Читать книгу Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table - Nigel Slater - Страница 36

It would be wooden spoons at dawn if any single place tried to claim gingerbread as its own. Instead different territories have laid their claim by adding a little something to the basic butter, sugar and treacle mix. Whether it’s beer and ground almonds in the recipe from Fochabers, the oatmeal in Orkney’s broonie or the honey that Welsh cooks have been known to stir in, every area seems to have left its stamp. Visitors to Nottingham would no doubt have delighted in the scent of cinnamon from the sticky little cakes sold at the Goose Fair, and while Yorkshire cooks threw in caraway seeds and ground coriander, the Lancastrian bakers next door stirred in marmalade and a teaspoon of mixed spice. Irish recipes have included the worthy note of wholemeal flour and the unabashed luxury of preserved ginger, while Scots drizzled black treacle into their parlies, the little ginger drops so beloved of the Scottish Parliament. The most famous of all, from Grasmere, is barely gingerbread as we know it, being a secret recipe more akin to a biscuit, tender and crumbly and without a hint of treacle, yet blessed with the distinctive notes of brown sugar and butter and the essential whiff of the treasured spice.