Spoons, Purple Warnings and Hats

It all started this morning when, in my several world, thoughts started to collide. Yesterday @jaydubblah was asking about poems and I was trying to think of one book I would suggest as a quick poetry catch up – I would strongly recommend Poems On The Underground for short poems.  One of my other favourite books is A Poem a Day from the Natural Death Society; today’s poem is Robert Browning’s, Meeting at Night; which I was going to quote here.  Then came a link from @cookitaly with some spoons, these from Joseph Joseph.

Originally I read Joseph Joseph as Jenny Joseph, she of the ‘Warning’ that led to the Red Hat Society.  I once saw a party of red hatters catching the train, they made quite a sight.

There was a time when I used to pride myself on ‘give me a topic and I’ll quote you a poem’, but I filled my head with too many and now they just don’t stick.  One line that remained relating to spoons apart from the more obvious dish and a spoon or the runcible spoon of the Owl and the Pussy Cat was “Of mordant mustard add a single spoon” from a recipe for salad by Sydney Smith.

So here is a Recipe for Salad by Sydney Smith – 1771-1845

To make this condiment, your poet begs

The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs;

Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen-sieve,

Smoothness and softness to the salad give;

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,

And, half-suspected, animate the whole.

Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,

Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;

But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,

To add a double quantity of salt.

And, lastly, o’er the flavoured compound toss

A magic soup-spoon of anchovy sauce.

Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!

‘T’ would tempt the dying anchorite to eat;

Back to the world he’d turn his fleeting soul,

And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl!

Serenely full, the epicure would say,

Fate can not harm me, I have dined today!

The spoon at the top of the page was purchased in Covent Garden and stops the honey going everywhere as it balances on the edge of the jar.  The company is called Aramica and their website is here.