Narnian food!

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

I like Turkish Delight. I’ve come across a few flavours I quite like.

[Swanwhite]

I can see how Turkish delight is a disappointment to some, but I'm somewhat fond of it. Especially if it's good quality stuff and fresh!
Of course it could just be that I trick myself into liking anything associated with Narnia. I even eat sardines sometimes for that reason.

[HermitoftheNorthernMarch]

Turkish Delight is good if you eat only one or two pieces at a time and buy authentic Turkish Delight from an imported food store.

I bought a tin of eel, but I haven't worked up the courage to try it yet. (I think it expired.)

[marmota-b]

Yeah, I've had lokum as authentic as it probably can get in my country... there's a Turkish woman at work who brought a tray once, and then I had some at a multicultural evening sort of event at church, with some of the asylants/immigrants my church's charity works with - that time there were several flavours, and I quite enjoyed all those I sampled.
It's not something I'd want to have a lot of and often, but at the same time I can understand that you might if you like sweet things (which I've gone rather more light on in recent years).
The weird part for me is, that the time I tasted it at work is the first time I recall, and yet the taste seemed familiar, like I'd had it before without knowing what it was, but I can't recall when...

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

*eyes marmota and suspects she’s visited Narnia before even if she has no memory of it*

[marmota-b]

I know, it's odd!

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

Today was National Coffee Cake Day, so I drew inspiration from LWW and made a sugar-topped cake, one of the items Tumnus served Lucy. Because the book doesn't give any further description than that, I pretty much had free rein, but in the interest of going for what I think is a likely flavour, I chose to bake a cranberry cake, since cranberries are a wintery fruit. And then the cake itself needed some pizazz for pictures, so I took my leftover cranberries and sugar-coated them.

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[marmota-b]

That's lovely!

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

Thanks, marmota!

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

Guys, I’m dead tired but I just have to share! Today, I went to my library to see if they still had some antique-esque books on their for-sale shelf (they did) and, while browsing, my eyes fell upon a thick book titled “Mrs Beeton’s Book of Cookery”. Curious, I took it off the shelf and cracked it open. It was old and required a deeper look, so I added it to my pile of books to purchase. After supper, I skimmed through and skipped around, checking out the recipes therein (there’s also stuff on good housekeeping, menu-making, and such). And I was basically transported to Narnia by some of the stuff I found! There are recipes for meats I’ve either never eaten or rarely have, like pheasant, quail, mutton, and hare. There’s one for sardine toast (which makes me wonder if I’ve been very wrong about my mental image of Tumnus’ toast with sardines... this book has the sardines mixed with stuff on the stove and then poured over toast). There are foods that are so very English (exactly how many puddings are there and what exactly qualifies something to be a pudding anyway? Best I can figure is that it’s poured into a mold, baked, and holds its shape when taken out. Can someone more versed in English food explain?) and ones that might not be “so very” English but sound exactly like the sort of things you’d find in Narnia. The instructions on setting up a menu seem something like the feasts in Narnia. And turns out I was wrong about my understanding of the Giants’ man-pie recipe: I’d thought that the pie was done in layers of fish, man, and joint. Turns out that my dad’s interpretation was right because he said that the pie would be served between the fish course and the joint course.
So basically, I’ve spent a few hours skimming through this thing and I’m so glad I found it. Worth way more than the $2 the library charged. (Note that the first edition was published in 1861 but has since been expanded upon a great deal. I have one of these later editions, though I don’t know what year mine was printed. Also note that the book (the recipes in particular) is basically a library of mostly other people’s work, not Mrs Beeton’s original stuff ‘cause she wasn’t much of a cook. Her story actually seems rather sad....)
Anyway. Just wanted to share that. If I make anything out of it that seems of a Narnian nature, I’ll let you know!