John Saturnall's Feast (50 page)
Read John Saturnall's Feast Online
Authors: Lawrence Norfolk
Did a flicker of pleasure pass across her features? He spooned again and swallowed.
‘You are dilatory, Master Saturnall. One might almost think you reluctant to clear your plate.’
‘Reluctant? I can eat no faster, your ladyship.’ He paused mid-chew as if a thought had just struck him. ‘Perhaps if someone were to share this pleasurable task?’
‘Share it?’
He rose and pulled out the second chair.
‘If it pleases you, Lady Lucretia, might you sit with me?’
He felt as he had when they had gathered chestnuts together, as if he were venturing out over a frozen pond and each step might see the ice crack beneath him. Outside, the snow whirled down, falling thicker and thicker on the broken panes of the glass-house. Lucretia's dark eyes searched his face as they had when he had leaned over her in her chamber, the sweet smells of baked apple and cream mixing with the scent of her skin. This was how she had seen him, he thought. In her chamber.
He waited. Slowly, she sat.
‘Are these dishes truly to your liking?’ Lucretia asked.
‘No dish has ever tasted sweeter,’ he said.
‘I can hardly credit such flattery, John Saturnall.’
‘It is not flattery, your ladyship. It is true.’
Taking up a spoonful, John leaned across the table.
‘Taste.’
“
An Apple was all Eve served to Adam. But that was a Feast all the Same.
”
From
The Book of John Saturnall
: A
Last Feast
for those
First Men
and
Women
aturnus's Gardens were uprooted and his Tables broken. His Feast was lost as I have told. But nothing, the Alchemists tell us, does vanish entire. Every Year, the sweet Waters of the Levels persist beneath the Flood of sour Brine. Each Spring the Tables of Green do rise from beneath the Vale's winter Snows. Each Substance persists, even if it yields to Smoke or Soot; every clumsy Cook knows the Same. For outward Forms may change yet the Essence remain.
These are weighty Matters for a Cook to peruse, who better sweats above a Pot than a Page. But just so does Saturnus's Feast endure, as I will tell.
An Apple was all Eve served to Adam. But that was a Feast all the Same. I have served rich Banquets to Kings and seen a Rabbit on a Stick nourish a Packhorse Driver. I have sensed the rarest Dishes in the Smoke of the meanest Fire, its Flames scarce brave enough to warm the Bones of a Boy and his mother.
A Cook is not apart, as I once was told. And the Feast is not his alone, as I once believed. Now my own Affections advise me better. Now a second Adam pays Court to his Eve.
Now he would serve her as he did once before and, if her Love for Him should suffice, she may sweat above a Pot and serve him too. The Depths of Winter are the Walls of their Garden where they may sit in Amity together. And, if the old God smiles, they may share those Affections that they were wont to do when their World was young, this new-restored Adam and his dark-eyed Eve.
So I have learned, and each Year do that Lesson renew, when she and I together keep the Saturnall Feast.
John Saturnall. Written in the Year of our Lord, Sixteen Hundred and Eighty.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
L
AWRENCE
N
ORFOLK
is the best-selling author of
Lemprière's
Dictionary, The Pope's Rhinoceros,
and
In the Shape of a Boar
, three literary historical novels, which have been translated into twenty-four languages. He is the winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the Budapest Festival Prize for Literature, and his work has been shortlisted for the IMPAC Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Award, and the Wingate/Jewish Quarterly Prize for Literature. He lives in London with his wife and two sons.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has taken a long and strange route to publication. I would like to offer my thanks to all those who have supported and encouraged me along the way.
Many authors and books opened vistas for me on the seventeenth century and its cooking but my friend Kate Colquhoun's
Taste: The Story of Britain Through its Cooking
was the first. Among the others, I would like to acknowledge
The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby
Opened
[1669], a work of passionate and encyclopedic eccentricity, and Robert May's
The Accomplisht Cook
[1660] which is the Mrs Beeton of the seventeenth century. Hilary Spurling's edition of
Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book
[1604 and 1986] is a wonderful practical resource and, in the far culinary background, so is Andrew Dalby's
Siren Feasts
[1996]. Interesting salads were found in John Evelyn's.
Acetaria
[1699] and almost everything else in Gervase Markham's
The English Housewife
[1615].
More specific thanks are due to many colleagues and friends, in particular to A. S. Byatt [for witchcraft and dolls], to David Mitchell [for synoptic exchanges], to David Moore of Pied-à-Terre [for letting on how kitchens really work], to Doug Seibold [for advice on reductions] and to Emma Soundy [for Elinor Fettiplace]. At Bloomsbury UK, in order of appearance, Alexa von Hirschberg, Alexandra Pringle, Gillian Stern and Mary Tomlinson together transformed my part-baked creation into one fit for the table. In the United States, Morgan Entrekin waited twelve years for this book and has been its tireless champion, heroically supported by Peter Blackstock, Deb Seager, and the rest of the team at Grove. My thanks to all on both sides of the Atlantic for their help and advice; rare and tireless book-cooks all.
My greatest debts go back the longest. My mother, Shirley Blake, not only cooked many meals for me but also taught me to cook. Without her this book could not have been conceived. My agent, Carole Blake, told me to get on with it; her belief, loyalty and encouragement sustained me throughout the writing of these pages. Lastly, to my wife, Vineeta Rayan, who scooped me off the kitchen floor and whose faith restored my own, I would like to offer my heartfelt gratitude and my love. If I write — or cook — for anyone, it is for her.