Ah, Shrove Tuesday – the day the English get super excited about flour, eggs and milk and shops sell out of lemons. Honestly, it’s a national obsession. To quote one friend on Facebook this morning: “Loving how many people are happy due to pancakes. Eat them more often.” He’s got a point.
I celebrated with friends at a cult in Oval (it’s not really a cult, well, probably not one – it’s just what the friend who lives there calls it). He really is quite a distinguished host, pulling off magnificent Christmas dinners and now celebrating as many food occasions as possible in community, which I think is rather a fabulous idea. I suspect most people at Shrove gatherings last night made do with a couple of vigorously tossed pancakes smothered in lemon and sugar. I and my fellow guests were treated to a much more sophisticated affair…
Arriving fresh from the gym (I burned 300+ calories on the crosstrainer to aid guilt-free pancake consumption), I was presented with a plate of blinis topped with a variety of delicacies. The room was candle-lit so, other than a smoked salmon & cream cheese variety, it was difficult to work out what I was actually about to consume. While I may be overcoming my fussy eating step by step, I do like to know what I’m eating and examine it carefully, so it was with extreme caution that I placed the first morsel in my mouth. Fortunately, I’d correctly identified it as involving chorizo – curious as to the others, I stopped the host to get a detailed explanation and this is what it turned out was on my plate:
– Aforementioned smoked salmon & cream cheese blini.
– Chorizo with rhubarb jam. [Rather yummy.]
– Cured beef, fig and horseradish.
– Bacon, banana and some sort of caramel sauce.
Wow. That’s no typical Shrove Tuesday fare. Neither was dessert – chocolate filled and caramel filled traditional style pancakes; coconut delicacies (didn’t manage to find room for this one); and the standard lemon & sugar variety. (I think that’s right, to be honest my memories of the latter part of the evening are a little fuzzy.) I wish I had photos, but what with the candlelight and iPhone factors I don’t think I’d have done the glorious presentation justice.
Not content with fantastic edible delicacies, the evening was accompanied in true soiree style with contributions from guests – poetry, acoustic guitar led songs and the like, some composed by the performers. On Sunday the host suggested I wrote a poem on the subject of South London, but as I haven’t written poetry since I was an angst-ridden teenager (and even then I relied upon song lyrics to get me going) and had no time to let my creative juices flow, I feared I’d have no contribution to make to the proceedings. Fortunately someone had discovered a gem of a book – poems about Lambeth published in 1961 – in which I discovered a fabulous set of verses on the subject of hailing a cab, I just wish I’d had the presence of mind to note some of the lines. So that was my contribution, and I watched the acoustic guitar players with enormous envy – I’m beginning to wonder if I should add guitar lessons to my list, or if I’ll simply be disappointed that I will never be Joan Baez.
The other inspiration from last night is that I really, really ought to host a dinner party soon – something I’m pretty sure I’ve never done, which is utterly ridiculous. Yes, I’ve had friends round and cooked, but never involving a table, tablecloth, napkins in fancy shapes and name cards – who’d like to come round for dinner? Poetry writing will be optional, but men with guitars in tow will be welcomed with girlish squeals of joy.
Returning to last night’s event, I’ve just checked my phone and discovered some photos I don’t entirely remember taking [it seems you can’t re-hydrate yourself post-gym on red wine…], so while I have none of the food, I do have some of the sharing…
Things people have said: