<div dir="ltr">I've got a recipe that calls for toasting the crumpets individually, stacking them up, and putting "a lump of butter" on top so that it melts down and butters all the crumpets. The book was given to me in 1982, and was contemporary (and published by SuperCook's; British readers may recognize the brand).<br><br>I certainly can't imagine crumpets being eaten like American pancakes, which suggests a knife and fork. And if a stack of American pancakes is a 'heap', then 'heap' is used differently in the two countries!<br><br>I was disillusioned when I moved to the UK to find that a lump of sugar was just a common cube of sugar, but I still like it that recipes use terms such as lump. I have old recipes from my foremothers that call for "a lump of butter the size of a walnut" or "of a hen's egg". I wonder if any British cookbooks still calls for a knob of butter? Perhaps only if preparing spotted dick --<br><br>mef</div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 3:16 PM Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf <<a href="mailto:vwoolf@lists.osu.edu">vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p>Rereading <i>The Waves</i> and came across this: "Yes, I hold
Gray's <i>Elegy</i> in one hand; with the other I scoop out the
bottom crumpet, that has absorbed all the butter and sticks to the
bottom of the plate." This suggests that Bernard and Neville are
eating crumpets as Americans eat pancakes - already toasted and
buttered or whatever, and piled in heaps. In contrast, my
childhood memory is of toasting them in front of an open fire,
then buttering them individually and eating them while the butter
was only half melted. Much nicer that way. The toasting method is
as described below in "Counsel's Opinion," but as the clerk is
doing the toasting and leaving them keeping hot in the library,
presumably they too will be buttered en masse and eaten from a
greasy pile. Do families still possess toasting forks? I suspect
that with the demise of the open coal fire, they exist only in
Antique shops. My family had a rather fine telescopic one - fully
extended you could toast without getting burnt by the fire.</p>
<p>Jeremy H</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="gmail-m_-8721583079903149702moz-cite-prefix">On 20.0.2019 10:34, Stuart N. Clarke
via Vwoolf wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri;color:rgb(0,0,0)">
<div>I ‘as bin readin’ “Counsel’s Opinion”, Bella Sidney
Woolf’s jointly-written privately published one-act play of
1922, presumably written for am.dram. performances of and
for expats in Honkers. Can that be so? It was printed in
HK, but Bella was still in Colombo; she only moved to HK in
1925. So, perhaps it was intended for expats in Colombo,
and it is a coincidence that her husband Tom Southorn’s
career took him from Colombo to HK.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Anyway, the play is set in “A room in the Temple”,
belonging to a “Lady Barrister”. That’s progressive, and
even more progressive is that her love interest (another
barrister) finally accepts that he “was old-fashioned enough
to think that men must work and women must housekeep”.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>However, she has a clerk, Jenkins, who is also female:
“As the curtain rises, JENKINS, a quaint person in a black
frock is toasting muffins in front of the fire. She is
singing ‘. . .’ [censored, in case the sensitives are caused
distress]”. Jenkins and references to muffins continue
throughout the play. The muffins and the dropped aitches
(e.g. “D’yer like yer muffins ‘alf-toasted or done to a
coal-black cinder?”) reminds me of “Orlando”: “The muffins
is keepin’ ’ot in the liberry”.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>As part of the US imperial project, American muffins have
invaded the UK and are gradually taking over. They are
advertised as muffins, as if English muffins didn’t exist.
American muffins are the teatime equivalent of the grey
[sic] squirrel.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>It is a sobering thought that generations of Americans
have not known what muffins were in “Orlando”. Some may
have wondered why they needed to be kept ‘ot, or why one
should apply butter to them (see “The Importance of Being
Earnest”).</div>
<div> </div>
<div>The new CUP edn of “Orlando” provides info. on the
history of the muffin (and the crumpet) under the quote “The
muffin was invented and the crumpet”, but does not explain
what a muffin actually is. Of course, you can look up a
dictionary, but sometimes you don’t know that you *need* to
look up a dictionary. Cf. “street scavengers” in “Jacob’s
Room”.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Stuart</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
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