Saturday 29 April 2023

A collection of fictional meals

Name the author... A refreshing ginger beer, ginger ale, lemonade, orangeade, honey lemonade, icy cold creamy farm milk, natural clear cold spring water or pineapple juice diluted with ice-cold water out of Naomi Barlow's old well. Or maybe, if you're feeling chilly, a mug of steaming cocoa, strong and milky coffee or tea made with blackcurrant jam. Breakfast from "The Three Shepherds" consisting of a steaming tureen of porridge, a bowl of golden syrup, a jug of very thick cream, and a dish of their own cured bacon and their own eggs, all piled high on crisp brown toast, with little mushrooms on the same dish, and toast, butter, marmalade (that Kiki's been pecking the rinds out of), butter and their own honey, to come. Perhaps a light lunch from the dairy (Fatty’s treat), served by a plump woman in a vast white apron to serve you and beam at you. Two boiled eggs apiece and some plates of bread and butter (with strawberry jam – they’re her own growing, the strawberries), and some of her own bottled gooseberries if you like, with a jug of cream. And she’d made some new buns, would you like some? Or perhaps a picnic lunch instead. Freshly-baked bread, mustard and cress sandwiches, tins of tongue, tins of sardines, pork pie, pickled onions (Dick's favourite) an enormous hard-boiled egg salad, rain-swollen lettuces, crisp, juicy and sweet, cucumber dipped in vinegar, nuts arranged in handwoven baskets (gathered by Jack). And some ripe plums from the tree: you can spit out the stones down at the beach. Afternoon tea with Clarissa’s old nurse. Tongue sandwiches with lettuce, hard-boiled eggs to eat with bread-and-butter, great chunks of new-made cream cheese, potted meat, ripe tomatoes grown in Mrs. Lucy’s brother’s greenhouse, gingerbread cake fresh from the oven, shortbread, a great fruit cake with almonds crowding the top, biscuits of all kinds and six jam sandwiches! Followed by a farm-house high-tea: a fresh ham, glistening pink. A veal-and-ham pie smothered in green parsley, like the ham. Yellow butter in glass dishes. A blue jug of thick yellow cream. (NOT to go with the ham, Gussy!) Honey. Home-made strawberry jam. Hot buttery and jammy scones. A large fruit-cake as black as a plum pudding inside. Egg sandwiches. Tea, cocoa and creamy milk. Supper of kippers cooked over an open fire, potatoes cooked in their jackets with butter, and sausages burnt and a little burst on one side, with fried tomatoes. And a midnight feast to finish off with: eclairs, Silky's Pop biscuits, macaroons, currant buns, meringues, blackberry tart, a jam sponge, Joanna's chocolate cake, big slabs of cherry cake (left by Aggie under the bushes), thick, sticky pieces of gingerbread, sugar biscuits, chocolate ices, chocolate biscuits, juicy ripe strawberries and cream, greengages fresh from Old Thatch and Green Hedges, tinned peaches, tinned pineapple, tins of NestlĂ©'s Milk, large melting ice creams and toffee shocks presented by Moonface. And some bullseyes--the hottest you can find! Not to mention the Tippy-top pudding, Poppity cake and Google buns cooked by the elf on Angela's little toy stove. And an ice cream pudding which had dainty biscuits of all kinds set around it. Cooking good, very good cooking!

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