Ana is reading her way through The Secret Garden right now.

[conuly]

I made the choice to read it to them (still doing that, a bit more slowly than Ana) even though it's a. classist b. a bit full of casual racism and c. full of dialect, because I figure that, as it's a classic of children's literature, they're probably going to be exposed to it sooner or later and I might as well be there to tone it down.

Also, it gave me an excuse to look up Yorkshire dialects on Youtube, and that's always fun.

I'm kinda annoyed by this because if she hadn't been reading The Secret Garden I would've thrust A Tale of Time City into her hands. I've just re-found the book on my shelf.

Gosh, I love that book. If you'll only read one fantastical story about British evacuees during the Second World War, make it this one. Narnia, Schmarnia. I wake up nights drooling over thoughts of Sam's butter pie. If only somebody could recreate that so I could eat it in real life. TVTropes compares it to lava cake, but those are generally chocolate, aren't they? Butter pie is, um, buttery.

...

I admit it, this is a not-so-veiled request for baking help. H E L P ! If anybody has any idea where to start there, I'll be eternally grateful. I'm sure it'd be just the thing for a sick Ana.

Comments

[erisiansaint]

I looked up butter tarts last week, (I got to try them at the local British bakery) and the pastry is a very short shortcrust pastry and the filling was eggs, butter, brown sugar, vanilla and golden raisins.

Yorkshire Pudding is a lot easier and they're delicious: a cup of flour, 2 large eggs, half a cup of water, half a cup of milk and a pinch of salt.

Preheat the oven to 425.
Mix the flour and salt. Add in the milk, then beat the eggs and add those. Mix. Add water. Mix until large, coin-sized bubbles appear. Put butter or bacon grease into the bottom of a muffin tin, and then stick it into the oven until the grease is melted. Take it out, fill each cup about halfway with your batter, put it back in. Bake for 15 minutes, turn the oven down to 375, and bake for another half hour. WHen you take it out, stick a knife in the hollow of each pudding, (there'll be a depression in each one, they puff up over the muffin tins, like popovers,) to release the steam.

Each one will be mostly hollow inside and make a great vehicle for taco meat or roast beef and gravy or butter & jam or stewed up vegetables. (In Yorkshire, they developed them to eat before the real Sunday meal of roast beef, and instead of muffin tins, they'd make them in one big pan. They'd eat them with gravy before the main portion of the meal, so they wouldn't fill up on the more expensive meat.)

And btw, keep James Herriot books in mind, for later years. (I read them around 12 or 13.) They're filled with food and animals, being the adventures of a Scottish veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Oh yum; that sounds so good! Gotta love Yorkshire pudding!

[marveen.livejournal.com]

This. I've had butter pie (in high school on a trip to Victoria, BC) and ti reminded me of chess pie with raisins.

I also agree that racism, classism, etc. are part of history and nothing is gained by shielding children from it. (Explain that Things Don't Work That Way Anymore re: racism and that classism is still a problem, it just expresses differently.)