All my eye and Betty Martin!

FINALLY got round to finishing a book I began reading last summer [Lesley has clearly inspired me to work at completion of tasks!] The book was Claire Tomalin's "The Unequalled Self" - a biography of Samuel Pepys, and winner of the 2002 Whitbread Prize.

My knowledge of Pepys to this point was shamefully limited- I knew he was a bigwig at the Admiralty [well most men wore big wigs in those days!] I knew the bit about burying his cheese during the Great Fire - because it always comes up in the history plans at school - and I knew one of his mistresses was Betty Martin [although she actually has nothing to do with the popular expression]

But that was the sum total of What I Knew - until now. Be warned, i may become a Pepys Bore!

But the book is a tremendously well executed biography, with a meticulous index, and I know I shall dip into it again and again to check things out. I concur with Anthony Howard's comment that it is "A model of industry and research, beautifully written" - it is well deserving of the Whitbread Award.

Ms Tomalin's husband, Michael Frayn was also a Whitbread finalist that year, and she stated there was no rivalry between the couple over the Whitbread award. "My husband celebrated more than I did, he is the best husband in the world," Tomalin said. "He made me feel as if he would have been terribly disappointed if he had won." I thought that was a lovely comment on their marriage.

I really enjoyed the way she describes Pepys' life - and that of those around him. It was 350 years ago - and some things have changed beyond recognition [would he have blogged, were he around now?] but other things are constant [anxiety about the economy, dissatisfaction with the government, relationships making and breaking]

The book is 500 pages long - 400 of biography, and another 100 of notes and index, and wasn't one I could polish off in a couple of sittings. Afterwards I went to the Samuel Pepys website and found this intriguing recipe - in the diary but not in the biography . Not sure if they are cakes or biscuits - but I imagine they would cook up soft and flattish like the American Cookies they sell at Millies - which does not appear to have a branch in Barnet at the minute!

Small Cakes Recipe

Take one pound of very fine flower, and put to it half a pound of sugar. Add one pound of currants well washed. When your flower is well mixed with the sugar and curants, you must put in it a half a pound of melted butter, three spoonfuls of milk, with the yolks of three new-laid eggs beat with it, some nutmeg; and if you please, three spoonfuls of Sack. When you have mixed your paste well, you must put it in a dish by the fire, till it be warm.

Then make them up in little cakes, and prick them full of holes. Bake them in a quick oven unclosed. Afterwards sprinkle them with sugar. The Cakes should be about the bigness of a hand-breadth and thin; of the cise of the Sugar Cakes sold at Barnet.

Ingredients

1 pound self raising flour.
Half pound caster sugar
1 pound currants
half pound butter
3 tablespoons milk
3 egg yolks
pinch of nutmeg
3 tablespoons Sack [or sherry]
icing sugar (to sprinkle on top)
Bake in oven for 15 minutes at 200C - with the door shut

You can tell Pepys was wealthy - a batch of these would not be particularly cheap to make. Oooh! I've just realised- he means the cakes were sold at Barnet FAIR - as in the Cockney Rhyming Slang for 'hair'! The fair would have been well established in Pepys' day - having been given its charter by Elizabeth 1.