It is well known that some persons like cheese in a state of decay, and even 'alive'. There is no accounting for tastes, and it may be hard to show why mould, which is vegetation, should not be eaten as well as salad, or maggots as well as eels. But, generally speaking, decomposing bodies are not wholesome eating, and the line must be drawn somewhere.
-- Page 95, Isabella Beeton, "The Campaign for Domestic Happiness"
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It's been a hot second since I've seen a picture of a Victorian mustache cup on here so look at this one in all its glory
This is a sippy cup. You just invented a sippy cup for manly men who want to go to tea parties and not feel emasculated by drinking too fast and getting their perfectly coifed mustaches droopy I can't
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Words change meaning - another example.
@tartapplesauce reblogged my (long) post about Dublin coddle, which mentioned a weird version called "New World Coddle" using chorizo and squash.
TBH, my Mind Palate suggests it would taste quite good, but it's so far from traditional or even well-tweaked-traditional coddle that it's not coddle any more, and should have a different name entirely, possibly in Latin American Spanish.
Also TBH I've already amended the recipe thrice in my head, (1) chipotle powder not smoked paprika; (2) finish with a scatter of toasted pine-nuts; (3) restore the chickpeas mentioned in the Method to the Ingredients where they'd been forgotten.
I've already admitted to breaking the Dublin coddle rules by browning things, so all bets are off. :->
(BTW, this wasn't ours; @dduane's spine and hip have been rather a trial this past couple of days, so we just took things easy and let the Ibuprofen do its thing.)
Re. coffee mornings, what about various tea-breads, fruit sodas, barm brack etc.? Those could be made either trad or tweaked-trad, and though I'm not sure how they could be made "dainty" like petits-fours and so on, I bet it could be done.
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As for the changed-meaning word (getting there eventually) it's "notions" and @tartapplesauce added this link.
"To have notions" in Ireland is to think highly of yourself, often without justification - though if the justification is, er, justified, "begrudgery" will often follow. I've encountered "begrudgery" before, but this version of "notions" is a new one.
I have, however, experienced the Northern Ireland - or maybe just my family - version, which is "don't put yourself forward". This is a bad notion to have when thinking about author profile and book publicity and as DD can confirm, it took me far too long to shake it off.
On the flip-side, having notions can mean thinking outside the box, being imaginative, boldly going where no-one has gone before...
Um, got a bit carried away there... Right to the NYT bestseller list, in fact. Twice. ;->
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Neither of those are MY usual meaning.
Whenever I use "I have a notion", either said or written in a post, it's either "I have a thought" with the thinking-intensity dialled down a few notches, or "I have a vague memory of", otherwise known as IIRC or AFAIK.
And the other OTHER meaning of "notions", the one I first thought of (maybe with notions of food already in mind) was this:
That book was published in 1890, and the title, translated from Victorian English, is something like "Tips and Tricks" or, in more modern English, "Household Hacks".
There's nothing derogatory about it.
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DD and I have both posted about Mrs de Salis in the past; all her books are what's usually referred to as "slim volumes". Here are six of them alongside Mrs Beeton's doorstopper:
I inherited a copy of "Savouries a la Mode" from Mum, who inherited it from Granny, and we've made several things from it, all of which worked - though far and away the best so far are the Parmesan Biscuits, which are...
Well, "more-ish" is a good start, though it doesn't hint at the underlying desire to get in there with both hands...
Here:
All of Mrs de Salis's books are Public Domain, and while we intend eventually to have a full collection of the Slim Volumes, they're also available as PDFs here.
I have a notion that anyone reading this Tumblr will like them... ;->
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