Thursday 22 January 2015


A catchier title would be The Taste of Wolf Hall. I devoured this fascinating book over a few days last week and, as it's full of relatively easy-to-recreate recipes, I have grand plans for sweet potato pie and biscuits baked in mussel shells, then boiled in a sugar glaze (alas, only discovered after I had mussels for supper  and chucked all the shells!)
There was lots of food in Hilary Mantel's novels and I seem to remember that Thomas Cromwell (at least, the fictional Cromwell) took a keen interest in sauces.
So I'm keeping an eye on the television series to see what they're dishing up ... only herrings and salad last night, but it was Lent!

6 comments:

mary said...

I enjoyed it more than the stage production, Sue.

There's not a lot for quinces, surprisingly. A quince cream, which sounds rather nice and variations on quince jellies - which I made before Christmas from another book.

Cosy Books said...

How would you like to spend an afternoon in the kitchen at Hampton Court Palace, Mary? And I've never had sweet potato pie before...is it rich like pumpkin pie?

mary said...

I would love it, Darlene! It was Peter Brears who revived Henry VIII's kitchen - and was the first person to cook there since 1737.

The sweet potato pie would have been enriched with bone marrow and contained dates, sherry and candied peel - so fairly rich. I'll let you know how it goes!

Anonymous said...

I was unable to watch Wolf Hall and when I sought to see it on iPlayer today, I was told that it was not yet available, do you know why this might be Mary?

Your book sounds very interesting.

mary said...

It does take a while sometimes, Toffeeapple. It's there now. But how awful - like the old days of setting the video wrongly!

Anonymous said...

Thank you Mary, I shall be viewing that very soon.