Tuesday 17 January 2017

The Spotted Dick


Alerted by a familiar screeching sound and a dart of movement in the corner of his eye, the abbot rises from his desk and goes to the window, where he sees swifts skimming the edge of the carp lake for mud.

His eyes narrow with resentment and he makes a mental note to instruct one of the brothers to take up a long pole and destroy the nests as they are built in the eaves of the cloisters, as he has done for the last eight years. In the long run, he believes it to be less messy than cleaning up all the white shit from the cobbles if they are allowed to breed in the shelter of the monastery walls, as they had been for the previous seven hundred.

With brief knock on the door, the abbot's secretary simultaneously enters the room and places a sheaf of papers on his desk. The abbot sighs to himself and returns to his chair.

He feels uneasy in this monk's presence and dislikes the morning briefings with him intensely. The brother came from Newark Priory, an establishment renowned for its laxity, financial incompetence and - as rumour had it - debauchery.

As his secretary moves close to him, the abbot catches the now familiar whiff of some sort of perfume or aftershave. It is distinctly feminine in nature and makes his close proximity even more uncomfortable as he leans over his shoulder to point out various details of the documents.

Today, there are two unavoidable listings on the calendar that require the abbot's presence - the banquet and the opening of the lead coffin.

For some weeks, archeologists have been working in the crypt with trowels and brushes, and have discovered an intact and well-preserved coffin belonging - as the inscription relates - to one of the original abbots of the monastery. In a great show of publicity, the lead coffin is to be opened later that morning in the presence of local and national press.

In the evening, a banquet is to be held to celebrate the signing of an agreement between the owner of the nearby country house and the abbey, which plans to convert the house into a conference centre with a top-class restaurant attached. The guests to the banquet will include a French-born T.V. celebrity chef, who is to be the head of the restaurant. The abbot is not at all confident that the two cooks of the abbey's refectory are up to the job of providing the sort of five-star meal that the chef has come to expect on his visits.

Preparations for the feast have begun in the kitchen since early morning, and the two cooks are busy stitching herbs into the bellies of fish which had been pulled from the pond the day before. They have reluctantly taken on the taciturn lad as a pot-cleaner, because two of the regular lay-workers have fallen mysteriously ill. As they work, they constantly bicker with each other, like an old married couple.

They are still arguing about what is to be made for a pudding, when one asks the other where the chopped onion is. One insists that it was agreed that the other chop the onions and says that they are needed at this very moment if the meal is to be prepared according to schedule.

The lad has not said a word since he arrived in the morning, but - to the cooks' incredulity - suggests that he chop the onions while the cooks continue with their tasks. They both look at each other with a conspiritorial wink, then one wipes his hands on his apron, places a board next to the unpeeled onions on the table and puts a large and sharp knife into the hand of the lad. They both stop what they are doing, confident that he will take ten minutes to deal with one onion, probably cutting himself badly in the process, then stand over him to watch and - ultimately - humiliate him. They did not want this boy in their kitchen and would be glad of a reason to send him home.

In two deft movements, the boy removes the peel of a large onion, then cuts it into two pieces. He pins each half to the board with his right hand, then  - using his fingernails as a guide - flicks the blade up and down in movements so rapid that they are difficult to follow with the eye. In five seconds the onion is finely and uniformly chopped into small pieces and he reaches for another as the cooks look on in astonishment.

They know that the boy has all his meals cooked for him by his mother, and they wonder how this left-handed lad with seemingly autistic tendencies who had only just left school had learned kitchen skills which are normally only seen in the best restaurants.

They go back to their work, and in a very short while the lad is standing over a great heap of chopped onion and asking them what they would like him to do next. One of them jokingly says that he could make the dessert if he wants, and he takes them seriously and goes to the pantry for ingredients.

They ignore him as he quietly mixes various things at a worktop, then one of them notices him add a large quantity of chopped suet to a basin, and asks him what he is preparing. The lad says it is to be a Spotted Dick. They laugh and return to the main courses.

A little later, the lad stops what he is doing and goes over to one cook to point out a better way of preparing the goose which he is working on. The cook stifles his anger at the kid's presumption and ostentatiously asks for his advice about a better way. The lad gives it and returns to the Spotted Dick.

Speechless, the cook realises that he was right.

24 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. It resembles my attention-span.

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    2. P.S. Every time I leave a comment on your blog, I get an email saying that my email has failed to be delivered to you... strange.

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    3. I get one of those as well...

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    4. Settings, settings, settings...

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    5. That's because I no longer have the windstream account, in spite of repeated updating of my blogger account, my gmail account simply won't stick. All was well as long as I had the windstream account, but when I left the old house and cancelled that account, blogger/google won't let go. It keeps looking in the old account for stuff to forward, and windstream says knock it off, that account doesn't exist. I can't straighten them out. So, never mind. Carry on. You show up in my comments just fine.

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    6. Ah, ok. My advice is get rid of Google+. It is a pain in the arse, like most improvements.

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  2. Re Joanne's blog Tom (and Joanne) I get an e mail saying the same.

    As for the spotted Dick - knowing you Tom I expected a rude story.

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    1. If I can inspire the great Weave to sit at home thinking about filth, then my job here may be done...

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  3. These brief extracts seem to be getting about 260 reads each, of you discount me going back to correct spelling mistakes. That is good for me, as usually it is only an argument with a fellow blogger which gets that many hits.

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    1. These things fulfill two things for me: They stop me from ranting on about day to day life, they clear my head as far as the general plot goes, and they satiate my need to write every day - without the innevitable confrontations that general blogging leads to.

      Oh wait - that's three things. Maybe I should do an online maths course.

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    2. I really like these. Well I like most of your posts, but these are pretty darned neat. Hey Tom!

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    3. I am enjoying getting them out.

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  4. I like how you write and I enjoy reading all your posts.
    Greetings Maria x

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  5. That was a fascinating read. I did not know where it was going. I wish, though, that we had gotten to the opening of the lead coffin. I am a total sucker for that kind of stuff, especially if there is some intact clothing found inside.

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    1. It is coming. The opening of the coffin is a real event that I missed by 2 weeks, when I worked as a mason for an old government department at an old and ruined monastery - the first Cistercian one in England.

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  6. Tom, I don't think I have ever connected to google+, and think any comment that you leave for me registers properly, and is greatly appreciated by me.

    This kitchen scene drew my full attention. (Initially, i was worried about the knife. That kept me fully attentive.)

    Will be see the meal being served and dined upon. Maybe the coffin opening will take place just a but later?

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    1. They forced me to register with Google+, but I try not to use it. It's just another way to garner personal information.

      Yes, I will do the banquet and coffin bits.

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  7. Totally unrelated: I am just flipping through a lifestyle magazine in which they recommended a book called 'The little book of Hygge/Danish secrets to happy living'. The book supposedly recommends croquet, wool socks, and candlelight as the passport to bliss. How about that?

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    1. Yes, I saw that little book in a shop window and was mildly disgusted with it. It's bad enough to give it a name, let alone a formula - as if that would work!

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