Tuesday 22 May 2012

Pastry was made with your hands

There are lots of times in our house when I think of the women before who lived here. Often when reading books I wonder about who lived here when the character I'm reading was alive. There are a few times when I feel more connected to these women of yesterday, one when I'm scrubbing the tiles on our kitchen floor and another when I'm making pastry, by hand. These seem to be tasks that haven't changed through the ages.

'...she knew where the jam was kept and how to tie it down. She knew that bread was kept in the earthenware pan, smelling rather like a flower-pot, in the larder, cake in a tin in the cupboard. She knew that salt and eggs both made silver go a queer colour, that pastry was made with your hands and cake with a wooden spoon. She liked the hot smell of the oven, part grease, part warm metal, when the door was opened to put the pastry in. She loved the smell of rising bread, and of bread hot out of the oven, the queer, ether smell of steaming potatoes and the flat wash day smell of boiled pudding.' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages of Fortune
kitchen

Whom do you imagine having lived in your home before?

6 comments:

  1. There was only one family before us, they moved out in 2003. Their kitchen no longer exists, and that's no bad thing. I like the fact that our kitchen was created by us. I would love to go back to my Grandmothers kitchen, especially if she was there, baking one of her legendary steak and kidney pies. I always think about the former owners of my old cookbooks though. I found a grain of rice stuck to the page of an Elizabeth David risotto recipe, it set me off imagining the cooks story.

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    1. Lilac - Oh yes the stories from cook books.... & now I shall sit thinking about my grandmother's kitchen.

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  2. Lovely thought! Would be quite nice to be represented by a common a garden hydrangea I think - looks good in bunches, adaptable to different soils and flowers that really last. The bungalow I live in now was built for my Grandmother and Aunt in 1958 so it's them I picture and can see so clearly. I used to watch them bake all the time and got to put lids on mince pies (my Grandmother was the one with pastry hands!) and brush warmed apricot jam and roll what my Auntie called madelines in coconut flakes - only they aren't what we think of madelines now. Another plus is I still have a few of their baking tins. Do wish I still had their Kenwood mixer too, though it must have lasted about 40 years. It had the best slicer for runner beans!

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    1. Pen& - oh yes a hydrangea also look good when dried. Love the comment about your grandmother's mixer. I still use my grandmother's hand held mixer that's so old it has 'Made in Yugoslavia' on the side.

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  3. Horses. My place was built out of old hackney carriage stables.

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    1. Mary - wow what an intriguing home you live in.

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Ooh how lovely more stripes on the page...
Thank you for taking the time.