[Vwoolf] Muffins

[Sarah M. Hall]

 In my (otherwise excellent) edition of Orlando, muffin and crumpet are defined as 'two different kinds of cake'.


    On Tuesday, 20 August 2019, 09:34:45 BST, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:  
 
 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. 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”. 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”. 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. 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”). 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”. Stuart_______________________________________________
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