Lovely Presents
We are saying goodbye to Kingstown tomorrow, so a little gastronomy seemed in order. I decided it might be nice to make a crème brulée; for two reasons, the first being that the filling from Christmas’s Boston Cream Pie struck me as eminently adaptable for this purpose, and the second, that it is an old Aberdeenshire recipe. Its general currency as a restaurant pudding has much to do with the fact that it was popularised by Trinity College, Cambridge: it entered that kitchen’s extensive repertory via a Fellow of c. 1900, Francis Jenkinson (also University Librarian, and editor of the Hisperica Famina, one of the strangest things ever written in the Latin language) — or so his sister proudly claims, in a cookery book which she subsequently published. Her version is to be had on the Web — I see that Trinity claim to have invented it, which is cheeky of them. It was known as Burnt Cream hereabouts. So I duly made a custard, and I had shoved it under the grill with some sugar on top when I suddenly remembered that two or three years ago, the Canadian Professor gave me a culinary blowtorch, and moreover, that I knew where it was. It was with immense satisfaction on both counts that I got it out, and successfully bruléed the crème in mere moments. It has taken me, as you will deduce, a while to get around to putting it to its intended purpose, but I’m sure it will turn out to have been worth the wait. By the way, we are also having Cullen Skink, which is another of the North-East’s distinguished contributions to international cuisine, and doubtless rather better for you.