Day 32

 

 

 

Barbara Cleverly writes detective stories. Fantastic Fiction describes her as an Historical Mystery writer. It is true most of her books are set, with conviction, in the 20s and 30s, but her characters are our contemporaries. There is no distance of time between them and us. Their world becomes our world.

She has written about archaeologist Letitia Talbot and Inspector Redfyre, but her main protagonist is Commander Joe Sandilands. Joe is a World War 1 hero and has been recruited to Scotland Yard as part of a new modernising initiative.

At the beginning of The Last Kashmiri Rose he is on his way home to England after a six month secondment to India. He has had enough of India, the heat, the smells, the poverty and the social formalities of Calcutta which couldn’t quite classify his status.

The night before he is due to leave he is summoned by Jardine, the Acting Governor of Bengal. Up country there have been a number of deaths of British officers’ wives, at first seemingly accidental, but now too many to be a coincidence. The problem is that it’s possible that the local superintendent, Bulstrode, is involved. Scotland Yard have extended his secondment and he must go up country to deal with it. He is seriously fed up about this until he discovers that he will have a companion on his journey, Jardine’s pretty niece Joan, wife of the local Collector. Joe has an eye for a pretty woman.

He goes up country and starts to investigate.

Cleverly’s great strength is that although she sets us up with a mystery that needs to be solved, the book is primarily about Joe and how people and circumstances affect him. We don’t lose interest in the mystery, but Joe is much more interesting.

Joe doesn’t get to go home until book 5, The Bee’s Kiss. The gay façade of Jazz Age London, high society, the rumbling discontent fuelling the momentum towards the General Strike provide a immense contrast to Imperial India, but Cleverly manages the transition faultlessly.

We see the world through Joe’s eyes, but this doesn’t prevent us doubting some of his decisions. I remember at the end of one book (I won’t say which one) thinking that Cleverly had allowed Joe to be manipulated into an unlikely and untenable position, only to find in future books that he would pay for this. He is not infallible and although mostly sympathetic (very much our hero) he can be both arrogant and vain.

To date there have been thirteen Joe Sandliands books (listed below). They are discrete stories but the same characters flit though the books in exactly the same way as they do in life. Issues that arose in the early books reappear later. Questions we thought resolved turn out to be less cut and dried than we had hoped. This is an ongoing story.

I don’t know whether there will be any more books about Joe, but I want to know what is happening to him as we move towards the Second World War.

These are the books in order of publication, not chronological order:

The Last Kashmiri Rose (2001)

Ragtime In Simla (2002)

The Damascened Blade (2003)

The Palace Tiger (2004)

The Bee's Kiss (2005)

Tug of War (2006)

Folly Du Jour (2007)

Strange Images of Death (2010)

The Blood Royal (2011)

Not My Blood (2012)

A Spider in the Cup (2013)

Enter Pale Death (2014)

Diana's Altar (2016)

 

Food

Glut Pie.
I have been overwhelmed by harvest. Courgettes, beans and tomatoes have all moved into full production at the same time. Everyone else round here is in the same position, so I can’t pass them on.

Beans I can cope with in any number – throw into boiling salted water for six minutes, strain and serve with butter and black pepper – I can eat them by the bowl full, at any time.

Courgettes and tomatoes pose a greater problem. There are lots of things you can do with tomatoes, but my freezers are full and I really don’t want to spend any more money on Kilner jars. Courgettes do not freeze well, even if turned into dishes like ratatouille and caponata. They hold too much water.

Through mismanagement I also have a glut of eggs.

I don’t like throwing food away, so I went through the fridge and invented Glut Pie.

Ingredients I included:

Courgettes

Tomatoes

Onions

Wrinkly peppers

A few practically dehydrated button mushrooms

Eggs

Cream (a thick half inch in the bottom of the pot, but still fresh)

Ricotta (not quite at use by date)

Elderly lard (it smelt OK and would be cooked in a hot oven, so, fingers crossed)

Flour.

This is what I did

1.    I sliced the courgettes, brushed them with oil and roasted them in the oven (180° fan) for 20 minutes. Then set them aside draining on kitchen paper.

2.    I chopped the onions into fine slices and began frying them in butter. When they were translucent I added the sliced peppers and mushrooms and continued frying on a low heat for ten minutes. At the last minute I added the tomatoes, cut into chunks, letting them soften(but no more).

3.    While this was going on I made some pastry, the first time for about five years. Pastry doesn’t like being handled, so I used my food processor (again for the first time for years).
I use flour, lard and butter in the following proportions 4:1:1. In this case, 140g flour: 35g lard: 35g butter.
I took the fat straight from the fridge so it was cold, chopped it in chunks and put it with the flour into the food processor. It only takes a couple of bursts on the processor to reduce the mixture to the right bread crumb consistency.
This is the difficult bit – add the water, drip by drip until the mixture clumps. If, as I did, you add too much, add a bit more flour.
Bring the pastry together, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for half an hour.
Grease a pie dish or flan pan.
Roll the pastry out and fit into the pie dish. Allow an overhang because it will shrink. You can trim it later. Cover it with grease proof paper and fill with baking beads (dried beans, rice or chick peas will also do) but make sure it they all stay on the grease proof paper, because it is very tedious having to pick them out of the pastry. Bake blind at 200° C for 20 minutes.

4.    Meanwhile . . . Break the eggs into a large bowl (I used 5 because I needed to use them up, but 3 would do) Add the ricotta and cream and beat together until smooth.

5.    Place the vegetables in the pastry case.

6.    Add the eggy mixture to cover the veg and season. (I have left the seasoning until this point, because if you have made too much eggy mixture, you can add sugar to the leftovers and use as custard.) 

7.    Cook at 180° for 20 minutes or until the liquid is set.

Eat hot or cold. 

It was surprisingly delicious.

There is no photo because it wasn’t especially pretty. With a bit more effort I could have presented it better, but by this time I was tired and hungry.

I have written the recipe exactly as I did it. You could probably re-organise it  into a more efficient sequence.

 

Time for Coffee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Loyexw3uk

 Bach’s Coffee Cantata

Liesgen (Soprano), Narrator (Tenor), Schlendrian (Bass)

1. Narrator
Be quiet, do not chat,
And listen to what happens now:
Here comes Mr. Schlendrian
with his daughter Liesgen,
He grumbles like a grizzly bear;
hear for yourselves, what she has done to him!

2. Aria Schlendrian

With children, aren't there
a hundred thousand aggravations!
  Whatever I, all the time and every day,
  tell my daughter Liesgen,
  slides on by with no effect.

3. Recitative Schlendrian, Liesgen
Schlendrian
You naughty child, you wild girl,
ah! When will I achieve my goal:
get rid of the coffee for my sake!

Liesgen
Father sir, but do not be so harsh!
If I couldn't, three times a day,
be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee,
in my anguish I will turn into
a shriveled-up roast goat.

4. Aria Liesgen

Ah! How sweet coffee tastes,
more delicious than a thousand kisses,
milder than muscatel wine.
  Coffee, I have to have coffee,
  and, if someone wants to pamper me,
  ah, then fill up my coffee again!

5. Recitative Schlendrian, Liesgen
Schlendrian
If you don't give up coffee for me,
you won't go to any wedding parties,
or even go out for walks.

Liesgen
Okay then!
Only leave my coffee alone!

Schlendrian
Now I've got the little monkey!
I will buy you no whalebone dress of the latest fashion.

Liesgen
I can easily put up with that.

Schlendrian
You may not go to the window
and watch anyone passing by!

Liesgen
This too; but be merciful
and let my coffee stay!

Schlendrian
You'll also not receive from my hand
a silver or gold ribbon
for your bonnet!

Liesgen
Sure, sure! Just leave me my pleasure!

Schlendrian
You naughty Liesgen,
you grant all of that to me?

6. Aria Schlendrian
Girls of stubborn mind
are not easily won over.
But if the right spot is touched,
Oh! Then one can happily get far.

7. Recitative Schlendrian, Liesgen
Schlendrian
Now do what your father says!

Liesgen
In everything but coffee.

Schlendrian
All right then! So you will have to content yourself with never having a husband.

Liesgen
Ah yes! Father, a husband!

Schlendrian
I swear that it will never happen.

Liesgen
Until I give up coffee?
All right! Coffee, lie there now forever!
Father sir, listen, I won't drink none.

Schlendrian
So finally you'll get one!

8. Aria Liesgen
Even today,
dear father, make it happen!
Ah, a husband!
Indeed, this will suit me well!
  If it would only happen soon,
  that at last, instead of coffee,
  before I even go to bed,
  I might gain a sturdy lover!

9. Recitative Narrator

Now old Schlendrian goes and seeks
How he, for his daughter Liesgen,
might soon acquire a husband;
but Liesgen secretly spreads the word:
no suitor comes in my house
unless he has promised to me himself
and has it also inserted into the marriage contract,
that I shall be permitted
to brew coffee whenever I want.

10. Chorus (Trio) Liesgen, Narrator, Schlendrian
Cats do not give up mousing,
girls remain coffee-sisters.
The mother adores her coffee-habit,
  and grandma also drank it,
  so who can blame the daughters!

 

An edition of the Plain Dealer from 1724 claims that tasseography (reading coffee grounds) was one of “a thousand shining proofs of the capacity of woman’s wit.”  The writer even went so far as to exhort gentlemen to beware the danger: “Our women are become a nation of sages!  And men must be shortly dependent on them, not for DELIGHT only, but for INSTRUCTION.”

 

 

Coffee was dangerous, exciting and addictive.

 

In the middle of the 18th Century the nature of the depiction of domestic scenes began to change. Up until that point, family portraits were stiffly posed to display the richness of their best clothes and the background details – landscapes spied through windows, extensive gardens, ornately decorated rooms,  possessions were almost as, if not more, important than the people. The pictures seem to be more interested in saying - This is what we own, This is what we are worth rather than This is who we are. They are mannequins in a stage set.

In the latter half of the century, domestic portraiture has become a momentary glimpse into the life of the family. We catch them in mid interaction with each other. The relationships between the people  are what is important. The painting is capturing a mood – Look at us, a blissful and successful family living in the comfort of our ideal home.

Sir Joshua Reynolds is credited with changing the way domestic portraiture was viewed, insisting that it should engage the viewers’ interests and emotions, but to my mind Johan Zoffany is the master of the 18^th Century ‘snapshot’ portrait. However, he also makes sure that we know that his subjects live in the land of plenty.

 

This is a portrait of John Peyto-Verney, fourteenth Lord Willoughby de Broke, and his wife, Lady Louisa North, at teatime. She holds her daughter, trying to stop her getting onto the table, while listening to the point her husband is making. Their younger son rushes in pulling a bright red toy horse as their other son is sneaking a slice of  buttered bread from a dish.

Zoffany’s picture of their life is quite subtle. We can tell from the details of Lady Louisa’s gown that she is rich and fashionable. Lord Willoughby’s waistcoat is trimmed with gold braid and the lace of his cuffs and cravat is very fine. The children’s clothes are fine linen with ornate tucks and embroidery. Their tablecloth is damask, their tea service finest porcelain and the silver tea urn is huge. The imposing stone fireplace looks as though it is by Adam and the painting above looks like a Claude Lorrain.

However, the rich Oriental rug is worn, the walls are plain and rather dirty and there is very little furniture in a rather large room. In an era of ostentatious ornamentation, it is very bare. The Willoughby de Broke’s are old money.

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