While Beatrix was not to come to Sawrey to live for another eight years, she visited as often as she could and her heart was constantly there. Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to say that Hill Top saved her from despair. It gave her a sense of new possibilities for herself, exciting new hopes and new dreams and even—by 1913—a new and enduring love. It changed the course of her life.
And thereby hangs a tale . . .
Susan Wittig Albert
Resources
There are a great many excellent resources on Beatrix Potter’s life and work, and on the Lake District of England. Here are a few of those that I have found most useful in the research for this series. Additional resource material is available on my website, www.mysterypartners.com.
Denyer, Susan. At Home with Beatrix Potter, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 2000.
Jay, Eileen, Mary Noble, and Anne Stevenson Hobbs. A Victorian Naturalist: Beatrix Potter’s Drawings from the Armitt Collection, Frederick Warne, London, 1992.
Lane, Margaret. The Tale of Beatrix Potter, revised edition, Frederick Warne, London, 1968.
Paston-Williams, Sarah. The Beatrix Potter Country Cooking Book. Claremont Books, in association with Frederick Warne, London, 1995.
Potter, Beatrix. The Journal of Beatrix Potter, 1881-1897, transcribed by Leslie Linder, Frederick Warne, London, New Edition, 1966.
Potter, Beatrix. Beatrix Potter’s Letters, selected and edited by Judy Taylor, Frederick Warne, London, 1989.
Potter, Beatrix. Beatrix Potter: A Holiday Diary, transcribed and edited, with a foreword and a history of the Warne family, by Judy Taylor. The Beatrix Potter Society, London, 1996.
Rollinson, William. The Cumbrian Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore. Smith Settle, Otley, West Yorkshire, UK, 1997.
Taylor, Judy. Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller, and Countrywoman. Frederick Warne, London, Revised Edition, 1996.
Favorite Sawrey Village Recipes
Tatie Pot
This version of tatie pot comes from Beatrix Potter’s Country Cooking, by Sarah Paston-Williams (Claremont/Warne) and is reprinted with permission.
Tatie pot is a familiar dish in the Lake District, and every cook had her own recipe. Black pudding (made from pig’s blood and oatmeal) is a delicacy in northern England, and makes a dark, rich gravy; it can be omitted from the recipe if you can’t find it, or you can substitute it with a dark sausage. Mathilda Crook would have used Herdwick mutton and vegetables and herbs from her garden, and served her tatie pot with mashed turnips, pickled onions, and pickled red cabbage.
1.6 kg (31⁄2 lb) best end and middle neck of lamb, in
chops
Seasoned flour
3 large onions, finely sliced
4 large carrots, thickly sliced
1 large turnip or swede, roughly chopped
Lamb stock or water, to cover
3 or 4 sprigs of fresh mint
1 bay leaf
Salt and freshly milled black pepper
450 g (1 lb) black pudding, thickly sliced
900 g (2 lb) potatoes, thinly sliced
Pre-heat the oven to 140 degrees C (275 degrees F, gas mark 1).
Trim the fat and skin from the meat and cut up the fat finely. Melt it in a large frying pan. Roll the trimmed chops in seasoned flour, then brown all over in the fat. Remove with a slotted spoon and arrange in a large, shallow ovenproof dish. Fry the onions, adding extra dripping if necessary, until soft. Add the carrots and turnip and fry for a few minutes more.
Transfer the vegetables to the ovenproof dish and pour over enough stock or water to cover. Add the mint and bay leaf and season well. Cover with a lid and cook in a very slow oven for 4-5 hours, or until the meat falls off the bone easily. Strain off the cooking liquor and leave until cold, preferably overnight.
The next day, pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees C (375 degrees F, gas mark 5).
Bone the meat and cut into bite-sized chunks. Discard the mint and bay leaf. Arrange back in the cleaned ovenproof dish with the vegetables and cover with slices of black pudding. Remove and reserve the fat from the cold stock, then boil the stock up in a pan. Taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary, and pour over the meat, to cover. Arrange overlapping slices of potato over the top and dot with the reserved lamb fat. Season the potato, then cover and cook in a fairly hot oven for about 1 hour, removing the cover after 30 minutes to crisp and brown the potatoes at the edges. (Brown under the grill for a few minutes if you wish.) Serves 6.
Elsa Grape’s Gooseberry Sauce
1 cup gooseberries, tops and tails snipped off
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Stew the gooseberries in as little water as possible until very soft. Drain and puree. Return to pan over low heat and add the butter, sugar, and lemon juice, stirring until blended. Serve hot with fish.
Sponge Cake
This recipe for sponge cake, a tea-time favorite, comes from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Popularly called Mrs. Beeton’s, the housekeeping manual, first published in 1861, was a Victorian publishing phenomenon, selling 60,000 copies in the first year and more than two million copies by 1868. It was an essential reference for every Victorian cook and housewife. In 1913, Beatrix wrote to a friend, “Now, if you want to get me a nice useful present that I shall always use and remember you by—get me Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery, please, and write my name in it!”
INGREDIENTS: The weight of 5 eggs in flour, the weight of 8 in pounded loaf sugar; flavoring to taste. [Mrs. Beeton also intends you to use those 13 eggs!]
MODE: Let the flour be perfectly dry, and the sugar well pounded and sifted. Separate the whites from the yolks of the [13] eggs, and beat the latter up with the sugar; then whisk the whites until they become rather stiff, and mix them with the yolks, but do not stir them more than is just necessary to mingle the ingredients well together. Dredge in the flour by degrees, add the flavoring; butter the tins well, pour in the batter, sift a little sugar over the cakes, and bake them in a rather quick oven, but do not allow them to take too much color, as they should be rather pale. Remove them from the tins before they get cold, and turn them on their faces, where let them remain until quite cold, when store them away in a closed tin canister or wide-mouthed glass bottle.
TIME: 10 to 15 minutes in a quick oven. AVERAGE COST: 1 penny each.
Bertha Stubbs’s Rhubarb and Strawberry Tart
Pastry for a 2-crust 9-inch pie
4 cups chopped rhubarb
2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
11⁄3 cups sugar
1⁄4 cup cornstarch
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon sugar (for lattice top)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Roll out half the pastry and line a 9-inch pie plate. Trim, leaving a 1⁄2-inch overhang over the edge of the pie plate. Combine rhubarb, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Mix well and pour into the pie shell. Roll out remaining pastry and cut into eight 1-inch strips. Place four strips at equal intervals across the filling. Crisscross these with remaining four strips, weaving them into a lattice. Trim the strips even with the edge of the pie plate. Fold the 1⁄2-inch of the bottom crust over the ends of the strips, and seal and flute the edges. Brush lattice top with egg, and sprinkle with sugar.
Place pie in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, until the crust starts to brown. Reduce heat to 375 degrees and continue to bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until crust is golden, rhubarb is tender, and filling is thickened. (For easy cleanup of spills, place a cookie sheet or sheet of foil on the bottom of the oven.) Serve with ice cream for a real treat.
Gingersnaps
Beatrix Potter recalled with pleasure her Grandmama Compton’s “very hard gingersnap biscuits.” These gingersnaps are chewy, rather than hard.
3⁄4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
/> 1⁄4 cup treacle (light or golden molasses)
1 egg
2 teaspoons soda
2 cups sifted flour
1⁄2 teaspoon cloves
1⁄2 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1⁄4 cup sugar mixed with 1 ⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon
Melt shortening in saucepan, over low heat. Cool. Beat in sugar, molasses, and egg. Sift flour, soda, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and salt together, and add to first mixture in two batches, mixing well. Form into 1-inch balls, roll in granulated sugar, and place on cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake in 350-degree oven for 8-10 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen.
Mrs. Stokes’s Treacle Pudding
The traditional English treacle pudding is steamed on top of the range, but this oven-steamed adaptation is easier. Most English cooks prefer golden cane syrup (rather than corn syrup). This recipe includes a syrup sauce, but treacle pudding is often served with a thick vanilla custard. With regard to puddings, Mrs. Beeton observes wryly that, in Great Britain, flavor was less important than the size and number of portions, and that the most important feature of any pudding was its “substantiality.” This rich pudding offers both flavor and substantiality.
1⁄2 cup softened butter
1⁄2 cup plus 2 tablespoons fine granulated sugar
2 eggs, beaten
Grated zest of one lemon
11⁄4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons milk
4 tablespooons syrup
SAUCE
Juice of one lemon
2 tablespoons water
4 tablespoons syrup (dark or light)
Light cream
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and lemon zest. Sift flour and baking powder together, and fold into creamed mixture. Gently stir in milk.
Grease a 3-cup ovenproof bowl and pour the syrup over the bottom. Pour pudding mixture over it. Grease a sheet of aluminum foil, place it loosely over the bowl, and place the bowl in a pan with 1 inch of water. (It’s easier to put the bowl and pan in the oven, then pour in the water.) Bake 45 minutes, or until the pudding has set and the top has turned golden.
Turn the pudding onto a serving dish. With a spatula, scrape out any syrup left at the bottom of the bowl. To make sauce, slowly heat lemon juice, water, and syrup in a saucepan for 5 minutes. Pour it over the pudding. Serve warm, with a pitcher of cream. Makes 6-8 servings.
Glossary
Arval. Funeral refreshments made of the best ingredients and given to mourners at the graveside.
Babblement. Foolish chatter.
Barmy. Silly, weak-minded.
Beck. A small stream.
Black pudding. A traditional sausage made with pig’s blood, beef suet, onions, and oatmeal.
Bodderment. Bother, trouble.
Bolter. A rabbit that jumps out of a burrow when it is chased by a ferret.
Chandler. Dealer in groceries, supplies, sundries.
Charabanc. A long, light horse-drawn vehicle with several seats, all facing forward.
Coppice. A small thicket of trees grown to be cut for fencing material and other farm purposes.
Daft ha’p’orth. Literally, daft halfpennyworth. A foolish little thing.
Dander. Walk slowly, dawdle.
Daytrippers. Tourists who come for only a day or two.
Draper. Originally, someone who made woollen cloth; later, a dealer in textiles.
Fash. Bother. As in doan’t fash thasel (don’t bother about it).
Fell. A mountain or a high hill.
Fortnight. Two weeks.
Girt. Great, large.
Heaf. An area of fellside where sheep graze. Herdwick sheep remember their native heaf and return instinctively to it; that is, they are heafed to the fell.
Joiner. A craftsman who constructs wooden furniture, cabinets, ship fittings, etc. by joining.
Ken. Know.
Mappen it may. Perhaps it will.
Nevvy. Nephew.
Nobbut: Nothing except, only. He is nobbot a fool.
Off-comers. Strangers, visitors, non-natives.
Pattens. Old-fashioned wooden shoes worn (mostly by women) for outdoor chores.
Reet. Right, proper.
Seed wigs (or whigs). Spiced buns, often dipped in ale or wine. Hawkshead was famous for its caraway seed wigs.
Sovereign. The gold coin that was equivalent to the British pound sterling, which at the time of this book was worth about 56 current pounds (approximately equal to 150 current U.S. dollars).
Tarn. A glacial lake. Moss Eccles Tarn is about a twenty-minute walk from Hill Top Farm. Beatrix Potter kept a rowboat and fished there.
Tupping time. Tupping (breeding of sheep) takes place in November, when the rams (or tups) are let in with the ewes, to ensure that the lambs will be born during the warm days of early spring.
The Tale of Hill Top Farm Page 27