The Tenth Muse

Sir Harry Luke, Baron Corvo and Harry Pirie-Gordon walk into a kitchen…

Sounds like a joke, but it’s true, well pretty true. Actually, they were in Wales walking through the heather and making up recipes. The amuse bouche Luke planned was this:

“On a thin slice of Bath Chap, trimmed to fit a disc of fried bread of the size of a half crown, lay a mushroom baked in milk as base for a piece of cold grouse as large as a thumbnail and a quarter of an inch thick.”

Baron Corvo disagreed:

“The mushroom must be isomegethic with the disc and five drops of lemon-juice should be squeezed upon the grouse just before serving.”

“No,” Sir Harry insisted, “that would be too sharp; let us add, rather, half a mulberry.”

There’s an Iron chef I would have loved to have seen, Sir Harry Luke and Baron Corvo taking on Michael Simon!

It is no wonder that Sir Harry Luke went on to write a lovely cookbook, The Tenth Muse, later updated in a second edition incorporating more recipes from his travels. Luke liberally included recipes form friends and family.

From his time as the Governor of Fiji, Sir Harry’s cook Bala, made him a lovely…

Smoked Fish au Gratin

Bone and skin any good smoked fish and cut up into small pieces. Cook slowly in a little milk, drain off the liquor. Make a sauce with butter, flour, the milk in which the fish was cooked, grated cheese, salt and pepper. Place the fish in a buttered fireproof dish, cover with the sauce, sprinkle with grated cheese and cook for 10 minutes in an oven to brown slightly.

King Abdullah Ibn Hussein (L) talking with Sir Harry Luke

I'd be happy to party with Sir Harry and his boys, anytime!