Jelly Belly and Welly Time

Like any self-respecting bibliophile, I don't wait until an auspicious occasion to indulge in my obsession. My most recent spate of buying sprees has yielded some gems: a Maurice Sendak-illustrated version of The Nutcracker, for starters. The lovely people at Pantheon Books - they have the most gorgeous new suite of Kafka editions (how Don Draper perfect is that?!) - also sent me a huge package of reading materials as part of their Holiday Sweepstakes. I'm looking forward to a Sunday filled with lavender hot chocolate, Habibi, and some doggie snuggles.

Maybe most tantalizingly, I treated myself to two (of a series of twenty; you know what my wish list looks like) books from the Penguin Great Food series, with covers designed by the most fabulous Coralie Bickford-Smith.

Somebody over there is a marketing genius. A full rainbow? Sold

These guys. They're the antithesis of the ebook: eminently collectible (literally, they're like Pringles, and I dare you to buy just one), textured like a grown-up Pat the Bunny, with raised rococo swirls and patterns, and a glorious objet when stacked by the dozens. But enough rhapsodizing! They're also filled with practicality.

Isabella Beeton, grand dame of the manor house life, writes in her Campaign for Domestic Happiness of houseguests, horses, and ham. She also describes a recipe for something called invalid's jelly, which, if it doesn't make you sicker, just might dispatch your headache/fever/other incapacity left over from last night's debauchery. Serendipitous, Mrs. Beeton, and what timing.
 
Invalid's Jelly (from Isabella Beeton's Campaign for Domestic Happiness)
(I accept no responsibility for any illness resulting from the consumption of this concoction)
Ingredients

• 12 shanks of mutton
• 3 quarts of water
• bunch of sweet herbs
• pepper and salt to taste
• 3 blades of mace
• 1 onion
• 1 pound of lean beef
• crust of bread toasted brown

Instructions 

Soak the shanks in plenty of water for some hours, and scrub them well; put them, with the beef and other ingredients, into a saucepan with the water, and let them simmer very gently for 5 hours. Strain the broth, and, when cold, take off all the fat. It may be eaten either warmed up or cold as a jelly.

Time: 5 hours.
Sufficient to make from 1 1/2 to 2 pints of jelly.
Seasonable at any time.


Now strap on some Wellies, and back to the moors with you.