Survival and Solitude with Rice Pudding

The Wall, (no relation to Pink Floyd), is one of those books that I just couldn't stop reading.

Oddly enough I heard about the book by watching the trailer for the movie that's just been made. I was so enthralled and scared by it that I got the book the next day and dove in. The plot is very basic, a woman (unnamed throughout the whole book) goes to a friend's vacation house in the mountains, during the night while she's asleep an invisible wall seemingly erects itself, boxing her into an area of the mountain. She is completely alone save for a dog, a cow, and a cat, everyone else is dead. She knows this because she can see other humans through the wall, but a terrible thing has happened to the outside world rendering everyone outside of her wall frozen in the place they were like a marble statue. She is the only one alive and inside her wall she must learn to survive. The book is told by our "woman" as three years into her solitude she decided to tell her story, not in the hopes that anyone will rescue her, or read it, but in the hopes of keeping her reason about her. There's not much I can say, it was terrifying, reflective, and moving. It's a simple book that seems to be about so many things, solitude, survival, loss, and relationships.
There is a fair amount of food that appears in this book, as eating, a basic need to survive, has become paramount in her thoughts. Our narrator must learn to farm, kill and skin deer and trout, and pick berries and apples, all to keep herself and her "family" alive. There is one food item however, that stood out to me, it happened very early on in the novel at a point where she had only been in the wall for about a month. It was a simple rice pudding that she prepares for herself one afternoon. The passage is very short, but it hit me directly.
"At lunchtime I cooked rice pudding, making do without sugar. Despite my economies, however, after only eight weeks I hadn't a single piece of sugar left, and in the future had to do without sweetness of any kind."
I think what struck me first was the rice pudding itself. I have fond memories of rice pudding. My father used to make it for us kids quite often, sometimes we had it for breakfast on winter mornings and sometimes it was prepared as a treat before bed. It is wonderfully homey and comforting. I began to wonder to myself and think of myself as that woman, and what that lunch time meal of rice pudding would mean. Eating the food of my father that would be out stone stiff in the world, how would I remember my family? Would the knowledge that I was eating one of the last sweet things in my lonely life make it worse?
There are days where our woman is so busy with work to keep herself alive that she never has time to think (a situation she prefers), and then there are days where she wakes and begins to think about the family she has lost.
"...it seemed certain to me that that the scale of catastrophe was enormous. Everything pointed to it: the absence of rescuers, the silence of human voices on the radio, and what little I had seen through the wall. Much later, when almost all hope had been extinguished in me, I still couldn't believe that my children were dead too, like the old man by the stream and the woman on the bench. If I think about my children today, I always see them as five-year-olds, and it strikes me that they'd left my life even then. That's probably the age at which all children begin to leave their parents' lives; quite slowly they turn into strangers. But that all happens so imperceptibly that you barely notice it. There were moments when that terrible possibility dawned on me, but like any other mother I very quickly suppressed the thought. I had to live, and what mother could live if she recognized the process?"
This passage to me highlights the depth of this book. It's not just an post-apocoliptic survival book, our narrator's total and complete solitude forces her to reassess her whole life, how she's lived it, what was really important and so on. As you can see the wall itself represents so many other things than the loss of humanity, it acts as a mirror, a way for our nameless woman, the representation of humanity that is left, to look inside and see all the things that were important, she is there to teach the reader to open their eyes to what they have.

I decided it would be best to ask my father for his rice pudding recipe, a way to learn it so that in a catastrophe, however earth shattering or perhaps only minor it might end up being, I would have one of the foods that would always bring me home.

Father's Rice Pudding:
Ingredients:
2 Cups white rice
3 cups of water
1 cup (plus more as needed of whole milk)
Dash of salt
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla (or almond) extract
1 Tablespoon of butter
1/2 cup (or more as you like) golden raisins
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
1 egg

Process:
Cook the rice in a pot with the 3 cups of water and 1 cup of milk and the dash of salt.

Let it cook down until most of the liquid is absorbed stirring constantly.

Check the rice for tenderness, you want it to be al dente, if it still needs more time, add more milk or water (which ever you like). Then, add the butter, raisins, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and egg.

Mix together and continue to simmer.

I also added a little more milk as well as I wanted it to be a little looser that what I had going. Keep stirring the whole time as as the rice gets softer and combines with the milk it will stick to the bottom of that pan and will become a nightmare to get off. As it cooks just keep checking the tenderness of the rice until it is as soft as you like it. Also feel free to add more brown sugar if you would like it to be sweeter.

Top it off with more raisins and a sprinkle more of cinnamon.

As I ate I thought about the things I would prepare where I stranded alone on my own. What do I know about food and survival? What things would I prepare to help remember my family and the life I had lost, as well as help me feel safe in the new life I would have to live? This pudding would definitely be at the top of the list.

Tell me readers, what meal reminds you of your past, or even your life today? What would you prepare for yourself if you where left alone forever? What would comfort you?

Bon Appetite

Cake or Death

I can't name an author who has had a bigger influence on me than Roald Dahl. 

Most of my happiness and joy of reading comes from greedily gobbling his books up, both as a child and as an adult. Also what self respecting book nerd wouldn't identify with the one and only Matilda? It was the book that gave you permission to hang out at the library and read all day, and I admit it, I held out hope that one day I too would get special powers from all those books, but alas I still sit and wait. 

Besides reading Matilda taught me about the importance of friendship and the power of standing up and helping those that you love. 

And not to mention there was the very scary Miss Trunchbull, what a horrible woman. I was always terrified of her. It also made me wonder if some of my teachers at school were going to be equally as horrible and pull on me by my braids and swing me around the yard. 

I'll never forget reading the chocolate cake scene as a child, my first thought was Chocolate cake as punishment? That can't be that terrible can it? But as we all know, when the Trunchbull is involved it can. 

"Now then, Bogtrotter," the Trunchbull boomed. "Tell the cook what you think of her chocolate cake."

"Very good ," the boy mumbled. You could see he was now beginning to wonder what all this was leading up to. The only thing he knew for certain was that the law forbade the Trunchbull to hit him with the riding-crop that she kept smacking against her thigh. That was some comfort, but not much because the Trunchbull was totally unpredictable. One never knew what she was going to do next.

"There you are cook," the Trunchbull cried. "Bogtrotter likes you cake. He adored your cake. Do you have any more of your cake you could give him?"

"I do indeed," the cook said. She seemed to have learned her lines by heart. 

"Then go and get it. And bring a knife to cut it with."

The cook disappeared. Almost at once she was back again staggering under the weight of an enormous round chocolate cake on a china platter. The cake was fully eighteen inches in diameter and it was covered with dark-brown chocolate icing. "Put it on the table," the Trunchbull said. 

There was a small table centre stage with a chair behind it. The cook placed the cake carefully on the table. "Sit down Bogtrotter," the Trunchbull said. "Sit there."

The boy moved cautiously to the table and sat down. He stared at the gigantic cake.

"There you are Bogtrotter," the Trunchbull said, and once again her voice became soft, persuasive, even gentle. "It's all for you, every bit of it. As you enjoyed that slice you had yesterday so very much, I ordered cook to bake you an extra large one all for yourself."

"Well thank you," the boy said, totally bemused.

"Thank cook, not me," the Trunchbull said.

"Thank you cook," the boy said.

The cook stood there like a shriveled bootlace, tight-lipped, implacable, disapproving. She looked as though her mouth was full of lemon juice.

"Come on then," the Trunchbull said. "Why don't you cut yourself a nice thick slice and try it?"

"What? Now?" the boy said, cautious. He knew there was a catch in this somewhere, but he wasn't sure where. "Can't I take it home instead?" he asked.

"That would be impolite," the Trunchbull said, with a crafty grin. "You must show cookie here how grateful you are for all the trouble she's taken."

The boy didn't move.

"Go on, get on with it," the Trunchbull said. "Cut a slice and taste it. We haven't got all day."

The boy picked up the knife and was about to cut into the cake when he stopped. He stared at the cake. Then he looked up at the Trunchbull, then at the stringy cook with her lemon-juice mouth. All the children in the hall were watching tensely, waiting for something to happen. They felt certain it must. The Trunchbull was not a person who would give someone a whole chocolate cake to eat just out of kindness. Many were guessing that it had been filled with pepper or castor-oil or some other foul-tasting substance that would make the boy violently sick. It might even be arsenic and he would be dead in ten seconds flat. Or perhaps it was a booby-trapped cake and the whole thing would blow up the moment it was cut, taking Bruce Bogtrotter with it. No one in the school put it past the Trunchbull to do any of these things.

"I don't want to eat it," the boy said.

"Taste it, you little brat," the Trunchbull said. "You're insulting the cook."

Very gingerly the boy began to cut a thin slice of the vast cake. Then he levered the slice out. Then he put down the knife and took the sticky thing in his fingers and started very slowly to eat it.

"It's good, isn't it?" the Trunchbull asked.

"Very good," the boy said, chewing and swallowing. He finished the slice.

"Have another," the Trunchbull said, and now there was an altogether shaper edge to her voice. "Eat another slice! Do as you are told!"

"I don't want another slice," the boy said.

Suddenly the Trunchbull exploded. "Eat!" she shouted, banging her thigh with her riding-crop "If I tell you to eat, you will eat! You wanted cake! You sole cake! And now you've got cake! What's more, you're going to eat it! You don't leave this platform and nobody leaves this hall until you have eaten the entire cake that is sitting there in front you you! Do I make myself clear Bogtrotter? Do you get my meaning?"

The boy looked at the Trunchbull. Then he looked down at the enormous cake.

"Eat! Eat! Eat!" the Trunchbull was yelling.

Very slowly the boy cut himself another slice and began to eat it.

I will always marvel at Dahl's ability to paint adults in the meanest of lights. I mean the Trunchbull is simply terrifying, and not just in her physical appearance, but the fact that she is psychologically cruel. She found the one thing Bruce couldn't resist and made him eat it until he was about to be sick all over himself or burst. I suppose it is like when some well meaning adult finds the cigarettes you thought you so cunningly hid in your bedroom, and makes you smoke the entire packet. You feel ill and woozy and wonder why you tried to smoke the things in the first place. The joy of it for Bruce however is that in the true spirit of children's fiction his friends didn't let him down, they cheered and rallied for him to press on, to keep eating the cake. It wasn't that finishing it would mean they could leave, it meant that they were going to fight the Turnchbull together, that they were going to cheer their friend on, that they could in some small way be victorious. Bruce, bite by bite was fighting for all of them.

I was lucky enough to find a cookbook called "Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes" and in it was a recipe for Bruce Bogtrotter's chocolate cake. Serendipitous if I do say so. Usually I read a food scene in a book and hunt around the internet for a recipe that seems appealing, or somewhat close, but here in my hot little hand I had the exact cake the Dahl thought of when he wrote that scene. Fortuitous indeed.

The Recipe:

 Ingredients:

I love a recipe with very few simple ingredients. You know it must be good as there's nothing to hide the flavor.

For the cake:

8 ounces good quality semisweet chocolate

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

8 eggs, separated, yolks lightly beaten

For the icing:

8 ounces good quality semisweet chocolate

8 ounce of heavy cream

Process:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F

2.Line the cake pan (8 1/2 once round) with wax paper and butter the bottom and sides of the paper. (to make it easier I tend to spray the bottom and sides of the pan with cooking spray, then line it with paper, then the butter. The cooking spray holds the paper in place making the butter easier to apply)

3.Melt the chocolate in a Pyrex bowl (or double boiler pot, as I did) set in a saucepan of simmering water. 

Mix in the butter and stir until its melted.

4. Transfer to a large bowl and add the sugar, flour, and lightly beaten egg yolks.

5. Whisk the egg whites until stiff. 

Gently fold half of the whites into the chocolate mixture, blending thoroughly, then fold in the remaining whites. (I found this step a little difficult. Tee batter is so heavy that it is hard to fold the whites in properly [for folding techniques check out my soufflé recipe], I found that it took me twice as much time to fold in the whites, but eventually I got them all in)

6. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for about 35 minutes. 

There will be a thin crust on top of the cake, and when tested with a chopstick the inside will appear underdone don't worry, the cake will get firmer as it cools. Remove from the oven, and let cool in the pan on a wire rack.

7.While the cake is cooling, make the icing. Melt the chocolate with the cream in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over lowest heat, stirring occasionally until the chocolate is fully melted and blended with the cream. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

8.When the cake is cooled enough to handle, remove it from the pan and discard the wax paper. The cake is prone to sinking slightly in the middle so flip it upside down.

9.Carefully spread the icing over the cake with a spatula.

This cake was insanely rich! It was thick, fudgey and cloying sweet. I could barely finish my piece. As I munched on I thought only of Bruce, what it must have felt like to eat the whole thing. Mine wasn't even half the size of his and I would have died. I certainly would have needed my friends to cheer me on. I can only hope that in my life when I am faced with a holy terror such as the Trunchbull I can think of this cake and Bruce Bogtrotter and know that if my friends are there for me I can get through it.

Bon Appétit.