At the centre of the feast was a joint of best Yorkshire beef. This I surrounded with crispy roasted potatoes, green beans, roasted carrots and cavolo nero. Of course there was homemade beef gravy but the pièce de résistance was a large Yorkshire pudding that I made in our new roasting tin. It rose like a golden phoenix and in spite of my slight anxiety there was no adherence to the tin whatsoever. I cut the beauteous offering into four.
We drank Italian wine and Yorkshire beer and Shirley made a chocolate pudding for dessert. She is the only one of us who was not Yorkshire born and bred. I may not have mentioned this before but I am in a mixed marriage. She hails from Lincolnshire though she has lived in God's own county for the past forty five years.
After dinner, I carried Little Phoebe up the garden to touch leaves and observe the greenery. Her eyes follow you around now and she laughs readily. She can roll over on the floor and has good head control. Ten days ago she began the messy business of weaning and when she is in the mood she will grab her spoon and swallow what is on the end of it.
She is not the helpless babe she was in the weeks after her birth. She listens to stories and she is fascinated by the television. Nappy (American: diaper) changes are less frequent. Phoebe is a happy, healthy and heavy Yorkshire baby - not one of those skinny plucked chicken kind of babies that you see in London parks - being pushed around by their nannies.
When F.S.&P. had gone home, I watched the seventh episode of the fourth series of "The Handmaid's Tale". Though the acting, cinematography and music remain first rate, the script is stretching credibility and I am astonished that a fifth series has been commissioned. It's a bit like milking a cow till there's not a drop left and then milking it some more. Shame really because I loved the first three series of this dystopian tapestry. Sometimes you need to know when to draw the line.
Your Sunday dinner sounds lovely. I haven't had a roast in ages living as I do alone. I agree the latest series of Handmaid does seem to be running out of steam. I didn't realise they were even planning a 5th series. What next? A return to Gilead and more torture (for us, not the actors)?
ReplyDeleteI think it has got more to do with money-making than artistic integrity.
DeleteThat certainly was a tremendous Yorkshire feast to celebrate your National Day. Like Addy, I've not had a roast for quite a while, but can't say I've really missed it.
ReplyDeleteThere's the old saying "Quit while you're ahead" - something makers of many of the TV programmes on offer these days should remember!
Some respected that motto but these days money seems to "trump" everything if you will excuse the use of such a hideous verb!
DeleteDoes Mrs YP thank her lucky stars every day that she, among all others, was rescued from Lincolnshire to live life in that piece of heaven known as Yorkshire?
ReplyDeleteIf you found yourself living in Paradise you would also be grateful Debby but I can only handle one wife.
DeleteIn Episode 1 of Series 5, Canada has become part of Gilead. June, having read Yorkshire Pudding's blog, tries to escape to the free open spaces of the independent republic of Yorkshire. She manages to leave Canada by boat to Liverpool but is stopped on the M62 at Rook Stones Hill where she is denied entry because she was born outside the county. Facing starvation as a fugitive in Oldham, she repeatedly attempts to contact Yorkshire Pudding in Sheffield who she believes will sponsor her. Shirley refuses to allow him, despite her own residential status being questionable because she cannot convince the authorities that she applied for permanent leave to remain before the deadline. The episode ends with June trying to cross the bogs of Bleaklow Moor on foot. In dreadful weather, she seeks refuge in a lonely shooting cabin where she encounters a tall man with a camera.
ReplyDeleteThat man is called Heathcliff and he is as rough as a Bridlington pirate. Nonetheless he shows June some human kindness and they tarry in the shooting cabin for a happy half hour till they spot a wearisome beggar plodding up the track. Dressed in rags and wizened like an old apple that has been left in the fruit bowl too long, he whispers that his name is Dung... Dung Ham but he doesn't look Vietnamese.
DeleteWhat, no Yorkshire wine? Surely God's own county can run to a few grape vines.
ReplyDeleteThere is an excellent vineyard at South Cave on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds but Yorkshire folk have cosmopolitan tastes because we are so soffisticrated.
DeleteYou sent me down a rabbit hole or down pit even yesterday with all the things you love about Yorkshire. What about Billy Pearce, Charlie William's, Little Voice, Brassed Off, Rita, Sue and Bob Too, Kes, Billy Liar, Rising Damp, Selwyn Froggatt, Geoffrey Smith, Geoffrey Boycott, Harold Wilson, Captain Cook, Last of the summer wine, Heart beat, Folly Foot Farm, Saxon, The Human League, Keith Emerson...? see what I mean?
ReplyDeleteI do indeed see what you mean you young Lancs/Irish whippersnapper! If I wrote the full list it would stretch to the moon and back.
DeleteI forgot the Grumbleweeds. I think you've got a book there Mr Pudding. A very good read. Oh I forgot Marti Caine!..
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Joe and Jarvis Cocker from Sheffield and Mick Ronson - Bowie's guitarist from Hull. Also Simon Armitage and Brian Clough and Harry Maguire. I would title the book "Heaven on Earth". The cover would be designed by David Hockney from Bradford.
DeleteIs Phoebe really being weaned or is she simply being introduced to solid foods? I'm just curious and it's really none of my business.
ReplyDeleteYour dinner sounds amazing.
Essentially, I thought that was what waning was - introducing babies to foods other than mother's milk.
DeleteIn the U.S. weaning is (or was) thought of as coming off mother’s milk entirely, not sharing the best of both worlds, as it were.
DeleteHere weaning can indeed involve the continuation of mother's milk as the baby moves to an infant diet.
DeleteThat makes me very happy to hear.
DeleteA lovely day was had by all. I haven't made yorkshire pudding in years. My mum always made it and it was always stressful for her, whether it would rise properly or not, whether it would come out of the pan easily or not. I never cared, they always tasted good.
ReplyDeleteMake The Big Guy bigger! Give him Yorkshire pud!
DeleteThat was truly a feast worthy of Yorkshire Day! And what better company for it than Princess Phoebe and her entourage.
ReplyDeleteThey are like an entourage serving the wee princess.
DeleteI had no idea what caballero nero was so looked it up. Google gave me cavolo nero (a kind of Italian kale) and I know enough Spanish to know what caballero is. Can’t decide whether you were trying to be funny or just used the wrong word. Subtle humour often fails to cross the pond, just so you know for future reference.
ReplyDeleteIt is the first time I have written down the name of this vegetable and I got it wrong. Thanks for pointing out my error Bob.
DeleteI am reading about Todmorden, the Yorkshire town that thinks it's in Lancashire.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's Earby, another unique town with an identity issue.
Earby is in Lancashire, but once self-identified as a corner of the old West Riding.
Read about Earby online:
*If you're ignorant and love drinking you'll fit right in.*
Sounds like my kind of place. In an earlier life.
County borders fascinate me.
I can drive out of Cheltenham (Gloucestershire) where my sister lives, and soon I'm in Oxfordshire, where the golden stone subtly changes colour to dark honey.
Exquisite Moreton-in-Marsh is still Gloucestershire, but looks more like it could be in Oxfordshire.
When Paul Theroux lived in England he couldn't believe how small it was.
See his novel, My Secret History.
*A World of My Own: John Braine/ Yorkshire Film Archive*. YouTube.
In the days of black and white television, the author of Room At the Top visited Newcastle, and then Newbiggin-by-the-Sea in Northumberland, which Braine regarded as a kind of annexe of North Yorkshire.
*Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Northumberland/ Town Centre Walk 2021.*
Let's Walk. YouTube.
Haggerty
The Evil Tories from Down South have often sought to undermine Yorkshire patriotism by fiddling with our boundaries. I believe that Thelma from "North Stoke" recently moved to Todmorden to be near her family.
DeleteErratum.
DeleteThe Braine film is NOT on YouTube, it is available on the Yorkshire Film Archive.
I can't think why Braine's Room At the Top is not a Penguin Modern Classic.
Bradford-born J.B. Priestley deserves Penguin Classic status, including his mystic works: Rain Upon Godshill; Midnight on the Desert; and Over the Long High Wall, his speculations on life, death and time.
Bradford-born John Braine wrote the best book on Priestley I have read.
Haggerty
We still haven't started season four. I already felt like the show was running out of gas, so I'm sure that feeling will intensify! Glad you had a joyful and nourishing Yorkshire Day! I don't think I realized a Yorkshire pudding could be a single big pudding -- I thought they were always made individually in muffin-like tins, single-serving sized.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a boy, nobody had those small muffin-like Yorkshire puddings in their homes. My mother always made a big Yorkshire pudding for Sunday lunch. We ate portions of it with gravy like a starter before the main meal. This was very common.
DeleteYes, we had the same. Always plate sized Yorkshire Pudding first. The idea behind it was that if you filled yourself up with Yorkshire Pudding, the more expensive meat would stretch out that much further. Monday was always wash-day (a whole day affair), so leftover meat was eaten as cold cuts with cold Yorkshire puddings, but I was allowed my cold Yorkshire Pudding spread with jam. We differed from you in that we had 'Dinner' - meals went Breakfast, Dinner, Tea and Supper. I never heard of the 'lunch' phenomenon until well into my twenties.
DeleteI love my well-padded little grandson with his leg rolls. Exactly what a baby is supposed to look like. I haven't started watching that series yet. I think it would depress me horribly.
ReplyDeleteSince the boy from Devon came to live here in NZ we too have enjoyed the addition of Yorkshire puddings to the Sunday roast and this cultural gem will be passed on to little Charlotte when she, like Phoebe, begins to taste more than her mother's milk.
ReplyDeleteI have long been interested in food as culture and the way it brings people together across the globe.
I like the idea of your Mum carving up the large pudding as a starter. Did you fight over portion size or "bags" leftovers as my brothers used to?
In the days when we ritually fasted before Sunday Mass it was always a thrill to return home to the aroma of the slow cooked roast meal waiting for us with just the gravy to prepare. No Sunday shopping in those days, it was a day for families and visiting relatives.
A roast sounds very appealing today as the blast from Antarctica reminds us that August is still a winter month and there's a huge pumpkin on the bench to make into soup. I'm off for my first Covid vaccination tonight at 8.21pm precisely. Hopefully most of this small country will be fully vaccinated by the end of September as our luck can't last forever.
Forgot to say yesterday how much I enjoyed Brian Blessed in that video. I remember first seeing him in Z Cars.
Cheers Adele
It sounds like a version of Thanksgiving Day. I think you have to grow up eating Yorkshire pudding to really appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteTodmorden sits on a boundary line of Yorkshire/Lancashire. I live in Yorkshire but the delineation happens underneath the town hall I think and of course because of the River Calder. The lovely thing about British History and its towns and villages is that it carries the names of Saxon and Scandinavian people.
ReplyDeleteYP not all Southern people are tories as well you know, stop being so nationalistic and warlike or we shall infiltrate by stealth and take over this county. Cro is not coming over though because we are apparently hit by a case of 'wokeism' in Leeds and Parkin is suspect, he forgot Yorkshire Tea with colonist sugar in it by the way.
Don't you just delight in life and Phoebe? ;)
It learks like thoo 'ad a reet grand do, lad, and that there bairn sounds a reet bobby dazzler. She'll be sparkin' clogs wi' t' best of 'em searn.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree about HT - it's run its course.
Elizabeth
Wow, just reading about the meal got me so hungry. The name Yorkshire pudding is quite misleading. During my first time ordering Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding, I kept waiting for the pudding after main course. I thought it was something nice and sweet like bread pudding that you eat as a desert. Imagine my disappointment when I was told I had already eaten it. I read it is not easy to make a good Yorkshire pudding so you did real well!!
ReplyDeleteWe've recently celebrated 'Belloc Night' (a superior version of 'Burn's Night), where we eat cheese, drink wine, and read verses from his 'Cautionary Tales'. In case you need a build-up to Yorkshire Day, it is celebrated (mostly in Sussex) on July 27th.
ReplyDelete