Sunday, October 26, 2008
Erratum
It seems that I misdirected myself (this being 2005 mandarin speak for being economical with the truth) with regard to Debrett's peerage. What I actually have is Burke's peerage. And I find from http://www.burkes-peerage.net/ that I could buy a second copy for £399 plus £9.95 to have it posted to me. The puzzle is, what sort of a person would pay £400 or so for such a monster? I would have thought that a professional person - perhaps the chap who writes the court circular in the DT - would prefer to have the thing on a CD. Perhaps with something like XMLSPY to make the family trees a bit more intelligible than they can be on the printed page.
So far, not having got as far as volume II which will do Norfolk, have only got as far as trying to decypher the relatively modest lineage of one Sir Valentine Robert Duff Abdy, 6th baronet, with addresses in both the Channel Islands and France. Now they are not really that posh. It seems that the first baronet of the first creation was created on 7 July 1641 and so was sufficiently ancient to count as posh. But, sadly, this creation lapsed with the 7th baronet on 16th April 1868. There was then a nouveau creation, involving some shennanigans with some Nevilles and a parson, the odd thing about this nouveau creation being that it was dated before the oldeau creation lapsed. Clearly not quite got the hang of all this yet. But perhaps one could get into it. Something to browse during the adverts on telly? And I do seem to remember that something of this sort was the reading of choice of at least one of Jane Austen's elderly gentlemen.
Rolled belly of pork went down very well today with a 2007 Bordeaux. Good crackling and oddly modest amount of fat from what one might have thought was a fairly fatty joint. About 2 hours at 180C for 5 pounds of the stuff. Mashed potato, mashed swede and crinkly cabbage. And for once in a while revived the gravy dipping custom - at least after a fashion, remembering just in time not to contaminate the gravy with gluten. But made in the proper way. Pour fat from roasting dish into saucepan. Roux with corn flour. Pour a litre of water or so into roasting dish and stir in all the gubbins which has accumulated there. Add back to the roux and stir vigorously to get savoury, custard thick, brown sauce. Dip bread in then eat to test the flavour. Salt had been rubbed into the pork skin to make it crackle so there was no need for any additional seasoning. In the olden days we used to get through quite a lot of bread, just before the off, in this way.
So far, not having got as far as volume II which will do Norfolk, have only got as far as trying to decypher the relatively modest lineage of one Sir Valentine Robert Duff Abdy, 6th baronet, with addresses in both the Channel Islands and France. Now they are not really that posh. It seems that the first baronet of the first creation was created on 7 July 1641 and so was sufficiently ancient to count as posh. But, sadly, this creation lapsed with the 7th baronet on 16th April 1868. There was then a nouveau creation, involving some shennanigans with some Nevilles and a parson, the odd thing about this nouveau creation being that it was dated before the oldeau creation lapsed. Clearly not quite got the hang of all this yet. But perhaps one could get into it. Something to browse during the adverts on telly? And I do seem to remember that something of this sort was the reading of choice of at least one of Jane Austen's elderly gentlemen.
Rolled belly of pork went down very well today with a 2007 Bordeaux. Good crackling and oddly modest amount of fat from what one might have thought was a fairly fatty joint. About 2 hours at 180C for 5 pounds of the stuff. Mashed potato, mashed swede and crinkly cabbage. And for once in a while revived the gravy dipping custom - at least after a fashion, remembering just in time not to contaminate the gravy with gluten. But made in the proper way. Pour fat from roasting dish into saucepan. Roux with corn flour. Pour a litre of water or so into roasting dish and stir in all the gubbins which has accumulated there. Add back to the roux and stir vigorously to get savoury, custard thick, brown sauce. Dip bread in then eat to test the flavour. Salt had been rubbed into the pork skin to make it crackle so there was no need for any additional seasoning. In the olden days we used to get through quite a lot of bread, just before the off, in this way.
# posted by Jim @ 8:48 AM 
