Salaric Cooking

FISH.–Brill, carp, chub, crayfish, crabs, dory, eels, flounders, grigs, herrings, lobsters, mullet, pike, prawns, salmon, shrimps, skate, soles, sturgeon, thornback, trout, turbot.

I can not find what grigs are I’m afraid if anyone knows could they please let me know?

MEAT.–Beef, lamb, mutton, veal, buck venison.

POULTRY.–Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, pigeons, plovers, pullets, rabbits, turkey poults, wheatears, wild ducks.

GAME.–Leverets, grouse, blackcock.

Blackcock appears to be another type of grouse!

VEGETABLES.–Artichokes, asparagus, beans, carrots, cabbages, cauliflowers, celery, cresses, endive, lettuces, mushrooms, onions, pease, potatoes, radishes, sea-bale, small salading, sprouts, turnips, various kitchen herbs, vegetable marrows.

FRUIT.–Currants, figs, filberts, gooseberries, grapes, melons, mulberries, nectarines, peaches, pears, pineapples, plums, raspberries, walnuts.

Filberts are a type of hazel nut it would appear.

Cook several small jacket poatatoes and cut them in half. scoop out the soft poatoe from the inside and use in another dish. Leave a generaous amount on the skins though! Its mainly so that you have a slight hollow.

Fill the hollowed out skins with chilli con carny or something of the equivalent. Add a dolop of sour creme on top and some grated cheese. Place under a grill until the cheese is melted.

The Open University was having a big sort of ‘village fete’ to celebrate its 40 yrs in education so we went along and one of the things we got to watch was ice-cream being made using liquid nitrogen.

Jean and another little girl picked the flavourings and then we watched.

First off they poured in milk, icing sugar and cream and stirred it and then the chocolate chips and coffee flavouring. Then the vat of liquid nitrogen appeared in the gloved hands of a Chemist. They poured it in and stirred the mix.

And stirred and what amounts to dry ice frothed forth from the brew.

And within like 10 minutes we were sampling the ice-cream – Jean went back for several helpings 🙂

It was a cool demonstration though they needed more flavouring in the mix! The ice-cream also melted alot quicker than normal ice cream would which was interesting. Also there were lots of chuncks of ice exploding out of the bowl so we had to stand quiet far back!

FISH.–Carp, crayfish, dory, flounders, haddocks, herrings, lobsters, mackerel, mullet, pike, plaice, prawns, salmon, shrimps, soles, sturgeon, tench, thornback.

MEAT.–Beef, lamb, mutton, veal, buck venison.

POULTRY.–Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, leverets, plovers, pullets, rabbits, turkey poults, wheatears, wild ducks (called flappers).

VEGETABLES.–Artichokes, asparagus, beans, cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, celery, cresses, endive, lettuces, mushrooms, onions, pease, radishes, small salading, sea-kale, sprouts, turnips, vegetable marrow,–various herbs.

I’m not sure if its due to climate change or what but we have been eating asparagus here since the beginning of May!

FRUIT.–Apricots, cherries, currants, figs, gooseberries, melons, nectarines, pears, pineapples, plums, raspberries, strawberries, walnuts in high season, and pickled.

My aunt gave us a rice cooker and I have to say that initially I was why do we need that? It’s just yet another applience I have to find a home for and I had been saying no to one for ages. But then I went to my cousins house where they were using the rice cooker she had given them and I thought wow – this is actaully really usefull especially for parties – shame we don’t have room for one.

Then we were presented with on and I was really excited as was my husband (yes I know we can’t help getting excited over mundane domestic things), we have been cooking at least once a week with it since – we have also used it to cater for our cub and scout group plus a few parties 🙂

It is really easy to use – the only thing I found slightly annoying is that it doesn’t have the lid clip thing for the serving spoon that my cousins one had and there’s was a black and silver one rather than white which would have fitted with the kitchen better as I’d been saying I didn’t see the point of one I was amazed to get one at all.

And on top of that it fitted easily onto the shelves so I did have space after all!

It’s apparently a Cooksworth rice cooker – what ever it is rice cookers are fantastic!

My little girl had an easter egg hunt for her friends and so we decided to put out a spread of food as well – I don’t have any specific easter table cloths so had to go with the brown and orange stripped one which has mostly been used to dress her daddy up as Joseph in a play (don’t ask). I put out the four little easter egg candles I had, these have pictures of butterflies and flowers on them embossed in white on the blue, green, pink and yellow of the candles.

I put these around the minature red rose I was given as a thankyou for hosting another party!

I then made a plater of cheese sandwitches – cut into triangles – the right size for small children – I grate the cheese as it goes furthur!

I also had platters of Easter egg biscuits, easter bunny biscuits and nutty choc cornflake nests that my little girl had helped creat!

We had bowls of grapes, carrot sticks, crisps and vegitable crisps – I’m afraid I cheated and just bought a bag of pre-chopped carrots!

Then i put out a plater of really bad colouring full marshmellow animals – all blue rabbits, yellow chicks in their eggs etc… and little minni chocolate swiss roll catipillars with white chocolate faces. The colouring full easter pals came from the Pound shop and the catipillars where bought by a friend at Marks & Sparks I think.

For the actual hunt there were egg shaped lollys as well as chocolate eggs! Oh and plastic toy eggs to try and reduce the number of sick children at the end off it all! We ended up rationing the amount of found chocolate the kids could eat. Sorry about the wonk on the photo!

Some of Jean’s easter decorations are on the table too – she made the invites for the events as well (ok with lots of help!).

The perants seemed to enjoy themselves as well as the kids 🙂 The easter bunny even appeared!

One of our nearest towns is Cheltenham and it is notorious for its festivals and so last year I was not suprised but I was disappointed to see the end tail of a food festival so made a note to self to keep an eye out for it this year.

This weekend we sported the signs for it and went to investigate but alas they had just put up the signs in preperation for the coming weekend instead – the 19th-21st of June when we have other things on and wont be able to attend for yet another year 🙁

But it looks fun – it costs £5 an adult and under 16’s are free!

So if your around Gloucestershire this weekend then this looks a fun even with guest chiefs and things!

I wish I was going 🙁

Oh well there is always next year I suppose – they appear to being doing the real ale thing as well as wine which is always fun!

As well as Easter Egg shaped ginger biscuits it turns out that Morrisons Bakery where producing large tubs of ginger rabbits with features impressed into them! These were supposed to just be eaten but along with the Eggs I gave them to my little girl and dad to decorate with the selection of cake decorating things we had lerking in the house.

Dad made some really good rabbits with rice crispies for ears and little sugar hearts for noses etc… They went down really well at her Easter egg hunt!

FISH.–carp, crayfish, herrings, lobsters, mackerel, mullet, pike, prawns, salmon, soles, tench, trout, turbot.

Pike are apparently known as jackfish in Canada – I have assumed here that Mrs Beeton ment the English definition of Pike! Tench is also known as the Docter Fish.

MEAT.–Beef, lamb, mutton, veal, buck venison.

Having trouble finding out what buck venison is but am assuming that it is young male deer – if anyone knows differently – please let me know!

POULTRY.–Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, leverets, plovers, pullets, rabbits, turkey poults, wheatears.

Turkey poults turn out to be turkey chicks. Leverets are hares that are less than 1 yr old incase you were wondering.

VEGETABLES.–Artichokes, asparagus, beans, cabbages, carrots, cucumbers, lettuces, onions, parsnips, pease, potatoes, radishes, small salads, sea-kale, spinach,–various herbs.

Ok I don’t know which type of artichoke she means here – I am assuming its not Chinese Artichoke and from looking at things in my garden I would say its more likely to be globe artichoke than jeruselum.

FRUIT.–Apricots, cherries, currants, gooseberries, melons, nectarines, peaches, pears, pineapples, raspberries, rhubarb, strawberries.

Ok I am assuming that pineapples have to be grown in glass houses/green houses/aurbatariums in this country not sure about some of the other fruit here!

Today we went to a very local event to us Cheese Rolling – this is done on Coopers Hill each year and though we have lived just donw the road from it for the last three years this was the first time we had a proper oppurtunity to go.

It was bedlam – from my husbands family tellings of yestur-year I was expecting about twenty people chasing cheeses down the piece of hill we dubbed ‘the shaved bit’ when we first moved here. But there was thousands of people – no really there were – they were everywhere and we could not see a thing – we couldn’t even park near the event (though later found out that there was an official car park for the princely sum of £5). We walked through the woods and sat at the top behind the crowd looking at all the contestants queuing to chase a Double Gloucester Cheese down a very steep hill – people regually break limbs at this event and the St Johns Ambulence dudes were there in force.

The event seemed to be dominated by Kiwi sports peeps i.e. New Zealand rugby players and the like. The only female runner I saw I think was from New Zealand or Australia and was wearing a furry red Mrs Santa Bikini! She was splattered with mud and thrilled to have survived in tact!

We ate our picnic of double glouchester cheese sandwitches with home made Banana chutney and/or brambly apple sauce and looked around at the people we saw hats that looked like wedges of cheese, bananas, giant flowers, a man with a chicken on his head, gladiators, a man with nothing but a strip of florescent yellow :/ a giant mole, patients and Drs, a cow, people riding emus, super heroes, and a variety of night attire!

There were also a number of people swinging in the trees with flagons of cider.

Lots of the male runners where walking around with no t-shirts on too!

Once we had finished our apple and ginger juice we walked down the hill to see if we could see anything from the bottom of the hill. We could but unfrortunatly just before the womens race there was an issue over an ambulance being needed and we had to wait for another before anymore races could happen.

An uphill race took place which we all highly cheered especially a little one being helped by someone in a flourescent jacket 🙂

In the long wait periods spectators would get onto the hill from the side lines and end up rolling down to much appluse and cheering.

There was a van selling cheeses and another doing hot dogs and somewhere there was a rumour of ice creams being sold though the crowd density prevented us from exploring the direction of the ice creams! The weather was strangly fuggy and when we first arrived it was drizzling.

A group of brightly coloured people came down the hill and we thought it was another race but it wasn’t – it was a stretcher crew 🙁 From what we heard it was one of the young guys up the tree – he’d fallen out – no idea how he is but hoping he’s ok.

I sort of lost heart at this point and squeezed out of the crowds and therefore missed the cheese rolling everyone else in our group saw.

The event ran about 1 1/2 hrs over schedule but considering the ambulance stuff thats not bad.

We walked down the hill whilst my hubby went to get the car which was up and then down the other side of the hill. We sat and had another smaller picnic in the car park watching the crowds disperse. There was two young men with a cheese who lay down with it infront of the sign for Nut Hill for an unmissable photo oppurtunity!

I unfortunatly forgot the camera so had to steal my husbands phone – as soon as I get them off of there I will add them to the post – he also used his camera goggles to take a video of his journey to retrieve us which I hope to add too 🙂

But why the title I hear you ask?

Well my three year old thought we were going to see a cheese roll and if we were going to see one and so were all these people then it had to be a giant cheese roll. Her grandfather confused things more by saying they should roll lettuces down the hill too so that there would be cheese and lettuce rolls – sigh!