August recipe: Plum jam

Plums are abundant in August and early September. If you have a surplus, one way to store them is in plum jam. Any variety of plum can be used to make jam, or you can use a mixture of different varieties according to taste and availability. Dark purple plums tend to make a deeper coloured jam, whereas pink-hued plums like Victorias will make a lighter colour.

The quantity below will make about three or four medium-sized jars of jam. You can start eating it straight away, or it will keep indefinitely provided the seal of the jar isn’t broken.

Plum jam

2 lb (approx 1 kg) plums, any variety or a mixture
2 lb (approx 1 kg) sugar. I usually use granulated sugar

Wash the plums.

Halve and stone the plums. If the plums are large, chop the halved plums into pieces of the size you would like to find in the finished jam.

Put the chopped plums in a large saucepan with 2 Tblsp (approx 30 ml) water.

Cook over a very gentle heat until the juice starts to run. Then simmer for 15 – 20 minutes until the fruit is soft enough to mash with a wooden spoon. You don’t actually have to mash it, and I usually don’t because I like whole fruit jam, but it’s a good indicator for when the fruit is ready to go on to the next stage.

Add the sugar and stir until it has dissolved (a minute or so).

Add a small piece of butter. This is supposed to help stop the jam sticking.

Bring the jam to a full rolling boil – this means lots of bubbles across the whole surface of the liquid in the pan (see picture). Don’t lean over the pan and keep any children or pets out of the way. Boiling jam will sometimes spit, and as it is both hot and sticky it can give an unpleasant burn.


Boiling jam (All together now: "Double, double, toil and trouble....")

Boil until the setting point is reached. To test for setting point, scoop out a teaspoonful of jam and drip it onto a cold plate. It will form a pool. (If it forms a bead, your jam is ready – take it off the heat straight away and proceed to the next step). Wait for the pool to cool (30 seconds or so), then push it horizontally with your finger. If the surface wrinkles, the jam is ready. If the pool stays liquid, keep boiling for another 2 minutes and test again. I usually find this jam reaches setting point after about 15 minutes boiling.*

Remove the jam from the heat, and pour into clean glass jars. I find the easiest way to do this is to pour from the pan into a heatproof jug, then use the jug to fill the jars.

Seal the jars immediately. I seal jam jars with a layer of cling film and then a screw-top lid, but you can use any method of your choice as long as it is air-tight.

Let the jars cool, label them, and store in a cupboard until needed.

You can scale up the quantity as you see fit, but remember that you need plenty of space in the pan for the jam to boil without boiling over. If the pan is about half-full after you put the sugar in, that should be about right.



*I am told that a sugar thermometer makes it easier to recognise setting point. I’ve never used one, so can’t comment. The old-fashioned way works for me.

Paths of Exile now available as e-book

Paths of Exile is now available as an e-book on Amazon Kindle UK, Amazon Kindle US and in several e-book formats including Kindle, Epub (Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo), Palm Doc and others on Smashwords. The first 20% is available in most formats on Smashwords if you want to try before you buy.

Burgh Castle Roman fort: Church of St Peter and St Paul

The remains of the Roman shore fort are by far the most impressive visible features on the site of Burgh Castle Roman fort, with three of the four walls and their massive bastions still standing to near full height (see my previous post for pictures).

The church of St Peter and St Paul stands one field north of the remains of the Roman fort (see map link here). It is is an attractive small church with a round tower. The listed building record identifies the tower as late 11th century, with the rest of the church being later (British Listed Buildings).


Church of St Peter and St Paul, Burgh Castle


I wonder if some of the red bricks and tiles visible in the tower (among the flintwork and around the arched window, not at the top of the tower which looks like a later rebuild) are Roman bricks and tiles recycled from the nearby Roman fort.


Close up of tower showing red bricks and tiles among the flints and around the window




Most round church towers are found in East Anglia, mainly in Norfolk, some in Suffolk, and a handful in Essex and neighbouring counties. Why round towers? One possibility is that round towers were chosen as a consequence of the local building materials. The main building stone available in most of East Anglia is flint, which comes in irregular nodules. Flint makes a perfectly good building material, especially if combined with plenty of mortar, but it isn’t great for the construction of corners. This can be solved by importing stone from elsewhere to make the corners (you can see this technique in the corners of the church doorway in the photo). Or it can be solved by avoiding corners if at all possible and building round towers.

Another possibility is that round towers happened to be fashionable, or were chosen as part of an expression of regional or local identity. A thought that occurs to me is to wonder if round church towers could have been influenced or inspired by the round bastions on surviving Roman fortifications. Remains like Burgh Castle Roman fort are impressive even now and must have been more so a thousand years ago when the Roman forts were better preserved and large buildings were fewer than today. Someone who had seen one of the Roman forts might have decided to follow this example of how to build a tower, on the practical grounds that it had clearly worked in the past, and then the idea may have been copied at nearby sites and become a local fashion. If the forts were even vaguely remembered as ‘Roman’ structures, it may also have seemed fitting to borrow some of their architecture when building churches for a religion whose headquarters was Rome. Early monastic foundations built within Roman shore forts may also have reinforced such an association. I need hardly say that this is speculative.

Burgh Castle Roman Fort is a possible site for the seventh-century monastery called Cnobheresburg, mentioned in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. If this is the case, the existing church may be a replacement for an earlier church, either on the same site or nearby, perhaps within the walls of the Roman fort. The dedication to St Peter and St Paul is consistent with an early foundation; Aethelbert of Kent built a monastery with a church dedicated to St Peter and St Paul in 602 (Bede Book I Ch. 33), the church built in York in 626 was dedicated to St Peter (Bede Book II Ch. 14), and the seventh-century Chapel of St Peter on the Wall at the Roman shore fort near Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex is a likely candidate for the church founded at a place called Ythancaestir in 654 (Bede, Book III Ch. 22). More about Cnobheresburg in another post.


References
Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people. Translated by Leo Sherley-Price. Penguin Classics, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044565-X.
British Listed Buildings, Church of St Peter and St Paul, Burgh Castle, available online

Libertas, by Alistair Forrest. Book review

Edition reviewed: Quaestor2000, 2009. ISBN 978-1-906836-07-8. 218 pages. Also available as an e-book in various formats at Amazon Kindle and Smashwords.

Libertas is set in the first century BC in southern Spain and the Mediterranean, against the background of the civil war between Roman generals Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. The historical figure of Sextus Pompey (younger son of Pompey the Great) is an important secondary character, and other historical figures including Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompey (elder brother of Sextus), Marcus Agrippa and Titus Labienus make brief appearances. All the main characters are fictional.

Melqart, nicknamed Pito, is the son of a respected baker in the quietly prosperous mountain town of Munda in Hispania Ulterior (modern southern Spain). When the Roman army decides that Munda’s location is of strategic importance, Pito’s talent for invention earns him a role as a surveyor, map-maker and deviser of a signalling system. But when Munda finds itself the focal point for a savage battle in the Roman civil war, Pito’s old enemy, the villainous local thug Arsay, sees his chance to seize power. If Pito is to survive and rescue his beloved family from slavery, it will take all his courage and ingenuity, not to mention the help of unexpected allies…

Melqart (Pito), the central character and narrator of this adventure tale, is an unusual and likeable hero. A reluctant warrior who only fights if he has to, Pito would much rather solve a problem by applying his brains than his fists. He turns out to be a talented inventor, coming up with innovations such as a mirror signalling system, a retractable keel and a torpedo. Pito is drawn to knowledge in all its forms, from the library of scrolls left by the Greek philosopher Archimedes* in Syracuse to the spiritual wisdom of the enigmatic mountain hermit Uriel. He also has a semi-mystical relationship with the magnificent mountain eagles that patrol the skies above Munda. Indeed, the eagles are as important as the human characters, intervening decisively at crucial points in Pito’s life.

The historical Sextus Pompey displayed considerable enterprise after his father’s defeat, not only managing to avoid getting killed but setting up for a while as a successful pirate and operator of a maritime protection racket on the island of Sicily. He is a memorable character in Libertas, a rogue with style, wit and charm who, despite his shrewd eye for the main chance, is generous and immensely loyal to his friends, including those of modest status like Pito.

Pito’s adventures take him far and wide across the Mediterranean to the desert kingdoms of North Africa and the volcanoes of Sicily, encountering a variety of different cultures and people. Details of daily life – baking bread, a village feast, growing and preparing food – are described with as much care as the dramatic scenes of battle, storm and volcanic eruption. The landscape of southern Spain around Munda (modern Monda) is beautifully portrayed, with its craggy peaks, aromatic mountain pastures, rivers, ravines and olive groves. Pito reflects from time to time that Munda is a little corner of Paradise on earth, and it would be difficult not to agree with him.

Libertas shows how a largely peaceable and prosperous community can be suddenly devastated, just because it happens to be a convenient place for a battle between rival foreign powers. The inhabitants of Munda have little or no direct involvement in the conflict between Roman political factions, but the war arrives anyway with all the random violence of a hurricane, wreaks its havoc and leaves the bewildered survivors to pick up the pieces as best they can.

The Battle of Munda in 45 BC was a real event, although its location is uncertain according to the Author’s Note. Here it is placed near modern Monda, inland from the Costa del Sol. The fictional coastal village of Apollacta is a clever play on the modern name of the coast – it translates as ‘Apollo’s Shore’ or the coast of the sun god. Holidaymakers heading off for a break in the sun this summer might like to pack a copy of Libertas and imagine what this popular corner of southern Spain might have been like two thousand years ago.

A short Author’s Note at the back summarises some of the underlying history, and two maps at the front show the location of Munda and a plan of the town as imagined in the novel. Particularly useful is a map showing the battlefield of Munda in detail and the dispositions of the forces involved, sensibly placed in the relevant chapter so the reader can refer to it during the gripping battle scenes.

Fast-paced adventure tale of invention, courage, friendship and survival, set in the idyllic landscape of southern Spain against the background of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey.




*Yes, that Archimedes, he of the “Eureka” moment, the Archimedes screw, etc.

Locations: Derbyshire’s gritstone tors

Gritstone tors on Kinder Scout


Gritstone is the characteristic rock of the ‘Dark Peak’ landscape, extending in an arc around the west, north and east of the Derbyshire Peak District. As its name implies, it’s a hard coarse-grained sandstone formed from grit laid down on the bed of a vast river delta around 300 million years ago (long before the dinosaurs, to put the timescale into context). Gritstone is hard, abrasive and very strong. Its sharp-edged crystals make it ideal for grinding grain, hence its alternative name of Millstone Grit, and its strength makes it a sturdy building stone.

In the landscape, gritstone forms high windswept moorlands of heather and blanket bog, vertical cliffs called Edges, and strangely sculptured rock outcrops called tors. The tors are among the most atmospheric features of the gritstone moorlands of the Dark Peak, carved by wind, rain and frost into weird shapes.

Part of Paths of Exile is set in the Dark Peak in the Upper Derwent Valley (see map link at the bottom of the post), where the gritstone tors on the high moorlands make for a distinctive landscape.

[…]
All along the eastern horizon, an irregular row of boulders and tors marked the edge of a slightly higher plateau. The rock was dark grey in colour and curiously rounded, like stacked cushions or piled cakes of bread. At close quarters it was coarse-grained and abrasive, full of large rounded pebbles and occasional tiny flecks that caught the light and sparkled in the sun. […] A short distance away to the south, a gritstone tor reared its stepped profile against the bright sky.
[…]

--Paths of Exile, chapter 11



“...like stacked cushions or piled cakes of bread”
If you look at the topographical map in the link below, you’ll see that one of the tors on Derwent Edge is called ‘The Cakes of Bread’.



“...reared its stepped profile against the sky”



“...coarse-grained and abrasive...”
Close-up of gritstone. You can see the pebbles embedded in the rock; presumably they were washed down the rivers that formed that long-ago delta and deposited along with the sand and grit. The pebbles vary between rocks in different locations. These are quite small, a centimetre (half an inch) or so across, but some of the tors elsewhere on the moors contain pebbles the size of a walnut, and where they have weathered out the tors are riddled with round cavities like a Swiss cheese.


Gritstone tors can weather into fantastic shapes, resembling a natural sculpture park – or, for a (fictional) group of exhausted fugitives familiar with tales of man-eating monsters who “walk nightlong / The misty moorland”, something altogether more intimidating:


Who says trolls are mythical?

Gritstone tors like this one were part of the inspiration for including beliefs in trolls in Paths of Exile. For a discussion on troll-like creatures in Old English myths, see my earlier post on Eotens.


Map link
Upper Derwent Valley. The reservoirs were not there in 605 AD!

Bring It Close, by Helen Hollick. Book review

Silverwood Books, 2011. ISBN 978-1-906236-62-5. 385 pages. Advance review copy provided as PDF by publisher.

Bring It Close is the third in the Jesamiah Acorne pirate series, following Sea Witch (reviewed here a few years ago) and Pirate Code. Set in October-November 1718, mainly on the coasts of North Carolina and Virginia in what is now the US, Bring It Close features the notorious historical pirate Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, as a main character. Other secondary characters such as the governors of North Carolina and Virginia, Blackbeard’s crew and the British naval lieutenant Robert Maynard are also historical figures. The two central characters, pirate captain Jesamiah Acorne and white witch Tiola, are fictional.

Captain Jesamiah Acorne has inherited his family’s tobacco plantation, accepted a government amnesty and, in theory, retired from piracy. Bored and still troubled by questions about his father and his family’s past, he has a one-night stand with an old flame, causing his lover, the midwife and white witch Tiola Oldstagh, to quarrel with him and depart to attend a difficult birth. The plantation turns out to be run down to the point of bankruptcy, his half-brother’s widow is disputing the inheritance, the fearsome pirate Blackbeard still wants revenge on Jesamiah for sinking his ship, and Jesamiah’s dead father is trying to contact him from the world of the dead. Jesamiah finds himself arrested for piracy – ironically, this time he is innocent of the charge – and sentenced to hang. If he is to save his life, clear his name and be reunited with his beloved Tiola, he will have to hunt down and kill Blackbeard. But, unknown to Jesamiah, Blackbeard has sold his soul to the Dark Power, the implacable enemy of Tiola and the power she represents, and cannot be killed …

Bring It Close is a fantasy set against the swashbuckling historical background of piracy in the Caribbean and along the east coast of North America. Central to the novel is a supernatural struggle between the powers of Good (the Immortals of Light, the Old Ones of Wisdom), represented by Tiola, and Evil (the Dark Power, the Malevolence), represented by Blackbeard. Attempts by governments to stamp out piracy, and the antagonism between Jesamiah and Blackbeard, are components of this larger conflict. The magic forces are real within the world of the novel, not beliefs held by the characters. Here Blackbeard is, or was, a human who has sold his soul to the devil and is now possessed by the Dark Power. Tiola is a non-human immortal being, one of the Immortals of Light, who has taken human shape. Having fallen in love with a human, Jesamiah Acorne, she can communicate with him by telepathy and has supernatural powers over earth, air, fire and water (but not salt water). However, Immortals of Light are forbidden to kill, and so Tiola cannot use her power to destroy Blackbeard. Indeed, she has to take great care to keep her identity secret from the Dark Power inhabiting Blackbeard’s body, since the Dark Power could harm her and those she cares for. As Blackbeard is protected from death by the Dark Power, and as Tiola is not permitted to use her opposing power to kill, the supernatural battle is at something of an impasse, and is maintained as a conflict throughout the book.

As well as the magical conflict, there is no shortage of earthly action, from tavern brawls to naval battles, blackmail, political double-dealing and a harrowing childbirth scene. Blackbeard is the major historical figure, and according to the author’s note, “many of Blackbeard’s scenes happened – but without Jesamiah and Tiola of course”. The historical Blackbeard came to fame as an adult and not much is known of his early life, giving the author scope to weave him into the lives of the fictional characters and to develop unexpected connections between them.

As a character, Blackbeard in the novel is pure evil, as one might expect from a pirate who has literally sold his soul to the devil. Jesamiah is still much as I remember him from Sea Witch - his liking for drink and women, not to mention his complete lack of tact and his talent for making enemies, get him into trouble on a regular basis, and he has to rely on his resourcefulness, quick wits and ability to lie through his teeth to get himself out of it again. Fans of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow will probably also take a liking to Jesamiah Acorne. Jesamiah’s painful childhood, stormy family history and troubled relationship with his dead father thread through the narrative, as do the dark memories borne by his father’s ghost. Some of this complicated family history seems to have featured in the second book in the series, Pirate Code, but I had no difficulty following the narrative even though I haven’t read Pirate Code. So although Bring It Close is the third in a series, it can be read as a stand-alone.

A useful Author’s Note explains some of the historical events underlying the novel, and sets out the reasoning behind some of the fictional additions. There is also a glossary of nautical terms and a diagram of a ship to help readers unfamiliar with seafaring terminology.

Swashbuckling fantasy set on the coasts of colonial Virginia and North Carolina, featuring the dashing fictional pirate Jesamiah Acorne and the historical pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.

July recipe: Chard and cream cheese lasagne

Chard, also known as spinach beet or perpetual spinach*, is a type of leaf beet, mainly available in summer and autumn in the UK. It’s a green leafy vegetable looking a bit like a more robust version of spinach, but whereas spinach tends to run to seed in hot weather, chard will happily carry on growing until the first frosts.

The young leaves can be eaten raw in a salad like lettuce, larger leaves are cooked like spinach. I generally regard chard as more or less interchangeable with spinach, and use whichever happens to be growing in the garden at the time. So you could also make this recipe with spinach instead of chard, or with a mixture of the two, according to preference and availability. Being July, it’s chard season at the moment, so here it is made with chard.

Chard and cream cheese lasagne

Serves 2

10-12 oz (approx 300-350 g) chard leaves
Half an onion
1 large clove garlic
4 oz (approx 100 g) cream cheese or ricotta cheese
0.5 teaspoon (0.5 x 5 ml spoon) grated nutmeg
0.5 oz (approx 10 g) butter
2 teaspoons (2 x 5 ml spoon) plain flour
Approx 0.25 pint (approx 150 ml) milk
2 oz (approx 50 g) cheddar-type cheese, sliced
Approx 4 oz (approx 100 g) dried lasagne sheets**

Wash the chard leaves thoroughly. Cut out the thick central stalk from each leaf. Put about a teaspoon of butter in the bottom of a large saucepan, and put the chard leaves on top. Don’t add any extra water, the drops of water clinging to the leaves after washing will be enough to steam the leaves. Put a lid on the saucepan and cook over a low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring several times during cooking to make sure the leaves at the top get swapped for the ones at the bottom of the pan. The chard will wilt and soften, and will cook down to a fraction of its original volume. When it’s a soft dark green mass, it’s cooked. Remove from the heat and drain, pressing the cooked leaves with a wooden spoon or spatula to squeeze out excess moisture. Leave to cool.

Peel and chop the onion. Chop the chard stalks. Peel and crush the garlic. Fry onion, chard stalks and garlic in about a tablespoon of cooking oil over a low heat for 5-10 minutes until the onion is soft and starting to colour. Remove from heat.

Chop the cooked chard leaves, and stir into the onion mixture. Stir in the cream cheese and nutmeg, and season with salt and pepper.

Now make a white sauce. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the flour.

Blend in the milk a little at a time, stirring thoroughly between each addition to remove any lumps (remember to scrape any lumps off the back of the spoon). Bring to the boil, stirring all the time until the sauce thickens. Remove from the heat.

Grease an ovenproof dish about 7” (about 18 cm) square. Spread one-third of the spinach and cream cheese mixture in the bottom of the dish. Top with a layer of lasagne sheets. Spread another one-third of the spinach and cream cheese mixture on top, and cover with another layer of lasagne sheets. Spread the last one-third of the spinach mixture on top, and pour the white sauce over. Top with the sliced cheddar-type cheese. (You may find you end up with three or four layers of lasagne rather than two, depending on the size and shape of your dish and the size and shape of your lasagne sheets. Adjust as necessary, just make sure that the lasagne and the sauce layers alternate with each other and that you start and end with a layer of sauce).

Cook in a moderate oven, approx 180 C, for approx 35 minutes until the cheese is golden and bubbling.

Serve with salad or a green vegetable.


**You could use fresh pasta, but the weight will be different from dried pasta.


*Sharp-eyed readers of Paths of Exile may have noticed a mention of growing spinach in a vegetable plot. I imagine it as a spinach beet of some kind, as leaf beets have been grown in Europe for centuries. Chard is probably the nearest modern approximation.