On 2010-11-19, Don Martinich > wrote:
> In article ocal>,
> "J. Clarke" > wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Have you read Patrick O'Brien's novels?

The entire series, five times!

>> Oh, and coming back to topic, there's a cookbook, "Lobscouse and Spotted
>> Dog" that includes tested recipes for every food described in the
>> Patrick O'Brien novels

I had the book for awhile, but gave it to our library when I moved.
The recipes were all heavily beef fat ("slush") centric (think
yorkshire pudding), as that was the primary by-product of soaking,
then boiling, dried beef, the primary food on HMSs of the time. The
authors also pointed out they had to guess on a few recipes, being
unable to find historically accurate written examples. Ol' Patrick
was not above inventing a few story props, now and then, "marthambles"
being a particularly irksome one.

> Some years back, on either this group or ba.food, we had a fine exchange
> on the officer's mess' late night snack.'toasted cheese'. I'll pass on
> the spotted dick.

I was heavily into toasted cheese, for awhile. Not having a
loggerhead, I used a small toaster oven, which is perfect for making
up the dish. Too much of a hassle to turn on the oven jes fer a few
mins under the broiler. Welsh rarebit (rabbit) is a great variation
on the dish and is fun to experiment with, it adding beer and mustard
to the mix.

nb