Winnie the Pooh and Toad in the Hole

YES IT'S A LUCKY DIP

I was going to write about how my diet seems to be no longer working, but I thought that was a bit depressing and so decided to do the lucky dip thing. And what a treat! Sort of diet related too.

The Winnie-the-Pooh books are to me some of the greatest books of all time. Yes it's a tiny bit twee, but there is such wisdom in the writing. It is so soothing and utopian and captures a certain kind of childhood so well. It's calming and warm and cosy. And I know a lot of people would pour scorn on those notions, but I personally think it's what we all need. Lots of love and friendship. I know it's idealised and I suppose a bit treacly but I adore it and when our book group had a session on books that had most influenced us, this is what I chose. (Interestingly lots of the others chose books from their childhood too.)

Anyway - my lucky dip turned up a book I had bought when the children were small - The Pooh Cookbook by Katie Stewart.

Katie Stewart was just a rung below the trinity of Robert Carrier, Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson in my youth. She wrote many cookbooks and columns - for The Times - and I'm sure some of her columns would have been in that precious scrapbook that I have lost. The book was published in 1971 and I guess I would have bought it a few years later. By then we were in Australia, not England

I'm not sure that I ever made much from it - some biscuits and cakes perhaps, and I do remember I used her recipe for pancakes. But it was a cute book, illustrated by the original pictures by Ernest H. Shephard, and by quotes. The quote for the Toad in the Hole recipe is from the story in which Pooh gets stuck in Pooh's rabbit hole.

"suppose I get stuck in his front door again, coming out, as I did once when his front door wasn't big enough?

Because I know I'm not getting fatter, but his frond door may be getting thinner."

It's a fine example of Pooh logic and self-deception - something we all do from time to time.

So that's the book - and it's obviously one that I am hanging on to for sentimental reasons rather than for any practical purpose. The recipe I opened it at was for Toad in the Hole - a very traditional English dish of the poor.

It is one of those dishes upon which a great deal of scorn is poured, and as Delia says, you never find it in restaurants. I wonder if she has it in hers! Apparently it was originally made from leftover scraps of meat rather than sausages, which were then cooked in a batter in the oven. Very basic, very economical and not very good for you. At some point the meat changed to sausages, and now the dish is only made with sausages. Katie Stewart's recipe (and Jane Grigson's) is pretty basic - just sausages and a batter baked in the oven. (Heat the fat in the oven, part cook the sausages, make a batter - place the sausages in the fat and pour the batter over - and bake - that's it). But the wonderful thing about the modern generation of cooks is that they take 'classic' dishes and give them a twist that makes them so much more than the original. Here are three of them - Delia, Jamie and Nigel Slater - three icons of modern British cookery.

Delia even has a video in which she cooks the dish. The lesson is all about batters, but it includes Toad in the Hole. She describes the dish as "a sort of fusion food - a fusion of light, crispy, crunchy batter and plump, meaty pork sausages, all moistened with a generous amount of roasted-onion jus". Her recipe is basic, but she adds an onion gravy at the end. So not very different after all.

Jamie Oliver does have a basic recipe but he also has one in which he basically deconstructs the dish - cooking each element separately. A modern thing to do. You can find it online here. I think he does this because as he says: "you end up with half a sausage (the toad) poking out of the Yorkshire (the hole). The bit sticking out is crisp and golden - good times - but the other half of the sausage, inside the batter, is soft, anaemic and boiled - bad times." And you know I think he is right. We used to have Toad in the Hole regularly when I was growing up - we were poor and there was not the overwhelming variety of foods and recipes available either. The sausages were pretty good though. I'm not sure that even the most gourmet sausages of today are as good. Or is that a bit of nostalgia for yesteryear? So I quite liked it but it was not an all-time favourite. And I don't remember having any sauce with it at all - maybe some bottled OK sauce or tomato ketchup Technically Jamie's dish is not Toad in the Hole because the Toad is no longer in the Hole. But it does look pretty nice - the sauce includes onions and apples as well as a few other things.

And what about Nigel Slater? Well he does have a basic recipe, though he does comment that some people like more batter than sausage, and some prefer more sausage and less batter. I guess that's up to you. And the shape and size of the dish you use will influence that. But the article I found also referred to a recipe in one of his books that was made with sausage patties rather than sausages. He has also, elsewhere, added mustard to the batter and wrapped the sausages in ham. On the whole though, he thinks it's best not to meddle too much.

Other variations seem to be to wrap the sausages in bacon or pancetta and vary the sauce from an onion sauce to a mustard one or even tomato. Now that would probably be the Australian way. They all stress that the dish is completely dependent on the quality of the sausage though. Traditionally the fat used is a meat dripping or lard, but you could use anything else. The fat has to be smoking hot before you pour in the batter. Delia's video will show you all of that. Maybe you could cook the onions in with the batter too?

It's a long time since I have eaten Toad in the Hole. It really doesn't meet the requirements of healthy food does it?

I'll leave you with one of my favourite Winnie=the-Pooh pictures. I have a reproduction sitting on my desk. It is so beautiful in so many different ways. When I'm feeling down I glance at it and it makes me feel better.