They sat down to a lunch of eggs au gratin and baked apples. Unspoken, the challenging testing exchange went on beneath the ripple of superficial commentary and question, the small bursts of laughter that exploded between them like bubbles released under pressure. They were meeting to be reconciled after fifteen years. (Rosamond Lehmann, The Echoing Grove)
As one of four children, I’m only too well aware of the effect siblings have on one’s life. And being the only girl and the eldest of the four has undoubtedly shaped the way I relate to others and the paths I have taken in life.
As any psychotherapist will attest, the rivalry between siblings is one of the most elemental conflicts humans experience, the most common being the jealousy the firstborn feels for the sibling that comes next and displaces him or her as the sole recipient of the parents’ love.
And we don’t need Freud to tell us this. The rivalry between siblings, and particularly the resentment the older feels for the younger, has been documented for thousands of years. The authors of the Biblical book of Genesis made the first example of murder one of fratricide: Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, kills his younger brother Abel as God favours Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s. Shakespeare in King Lear also explores sibling rivalry in the relationships between the sisters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, and between Edgar and his half-brother, the illegitimate Edmund. The relationship doesn’t even need to be one of blood for rivalry to be felt: in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights Hindley Earnshaw is hugely resentful of the foundling boy, Heathcliff, who is brought into the family home by his father and who occupies a central place in the latter’s affections. In all these cases the rivalry stirs intense feelings of jealousy and hatred, and in many cases a desire to kill the favoured younger child.
In Rosamond Lehmann’s 1953 novel The Echoing Grove the sibling rivalry centres on a peculiarly awful act of betrayal. The novel tells of two very different sisters, the elder rather conventional Madeleine; the younger, more bohemian, Dinah; and their relationships with Rickie Masters, the husband of Madeleine, and the long-term lover of Dinah. When Rickie dies unexpectedly both women are thrust into an uneasy shared experience of widowhood.
The novel unfolds over only 24 hours, as the sisters meet for the first time in 15 years, but the narrative woven through it darts back and forth in time, building up a picture of the history of this complex and painful relationship and the sufferings of both sisters.
The novel opens with Dinah coming to visit Madeleine. This section of the book is titled ‘Afternoon’ and, after a brief initial awkward conversation on the doorstep, the sisters sit down to a late lunch of ‘eggs au gratin and baked apples’. The sisters’ differences are also revealed in their attitude to cooking: Madeleine confesses to not liking cooking at all, saying that when her friends ‘start exchanging tips for sauces [she] could scream’. Dinah loves it and, like Madeleine and Rickie’s daughter, Clarissa, ‘spends hours poring over cookery books and inventing variations’.
Eggs au gratin seems an ideal dish for someone who, like Madeleine, can cook but does not enjoy it: it requires a modicum of skill but is not terribly complicated. Neither does it take very long. Food cooked au gratin is topped with a browned crust, made from breadcrumbs, cheese or butter, or any combination of them, and is usually prepared in a shallow dish. Despite the French name, there is something very English about this recipe, being composed of hard-boiled eggs, leeks and cheese sauce. The soft creaminess of the dish makes it a comforting one as well, in contrast to the underlying tensions in the sisters’ conversation.
SISTERS’ EGGS AU GRATIN
Ingredients (per person):
2 eggs
1 leek, cleaned and sliced
25g mature Cheddar cheese grated
1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese
40g butter
20g plain flour
100-150ml milk
Salt and pepper
Method:
Place the eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring the water to a gentle simmer for 7 minutes exactly. Cool the eggs under cold running water and then peel and slice in half lengthways.
Make the cheese sauce: melt half the butter in a small pan over a low heat. Add the flour off the heat and stir to make a paste. Return to the heat and cook for a minute or two. Then add the milk, a little at a time and beating vigorously with each addition. When the sauce is smooth and thick leave it to cook over a low heat for approximately 6 minutes.
In the meantime, melt the remaining butter in another saucepan and cook the leeks over a low heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring them from time to time to ensure they do not stick.
Add half the Cheddar cheese and all the Parmesan to the white sauce; stir to melt and add salt and pepper to season.
Arrange the leeks over the base of a buttered ovenproof dish, and place the halved eggs on top, rounded side up. Pour the sauce over the eggs and top with the remaining Cheddar cheese.
Place the dish under a pre-heated grill for up to 10 minutes until the cheese has melted and the top is browned and bubbling.
Serve with crusty bread.
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