Books and cakes - 22

    We've been reading A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad for the Book Group this month (our thoughts on the poems are here), and with a marked absence of culinary references within the lines themselves, I had to take a geographical link for the baking for the book.

    I could, I suppose, have gone with "hop-yards" and "Ludlow beer" and made some kind of ale-infused cake, but instead I discovered Shrewsbury Cakes or Biscuits and had a go at them.

     As you'll see from the recipe (I used the one given at the top of that link) they are flavoured with caraway seed, nutmeg and rosewater. I have a cold and can't taste or smell anything just now, but I'm told that these ingredients are apparent in the finished biscuits!

 

If you scroll further down that article you'll see that there's another version of the recipe given which coincidentally comes from A New System of Domestic Cookery by A Lady, the 1816 edition of which has just been reprinted by Persephone Books.

Comments

[Nancy]

I have fond memories of an overnight in Ludlow and wandering around town the next day. Besides the castle, the whole town is a great place for photographing very interesting architectural details. The castle was closed because there was filming going on (some television program). This was on our first trip to England - and with two teenagers - early summer, 1985.

My husband (the now-retired librarian with an undergraduate degree in English lit) told us about the area and its relationship to A Shropshire Lad. It was lost on the rest of us, however.

[Something's Dishy]

I just read about that book, A New System of Domestic Cookery. It looks interesting and those cookies look like they'd be wonderful with tea!

[Jennifer]

They look good, sorry you can't taste them.

[Mary McCartney]

I do hope you feel better soon.

[Sian]

I'm trying these-I'm a sucker for regional baking, and for rosewater!

[Lindsay]

At least, Cornflower, you have not quoted the opening line of LXII at me!