Ode on Yorkshire Pudding
How simple thou art, risen through the years
I recall you marked my Sundays
Fat laughter and glass tears
Golden wert thou - a vessel for mum’s gravy
Mashed potato memories
Brown ocean for a navy
Of minted garden peas
What an ordinary pudding you are
Milk and eggs and plain flour
In a hot oven for half an hour
You’re even made now by the famous Aunt Bessy
Supermarket packaging being not quite as messy
As beating those ingredients
In an old mixing bowl
You bear my county’s name
My land of hopes and dreams
From Flamborough’s chalky cliffs
To Barnsley’s deep coal seams
But in googling the world wide web
I find your fame at last has spread
From Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
The Yorkshire pudding rises…
Bravo!
ReplyDeleteHurrah!
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I'm wrong, but are popovers a version of the basic Yorkshire Puddings (sans gravy and minted peas, oh MY)? My "custardy popovers" from the Moosewood Cookbook look remarkably akin to the photo in your post.
Hi, Yorkshire Pudding. The babe in the sunglasses is none other than Lucia the Gleeful (not her real name, but her blogosphere handle).
ReplyDeleteHem hem, just so you know, many of those "savages" running around in the woods were ENGLISH pilgrims. (And French fur trappers, and Spaniards, etc.)
Someone comedic said something to the effect of, "Europe got rid of all their Puritans and foisted them on North America." Ouch, that hurts!
Foods that are "remarkable in their unremarkableness" have gestalt. Like avocadoes, creamed spinach and guavas (not all at once), Yorkshire puddings are more than the sums of their parts.
I want some!
Ooh, I wish you could have seen my yorkshire pudding last Sunday. THREE double yoke eggs and strong bread flour made for a truely poetic pud.
ReplyDeleteI was so proud!
Hopefully we'll soon regional designation for the pudding, meaning those made beyond the county boundaries will have to be renamed "batter puddings"
ReplyDeleteFRIDAY - A bravo from another poet is welcome praise indeed.
ReplyDeleteALKELDA - It's right what they said about the Puritans being shipped over to America. Take Brad the Gorilla for example... Creamed spinach and guavas - if that was on the menu I'd pass.
JANE - Having lived in Hull, you are officially allowed to make Yorkshire puddings in spite of the fact that you now live in the alien wasteland known as darkest Northamptonshire. Poor you!
LADY DAWN - In British Columbia you are too far away to make Yorkshire puddings! You'd have to call them Vancouver puddings or are you using the term "pudding" as a metaphor for frolics with Sir Jeffrey?
MARTYN - I hear what you are saying. If Feta cheese must come from Greece and Champagne from Champagne then yes indeed, Yorkshire puddings should really be made in Yorkshire (Just Jane is officially exempt).
Maybe I could try to make something evocative of the Yorkshire Pudding and call it "Yorkish Pudding" or "Yorkshiresque Pudding" (though I can see one taking umbrage at the faux-French ending). It's funny... you can get New York Cheesecake almost anywhere in the USA, but you can only get New York bagels in New York. There's just something about the water (or so they say), but no other bagel compares.
ReplyDeleteThe next time I go to Victoria, British Columbia, I will check out the Yorkshiresque Puddings on the menu.
It is with huge relief and gratitude that I thank you for the dispensation!
ReplyDeleteI do love me yorkshire pud.
Beautiful.. I wish my family appreciated YP's as much as I do...
ReplyDeleteOh and the poem was beautiful as well...
Mr Pudding,
ReplyDeleteI am not a Puritan. I don't have a religious bone in my 453 pound (that's 32 stone to you) body. I am a misanthrope. There is a difference.