11 November 2010

An Entirely British Holiday

Last week was the 5th of November, also known as Bonfire Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day. I was super excited to celebrate since it's such a British holiday. Steve and I drove to the city-sponsored bonfire and watched fireworks to the accompaniment of movie soundtracks. Listening to the A-Team theme song while fireworks blazed reinforced my resolve not to attempt to blow up parliament, which I believe is the message of the holiday. Afterwards we ate parkin as a special treat. Parkin is a dense, Yorkshire cake made with treacle. I found the recipe in The Joy of Cooking with a note that it's traditional for Guy Fawkes Day. I verified this with a local. Our parkin was a bit sulphurous and I have since consulted the Internet and the British and determined that golden syrup is now preferred over treacle when baking parkin. Steve and I still liked it pretty well, although we heaped it with custard to up the sweetness, which is also very British.

4 comments:

Courtney said...

I never could get used to the gallons of custard that everyone attempted to pour over every dessert I was ever served while I lived over in that part of the world. And I have no memories at all of Guy Fawkes Day in N. Ireland--but then a holiday against blowing up the British Parliament probably wouldn't go over big with about 47% of the population in a really bad way.

eliana23 said...

Todd is sad that you didn't burn an effigy, but jealous otherwise of the Guy Fawkes celebration.

CSIowa said...

"Listening to the A-Team theme song while fireworks blazed reinforced my resolve not to attempt to blow up parliament, which I believe is the message of the holiday."

I don't often "LOL" when I'm reading, but sentences such as this are why I continue to follow your blog. It may even be my favorite (sentence or blog, you choose). You are awesome!

MBC said...

Yankee Girl--Yes, I can see how blowing-things-up holidays might not go over well there.

Eliana--I considered making a small Guy Fawkes effigy out of marzipan on the cake which we could some how douse and torch, but it was too complicated to think about on a weekday.

CSIowa--Thanks! Glad that one worked for you.

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