Читать книгу Legend of the Peeing briton - Павел Тюрин - Страница 23

And now the truth comes out that naughty Julien didn’t only pee on the front porches of old Brussels, but also in the flower pots of his grandmother’s, in which she had been growing tulips that had later made Holland famous. Indeed our virtues stem out of our vices. Taking into account the experiments of the little rascal, local horticulturalists of today who learned of Blockhead’s feat in Riga, have cultivated two kinds of urino-resistant tulips. To acknowledge the special accomplishments of the patron of all the peeing, Little Julien, the petals of the ‘Manneken Pis’ were made in black, yellow, and while colours, and the petals of the ‘Peeing Briton’ were white with red crosses on them.[57]

These tulips are often laid at the foot of the monuments to our heroes. Their popularity increases even more on the 11th and the 19th of November and the amounts sold are simply mind-blowing. It is only natural that these flowers become expensive, but the tourists who have not peed on the monuments yet (and not only the English-speaking ones) buy them out very quickly.

The bulbs of the new kinds of tulips are very much in demand, too. People who grow them in their homes can practice the ‘golden showers’ and create real masterpieces of floristry. It also became known that Little Julien was a remarkable chef as well. It was him, who thought up the recipe of a famed appetiser julienne,[58] which consisted of the thinly sliced bulbs and stems of his grandmother’s tulips with such additions as mushrooms, onion ringlets, etc. He had examined the nutrition and taste of his culinary experiments on the Brussels drunks who never have any money to snack. History confirms the validity of the courageous experiments: the drunks weren’t the only ones to enjoy the delicacy. However, today not all the restaurant chefs take the risk to strictly follow the ancient recipe.

When Dick was in the British Army, where he served diligently, he always tried to spend his short leaves of absence in Brussels, so that he could stand next to his soul mate, go to the nearby café where he ordered several portions of julienne all at once, and a cake with a chocolate figure of the ‘Manneken Pis’. Nobody could have foreseen back then that a petit model of his own figure would soon be made in chocolate and sold on every Brussels street corner.

A detail from Sergeant Blockhead’s photograph from the time when he was serving in the British Army. Here he is in Brussels, in the café near the Petit Julien where he looks sceptically but with sympathy at the little boy peeing