Concerning a Narnian fish

 

           

After I’d thanked the Hertfordshire gentleman whose thoughtful letter prompted my post of last week – and yes, it was a real letter that came through a real letter box – he has written to me again. And I have to share it with you. This time it concerns a Narnian fish called a pavender, which is mentioned not only in Prince Caspian, but also in The Silver Chair when Jill and Eustace enjoy one of the few good meals of their adventure, a royal feast in the great hall of Cair Paravel.

The banners hung from the roof, and each course came in with trumpeters and kettledrums. There were soups that would make your mouth water to think of, and the lovely fishes called pavenders, and venison and peacock and pies, and ices and jellies and fruit and nuts, and all manner of wines and fruit drinks.

I’d sometimes idly wondered if there really might be a fish called a pavender – after all, there are plenty of strangely named English fishes, such as gudgeon, chub, dace, roach, etc – or whether Lewis had simply invented it. Well, the answer is neither, and it’s far more fun! Here is the Hertfordshire gentleman to explain it all:

"In Prince Caspian, as you may remember, Trumpkin catches and cooks for the Pevensies some delicious little fish called pavenders. This, I believe, is a private scholarly joke of Lewis’s. It is a reference to a poem published originally in Punch, called ‘A False Gallop of Analogies’, by one Warham St Leger. The conceit of the poem springs from a reference to ‘the chavender, or chub’ in Isaac Walton’s The Compleat Angler. So it begins:

There is a fine stuffed chavender,

A chavender, or chub

That decks the rural pavender

The pavender, or pub,

Wherein I eat my gravender,

My gravender, or grub…

And so on, with references to ‘sweet lavender, or lub’ and administering a snavender, or snub, to an intrusive young cavender, or cub; and the ravender, or rub, of having to return to town. If you are interested, you can find the whole poem in full at: http://www.poetrynook.com/poem/false-gallop-analogies."

(In fact I suggest you visit this link without delay and read the poem in full; it will make you happy!) The Hertfordshire gentleman continues:

"I am only aware of the poem through encountering it in the Festival of Britain issue of Punch, which I was given by my father at the time. As well as topical items … it contained an anthology of notable cartoons and other snippets, from issues over the past century. Lewis would no doubt relish the reference to the ‘pavender, or pub’ and have stored it away for future use"

I don’t need to tell you how delighted I am to have learned the origin of this obscure Narnian fish (or dish) and (in the words of the other Lewis, Lewis Carroll) to have un-dish-covered the fish and dish-covered the riddle.

 

Find my book, "From Spare Oom to War Drobe: Travels in Narnia with my nine year-old self"  at Hive.co.uk, at Amazon.co.uk, and at all good bookshops.

 

 

Delicious Food

My younger daughter tells me she looks for two things in a book: a mischievous, iconoclastic hero or heroine – and descriptions of wonderful food.

She eats like a bird, so I can only assume this is wish-fulfilment.

Anyway, tonight I happen to be cooking that old British favourite, sausages with bubble-and-squeak.  (Recipe attached, see foot of post!)  It’s cold weather food.  And following on from my blogs about books to read in snowy weather, I thought it might be warming to remind ourselves of comfort food in books.

I was pretty sure that bubble and squeak makes an appearance in “The Wind In The Willows”, and so it does.  The jailer’s daughter, pitying poor Toad, in jail, brings him: “bubble and squeak, between two plates.”  This alone is not enough to rouse Toad from his misery, however, and she has recourse to:

“…a tray, with a cup of hot tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb.  The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad…”

As well it might.  Anyone rushing off for a piece of toast, yet?  Stay a while…

I read John Masefield’s “The Box of Delights” to both my daughters when they were small.  There’s a point when the hero, Kay, despairs of ever managing to get through to the warm-hearted but slow Inspector (who breeds Belgian hares) that his friends are in danger, and that the villain (and wizard) Abner Brown is masquerading as the principal of a nearby religious college.  The Inspector attempts to reassure him:

‘You get that good guardian of yours to see you take a strong posset every night.  But you young folks in this generation, you don’t know what a posset is. Well, a posset,’ said the Inspector, ‘is a jorum of hot milk; and in that hot milk, Master Kay, you put a hegg, and you put a spoonful of treacle, and you put a grating of nutmeg, and you stir ‘em well up and then you take ‘em down hot.  And a posset like that, taken overnight, will make a new man of you, Master Kay, while now you’re all worn down with learning.’

Both daughters immediately insisted that I make it.  I did: and it’s delicious: and they had it often over the years of their ‘school learning’…  Try it yourselves!  For treacle, I’ve always used what in England is termed ‘Golden Syrup’; not molasses.

What about other books?  My husband insists that the bear steaks with apples that the children eat in ‘Prince Caspian’ sounds pretty good to him:

“Each apple was wrapped up in bear’s meat … and spiked on a sharp stick and then roasted.  And the juice of the apple worked all through the meat, like apple sauce with roast pork…”

I’m not quite convinced.   To me, C.S. Lewis actually manages to make the earth, which the trees eat at the banquet in the same book, sound much more delicious:

“They began with a rich brown loam that looked almost exactly like chocolate…When the rich loam had taken the edge off their hunger, the trees turned to earth of the kind you see in Somerset, which is almost pink.  They said it was lighter and sweeter.  At the cheese stage they had a chalky soil and then went on to delicate confections of the finest gravels powdered with choice silver sand.”

I was with him through most of that, but he lost me at the gravels.

Here’s the recipe for Bubble and Squeak:

450g/1lb potatoes, peeled and diced

salt and pepper

70g/1 ½ oz butter

250g/8oz cabbage, shredded

3-4 tbsp oil

1 onion, diced

Cook the potatoes in salted water till done, then mash with 2oz of the butter.  Season with salt and pepper.

Melt the remaining butter in a large saucepan with 2 tablespoons of water and add the shredded cabbage.  Cook gently for 10 minutes until tender.  Drain, and mix the cabbage and mashed potato together.  Season to taste ( I like to add a grating of nutmeg).

Heat half the oil in a frying pan.  Add the onion and cook, stirring, till softened.  Add the potato and cabbage mix, pressing down with a wooden spoon to make a flat, even cake.  Cook over medium heat for 15 mins till golden brown on the underside, and place on a large plate.  Add the remaining oil and cook again on the other side till golden brown.  Cut into wedges (or scoops) and serve.

Happy eating!  Any more delicious book food you can remember?