A partridge in a pear tree, sprouts and cinnamon cake

Discussion in 'The Lounge Bar' started by papiermache, Dec 9, 2018.

  1. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    "Treats" not seen except during partridge in a pear tree time include salted cashew nuts, roast turkey, and strange cinnamon cake. Sprouts are seen at other times, I like them. Hey ho for the Embassy Ball to eat chocs wrapped in gold foil.Cheese and beetroot sandwiches washed down with R. White's Lemonade watching the snow fall.
     
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  2. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Ambassador you are spoiling us!
     
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  3. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Oh sprouts I love them
    a big supermarket chain will be selling wonky sprouts (all shapes and sizes) for the Christmas period

    A whole tin of quality street/roses et al with a big mug of tea ( a few will be left the straight toffee that dont sit well with tea but will do as a chew later )

    Stollen with a wad of marzipan running through it

    addictive dutch craviingz snow ball cakes again with tea or coffee

    mince pies christmas cake

    how lucky we all are
     
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  4. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    We certainly are lucky these days.

    Twiglets are nutritious, vitamin B12 in the marmite coating. Ought to eat but don't like the stuff. Also contains folic acid.

    A Quality Street box was always in the stocking, along with unshelled walnuts, almonds and brazils, tangerines and oranges ( 1950's Christmas ).

    Walnut whips a Christmas treat, also Fry's Turkish Delight.

    Marzipan and icing sugar loved by my wife and she can eat all of it so far as I am concerned, but I have made malt loaf. Tastes nothing like the popular brand in a yellow packet but generally enjoyed by others. Stollen doesn't translate well with me but I used to like snowballs and Egg Flip.

    Partridge superior to pheasant, turkey boring, chipolatas tastier, stuffing probably the taste of Christmas. Bread sauce not seen much these days but my late mother used to make it. A bit like Yorkshire pudding, makes the meal go further when the main ingredient is expensive.

    Speaking to a young Polish chap today ( age 36 ) he says carp is the Christmas dish.

    Anyone for a Cheese Ball ?
     
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  5. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    cheesy puffs not sure then but now

    christmas stocking big old sock
    cracking 2 walnuts along the seams to break them the strength of hercules

    Salvation Army singing carols which we still have today and transports you back to a time once then.
     
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  6. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    Christmas stocking white woollen RN issue ( to late father ) for wearing under sea boots, long over-the-knee design. Hard to believe, we "sang" carols and knocked on doors and actually were given threepence or sixpence. One day we got cocoa, which was thoughtful. Also shouted "penny for the guy" a few weeks before, and actually got a few coppers.
    Smith's Crisps with salt packed separately in blue twist: not nice if you bit into it by mistake. Sometimes got two in a bag.
    Roast chestnuts: used to be sold "freshly" roasted. Eaten raw the skin got under fingernails when peeling: painful.
    Also chestnut stuffing.
     
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  7. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Big drum of boiled beetroot outside the proper greengrocers steaming in the winter gloom.
    Paper bags twisted expertly by the greengrocer with your christmas produce safely inside.

    Coal smoke ( oh i go on about this but you still smell it to this day in London)

    If you had a battery toy and they ran out you had to wait a few days before the shops reopened none of this nipping down to the 24/7 shop

    Father Christmas Grotto was a sight to behold even though most of the time they smelt of brylcreem and woodbines (Father Christmas not the Grotto) with your cheap made in Hong Kong tin plate toy ( now worth a few sovs on the internet)

    The jingle of Reindeer bells on early Christmas morning Im sure I heard them.
    Throwing orange peel and cracked nut cases into the open fire and watch them crack and spit around the fire grate.

    The old aunts front room kept for best or family coffins lying in state which once a year was opened up for tea and Christmas cake.
    The antimacassa laden best chairs .

    In the bleak midwinter
    Long, long ago
     
  8. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    My mother still makes bread sauce. It is the extra bit that makes the Christmas meal perfect, in my opinion!
     
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  9. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    The coal man delivering coal, from an ex-Army lorry with the towing bar in front of the radiator, he wore a leather coat with no sleeves. Also the ice-cream man called with dry ice - "Don't touch it ! It will stick to your fingers and burn the skin off". The French onion man and his bicycle ( up in Leeds a bit of a journey from France ) and the knife-grinder. The rag-and-bone man. The travelling salesman with his suitcase of goods. The chimney sweep.

    The coal-hole built into the wall of a new 1953 semi-detached, no double-glazing, no central heating, a drive but no garage and no car , but three buses ran along the street red, blue and green. The red one had the passageway at the side on the top deck and long bench seats, for the more rural routes. Smoking on the top deck.

    Chips and scraps, threepence.

    Fogs for days on end. Cars started with starting-handles. The strange smell of the local ironmongers, buying pink or blue paraffin for heaters and hurricane lamps. Comics with free gifts of a cardboard and paper construction which made a sharp bang when you moved it down sharply at arm's length. Leather footballs, boots with leather studs nailed in. Buying penny bangers, Mighty Atoms, Cannons, and taking some apart to make a flash. The smell of real gunpowder you don't get from modern fireworks.

    The fire in the dining room was lit with the aid of a gas-poker and the terrifying thing was that a shovel of burning coals would be taken to the laid fire in the front room on the special winter occasions it was used. Then my father would parcel up kitchen waste: potato peelings and damp down a perfectly good blazing coal fire giving out heat. It took ages to burn through., the steam produced nearly put paid to the fire. Slack was cheap but would burn through, a warmer way of calming things down. To encourage a fire he would cover the fireplace with a page from "The Times", a true broadsheet, which would singe and burst into flames.

    Visiting Father Christmas in Lewis's department store.,price 2/6d. "What would you like for Christmas?" Answer: " A gun, please. " Amazingly, I got a six-shooter cap gun. Packets of cap rolls extra, 1d each.

    And Creamola Foam, "orange" flavour. A fizzy drink from powder in a round tin, involved Cream of Tartar somewhere in the secret recipe.
     
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  10. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Oh nostagia

    Would I go back
    Would I bugger
     
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  11. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

  12. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    I've always felt it would be good to go back and do it all again. But you are probably right Clive. :)
     
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  13. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Oh me old mate with hindsight it would work!!!!!.We could learn them all about binary and the internet.Buy a street of houses in the East End for a fiver.Invent Gorilla glass.Ask all those questions from those who knew and answer those questions that
    "Oh he/she didnt really talk about it so we never asked"

    My time machine is right out of batteries will have to wait until the day after Boxing Day

    Blackboards rubbers thrown with the weight and punch of a PIAT
    Getting the slipper which it wasnt ,it was a gym shoe made out of hardened india rubber.
    Sir Sir please do the exploding science experiment and burn the eyebrows off the pupils in the front seats.


    And to the future

    I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

    Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.

    I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

    All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
     
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  14. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Looks like we went to the same school! Still good days, mostly fun and little responsibility. Barely in the the EEC! Ooops.
     
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  15. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    HaHa

    Does Mr Epton ring a bell
    French teacher
    one eye looking at yer one eye looking for a bus
    accurate with a blackboard rubber up to 10 yards
     
  16. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    By the way, what is the "strange cinnamon cake"?
     
  17. papiermache

    papiermache Well-Known Member

    Cinnamon is not my favourite spice and a cake to me is one made using bicarbonate of soda as the raising agent. A "strange cake" is a "cake" using yeast as the raising agent. Could be called a yeast cake.

    As indicated above, I have made yeast cakes such as malt loaf and hot cross buns but neither taste anything like the commercial variety although appreciated for what they turned out to be. Stollen and panettone can contain too much cinnamon for my taste. I tend to use very strong flour but cakes are usually made with soft flour containing bicarbonate of soda called self-raising flour and generally having less in the way of gluten content than a "strong" flour. I have tried to make bread from gluten-free flour for a relative who cannot eat any wheat flour and it is a severe challenge.

    My opinion is that the longer yeast is allowed to work in the dough the better it is for the health of the eater. I have made sourdough, which takes ages, and gives the crumb ( as opposed to the crust ) a wonderful texture, but the taste is not to my liking. I don't watch television baking programmes: far too much sugar involved but the bloke in charge is certainly an expert.

    Elizabeth David's " English Bread and Yeast Cookery" has a recipe for a " Luncheon Cake" which involves adding the usual extra ingredients to a basic yeast, flour, water, salt recipe such as caster sugar, eggs, milk, sultanas, candied citron peel. No cinnamon. I would give you the quantities but I have found that the book, whilst being a modern classic, contains several recipes where the ingredient quantities were way out.

    If you take 10 ounces of strong flour, an ounce of caster sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, four fluid ounces of milk at room temperature, a beaten small egg ( if it is too large just add plain flour to get a workable dough ) and a packet of quick yeast you can make a sweet bread which is to my taste, either as rolls or a loaf. I don't paint the proved rolls with egg, milk or sugar. Gives the crust a pleasant texture.

    As for blackboard rubbers one of my maths teachers used to throw chalk at the boys. He explained one day that he used to throw blackboard rubbers but gave up after hitting a boy in the head. This boy, he explained, used to sit in the back row and when the said maths teacher was writing on the board the boy would jump up and make funny faces and wave his hands.

    After the boy was hit by the blackboard rubber he improved in all areas and became a complete genius, or so the maths teacher said, and was grateful for the missile.

    As for punishments my chemistry teacher got a large old-fashioned syringe from his case and tried to inject a boy who failed to pay attention with "poison" ( probably saline ), so the boy ran away, screaming. I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I don't know if he became a genius.
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2018
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  18. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    I know whats up next for you mate
    The great British bake off
     
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  19. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

  20. Tricky Dicky

    Tricky Dicky Don'tre member

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