Interesting snippet on GMA Weekend yesterday about a carving on the ceiling in the king's bedroom in Stirling Castle, Scotland - there appeared to be an error on the carving looking a bit like random marks of ones and zeros; in 2004 a master carver called John Donaldson, now 62, was employed to copy the series of carved wooden portraits mounted in roundels on the ceiling of James V's bedroom in Stirling Castle.To see what followed and how a 500 yr old mystery musical score was discovered read here . To hear the music itself go to GMA Weekend. This is the first known example of binary music - the article is absolutely fascinating to read.
I don't know if anyone has bothered to try this, but I find it fascinating to let my mouse hover on the red dots of the Feejit map on this page to see where some of my readers are coming from. One or two I know who they must be, others, of course, I haven't a clue who they are. Some of my regular readers being friends and family of course. I often wish more of you would leave comments and messages, it would be nice to meet you even if we can't do so f2f.
Last night we watched an excellent made for TV movie about Lord 
Longford, called Longford, particularly centering about his endeavour to get a parole hearing for Myra Hindley who, with her boyfriend, was convicted of murdering a number of children in the 'Moors Murders'. Jim Broadbent played an excellent Lord Longford with Samantha Morton's well portrayed Myra Hindley. For a biography of Lord Longford click here. He was portrayed as quite an incredible man even if he was conned by Myra Hindley. Another article about the story is here. If you ever get a chance to see the movie, I highly recommend it. A lot of this took place when we were in the UK and yet I remember nothing about it. I wonder why. The story very much reminds me of the Canadian killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka who was released in 2005 to much public indignation.
A quick mention, our Winter Bowling League starts today, at 12:30 which means I have to eat lunch at breakfast time in order to get a parking spot in their tiny parking lot.
A somewhat different recipe this morning, I was reading Joe Barkson's World Wide Recipes and there was a discussion on frummerty and the author said it was the same as what, today, is known as blancmange in the UK. I don't think this is strictly true, I have a cookbook by Sheila Hutchins who used to write for the British Daily Express, who in turn used to collect cookbooks from all periods of time. This book is called English Recipes and Others and details a lot of very old recipes including one for blancmange and another for Dutch Flummery or Jaune-manger which are given in a chapter called Conceited Dishes. I did make this many years ago when I still lived in the UK but didn't actually enjoy it as much as the packet 
blancmanges which one buys - these being the cornflour (cornstarch) versions. Re-reading it, I might have another go, my taste buds having matured somewhat over the years. A note here, the cream as added in the UK would be a much heavier fat content than is generally available in North America. However, you could get some of the English Double Devon Cream which I have often talked about and thin it down somewhat with regular whipping cream.
To make Blanc-Manger
Both the word and the dish Blancmange have become debased in recent years and now have unpleasant associations, the dish is very old and the earlier Blank-mangers and Jaune-mangers contained ground almonds. Blankmanger appears in the few medieval cookery books which have come down to us, but then instead of being a sweet dish it was made with ground almonds and finely minced capons. Blancmanger went out of fashion a little in the late nineteenth century when arrowroot and cornflour were substituted for the ground almonds. The simplest form was a sort of milk jelly; 'If properly done it will turn out a beautiful white jelly like marble. Garnish with flowers or with sweetmeats or sliced orange."
Let the grated rind of a small lemon and 8 bitter almonds infuse for 1 hour in 1 pint milk. Remove the bitter almonds, add 2-3 oz. sugar, 2 oz. ground almonds, bring to the boil stirring and add 1 1/2 oz isinglass (gelatine). Heat, stirring, for 10 minutes adding 1 pint of cream and 1 wineglass of brandy. Pour into the desired mould to set.
Have a great day.
Longford, called Longford, particularly centering about his endeavour to get a parole hearing for Myra Hindley who, with her boyfriend, was convicted of murdering a number of children in the 'Moors Murders'. Jim Broadbent played an excellent Lord Longford with Samantha Morton's well portrayed Myra Hindley. For a biography of Lord Longford click here. He was portrayed as quite an incredible man even if he was conned by Myra Hindley. Another article about the story is here. If you ever get a chance to see the movie, I highly recommend it. A lot of this took place when we were in the UK and yet I remember nothing about it. I wonder why. The story very much reminds me of the Canadian killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka who was released in 2005 to much public indignation.
A quick mention, our Winter Bowling League starts today, at 12:30 which means I have to eat lunch at breakfast time in order to get a parking spot in their tiny parking lot.
A somewhat different recipe this morning, I was reading Joe Barkson's World Wide Recipes and there was a discussion on frummerty and the author said it was the same as what, today, is known as blancmange in the UK. I don't think this is strictly true, I have a cookbook by Sheila Hutchins who used to write for the British Daily Express, who in turn used to collect cookbooks from all periods of time. This book is called English Recipes and Others and details a lot of very old recipes including one for blancmange and another for Dutch Flummery or Jaune-manger which are given in a chapter called Conceited Dishes. I did make this many years ago when I still lived in the UK but didn't actually enjoy it as much as the packet 
blancmanges which one buys - these being the cornflour (cornstarch) versions. Re-reading it, I might have another go, my taste buds having matured somewhat over the years. A note here, the cream as added in the UK would be a much heavier fat content than is generally available in North America. However, you could get some of the English Double Devon Cream which I have often talked about and thin it down somewhat with regular whipping cream.
To make Blanc-Manger
Both the word and the dish Blancmange have become debased in recent years and now have unpleasant associations, the dish is very old and the earlier Blank-mangers and Jaune-mangers contained ground almonds. Blankmanger appears in the few medieval cookery books which have come down to us, but then instead of being a sweet dish it was made with ground almonds and finely minced capons. Blancmanger went out of fashion a little in the late nineteenth century when arrowroot and cornflour were substituted for the ground almonds. The simplest form was a sort of milk jelly; 'If properly done it will turn out a beautiful white jelly like marble. Garnish with flowers or with sweetmeats or sliced orange."
Let the grated rind of a small lemon and 8 bitter almonds infuse for 1 hour in 1 pint milk. Remove the bitter almonds, add 2-3 oz. sugar, 2 oz. ground almonds, bring to the boil stirring and add 1 1/2 oz isinglass (gelatine). Heat, stirring, for 10 minutes adding 1 pint of cream and 1 wineglass of brandy. Pour into the desired mould to set.
Have a great day.
JO, I don't have any red dots to hover over ...
ReplyDeleteLord Longford. Everyone said he was an interfering old fool when he became involved with Myra Hindley.
Something else. I wonder who thinks up the words for the word verification because the words can be very difficult to make out. For example often it is impossible to see if its an lm or ae or op together.
I know what you mean. I assume it is totally random though.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I don't remember Longford at all.
He is the father of Lady Antonia Fraser, the biographer.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie it covered the fact that she was an author, didn't say what of particularly.
ReplyDeleteJust noticed your comment on the Feejit map. Doesn't it show you which countries are reading?
ReplyDelete