This is a slight culinary companion to Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Fans of Carroll will be delighted with this book and fans of illustrator, Sir John Tenniel, will be even more so. This cookbook is out of print and first editions are in limited copies. There are some circling out there and that is why I cherish the copy I have even more. Therefore I highly recommend this purely for collector purposes. Not to dishearten the recipes that are showcased on the pages. One does marvel over the Ambidextrous Mushrooms, Eggs Bonne Alice, Bread-and-Butter Fly Pudding and The Cheshire Cat's Cheese Whiskers. There is plenty of wit, prose and excerpts from Carroll's work to entice even the most lacklustre chef. There also seems to be a gastronomic motif in earlier works of Lewis Carroll. Here are a couple of recipe to share...
Hot - Tempered Mustard - 3 tablespoons mustard powder / 1 tablespoon castor sugar / 1 beaten egg / 1/2 (half) pint pure malt vinegar / 1 tablespoon olive oil / 1 pinch of salt
Mix mustard, salt and sugar together in a basin. Stir in the beaten egg until smooth. Add the vinegar, beating until smooth. Transfer to a saucepan and stir over a gentle heat for five minutes. Leave to cool before stirring in the olive oil. Serve with your savoury dishes to make their appeal "otherwise" than what it might appear to have been.
The Cheshire Cat's Cheese Whiskers - 2 ounces flour / 2 ounces butter / 3 ounces grated Cheddar cheese / 1/2 teaspoon baking powder / 2 ounces grated breadcrumbs / 1/2 saltspoon salt / 1/2 saltspoon pepper / paprika
Sieve flour, salt and pepper into a basin. Stir in the breadcrumbs and cheese. Rub in the butter with the fingers until you get a smooth paste, adding a little milk if the texture proves difficult. Dust work surface with flour and roll out pastry into a strip about 4 inches wide. one-eighth of an inch. Cut pastry into so many thin strips. Place on a greased tin and bake in a steady oven at 375ºF, gas mark 4 until crisp and brown. Serve hot, sprinkle with paprika. Then sit back and smile contentedly at your achievement, if only to remind yourself that long ago Cheshire Cheeses were moulded into the shape of a grinning cat prior to being sent to Bristol for export. Hence, maybe, the origin of the phrase " grin like a Cheshire cat " Perhaps Alice should have asked her question of the Duchess's cook?
Hope you enjoy the few photos of Tenniel's illustrations that I included. - JW
Apparently Lewis Carroll drew this one of himself.