Requiescat in pace -- Clarissa Dickson Wright

Sad to report that Clarissa Dickson Wright , the remaining one of the Two Fat Ladies, died. 
Read Wright's amusing account of shooting the neighbor's peacock and serving it to them.  After all, who in their wright mind would waste a perfectly good peacock.

While best known for her stint as the side-car riding half of the Two Fat Ladies, Wright wrote numerous food books, including a wonderful book on game and tiny tome on the beloved haggis.  After Jennifer Patterson died, Wright teamed up with childhood friend, Johnny Scott for a British "countryside" show, Clarissa and the Countryman.

In recent years, she wrote a series of autobiographies detailing her rather wild and drunken youth.  After surviving a hard-fought struggle with alcoholism, Wright spent many years working in a cookbook store.  She was "discovered" by the legendary cooking producer, Patricia Llewellyn who teamed her with Patterson, and the rest was rollicking road trip. 

My particular favorite recipe from Wright was her Mitton of Pork, a large ball of terrine filled with bacon and pork with a bit of stuffing to bind it together. 

Mitton of Pork

8 ounces rashers streaky bacon

1 1/2 pounds pork fillet. thinly sliced

6 ounces sage and onion stuffing (not from a packet)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground mace

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a 7-inch pudding basin with most of the bacon rasher, reserving a few for the top. Put in a layer of pork, then stuffing, season with salt, pepper and mace. Continue this layering process until the basin is full, finishing with the reserved bacon. Press down well, then cover tightly. Stand the basin in a baking pan to catch drips. Bake the oven for 1 hour. Place a weighted board over the pudding and leave until completely cold. Turn out the mitton and slice to serve.

 The dish was featured in the Picnic episode of The Two Fat Ladies.  I am pulling out the DVD's and spending the afternoon with dynamic duo.  No doubt Jennifer Patterson was waiting at the pearly gates with bottle of champagne, caviar and a cigarette asking what the hell Wright was doing there so soon.

 
 Clarissa Dickson Wright will be missed. The Guardian obituary: bit.ly/NmVV6o

Cooking with the Two Fat Ladies

If forced to pick my favorite cooking show of all time, it would be The Two Fat Ladies. There was something magical about the style and banter of Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright. They had a tremendous love of food, evident from their rather noticeable girth. They always had a good story. Their food was as rich and substantial as they were.

Alas, Jennifer Paterson died. As noted in an earlier post, she died as she lived, drinking champagne and indulging in caviar and fois gras. An unapologetic smoker, she resigned herself to the the fact that she had greatly contributed to her demise, but she wouldn’t have had it any other way.


The girls loved their food and weren’t afraid of dispatching the food themselves. Here is an exchange between the Two Fat Ladies over peacock.

JENNIFER: I ate peacock once. It’s rather like pheasant.

CLARISSA: It is a bit. I once shot one in my sprouting broccoli. It was an accident, of course. Rabbits were always getting into my garden, so I used to throw up the kitchen window and shoot them from there. But one day, what I thought was a rabbit turned out to be a peacock.

JENNIFER: Whose peacock was it?

CLARISSA: It belonged to the people next door.

JENNIFER: They must have been pleased!

CLARISSA: Well, I asked them to dinner and we had a rather good bottle of wine. Then they said, this is very interesting, what is it?” Well, I said, I didn’t buy it at Harrod’s.

There is a story about the woman who owned my house before me. Opal was well known in Shirley for hunting from the kitchen like Clarissa. In fact there is a small hole in the porch screen that is rumored to be the opening for Opal’s gun.


Here is an uncharacteristic vegetarian dish.

Wild Mushroom Pancakes

FOR THE BATTER:

1 1/4 cups self-rising flour
2 eggs
7/8 cup milk
salt and freshly ground pepper


3/4 pound fresh wild mushrooms
4 tablespoons butter
oil


Make the batter, adding seasoning to taste, and leave to stand for at least 1 hour.

Melt the butter in a frying pan and cook the mushrooms until they are wilted and all liquid has evaporated. Set aside to cool.

Mix together the batter and mushrooms. Heat a frying pan, put in a smidgen of oil, and fry pancakes about 2 inches in diameter. Eat.

So, make up a batch of these pancakes, cook up a big steak and pop the top on nice bottle of champagne and toast the memory of the TWO fat ladies.