Food and memories

[ragdall]

Megan, you should be writing books. You are so good at remembering and relating interesting details.

Sandra, no worry about transposing letters. I never notice it unless someone points it out.

[meganl]

The mere mention of food sparks memories and conversations. I went into town to pick up a memory stick the other day. On the counter I noticed a copy of the Sandwick SWRI cook book of course that was all Penny and I needed to spend an hour propping up the counter and swapping stories of picnics past.

She had me beat hands down with the trip down a river in Guatemala in a small native boat with her family to find a beach. Her dad was working in that country at the time and the company twice a year would pay for the families to go out from England to visit. On one visit her father wanted to go and visit some ancient ruins so Dad Mum and three children complete with deck chairs, parasol and folding picnic table climbed into a truck full of local people and of they went.

The truck was struggling its way up the hill towards the site when they were stopped by a landslide. Everyone climbed of the truck and while some of the men went to see if someone was trying to clear the road from the other side Penny's mum set up the picnic table and began to carve up a large stuffed Bird dad had won at work. Other folk broke out their supplies, bread, fruit, bottles of juice and beer. The spoiled trip turned into a party there was even a picture of one of the local ladies holding the parasol over Penny's mum to keep the sun of her as she carved the meat.

Her reminiscence reminded me of a picture I saw many years ago now it was taken during a dig in Egypt. There in the heat of the day sat the English lady in her Edwardian long clothes and her gentleman companion most properly dressed. They sat partaking of tea while native servants held the parasol so the lady would not tan for that would not be at all the thing an another served afternoon tea on a small table complete with tablecloth and china tea service.

[sandrainsydney]

lovely pictures, out of an old painting, or a modern costume movie!

more! more!

[meganl]

The Birthday Cake

It was just a cake Mum had found out it would be Dauvit's birthday while he was visiting me in Glasgow so she went to the City Bakeries and ordered a chocolate birthday cake. She had decided that since they didn't know him very well there would be no fuss just a simple tea the cake and a small gift.

I got the job of distracting him while mum and Pearl my sister in law got ready so it was a day in town for us. At home the men dragged out the old gate legged table that sat quietly in the corner until birthdays or the new year celebrations(I remember when it was out every Sunday to feed dad's dance band after practice.) The table when both leaves were up took up most of the sitting room in our terraced council house.

Food choice was always quite restricted in the house since the men were all extremely picky mind you that did not mean the table was bare. Since it was just family it was a set meal rather than the buffet that was served at the new year. Soup In Glasgow there was always soup summer or winter and none of your namby pamby chilled vichyssoise Hot and hearty lentil or a vegetable broth packed with barley. In our family this was usually (for special events) followed by roast silverside roast tatties carrots and peas and if Theo felt like cooking Yorkshire puddings that would make angels weep with envy.

Of course the meal would be topped of with the ubiquitous trifle, Mums trifle bowl could easily have doubled as a punch bowl it was so big. The sponge was soaked in sherry before the fruit and then jelly put on top, I often wonder how the jelly ever managed to set there was so much sherry that it leaked out of the sponge. Then came a thick layer of custard none of your wimpy runny stuff from a tin it set almost solid to hold the mounds of cream and maraschino cherries on top.

Finally the big moment came when the tea cups were placed on the table, the curtains were drawn and Mum stepped out of the kitchen bearing the 14 inch chocolate sponge covered in ganache with a ring of chocolate drops topped with a small ring of candles(It would have been to dangerous to put all 40 candles on it). I will never forget the shocked look on Dauvit's face before he began to cry at first none of us knew what was wrong till Mum hugged him trust her to figure it out. When he calmed he told us no one had ever got him a birthday cake or made an event of the day.

From that day till the day he died no matter how well of or how poor we were if necessary I scrimped for weeks before it to make sure my boy got a big day on his birthday.

[ragdall]

What a beautiful memory, Megan. Thank you for sharing it with us.

[meganl]

As you are coming round the bay of Kirkwall to leave the town there is a small car park beside the sea. during the day there is a food van sits there It is very popular with workers in the adjoining industrial estate on what was during the war the Royal Navy Air Station Hatston, it was also known as HMS Sparrowhawk.

The airfields main claim to fame being that it was the main airfield to protect Scapa Flow and the base for the successful attack on the German Cruiser Konigsberg.

Scapa flow was of course the base for the home fleet in both wars and was where HMAS Sydney was to rescue the only two men to survive the explosion on HMS Vanguard on the 9th July 1917. Sadly two of their own crew had been sentenced to seven days in cells and Vanguard was the nearest ship with cells, both men Robert Thomas Houston and Leslie William Roberts perished on the ship.

It is here I usually stop if I have been in town later in the afternoon and bought something from the Willowburn chip shop. You park on the edge of the small cliff that drops to the water and eat gazing out over the bay and onwards to the far horizon where the last of the visible islands is just a slightly darker bump on the edge of vision.

As I sit munching my Lemon chicken happy meal(I am becoming a creature of habit) I watch little dots of darkness like sooty smuts in the distance resolve themselves into the north isles ferries as they return home for the night like a line of ducklings.

One evening however I saw a glimpse of history one that would have struck terror into ancient residents of the town. Silently it slipped round the point in the light mist as it headed arrow straight towards the spire of the Cathedral. The men at the oars gliding whisper quiet across the water while those walking their dogs paid them no attention. Had she been the Orkney Yoles ancestor a Viking longship It would have been a dangerous mistake to ignore the craft that rode low to the water and moved with the speed of a striking cobra.

[sandrainsydney]

megan, you have such a way with words!

[maeve]

So some of us have been saying. I await publication of the books.

[meganl]

Kat used to tell me I should write a book, she sent me a copy of Wind words of Wyoming it still sits by my bedside to be dipped into like a lucky bag of treats. Perhaps if I gather enough bits here I will see about getting down to publishing them

[sandrainsydney]

27 excellent posts in a few weeks = recipe for lots more good posts & an eventual publication

[maeve]

That's the way to look at it, Megan!

[meganl]

It should have been a quick simple trip to town you see Wednesday is the Orkney booksale at the mart and I wanted to get a catalogue to see if the recipe book I have been looking for was among them. Of course I should have known better I got the bright idea to check the second hand bookshop in town while I was there.

It is a tiny place with as many books in piles on the floor and on the desk as there are on the shelves and a custodian(for one could hardly call him proprietor since he does not seem at all worried about selling his precious friends)whose age it would be impossible to determine.

His smile when someone enters reminds me of a little elfin tailor in a storybook I once saw. That smile is an invitation to prop yourself against the desk and have a blether. We while away an hour swapping tales of the isles and books we have read till he roots around in a pile and comes out triumphantly with and Orkney cookbook I haven't seen and a smile as wide as the Pentland Firth.

With two new cookbooks I and still no sign of the one I am searching for I head to the outskirts of town to the mart to buy a catalogue. The mart has a canteen much appreciated by hungry farmers attending the sales the menu is simple

Sausages in a roll – £1.50

Chicken and rice soup

Westray haddock in batter
Balmoral chicken
Cold meat salad

Rice and fruit

Next week they will post another new menu and of course being Orkney there are a few things they don't even bother writing on the menu like the mince roll or the bacon roll and the selection of sandwiches. As I sit enjoying my soup I listen to the folk around me chattering aboot kye and Dodds new Byre.

It reminded me of an incident Roy witnessed on the boat many years ago, a man who had left the island as a young man peered anxiously from the window as the St Ola approached Stromness pier. His Grand daughters who had accompanied the old man for his first visit home since he went to America all those years ago gently tried to tell him not to get his hopes up to much for things would have surely have changed in the fifty years he had been gone.

I would have loved to see their faces as he walked down the gang plank to be greeted with "Ach its yersel Wullie ye'll be at the mart on Thursday." His modern cousins at the Mart today may have satellite guided tractors and mobile phones but they still talk aboot the kye and the weather.

[sandrainsydney]

after 50 years!

[meganl]

Yup heck they still talk about cousin whoever like they will be back next week only for me to discover they went to the Hudsons Bay in 1900 or some ridiculous date, they don't seem to understand anything beyond cousin and even today Stromness has only 2000 people

[ragdall]

Megan,
You have a talent for writing that not many people have. Your gift for description is captivating. You really must collect these, and any other essays that you have shared online, put them together and publish them.