Spotted Dick is an amusing name for a delicious suet-based fruit pudding that is best serve with custard!
Ingredients
40z fresh white breadcrumbs
3oz shredded vegetable suet
3oz plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2oz sugar
4oz dried currants, raisins, or sultanas
1 lemon – grated rind and juice
1 orange – grated rind and juice
4oz milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Method
1. Grease a heat-proof pudding bowl.
2. Place the breadcrumbs, suet, flour, salt, sugar, and dried fruit in a large bowl.
3. Add the lemon rind and juice, orange rind and juice, vanilla, and milk.
4. Stir well with a wooden spoon until thoroughly mixed.
5. Place in the pudding bowl. Cover with pleated greaseproof paper and tie off with string.
6. Steam in a metal culinder or sieve over a large pan of boiling water for 1 – 2 hours, checking the water regularly, and topping up the pan so it does not boil dry.
Kit’s Crit: Daughters of the Witching Hill (Mary Sharratt)
It is impossible to know what really happened before and during the Pendle Witch Trials of 1612. The only extant document is the blatantly biased trial record, written by a clerk called Thomas Potts to gain favor with King James 1st. Mary Sharratt, however, makes an excellent attempt at fleshing out a plausible tale around the two central characters — a local cunning woman known as Mother Demdike (Bess Southerns), and her pretty teenage granddaughter (Alizon Device). Sharratt’s cunning folk are Catholic herbalists and fortune-tellers, doing whatever they must to survive in remote, harsh Lancashire.
Daughters of the Witching Hill (Mariner Books, 2011) is more a historical fiction than a thriller. It offers a sympathetic portrayal of marginalized females battling against the patriarchy. Sharratt has a good grasp of the local superstitions, traditions, religious conflict, and public ignorance of the period, and the Demdike clan emerge as a group of strong women, bonded by circumstance and sustained with love. Most interesting is Sharratt’s invented seventeenth-century Lancashire dialect: “I bide with my daughter, Liza of the squint-eye, and with my granddaughter, Alizon . . . .”
As is necessary in any saga as complex as the Lancashire Witches, Sharratt takes some “fictional liberties” by combining several real people into one composite character, and changing some of the repetitive historical names for the sake of clarity. She also suggests that Demdike taught another rival cunning woman her craft (Mother Chattox); that Mistress Alice Nutter was a secret practicing Catholic; and that Justice Roger Nowell derived some personal (perhaps sexual) satisfaction from his dealing with the so-called witches. These are all credible assumptions.
Less likely, is her portrayal of Demdike’s daughter Elizabeth Device (known locally as “Squinting Lizzie”). In Daughters of the Witching Hill Lizzie has no interest in her mother’s magic. She appears as a chaste lonely widow who follows the new religion because she is infatuated with a Church Warden called Richard Baldwin. He impregnates her with a third child, Jennet Device. Yet while this provides a romantic interlude in the harrowing proceedings, I strongly suspect the Demdike home was called Malkin Tower because malkin meant “sluttish woman” (OED) and Squinting Lizzie may well have been one of the local prostitutes.
Sharratt, however, has every right to fill in the gaps of this ambiguous story with her own interpretation, and her sympathetic version of events certainly makes an intriguing read. A highly-recommended novel.
Kali is the Hindu goddess of death. Her name comes from Kalam and means black or dark in color. She is associated with time, change, power, war, blackness, destruction, evil, and violence. In mythology, she is the consort of Shiva, and a ferocious slayer of demons. But Kali is also a most ambiguous deity.
Many followers perceive this goddess as the Supreme Mistress of the Universe because she was created first – out of the blackness – before the rest of time began. Therefore she is the highest reality and the greatest force. And because Kali brings death, she serves as the vehicle to human salvation.
Others view Kali as the benevolent Mother. She is the Ultimate Being, and those who worship at her feet become her children. Yet she is a fearsome sight to behold. The goddess is usually portrayed as a naked blue woman with four arms, a sword, skull jewelry, matted hair, blood-shot eyes and a drooping tongue. She feeds off human flesh and blood, holds a severed head, and has Shiva laid flat at her feet. She is often accompanied by snakes and jackals. Kali is a far-remove from the Christian image of the beautiful, meek Holy Mother!
Perhaps because of these ambiguities, some Hindus fear Kali as the Dark Goddess and have turned her into a witch. Her followers are called Daayans – and many unfortunate women are currently being actively persecuted in certain regions of India today. You can read some of their harrowing stories here:
This is such a cute song. Check out what a little witchcraft can do!
“Black Magic”
(Ed Drewett, Henrik Michelsen, Edvard Forre Erfjord,Camille Purcell)
All the girls on the block knocking at my door!
Wanna know what it is make the boys want more!
Is your lover playing on your side?
Said he loves you,
But he ain’t got time.
Here’s the answer.
Come and get it
At a knocked down price. Hey!
Full of honey,
Just to make him sweet.
Crystal balling,
Just to help him see
What he’s been missing.
So come and get it,
While you’ve still got time. Hey!
Get your boy on his knees
And repeat after me, say:
“Take a sip of my secret potion,
I’ll make you fall in love.
For a spell that can’t be broken,
One drop should be enough.
Boy, you belong to me,
I got the recipe
And it’s called black magic
And it’s called black magic.
Take a sip of my secret potion,
One taste and you’ll be mine.
It’s a spell that can’t be broken
It’ll keep you up all night.
Boy, you belong to me,
I got the recipe,
And it’s called black magic
And it’s called black magic.”If you’re lookin’ for Mr. Right,
Need that magic
To change him over night.
Here’s the answer.
Come and get it,
While you’ve still got time. Hey!
Get your boy on his knees
And repeat after me, say:
“Take a sip of my secret potion,
I’ll make you fall in love.
For a spell that can’t be broken,
One drop should be enough.
Boy, you belong to me,
I got the recipe
And it’s called black magic
And it’s called black magic.Take a sip of my secret potion,
One taste and you’ll be mine.
It’s a spell that can’t be broken
It’ll keep you up all night.
Boy, you belong to me,
I got the recipe,
And it’s called black magic
And it’s called black magic.”All the girls on the block knocking at my door!
I got the recipe.
Wanna know what it is make the boys want more?
Now you belong to me.
Take a sip from my secret potion,
I’ll make you fall in love.
For a spell that can’t be broken,
One drop should be enough.
Boy, you belong to me. Hey!
I got the recipe.
And it’s called black magic, and it’s called, and it’s called black magic!
Take a sip of my secret potion,
One taste and you’ll be mine.
It’s a spell that can’t be broken
It’ll keep you up all night.
Boy, you belong to me, belong to me,
I got the recipe.
And it’s called black magic
And it’s called black magic.
Kit’s Crit: Like Water For Chocolate (Laura Esquivel)
Like Water For Chocolate (New York: Doubleday,1992) is a strange debut novel written in the magical-realism tradition. The title comes from “an extremity of feeling” – perhaps sexual desire – where intense emotion melts the human heart, mind, or soul, just as boiling water melts chocolate.
Esquivel explores the impact of old Mexican traditions within modern culture, examining the filial responsibilities of a child to its parents, gender issues, personal sacrifice for the greater good, and the role of food as a metaphor for human feelings.
While I like the original premise that recipes contain secrets and can change with the fluctuating moods of the cook, this is not a book I would read more than once because the breaks from reality, sequencing, and characterizations sometimes make the tale a little too hard to swallow!
Need a refreshing dessert for hot summer days? Try a chilled fruit fool as a quick, easy treat!
Ingredients:
1lb raspberries, gooseberries, or rhubarb
4oz sugar
Water
4oz fresh elderflowers
3oz butter
3 eggs
1/3 pint of milk or single cream
4oz sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla
Method:
1. Prepare the fruit for stewing (wash, peel, top-and-tail as needed) and place in a medium-sized pan on stove.
2. Add the sugar, elderflowers, and sufficient water to cover the fruit. Bring to the boil and stew until all the fruit is soft. For a smooth texture, strain the fruit through a sieve. For a crunchier taste, stir the mixture with a fork to soften the remaining pulp.
3. Cool in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
4. Over low heat melt the butter.
5. Add all the remaining ingredients and whisk continually for 8 – 10 minutes until the mixture thickens.
6. Cool in the refrigerator for at least thirty minutes.
7. Fold the cold fruit mixture carefully into the cold custard to create a marbled effect.
8. Spoon into individual serving dishes and top with fresh fruit, mint leaves, or whipped cream.
The Faust legend is a morality tale warning ambitious young men to reject the devil and all earthly temptations of power and desires of the flesh.
In German classic literature, a jaded scholar called Doctor Faust makes a pact with the devil, Mephistopheles, signed and sealed with his own blood. He agrees to exchange his soul for worldly pleasure, riches, and knowledge – but when the terms of the agreement expire he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in hell.
Who is Faust based on? The most likely prototype seems to be Dr. Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480-1540), a famous German alchemist and magician.
Why does Faust make this pact? He is a dissatisfied academic who yearns for something more.
How long is his rule on earth? Faust is granted 24 years – one for each hour of the day.
What does the magician do with his new powers? First, he seduces a beautiful maiden called Gretchen. Yet although he destroys her earthly life, she is granted a place in Heaven because of her innocence. Then he plays pranks on people, settles old scores, and meddles in the politics of his day. At one point he demands to see the most beautiful woman ever, and is granted a visit from Helen of Troy. And finally – having sated his lusts and tamed the natural world – he has a moment of utter contentment before the devil appears and rips his body to pieces.
In choosing instant gratification and pleasure, Doctor Faust rejects Christianity and turns away from God. He is a personification of Matthew’s warning: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (16:26-27)
