Driven as I was to cook with figs when they arrived in my organic box a few weeks ago, I knew I was on safe ground with them as far as literature was concerned since I had just finished teaching Antony and Cleopatra in which Cleopatra has the poisonous snake that will kill her brought to her concealed in a basket of figs. Continue reading “The Fig in Literature”
Agincourt
With everyone blogging or tweeting today about the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to ‘revive’ my Henry V recipe. The Battle of Agincourt is the dramatic high-point of Shakespeare’s history play, a battle in which, against all the odds, the vastly outnumbered English win a definitive victory against the French. Continue reading “Agincourt”
Fig and Walnut Tarte Tatin
GUARDSMAN: Here is a rural fellow
That will not be denied your highness’ presence.
He brings you figs.
CLEOPATRA: Let him come in. (Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra) Continue reading “Fig and Walnut Tarte Tatin”
Damson cheese
In my last post I wrote about Mr Glegg in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss who loyally admires his wife’s questionable culinary talents. Amongst her ‘renowned’ delicacies, the narrator mentions the ‘venerable hardness’ of Mrs Glegg’s damson cheese. Continue reading “Damson cheese”