ISLE OF

COMPETITION

ISLE OF

L-41: 1 U fkA

Cooking up poetry

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1932 you were invited to supply a recipe in verse.

Cucumber sandwiches (Peter Norman), Boeuf Xenophobe (Mike Morrison) and Croque-Monsieur (Basil Ransome-Davies) were among the most skilfully presented items offered. David Cram's amusing but illegitimate entry deserves quotation:

Mix words well, Then stir three times, Adding rhymes, To make it gel, Bake till brown At Gas Mark eight, Turn upside down And decorate. This will make A poem cake. So why do I Get doggerel pie?

The prize-winners, printed below (offer- ing us, in order of appearance, toad-in-the- hole, haggis, bread and a chip butty), get

E2.5 each, and the bonus bottle of Isle of

Jura Single Malt Scotch whisky belongs to Philip Dacre.

To sieved plain flour, imperial ounces three, With one teaspoon of salt incorporated, Let two eggs and one teaspoon added be Of made-up mustard, and all agitated

With half a pint of milk. Let stand, while grilling A pound of sausages. Grease a shallow dish And, oven's heat its seventh mark fulfilling, Insert for minutes ten. Next, briskly swish

The aforesaid batter and therewith combine Of grated cheese two ounces. Pour it straight Into the heated dish, neatly align The half-sunk sausages, and on them grate Two ounces more of cheese. Return and bake For half an hour till set and browny-gold Or test it with a tiny wooden stake.

Comes it out clean? If so, your toad is holed.

(Philip Dacre) A sheep's pluck, first ... it takes a courage staunch To face and finger such offensive sights! Yet boldly seize her liver, heart and lights, And purify them; empty too her paunch And lave the lot; boil up the entrails well, While toasting oatmeal to a gentle gold. Two pounds of onions peel (your tears withhold By opening wide the casement, for the smell Of cates like these may leave the nose in shock). Mince to a fineness now the bestial guts, With oatmeal, onions, ground, myristic nuts — A meagre pinch — moisten with luscious stock, Stitch in the paunch that all this long while steeps; Prick, lest it burst, then boil two hours at least; Cool, open, slice, and add, to make a feast, Bumpers of usquebaugh and well-bashed neeps.

(Alyson Nikiteas) It's truly said that baking bread improves the shining hour, And the things you'll need to do the deed are a bag of strong white flour, Dried yeast, half ounce (grams I denounce with unrepentant hauteur), Two teaspoons salt. To the stirred result add a pint and a half warm water.

Mix around and pummel and pound till you're fit to drop with cramp, Then over the dough you need to throw a cloth that's slightly damp.

Leave to rinse to twice its size, then (this is slightly odd) A further thump to squash the lump to a seem- ing lifeless clod.

Take a tin that's greased within — no, take two tins — and then Ram in the dough and leave to grow to twice its size again.

Don't forget you need to set the oven (Gas Mark seven), Place in the heat and so complete the third and final leaven.

When lightly browned, with a hollow sound if

tapped — they're done, no question! (But a golden rule is leave to cool if you don't

want indigestion.) Then take your knife to the staff of life, bring butter, jam and cheese.

How quite sublime that a simple rhyme should fashion joys like these!

(Michael Lee) First, cleanse thy Tubers; peel, not scrub nor scrape; Then cut in Slivers of an even Shape: No Desiree, Sharpes, Eigenheimer Blue, But simple Whites shall give the Relish true. Seethe well the splutt'ring Cauldron (ere thou do it Be sure that British Beef provide the Suet, Nor heed the curious Cruse of Foreign Oils!). Before the Pan too turbulently boils, Cast in the Chips; but warily at first, Lest into Flames the whole Caboodle burst! Next take up common Bread, the ready-sliced, Ignoring bran-stuffed Manchet, highly priced. Though cloth-capped Epicures delight to dapple Their Meat with piquant Ketchup of Love- Apple, Clap thou but Virgin Slices round thy Chips, And Lo! an Esculent for Royal Lips!

(John E. Cunningham)