[Vwoolf] Muffins

Sun Sep 22 16:29:01 EDT 2019

My mother is proving to me she has quite the sweet tooth…. She says that
growing up in Camberley, Surrey, her favorite part of eating crumpets was
the honey she and her brothers added (in addition to the butter). It sounds
like there was no “stacking” in their household, only eating individually,
and by hand…. She also adds she liked to “slice” her crumpets (I presume to
increase the surface area for butter and honey). :)

Michael R. Schrimper
Ph.D. Student, Department of English
University of Colorado | 226 UCB, Hellems 101 | Boulder, CO 80309-0226
Traditional Territories of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations
https://www.colorado.edu/english/michael-schrimper

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 1:38 PM Neverow, Vara S. via Vwoolf <
vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> You are making me hungry!
>
> Vara
>
> Vara Neverow
> Department of English
> Southern Connecticut State University
> New Haven, CT 06515
> 203-392-6717
> neverowv1 at southernct.edu
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> on behalf of Jeremy
> Hawthorn via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> *Sent:* Sunday, September 22, 2019 2:16 PM
> *To:* Mary Ellen Foley <mefoleyuk at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] Muffins
>
>
> My sister reminds me that our family had two toasting forks: one the posh
> telescopic one, and one that was part of a set of "fire irons": poker,
> scissor-like pincer implement to grab lumps of coal, shovel to deal with
> ashes, and a toasting fork. There was a fear that if you used to toasting
> fork in front of an electric fire then you might electrocute yourself. At
> any rate ours disappeared when my parents moved into a house without an
> open fire. The pincer implement could also be used for roasting chestnuts.
>
> My reading of the "Peanuts" strip suggests that in the US marshmallows are
> toasted using a simple stick. Correct?
>
> Sorry about "heap": "neatly stacked pile" is what I meant to write.
>
> Jeremy
>
> On 22.09.2019 20:01, Mary Ellen Foley wrote:
>
> 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).
>
> 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!
>
> 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 --
>
> mef
>
> On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 3:16 PM Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf <
> vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
>
> Rereading *The Waves* and came across this: "Yes, I hold Gray's *Elegy*
> 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.
>
> Jeremy H
>
>
> On 20.0.2019 10:34, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf 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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