slices of cured ham;
cold roast beef;
pickles;
mustard;
horseradish;
chicken;
potato salad;
spring greens;
rye bread with butter;
several kinds of cheese -
- dark bitter beer;
dried-apple and cherry pies;
pastries.
SM Stirling, The High King Of Montival (New York, 2011), Chapter Sixteen, pp. 347-348.
And see Food Thread.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
One thought I had was to wonder how PLAUSIBLE it would be for Stirling's characters to so often eat so well while slowly traveling long distances. Wouldn't plainer, rougher foods be more likely? Esp. if they needed to carry large supplies with them.
Sean
Sean,
On this occasion, they were camped among civilized allies. The volunteers were about to set off to fight CUT.
Paul.
It is sressed that they only have hardtack, jerky etc while travelling.
One thing life in the field teaches; eat when there's food, sleep when there's an opportunity. You'll regret it if you don't.
Also, you can trust your buddies with your life... but not with a bottle, or a girl.
Eg., my father and mother met in 1942, at a dance she'd come to with someone else my father knew.
It was wartime, it was very crowded, there was a line for the men's room. My father waited until her date was in that line, then went over to their table and said:
"Sam isn't feeling well, and he had to leave. But he asked me to walk you home."
They were married a month later...
James Doohan -- the guy who played "Scotty" on Star Trek -- once told me about crossing the Atlantic on a troopship in 1944; on the way over he did very well with the cards and dice.
And then before D-Day, he carefully lost most of his winnings. As he said to me, you don't want to make an opposed landing with all the guys in your unit owing you money.
(Doohan was in the first wave and got hit while his feet were still wet -- a burst from a German machine gun took off one of his left-hand fingers, hit him twice in the torso, and killed the man standing next to him.)
Mr Stirling,
War time experiences are always interesting.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That does make sense. Esp., as Mr. Stirling said below, eat well when you can!
Sean
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Another very interesting autobiographical sidebar! The point I would draw being that times of war can make men desperate and cunning.
Sean
Oh, my father was quick-witted anywhere; he had total self-confidence and was silver-tongued, and in his youth was extremely good-looking. The sort of man who could usually talk anyone into anything -- he got a guided tour of Pinewood Studios when he was on leave in the early 1950's, lunch in the studio cafeteria and an introduction to several of their stars purely by using the name of a director who went to the pub near the base he was stationed at at the time... who he'd never actually met, though he sort of implied otherwise. He could have sold ice to Eskimos, as the saying went.
The ones that aren't paralytically boring, but those don't get into the stories...
A new take on the infamous "old Chinese curse": "May you SURVIVE the interesting times!"
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Your father reminds me a bit of Dominic Flandry! Recall how he smooth talked Sumo the Fat in THE PLAGUE OF MASTERS. (Smiles)
Sean
Post a Comment