastic didactic lesson. 

When I was little I decided I hated mushrooms without even trying them, if anything had mushrooms in it then I would refuse to eat it. I think it was the way they looked that put me off them. In the end I tried them one day and realised that they weren’t as bad as I had thought and that I actually really liked them. I know most children go through stages like this all the time. Green Eggs and Ham tells this same story with the same conclusion. The lesson being that you will never know if you like food until you try it. Children are notoriously the most fussy eaters so this is a great lesson to teach them early on.    

Using something as strange as eggs and ham that are green is the same idea. It looks weird to the characters like mushrooms did to me so they instantly refuse to eat it. Dr. Seuss has a habit of creating strange and wonderful sounding foods in his works to add to the fantasy and the intrigue you get from his wacky ideas. 

I found a wonderful cookbook called Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook with recipes put together by Georgeanne Brennan and photography by Frankie Frankeny. The book looks at many different tales from the works of Dr. Seuss and works to create and help others attempt the crazy fictional foods that are mentioned. There are quotations from the stories and illustrations with each entry. Each recipe has a brief introduction and goes on to list the ingredients then the method as you would find in your typical cookbook. 

I’m pretty sure this cookbook is my new favourite book ever! It completely fascinates me with its creativity and I had so much trouble narrowing down which recipes to try, (Who-Roast Beast was a close contender) in the end I decided to try the two that involved my name considering that was the reason I loved Dr. Seuss in the first place. 

So here are my attempts at the recipes from Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook for Green Eggs and Ham and Silly Sammy Slick’s Sodas!

I tried two versions of this one with orange juice and the other with raspberry puree. I preferred the raspberry one but both were very fizzy and very sickly! No wonder Sammy was sick sick sick! 

The recipe for Green Eggs and Ham

My own version. I did not like them Sam I am!

Stone Soup

"For this stone will always make a good soup as long as you work on it together" (p.105)

Stone Soup is one of the stories that both my mum and sister mentioned to me straight away when I told them about my blog idea. They have both worked in schools with young children and tell this tale to teach them how to be kind to people and of the wonders of team work. 

The version in Fairy Tale Feasts is the Portuguese version which tells of a Monk who is a man of faith and poverty. The monk wanders into a village and after being cruelly turned away from every home asks to borrow a pot to make soup from a stone. The villagers become curious and the monk tells them of how delicious it can be with a few different items to “make it better” and one by one they all provide him with the ingredients. In the end they have enough delicious soup to feed the whole village. 

Stone Soup is told in many different ways some using travelers, old women and even tramps as the main protagonist. Regardless of this the moral is still the same and makes this tale perfectly didactic. Children will remember the clever plan and learn that it is better to be kind and cooperate well with others. 

The story appears in Fairy Tale Feasts in the soups section. This is interesting as we have discussed in class that most cookbooks will always feature a soup section in hopes of encouraging home cooks to include this as a valid course in the typical meal. Soup is popular in many cultures and is often used to feed the poor just like the porridge in my previous post. 

Stone Soup also works as a recipe for children. You are told one by one as each ingredient goes in and can construct your own version from that. Fairy Tale Feasts lists your typical recipe for vegetable soup but also as a side note gives the idea of a Stone Soup party in which every guest brings their favourite vegetable and makes it together in true Stone Soup spirit! 

The Magic Pot of Porridge

The first tale in the breakfast section in Fairy Tale Feasts is The Magic Pot of Porridge which is a story of a poor girl who lives in poverty with her mother and goes looking for food. The girl stumbles across an old woman who gives her a magic pot that, when told "Cook, little pot, cook," would cook as much porridge as they want, and when told, "Stop, little pot, stop" it would stop. The pot ended the pairs poverty but one day the girl goes out and leaves her mother, who forgets the words to say to stop the pot and so by the time the girl comes home the whole village has been flooded by porridge and people who wanted to get home had to eat their way back. 

This tale was recorded by The Brothers Grimm named Sweet Porridge and is German folklore. There were many different types of tales like this one, such as Why the Sea is Salt and The Sorcerer's Apprentice which have similar themes, it was quite a trend in fairy stories. 

These tales had the common theme of magic becoming uncontrollable when left in the wrong hands and the idea that the apprentice will abuse the power for personal gain. The Magic Pot of Porridge does not quite present this story idea in the same way however so it slightly alters the moral through its use of food. The mother is not making the porridge with magic simply because she is lazy or greedy like in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the mother simply wants some food for her hunger but has not listened well enough to instructions. 

 The Magic Pot of Porridge presents the moral of listening carefully or you may end up making a silly mistake that can cost you a great deal. It also explores the ideas of extreme poverty and the lengths people will go to for food. Porridge is well known in Europe as something that was often fed to the poor, being good for you and very filling. 

The recipe is a very simple one in the book  with just your basic ingredients and method but on the other side offers you a list of variations and extras you can add. 

I picked the variation that says to add maple syrup and sugar, as I have a sweet tooth when it comes to porridge. 

Here is my version. I even stirred it in the pan with a wooden spoon to be more authentic as Fairy Tale Feasts little information segments said that it was eaten with a wooden spoon because metal became too hot. 

More from Fairy Tale Feasts to come soon.

Sammy xx

Fairy Tale Feasts, A Literary Cookbook for Young Readers & Eaters

I found Fairy Tale Feasts online a few weeks ago and knew that I had to order it. It is an anthology of Fairy Tale retellings by Jane Yolen taken from many different cultures and countries and with each tale comes a range of recipes by cook, Heidi E. Y. Stemple inspired and developed to accompany each tale. 

“From the earliest days of stories, when hunters came home from the hunt to tell of their exploits around the campfire while gnawing on a leg of beast, to the era of kings in castles listening to the storyteller at the royal dinner feast, to the time of TV dinners when whole families gathered to eat and watch movies together, stories and eating have been close companions.” (p.8) 

The set up of this book is something I found particularly interesting to look at. It works like your typical cookbook with sections for each type of meal. There is breakfast, lunch, soup, dinner and dessert sections in the book. Each section starts with the story and on the sides the writer adds little notes and information about the tales and their origins. After the tale we get the recipe set out in your typical format of ingredients followed by directions. This book also includes a few variations of the recipe for the reader to play with and facts on the sides about the ingredients or particular dish. 

“There is something more-and this is about the powerful ties between stories and recipes. Both are changeable, suiting the need of the maker and the consumer.” (p.8) 

What I like about this book is that it recognises the connection between food and stories, pointing out that the stories that are usually told orally are also often accompanied by good food. Even my own family do this, at dinner we will often sit together and tell the stories of our day or things we have heard or read, each thing we speak about is a story in its own right. 

This book is great for children and their parents to go through together. Majority of the stories have morals that are brought about by the use of food and the books set up means that every reader will experience it differently, whether they read the recipe first or the information on the tales origins.

Over the rest of this week I am going to look directly at a few of the tales in the book and how they use food in their plot and then give some of the accompanying recipes a try. 

See you soon.

Sammy xx

Poison Apple Cake Pops

“Then Snow-White was very much tempted to taste, for the apple looked exceedingly nice; and when she saw the old woman eat, she could refrain no longer.” (33)

I’ve wanted to try and make Cake Pops since I first heard about them. So this finally gave me my excuse. I wanted to make it so like in the Fairytale the apples seemed perfect from the outside but there an is evil once one is bitten into. My version of evil is actually quite delicious.

Ingredients

1. Cake, prepared. (If you are feeling lazy you can buy some from the shop)
2. Frosting (amount depending on the moistness of your cake. I used three Tbs)
3. 1 bag of red candymelts. (or white chocolate and red food colouring)
4. Green food colouring   
5. Cake Pop sticks
6. Fondant Leaves (You can make the leaves any way you please I personally liked the look of fondant ones and used a cutter to create their look but you could make them many different ways or just buy them.) 

Instructions

Add the cake into a large bowl.
Crumble it and add green food colouring until it looks something like this.

Add the frosting a spoon at a time until cake can hold a ball shape. Be careful not to add too much or it will be too gooey.

Use hands to roll the mixture into balls and repeat until you have finished the mixture.

Melt a few pieces of the chocolate in the microwave for 1 minute.

Dip the tip of the cake pop sticks into the chocolate and insert into the cake balls up to about half the way.
Put Cake Pops in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Boil a pan of water, remove when done then place a large bowl over the top of the pan. 

Place enough chocolate to submerge the cake in the bowl to melt. 

Remove Cake Pops from freezer.

Dip the cake into the chocolate until covered.

Put the Cake Pop in a styrofoam block to set.

Add the leaves while the chocolate is wet as It will harden quickly.

Here is the outcome.

My poison apples.

Sammy xx

Snow White

Last week I looked at the connections between the White Witches corruption of Edmund in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and the Bibles telling of the fall of man and how in each, food was the main temptation that lead to their betrayal. There is a tale however that uses The Original Sin even more as its influence.

Snow White was first collected by the Grimm Brothers and is probably one of the most well known children’s fairytales. In the tale Snow White is tricked by her step mother who obsesses over being the most beautiful. The Queen tries to kill her four times over the course of the tale but it is only when she involves food that her intentions nearly succeed. 

“Do as you please,” said the old woman, “but at any rate take this pretty apple; I will make you a present of it.” (33)

The Queen disguises herself and fools Snow White into eating a seemingly perfect apple. The Queen even goes as far as to poison only one side so that when she bites it herself the deception holds firm for the moment Snow White tastes the poisoned side. The Queens disguise as a poor woman imitates that of Satan’s when he deceives Eve as a serpent. The use also of an apple is exactly the same as the biblical version. The fruit that now will forever represent sin. 

“Snow-White shall die, if it costs me my life. So she went secretly into a chamber, and prepared a poisoned apple: the outside looked very rosy and tempting, but whosoever tasted it was sure to die.” (33)

Snow White follows a didactic rout taking the morals set up by the fall of mankind and making them more understandable to a young readership. The point is more that talking to strangers and taking things from them is dangerous especially when you have been told not to. Snow White pays the price for her gullible nature which is how the Grimm Brothers portray the potential effects of her wrong doing. 

Unlike in the Disney version of the tale the Prince does not save Snow White with a kiss but only by moving her, causing the piece of poison apple to dislodge from her throat. Regardless, this gives the tale its happy ending and unlike Adam and Eve where they are exiled for their betrayal by eating the fruit and for this are made to suffer. Snow White ends up with a happily ever after which is what is expected of a fairytale.

So here is another example of the famous tempt a child with food method in Children’s Literature. We also see this in Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti where the Goblin men tempt Laura. The consequences in this poem are much the same, Laura almost dies and Lizzie her sister, puts herself in harms way to help. Food becomes a tool for the antagonists in Children’s tales as it is something a child struggles to resist when it looks good. 

I will post my poison apple cakepop recipe soon. (Don’t worry they’re not really poison) 

Sammy xx

Photography by me from an old project from A Levels. I knew it would come in handy some day.

My Fight with Turkish Delight

"The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious." (44)

It all started out so well....

Here is something I have observed. There are loads cookbooks in my house and in none of them have I ever come across a page in which the author presents us with a recipe that they describe as hard to do. It’s step by step and gives the impression that if you follow those instructions there is no way you can go wrong...right?  

Wrong!

Here is another observation. What if you look in two different cookbooks and they both give you the perfect recipe for the same thing but some of the ingredients are different. The outcome should still be exactly the same...right?

Wrong!

I looked at lots of different recipes for Turkish Delight and came across lots of different versions. Some said use gelatin, some said cream of tartar. I followed the cream of tartar rout as it was apparently more traditional. I followed the steps perfectly, they were pretty much the same in every recipe I'd seen. I Left it to set for 24 hours and when I came back to it, it had taken a turn for the worse.

It had refused to set properly and the last thing I imagined when I read the scene from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was the White Witch handing Edmund a box of Turkish Delight that turns to mush in seconds.

I had to relent and remake the mixture adding gelatin and getting rid my precious idea of staying traditional. So I sucked it up and shouted “FOR NARNIA” while I added what was required in a truly over dramatic moment.  

Another 24 hours later and I still have this.

Maybe the moral of this is don’t trust the internet. Yet I looked at a great deal of recipes that had been said to have worked fine. That got me thinking, before I wrote this I seriously considered going out to buy some Turkish Delight from the shop or making jelly and covering it in icing sugar and pretending that everything had worked out fine. What if, the recipes I looked at online had done the same thing? Or got it from a cookbook and just posted without trying it? Maybe I just did something wrong both times. Or maybe not.

My point is, despite how closely you follow the recipe, it sometimes just doesn’t work out for you. You can either keep going, cheat or give up as I have. 

That is something you don’t see documented in cookbooks. They want to give you the image of the best results you can get. They don’t want to show you the previous five attempts they made that burnt or fell apart. Failure is not going to sell their book. 

There is a reason that sales of Turkish Delight went up increasingly in 2005 when Disney’s film adaptation of the book came out. People didn’t want to try and make the historic sweet for themselves after the film made them curious. They just wanted to try it and move on. 

Tastes change over the years and Turkish Delight is definitely an acquired taste. You don’t want a failed tray full of the stuff like I currently have in my kitchen and it clearly isn’t as easy to make as it seems. The astounding amount of sugar in the recipe alone would have sent me into a hyperactive breakdown as a child. 

For Edmund during World War II where the novel is set, there was food rationing and sugary substances were a rare treat. To acquire some from the Witch would have been such a wonderful treat to him. 

Unfortunately I don’t have a magic bottle that contains mystic liquid that turns snow to rare sweets. So I am stuck with my rubbish version that currently looks more like the slush poured on TV presenters in the children’s Saturday morning shows I used to watch religiously. 

Oh well at least I tried. 

Sammy xx

The White Witch Hot Chocolate

"Edmund saw the drop for a second in mid-air, shining like a diamond. But the moment it touched the snow there was a hissing sound and there stood a jeweled cup full of something that steamed." (43) 

So today I tried my hand at making Hot Chocolate White Witch style. I looked through a few recipes suggested online and came across one here http://www.narniafans.com/fansection/recipes.php for a Narnia style Hot Chocolate and changed it a bit to suit my tastes. 

Here is my recipe for The White Witch Hot Chocolate.

Ingredients
4 Tsp Cocoa
2 Tsp Sugar
1.5 cups Milk
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract (or more)
1 Tsp of Cinnamon Powder
Whipped Cream
Crushed biscuit (Any type)

Procedure
Add milk to saucepan.
Add Cocoa and sugar and stir.
Add cinnamon, vanilla. 
Heat to just under boiling.
Mix well and pour into Glass
Top with whipped cream and crushed biscuit of choice.
(I used a chocolate HobNob)

 "Edmund felt much better as he began to sip the hot drink. It was something he had never tasted before, very sweet and  foamy and creamy, and it warmed him right down to his toes." (43)

So there is my final result and it was attractive and tasted great. I couldn't resist taking some White Witch themed photos to show it off and after I did that it had cooled down enough and I thoroughly enjoyed drinking it. Just as Edmund noticed, the drink is incredibly sweet and creamy and has the magical effect of making me feel warmer and relaxed. As Narnia is frozen and cold due to the White Witches rule in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, this would have been the perfect drink to lure Edmund in with its warmth and attractiveness. The cinnamon is what makes this recipe for me, it really added something to the Hot Chocolate taste that complimented it.

If you have an Edmund style sweet tooth like me you will love this recipe. 

Cheers!

Sammy xx

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

“He had eaten his share of the dinner, but he hadn't really enjoyed it because he was thinking all the time about Turkish Delight—and there's nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.” (95)

Choosing this book to start with was easy because to be completely honest as a child I was always opening my wardrobe and wishing I would find Narnia at the back. Unfortunately it never appeared but there is still hope, never give up on your dreams as the saying goes. 

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has an interesting focus on food as a temptation. In the story Edmund is tempted by the White Witch through the use of Hot Chocolate and Turkish Delight. In a way Edmund picks his own poison and the White Witch exploits that to get what she wants, she asks him questions and he answers without thought, his love of the food driving his desire to please her in order to get more.  

“At first Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to eat with one’s mouth full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted to eat, and he never asked himself why the Queen should be so inquisitive.” (44)

When reading The Chronicles of Narnia as a child I never noticed the religious connotations running throughout every story but looking back as an adult I see the Witches temptation as one of the key moments in the tale where we see this most. The scene could be seen to play on the original sin of Adam and Eve. Edmund’s fixation on the Turkish Delight is similar to Eve’s on the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The witch leading Edmund to betrayal parallel to the way in which the snake leads Eve. The imagery of consumption through temptation and the consequences Edmund faces make it very difficult to not think of the fall of man.  

At last the Turkish Delight was all finished and Edmund was looking very hard at the empty box and wishing that she would ask him whether he would like some more. Probably the Queen knew quite well what he was thinking, for she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves. But she did not offer him any more.” (45) 

Greed is another issue I think C. S. Lewis explores in his portrayal of Edmund and his reaction to the foods the White Witch offers. I feel it is very significant that both items he consumes are sweet. Sweets are a weak spot for children and something that is demanded and consumed by children more than any other type of food. Edmund is obsessed with the idea of getting more sweets and the White Witch uses that to manipulate him with magic. I feel it may be a message from the author, as if to say, “Look what can happen when you get too greedy.” 

There are probably many other ways of looking into the presentation of the foods in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and when analysing its placing and purpose we see that its presence is less than welcome in this case, instead it is a warning. 

Even with the warnings and the potential of being bewitched I’m still going to brave making Hot Chocolate and Turkish Delight in a White Witch style this week. 

I’ll be back with my recipes and pictures. 

Sammy xx

Once Upon a Time

As a child I fell in love with stories pretty quickly. My family were unfortunately gifted with the job of reading me books, poems and nursery rhymes every night, sometimes over and over until I was satisfied that we both could quote them at will. My poor sister probably still knows the beginning of Peter Pan better than I do. Through this I found my love of literature and as soon as I could read on my own I couldn’t be stopped.

 When I wasn’t reading I was just as happy to cook with my mum who makes the best cakes in my opinion. As you can see from the pictures above my main cooking influence from her is that it should be just as creative as it is delicious. Even as I write this she has just walked into my room with a cupcake she just made. It was peanut butter flavoured with chocolate icing and tasted amazing incase you wanted to know. 

If I have time I love to help her cook and have so many amazing memories of times when I did as a child. When I look back, my family reading to me and cooking with me hold a large proportion of my memories.

So the opportunity rises for me to explore the two in tandem, just like they are in my memories from childhood. Food in Children’s Literature is something that is overwhelmingly present though I never really noticed it at the time. Thinking on it as an adult I see how food was used to be symbolistic, didactic and sometimes purposefully made disgusting for the sake of a child's entertainment. 

Just like using the wind and trees as symbols as we often see in writing, food can do the same. It presents something realistic and necessary to us and connects us through commonly known imagery. Although there is one beautiful difference between nature writing and food writing. You can’t taste a tree. 

Food is one of the wonderful things in life that involves all five senses. 
You can see how aesthetically pleasing food can be.
You can hear the sounds of it crunching or breaking.
You can feel the textures and how they are different. 
You can smell the aromas of every ingredient.
And most importantly you can taste it. 

In my opinion that makes food a great thing to write about and in this blog I intend to explore this in some of the stories I loved so much growing up. I intend to look at fairytales, poems, nursery rhymes and books that feature food and depict them in interesting ways and question why that is. I even intend to recreate some of the foods I read about myself, including recipes. So watch this space.  

I’m off to steal another cupcake from the kitchen. 

Sammy xx