Another ancient recipe, this time Cornish in origin

Some while ago I shared an ancient recipe.  Here is another which I have mentioned (although the location was Wadebridge, not Padstow) but not experienced recently until this evening when Ali happened to have brought clotted cream back from her visit to Devon and we happened to stumble upon some bargain jam tarts in Lidl.

The ingredients

Remove two jam tarts from the package

Load each tart with clotted cream

Enjoy!

The recipe is quite simple, as you can see. I regret the gastronomic experience did not quite match my memory, partly because the jam tarts were inferior. They had too little jam in and the jam was all the same colour. The correct ones should be in a choice of red, orange and green flavours.  Maybe next time...

Around Rural Willand 2

My second morning's run from Willand. The ford at Goodiford Farm was a nice surprise but the road north from here was narrow, besmeared with dung and stones and potholes, and hard of foot. If one purpose of these posts is to grade running routes according to barefoot-ability, this particular route did not score high!

Goodiford Farm

From Croyle House to Stenhill is a bridleway - might be OK for horses that are shod, but not when barefoot as it was very stony. But a lovely show of primroses partly made up for my discomfort.

Along the bridleway

The same

Bradfield House

Returning along the road via Bradfield where I caught this farmer herding his herd. To think that those brown things might be possible precursors to clotted cream!

Culm water meadows

Total distance 6.96 miles, average speed 4.97 m.p.h.

Clotted cream

Clotted cream tea, courtesy Imen

I think I may have mentioned that a high point of my childhood was the annual holiday, and that our favourite venue was Cornwall. Clotted cream is particularly associated with the West Country of England but it is my theory that it is the richest in Cornwall. There was an unassuming upstairs restaurant in Padstow that we frequented that served a variety of deserts all accompanied by the magic substance.

Commercial jam tarts

One of these deserts consisted of a couple of commercial jam tarts, the sort that Mr Kipling makes so exceedingly well, with a very generous glob. Can you believe that such simple fare could be so heavenly?

I used to save my pocket money before the holiday and would eek it out to include at least one clotted cream ice cream per day. I am not talking about the inferior stuff churned out by the likes of Mr Walls. It has to be made locally to be good. Most of the world lives in ignorance or deception - take for instance this ridiculous quote "Give a generous dollop of this delicious cream on pies, cakes, or biscuits for a luscious taste that's a cross between ice cream and whipped cream, a traditional English favorite!"

Lynton to Salisbury

Last night I was looking through some old files and came across an itinerary I had typed prior to a walking holiday back in college days. My comrades were Neil Mapley and Mike Attwood. I remember Neil chortling over my terse description of the giant at Cerne Abbas "A 180 FT tall naked man with club. 1500 yrs old".

Itinerary - click to enlarge.

We were in principle youth hostelling, but there was no YH near to our course across Exmoor so we knocked up a likely looking farmhouse and were treated royally.  Breakfast was a family affair around a huge table with all the farm hands.  It was a regular Enid Blyton breakfast with oodles of everything imaginable and a HUGE bowl of clotted cream in the middle of the table which everyone put on everything - cerials, toast, eggs and bacon, you name it. Possibly the best breakfast I have ever indulged in.

I remember also stopping at Chard. I think we diverted there because Neil needed to go to communion as he had recently become Catholic and that's what Catholics have to do. We couldn't find a Catholic church so had to make do with a High Anglican Church and we all joined him - it was quite the performance with bells and smells and the assistance cleric grovelling on his knees. He reminded me in looks and actions of the Grand Vizier in ""To hear is to obey," said the Vizier, wriggling himself round a little so as to get his hinder parts further away from Rabadash's toe" (The Horse and his Boy, Lewis).

Here in Chard we stayed overnight in a questionable tavern, not being able to find anything better. We were told we could rough it in the attic room, but that this room actually belonged to a lodger. They told us he would probably arrive drunk around midnight, but would not mind us sharing his room (there were not enough beds for all four of us so we had to share which posed another challenge). After bedding ourselves we waited in trepidation for the worst, but in the event the chap turned out to be quite agreeable. Breakfast next morning was not so agreeable, however - insufficiently cooked bacon and eggs literally floating on a sea of grease...

The giant at Cerne Abbas did not disappoint - it was truly amazing!

In the rare event that anyone is that interested here is a link to map segments I have downloaded that show the approximate route based on the above itinerary.