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Authors: Kate Llewellyn
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In her woodstove, Granny baked her German yeast cake on a tray so big that it filled the oven. When she brought the cake out and it had cooled a little, she gave slices to us four children and her youngest daughter, Tommy, our mother (whom my father nicknamed ‘Muttee’), with glasses of rainwater or a cup of tea. It was the scale of the cake and the warm yeasty taste that I was impressed by. Bubbling yeast and warming dough in a basin by the woodstove, covered with a tea-towel, were often there in Granny’s kitchen and often in our own.
When my mother was growing up, Granny Shemmeld charged her boarders one pound a week for food, lodging and laundering. With only one exception, the boarders were men. There was one woman who dyed her hair black and who stained the starched white linen cover laid across her wash-basin table. My mother called her Lady (but Granny didn’t like her) and she says in her autobiography that Lady was very refined and would not eat rabbit.
Before the first of Granny’s two sons, Otto, went off to the First World War, he had greyhound dogs and a rifle. He often brought home rabbits and hares he had shot for Granny to cook.
To make a ‘chicken’ pie from a rabbit, so she could entice Lady to eat it, Granny would cut out the lower backbone from the rabbit, soak it in brine overnight to whiten it, and then cut it into portions. These she boiled with chopped bacon, thyme and parsley. When the meat was tender, some of the broth was taken out and mixed with cornflour and a little milk. Then it was returned to the meat and boiled a minute or two to thicken it. Finely sliced potatoes were then placed on top or it was covered with a piece of flaky pastry, and then it was baked until bubbling and brown. Lady was only served the whitest of the meat and when she said, ‘This chicken pie is delicious, Mrs Shemmeld, can I have a small return serve?’ Granny would give my mother a funny look and try not to laugh.
My father called rabbit ‘underground mutton’ and would not eat it, not even as a chicken pie. Sometimes, though, we had jugged hare when either one of my mother’s favourite sisters, Nora and Edna, who were good shots, came to stay at Tumby Bay, or our father or a friend trapped a hare. Once Edna came tearing in, yelling that she had trapped a rabbit. She was holding it up by the legs and, when she went to skin it, she found a bullet in it. This was my father’s odd idea of a prank. He had shot the rabbit and placed it in her trap. There was much crying out of, ‘Oh, you devil, Brink!’
The way Granny Shemmeld jugged a hare was the German way. Here is how my mother describes it in her autobiography:
Mum would keep the hare for several days before cooking. [It was hung unskinned on a meat hook to mature for several days so that it softened and the flavour improved as is the practice with game.] She would then dissect it and fry it with a little chopped onion and then place it in a stone jar with water, salt and pepper, cloves and bay leaf. Then she stood the jug in a preserving pan of water and the jar was covered with a piece of greaseproof paper and a cloth tied around its neck. It was boiled for several hours and towards the end of cooking a cup of red wine was added. It was thickened with some of the liquidfrom the jar mixed with cornflour. This mixture was poured back into the jar and it was returned to the boil until thickened. Everyone liked it and usually asked for a return serve.
This recipe is called Hasenpfeffer, a name my mother did not know, because she was not allowed to know any German for the fear of having a German accent. But my grandmother would have known that name.
Neither my mother nor any of my aunts married a man of German descent and that may have been chance, but when Granny told them to ‘marry up’, it subtly implied, I think, what they could see all around them: that to be German was difficult. While they were proud of being German at home, they must have
When my mother was growing up, Granny Shemmeld charged her boarders one pound a week for food, lodging and laundering. With only one exception, the boarders were men. There was one woman who dyed her hair black and who stained the starched white linen cover laid across her wash-basin table. My mother called her Lady (but Granny didn’t like her) and she says in her autobiography that Lady was very refined and would not eat rabbit.
Before the first of Granny’s two sons, Otto, went off to the First World War, he had greyhound dogs and a rifle. He often brought home rabbits and hares he had shot for Granny to cook.
To make a ‘chicken’ pie from a rabbit, so she could entice Lady to eat it, Granny would cut out the lower backbone from the rabbit, soak it in brine overnight to whiten it, and then cut it into portions. These she boiled with chopped bacon, thyme and parsley. When the meat was tender, some of the broth was taken out and mixed with cornflour and a little milk. Then it was returned to the meat and boiled a minute or two to thicken it. Finely sliced potatoes were then placed on top or it was covered with a piece of flaky pastry, and then it was baked until bubbling and brown. Lady was only served the whitest of the meat and when she said, ‘This chicken pie is delicious, Mrs Shemmeld, can I have a small return serve?’ Granny would give my mother a funny look and try not to laugh.
My father called rabbit ‘underground mutton’ and would not eat it, not even as a chicken pie. Sometimes, though, we had jugged hare when either one of my mother’s favourite sisters, Nora and Edna, who were good shots, came to stay at Tumby Bay, or our father or a friend trapped a hare. Once Edna came tearing in, yelling that she had trapped a rabbit. She was holding it up by the legs and, when she went to skin it, she found a bullet in it. This was my father’s odd idea of a prank. He had shot the rabbit and placed it in her trap. There was much crying out of, ‘Oh, you devil, Brink!’
The way Granny Shemmeld jugged a hare was the German way. Here is how my mother describes it in her autobiography:
Mum would keep the hare for several days before cooking. [It was hung unskinned on a meat hook to mature for several days so that it softened and the flavour improved as is the practice with game.] She would then dissect it and fry it with a little chopped onion and then place it in a stone jar with water, salt and pepper, cloves and bay leaf. Then she stood the jug in a preserving pan of water and the jar was covered with a piece of greaseproof paper and a cloth tied around its neck. It was boiled for several hours and towards the end of cooking a cup of red wine was added. It was thickened with some of the liquidfrom the jar mixed with cornflour. This mixture was poured back into the jar and it was returned to the boil until thickened. Everyone liked it and usually asked for a return serve.
This recipe is called Hasenpfeffer, a name my mother did not know, because she was not allowed to know any German for the fear of having a German accent. But my grandmother would have known that name.
Neither my mother nor any of my aunts married a man of German descent and that may have been chance, but when Granny told them to ‘marry up’, it subtly implied, I think, what they could see all around them: that to be German was difficult. While they were proud of being German at home, they must have
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