Food and plants from books

Gina from Babs Beloved Books shared recently (on Instagram) a book haul and specifically the book The Anne of Green Gables Treasure. I remembered making one of the recipes of this book. Spoiler alert: the shortbread is delicious. Around the same time, I also made the raspberry cordial, but it’s not in this book, I must have found the recipe elsewhere online.

I’d never had shortbread or raspberry cordial before and at the time it was not something you could buy at the store in Portugal. This also made me think that sometimes I make recipes because I want to know how they taste.

That was the case of orange marmalade. The first time I read about it there was no mention of orange, but a character in A pocket full of rye by Agatha Christie takes a spoon of marmalade from a jar and spreads it on a toast. And this was strange for me, because here we slice the marmalade, it’s not easily spreadable. And we don’t make marmalade from oranges, but from quinces. And of course, Paddington also loves orange marmalade. Are there other literary references?

So I decided to give it a go and see how it would taste. I found several recipes online, but after making it some times I changed it a little bit. I use less sugar, but I sterilise the jars before and boiled them until vacuum after filling them. I also make it at the beginning of the year when oranges are not sweet. I shared the recipe on this blog before, if you want to take a look, but in Portuguese.

Another recipe is Madeira cake. I can’t recall a literary reference, but I read many United Kingdom authors, and this is a cake that was much used in 19th century in the UK. The fact is that it got my attention: Madeira is a Portuguese island and indeed has a tradicional cake, but nothing like this one. Searching a little more, I found that the cake is called Madeira because it used to be served with a glass of Madeira wine (which is indeed from Madeira island). I also shared the recipe before here (also in Portuguese), I can’t tell where I got it (maybe BBC Good Food?). I usually take recipes, make them a few times, and if they’re good than share them, but by that time, I really can’t tell where I got them and most of the times I’ve change them anyway (recipes do not have copyright, phew!).

Then there were sweet peas. I have heard about them and their strong scent, but never saw any. Mrs. Dalloway had them in bowls “tinged violet, snow white, pale—as if it were the evening and girls in muslin frocks came out to pick sweet peas and roses after the superb summer’s day”. So when I saw seeds in a store I decided to give them a grow, some came out and they do have a lovely scent.

Now, tell me: do you also make recipes or sow plants that you read about to know how they taste, look, or for their scent? If you shared them before, put the link in the comments so I can read them, or share the recipe in the comments.

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