Speccie Fresh Food by 25th June
 

Lucy, why are you deserting the poets?

No. 2854: fresh food


As if there weren’t enough cookery books in the world, you are invited to invent a title for a new one, with a fresh angle, and supply a publisher’s blurb. Email entries of up to 150 words to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 25 June.

‘Cooking the Books’

Times are hard. The chances are you can hardly afford to buy a tin of beans at the moment, so what could you possibly want with a cookbook? Well don’t worry, ‘Cooking the Books’ doesn’t expect you to ponce about with wagyu beef or pomegranate molasses like Yotam Ottolenghi. In fact it doesn’t expect you to have any ingredients at all; the pages themselves contain everything you need for a complete meal! Choose from a variety of simple recipes such as page soup (pages shredded into a bowl of lukewarm water), mashed pages (the same, but less water) or page salad (no water at all). Remember, paper isn’t a ‘superfood’, it doesn’t form an essential part of a balanced diet, it doesn’t contain any vitamins or minerals, it doesn’t detoxify or aid digestion or even taste nice, but it does fill you up!

Excellent idea, Rob, and you have provided me with a suggestion of how I might at last be able to digest the novels of Henry James.

The Roadkill Forager’s Cookbook
 

Anyone living near a moderately busy American highway can minimise his protein expenses by utilising the vast bounty of roadkill. Why buy a hunting licence when deer, hare, grouse, duck, and other game appears almost at your doorstep? And pampered dogs and cats provide ample amounts of succulent, well - marbled flesh. For the adventurous gourmet, don’t overlook non-game species. Everything from reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals, to an enormous variety of songbirds, nicely round out the bill of fare.

The first secret of roadside foraging is to begin at dawn. Just as the early bird gets the worm, so does the early riser get the choicest roadkill. The other secret is to marinate everything.

Borrowing heavily from classic French cuisine, this book has 1,248 pages of recipes for preparing memorable meals … from freshly run-over critters, to those who have been baking on the tarmac for as long as two weeks.



I've made several grammatical corrections, as advised by Ann and others. Where I live, there is an overabundance of deer. In the 1950's, I recall roadkilled venison being donated by game wardens to public school lunch programs. I've had co-workers and friends for the past 40 years who have picked up roadkill when the occasion presents itself ... including phone calls in the wee hours to help them dress out a deer.

I saw a roadkilled snapping turtle 2 days ago, but left it for a more courageous forager.

There was a "Roadkill Cafe" for several years in Greenville, Maine, (on the shore of Moosehead Lake), back in the 1990's.

According to the 'net, the word "roadkill" is of American origin, circa early 1970's. So, I guess I'll keep this American. I live close to Canada, and roadkill is eaten up there (moose, caribou, and bear), but I guess the concept is a bit more off-putting in the UK. I'm hoping that the novelty of the concept of roadkill cuisine appeals to Lucy.

I like this, Douglas (done it, in fact; poor folk have poor ways) but I think you need a tweak or two to make it fit the Speccie. Lucy is well aware that she has US entrants but the readership of the magazine is basically Brit. and some of your turns of phrase would sit oddly with them. I suggest you swap your z’s for s’s to make minimise and utilise, swap your hunting license for a shotgun certificate and make all the game singular – hare and duck in line with deer and grouse. And there are a few too many commas for the British taste.

Do others agree?

I'm sorry to say that reality has beaten you to it with this one, Douglas.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Original-R.../dp/0898152003

Well, not entirely, Ann. Both 'minimise' and 'minimize' are, I believe, acceptable UK English spellings, and I myself would tend towards the latter. I'm sure Lucy wouldn't have a problem with 'hunting licence' ('license' being the verb, he said pedantically). And the only comma that seems to me entirely otiose is in the phrase: "And, pampered dogs and cats provide ..."

Still, like you, I enjoyed Douglas's piece, and I can't wait to order the book on Amazon. The streets of Paris are full of squashed pigeons just waiting for the right recipe ...

I disagree with Ann: leave the piece American. The word - almost the concept - of roadkill strikes me as somehow American. There's a strain in the American character that makes a book like this altogether plausible - I'm thinking of suvivialism, long Texan roads etc. Anglicised, the piece would just strike false.

Perhaps, leaving Fry and Allgar v. Drysdale aside, the parsimonious solution would be to insert American before highway?

There IS some Brit who has written about eating roadkill. I can't remember who he is but I feel sure..

Yup. Austin Hill is his name. He hasn't written a book.... yet, but his recipes are on Youtube.

And surely Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has done roadkill cuisine.

But to refocus on Ann's original point about British vs. American spelling, although Lucy will edit winning entries to change, for example, "color" to "colour," "recognize" to "recognise," and "esophagus" to "oesophagus," I reckon it's always a good policy for Americans entering the comp to adopt British orthography as much as possible. Shows that we're making an effort.

Since we're on the topic: The man who eats roadkill is an 18-minute-long documentary about 73-year-old Arthur Boyt of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, a former taxidermist and a "roadkill-eating connoisseur". Worth watching.

From Melting Pot to Cooking Pot: The UKIP Romanian Cookbook
 

Chances are some Romanians have moved in next door and stolen your job, and what with the benefits system the way it is, you’re probably hungry and desperately craving red meat that you can no longer afford to buy. We’ll leave it to you to put two and two together, and when you have, you’ll find our new Romanian cookbook is chockfull of great recipes. Whether you prefer well-cooked or bloody foreigner, we have just the dish for you. In these times of austerity, we’ll help you make sure nothing goes to waste; we’ve crammed this amazing book full of (truly) offal recipes. As a UKIP supporter, you’ve surely already developed a taste for tripe, and we have no doubt that you’ll also be foaming at the mouth to try our traditional rivers-of-blood sausage. Flooding into bookstores near you soon.


[I'm assuming that the 150 words includes the title, and that hyphenated words count as single words as per my word-processor. Can anyone tell me if that's the case? Thanks]

You're right on both counts, I believe. Since we're supposed to invent the title as well as writing the blurb, the title must count against our 150-word limit. And I know I've had winning entries that would have been over that limit had hyphenations counted as multiple words.

Thanks Chris. Much appreciated.

Chris,
Does Microsoft offer a UK version of spell check?

Yes it does but NBG.

Nah, to do that, they would need someone at Microsoft who can spell. Or even read.

I'm just wondering: other than my piece of prose and my name and the competition number / title, is there anything other information I need to include in the email to Lucy? My address for example? I've not done this before.

Many thanks,

Matt

Yes, postal address is required. Think Lucy sometimes has a reminder about including it, so they can divvy up the dosh when you win.

But if you do win, they'll ask for your bank details so that if you become a regular contender they can pay by bank transfer.

Thanks, Jerome. Much appreciated.

Ann, thanks too. And there I was thinking it'd be book tokens for some reason :)

Microsoft Word comes with a variety of Spellcheck alternatives built in. Try opening a Word document on your computer and selecting "Options" from the Tools menu. Then select "Choose a Dictionary" from the Options menu.

Ah, thanks for the reminder Ann. I seem to remember filling in some Spectator form once.

Matt, the New Statesman sometimes awarded book tokens, for e.g. £5, for winning small entries, one liners etc. Chris O'Carroll is more likely to know whether they still do.

They do indeed, Jerome. I've got a couple of the little buggers sitting quite uselessly in my flat in Paris.

But it's also a problem on those occasions when I hit the big time. There's no Tesco here, either.

Since I've already asked two questions in this thread, perhaps I'll push my luck and ask a third. Apologies for going off topic

Deep drills: Am I right in thinking that's for competitions where having one's poem visible on the web beforehand disqualifies one from entering said competitions? If so, can I play, and who should I ask for the password?

Brian, what sort of book tokens do you have? Some can be used to buy books online. For example, I know that National Book Tokens can be spent at hive.co.uk.

Thanks Jerome, I wasn't specifically looking for book tokens; I just somehow had it in my mind that that's what they'd send out, I'm really not sure why. :)

Many thanks,

Matt

Hi Matt,

You are right in your thinking, re Deep Drills. I'll PM the password to you.
Good luck with The Speccie!

Jayne

PS. Brian, you can send me your Tesco vouchers if you like :D

Many thanks Jayne, and also to Chris, for PMing me the password.

I'm charmed by the way that competitors here, notionally in opposition, will try to help others win. A good deed in a naughty world, Ann. On the other hand, few posts on this thread seem very interested in the set topic - symptomatic.

Bazza, you can still order your own complete flea circus .....

I have deleted the rest of this post. Age, ever cruel, led me to believe I was on a totally different thread. Once I lived in a parallel universe. Today the boundaries seem to be increasingly difficult to define. By next year, God only knows what my problem may be.

But I remain delighted to hear that one can still buy a flea circus.- even though it has nothing to do with this particular thread.

Err ... Martin, does that mean you are planning a recipe book whose chief ingredient is performing fleas?

Why would I want a fucking flea circus?

Doesn't everybody, in his heart of hearts, want a flea circus?

Oh, gawd - I have just dribbled "Frontline" between the shoulderblades of my boon companion and even (TA-DA!) vacuumed the rugs on which he is wont to lie.

A whole generation of Hopping Wallendas has been wiped out at a stroke and a whizzle.

Mea culpa... mea maxima culpa...

Bazza, don't be such a killjoy. Many circus-goers love watching fleas fucking.

I know, but I'm past that stage.