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Leaves from a Narnian Cookbook Coming Through
the Wardrobe |
4 Lemons, juiced thoroughly This is best done in a high powered blender. If you use a regular blender, be sure to add the ice cubes one at a time. Put the lemon juice and sugar in the blender container. Blend until sugar is dissolved. Do not wait until after the ice is put in to dissolve the sugar as it will not dissolve completely. While the blender is running add ice cubes until the mixture turns to a slush and it cannot be blended anymore. It may take several times of stopping and allowing the mixture to settle or stirring it and then blending again. Just be sure the mixture is thick and slushy. You may want to adjust the taste with more sugar or lemon to your liking. Put mixture into individual freezer containers and place in the freezer for at least four hours. Do not substitute lemon concentrate as it does not give the same taste result.
1 Medium Cantaloupe (Very Ripe) Cut cantaloupe from rind; remove and discard seeds. Cut into 1 inch cubes. Puree cantaloupe cubes and lemon juice until almost smooth. In a large bowl, combine sugar, honey and half and half. Add pureed cantaloupe mix and vanilla. Stir until sugar dissolves. Pour into ice cream canister and freeze. Yield: 2 quarts
2 Cups Frozen,unsweetened peach slices -- partially thawed In food processor or blender, pulse/ chop peaches. Add remaining ingredients and blend until creamy. May be served immediately or stored in the freezer until serving time. Yield: 4 servings. The two preceding recipes are my favorite kinds of sherbet, I’m even going to admit part of it has to do with the color which is a creamy peachy perfection. Following, however, is something to delight the heart of every Narnian Ice and Sherbet lover. Following the directions for Peach Sherbet or Lemon Ice, above, and consulting the following list, you can make anything from cactus pear sherbert to tomato ice. You need not wait any longer; at last, tonight can be the night for persimmon sherbert and avocado ice!
Fruit Sugar Lemon Water apple 1 C 6 T 2 T 3/4 C
Fruit Sugar Lemon Water
There are many drinks described in Narnia from the first tea Lucy drinks with Mr. Tumnas in The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe to the miracle, magical waters of the Silver Sea in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Mr. Beaver drinks beer, the Hermit gives Aravis goats milk, Bricklethumb and his brothers give Shasta coffee and hot milk for breakfast, Puddleglum drinks something nasty from a black bottle and Eustace asks for Plumtrees Vitaminized Nerve Food made with distilled water. Wine flows quite freely all through Narnia, especially, as one would well expect, at the magical feast danced up by Bacchus Silenus and the Maends. “Then in great wooden cups and bowls and mazers, wreathed with ivy, came the wines; dark, thick ones like syrups of mulberry juice, and clear red ones like red jellies liquefied, and yellow wines and green wines and yellowy-green and greenish-yellow.” In the very beginning of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lucy, Edmund and Eustace arrive precipitately in Narnia, they also coincidently arrive with a splash in the middle of the sea. They are rescued by Caspian who immediately gives them warm cloaks and spiced wine. The spicing of wine is an ancient technique; specific commentaries and recipes for it can be found from the times of early Imperial Rome. In the Middle Ages, the making of Hippocras was already a well-understood industry. This recipe is found in a collection known as "B. L. Additional 32085". This consists of a small quarto vellum volume whose various contents date to the early years of King Edward I's reign (1272-1307). The bound leaves are mainly statutes and treatises, but contain some recipes as well. One of these recipes is the following:
This is a recipe for a hot, spiced wine that might be just the thing if you happen to find people magically fallen into the sea all around your ship. This recipe is approximately 700 years younger than the last one, but just as good. 4 cups red wine (preferably a Burgundy or Pinot Noir) 4 ounces brandy In a four-quart saucepan, combine all ingredients except the wine. Bring to a boil and cook for about 10 minutes. Reduce by half. Lower heat and add the wine. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Do not boil a second time. Strain through a fine sieve. Serve hot and garnish with a cinnamon stick.
Here begin instructions for making claree. Take half a measure of cinnamon, ginger, and mace; a third of a measure of cloves, nutmeg, malabathrum; fennel, anise, and caraway seeds, in the same amount; cardamom and squinant, a fourth of a measure; and spikenard in the amount of half the quantity of al the other spices. Grind this into a powder, and then put the powder in a pouch, and take white or red wine and pour it over the powder, wring it through the cloth, and you will have claree; the more you repeat the process, the stronger your claree will be. If you do not have all these spices, take two measures of cinnamon, ginger, and mace, cloves and spikenard to half the quantity of all other ingredients; grind to a powder, and strain as described above, and you will have claree.
Whether you are having tea in a faun’s cave, on a beaver’s dam, with a magician or in the open Narnian air, it is useful to knows the correct way to brew a good cup of tea. They tell us that there are doors that open to Narnia all over the world, but the only ones I know about all open into England, where it is quite essential to know how to brew a good cup of tea. I once read a British murder mystery in which the victim was done in because she kept making the tea without letting the kettle come to a complete boil. Evidently there are some things that are just not done. To Make the Perfect Cup of Hot Tea * Use a hot teapot, preheating it by filling it with hot tap water
and letting it sit while boiling the water for the tea. |
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