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The Seaforth News, 1957-02-14, Page 2TABLE TALKS The author of this article giv- ing some popular German re- cipes says her friends and rola, tives frequently ask how to make these dishes. We suspect that she is one of those fine cooks who never need to use recipes, .for she says she has at last "pain- stakingly written them out and tested them" before ' sharing them with readers of The Chris- tian Science hris-tian.Science Monitor, from .which' paper I am "borrowing" them to • pass along to you. • The word "Braten" is German for roast, and if you want to make Sauerbraten (or Sauer- lleisch, other pickled meats), . I will assume for, this first recipe that you have bought an. oven roast. The recipes will serve equally well, however, with Other meats and cuts, such as pot roast, stew meat, liver, rabbit or hare (the traditional Hasenpfeffer), veal, or duck — all of which may be roasted or stewed and then served with delicious sweet-sour gravy: In our home we use fresh cuts and never set the meat to pickle ,before cooking, as many, do. Also, we serve our Sauerbraten with Klosse, potato dumplings, which are another favorite Ger- man dish. This is the way we make them both. * * Sauerbraten For a 2 -pound tender beef cut (shoulder or rump), grease the roaster with 2 level tablespoons of lard or bacon drippings. Salt and pepper the meat and place it in the roaster. Lay on the meat sliced onion, a small one or half a large one.•Sprinkle flour over the meat and into the pan, as mach as 2 or 3 rounded table- spoonfuls. Pour around the meat 2 cups of water, and add to it 2 bay leaves, broken up. Add also 4 cloves, 4 allspice, a bit of red pepper, and a small garlic bud or sprinkle of garlic salt (red pepper and garlic may be omitted). Then add 2 rounded table- spoens of sugar. (A cup of mo- lasses gives the gravy a richer color, but as it is not very sweet, sugar must also be added, though Iess.) Next comes 1 cup of diluted vinegar — diluted to avoid too sharp a taste. A little ground cloves and allspice—just a dash —will help darken the gravy, or a level teaspoon of pickled spices could be used instead of the single spices listed above. (We never tie the spices in a bag, be- cause we like them in the gravy, but this can be done if pre. ferred.) Put the cover on the roaster and put it into the oven, at medium heat. After an hour or so, test by tasting, and add more water, vinegar, sugar, or spices to bring out the desired flavor— but let no spice predominate. Broken crusts of rye bread are good added to the gravy, which may be thickened if necessary. Roast until the meat is tender, about 2 hours. Have plenty of gravy, and serve with potato dumplings, or Kiosse. * • • We never used to serve a side dish with Sauerbraten and Klosse, but applesauce with crumb coffee cake (Streusel- kuchen) could be served. * * * Hartoffelklosse 3 cups hot mashed potatoes Butter, size of a walnut 1 egg Salt 1a/ cups flour Toasted -croutons or bread crusts • Peel about 6 medium-sized potatoes, add salt, and cook. When done, shake and dry well. (Old potatoes are better than new as they are not so wet.) Mash the potatoes and while they are hot, measure out 3 cups into a bowl. Add the butter, and while still hot, add the egg and mix, so that the egg becomes cooked before the flour is added. While the potato mixture cools so that it can be handled put 3 quarts of water and a little salt M boil in a pot. Also prepare toasted croutons or dry bread crusts. Add flour and salt gradually to potato mixture, to bring it to a doughy consistency. (1 find this measurement of flour about right "Would you rather have. me • read aloud, dear?" but much depends upon the. moisture of the potatoes. The feel of the dough will tell. If it is too sticky, add a little flour. Too much flour will make thein heavy and tough, while too little- will ittlewill dissolve the dumplings into soup.) As this amount should make nine medium-sized dumplings, divide the well -mixed dough into 3 parts,, and then each part into 3 more parts. Make balls' of the dough by putting 2 or 3 croutons in the center of each ball. (This insures that the cen- ter will be cooked.) Roll each ball in a little flour on the board or in your hand. When the water is boiling - well, carefully drop in the dumplings, Do not crowd them. They will sink, and when they rise to the surface, they are done, but a. little longer boiling, 3 to 5 minutes, will not harm—in all cook them about 15 minutes. Take dumplings from the water with a. strainer, lay around the meat, garnish with parsley, and serve with sweet-sour gravy from the meat. (Leftover dump- lings are good sliced and fried in butter.) Use them not only with Sauerbraten but with pot roast, stews, and pork roast. * * * Pot Roast and Stews For pot roast and stews, use the same ingredients as for Sauerbraten. Put meat in a pot, and brown, in bacon drippings or lard, carefully on all sides, turning constantly, On this browning or searing depends the rich brown color of the gravy. Have enough grease to wilt the diced onions which should now be added. And now comes a point of de- cision. You can make a ieli- cious, brown gravy by stirring in and browning the flour now, but it must be carefully watched during the cooking to keep it from burning. Or, you may add just water now, and the other ingredients, and thicken the gravy when the meat is done. However, the gravy will not be so brown as if the flour is browned beforehand. After adding and browning the flour in the grease, add water; and the other ingredi- ents. Cook. over low heat until meat is tender, watching -care- fully and adding liquid Or fla- voring as desired. * * ■. Pork Roast With Horseradish Sauce and Potato Dumplings For this dish—the Germans call it Schweinebraten mit Meer- rettigbruhe and Kartoffeiklosse —simply lift out the pork roast when it is done, and add grated horseradish roots or dehydrated horseradish to the gravy before serving, being careful not to have it too strong. Nuts To You! In Brazil, where the nuts come from, forty million Brazilians have never heard of brazil nuts. Practically the whole crop is exported and the few that re- main are eaten as "English nuts" —or German—by Brazilians con- vinced that the nuts have been shipped into their country! What's more, brazil nuts are not nuts. They are seeds nest- ling in the fruit of the tree we mentioned in the first place. Take a handful of brazils and imagine them nestling together like orange segments inside a coconut. The pod weighs up to 4 ib., so tough that an iron wheel can run over it and not crack it. Growing on trees 120 feet high, the pods rain down in the gathering season, sometimes kill- ing unwary nut -collectors be- neath them. Apart front being eaten, the nuts are valued for their edible oil, which is• used for burning, soap - making and lubricating watches. Brazil exports 40,000 tons of brazil nuts a year. Living in palm -leaf shelters, the native In- dian nut -collectors use the pods as cooking vessels. Besides the risk of nuts on the napper, col- lectors in the jungles must be- ware of blood -draining vampire bats, fiendish jaguars and the twenty -foot man -crushing ana- conda. All these hazards have a bad effect on the nerves of the collectors. Yet the world has been buying brazil nuts for 322, years, The supply is unfailingly maintained by a little animal, that Amazon- ian hare, which instinctively gathers fallen seeds and buries them in the depths of the jungle where they germinate. Scien- tists at Wew who tried to take over the jog failed dismally. Afer importing and planting seeds they waited three years for the first signs of growth. Yet in its own humid element in Brazil, the nut tree sprouts up twenty feet in four years. The Wealthy By TOM A. CULLEN NEA Staff Correspondent Eastbourne, England— (NEA) —"Murder?" Short, bald, be- spectacled • 1;tr. John, B. (for Bodkin) Adams seemed startled when the Scotland Yard detec- tive came.. to arrest him. "Murder?" he repeated, his pale -eyebrows shooting up. Then a crafty gleam came into his eyes. "Cafe you prove it was murder?" he said in his soft Irish brogue. Most Britons are wondering the same thing. Can Scotland Yard prove that Dr. Adams, 57 - year -old Ulster -born bachelor, murdered 81 -year-old widow, Mrs. Edith Morrell, "against the Queen's peace?" Dr. Adams, the center of Brit- ain's biggest murder sensation. in 25 years, is accused of poi- soning the wealthy widow by prescribing an overdose of drugs, • • • But there is no body, for one thing, Mrs. Morrell was'cremat- ed—on Dr. Adams' orders. Her earthly ,remains were consumed in the furnace of Brighton's . brand- new, nickel - and - tile crematorium, the few ashes re- maining being scattered in the English Channel. The motive for murder is weak, for another. Mrs. Mor- rell, the widow of a wealthy Liverpool food merchant, left Dr. Adams only "the oak chest containing silver in my draw- ing -room." But Scotland •Yard, it is un- derstood, is prepared to prove that she gave large sums of money to the doctor in her dy- ing days while under the influ- ence of drugs. All this must have flashed through the doctor's mind as he buttoned on his clerical gray, single-breasted topcoat and pre- pared to accompany the detec- tives to the local police station. "I did not think you could prove murder," he mumbled, more to himself than to the Scotland Yard men, adding, af- ter a pause, "She was dying in any event." The hall table was piled high with Christmas cards from Dr. Adams' admiring patients, for it was Dec. 19, 1956—only six days to go to Christmas. "To dear Dr. Adams, for his many kind- ness," read one of the inscrip- tions. "How can I ever repay you?" read another. Dr .Adams was repaid hand- somely for his services to the wealthy widows of Eastbourne. He netted over $90,000 from the deaths of 17 of his patients over a 20 -year period. In the waiting room when Dr. Adams was arrested were four elderly women, waiting their turn to see Eastbourne's most fashionable doctor. Going out the door, flanked by detectives on either side, Dr. Adams al- most collided with still another woman patient. But first there was a touch of pure Victorian melodrama. Act- ing on sudden impulse, Dr. Adams gripped the hand of his white -coated receptionist, say- ing in a heavy stage whisper, "I will see you in heaven." Henry Irving, the great English actor, couldn't have read the line better. Then, pulling his dark blue, snap -brim hat well down over his eyes, he dashed for the po- lice car. For Dr. Adams, the arrest was the end of a long road that had taken him from his father's tiny watch repair shop in Randals- town (pop. 986) in Northern Widows ': Ireland to a fashionable practice among Eastbourne's Wealthiest. residents, For Eastbourne it was the end of rumor -mongering that had brought this sedate seaside re- sort to the border of mass hys- teria. The gossip began nearly 10 years ago with idle, rich women, many of them bored, who had little' else t0 do but gossip. Un- der the hair driers, over the •tea- cups, across the bridgetables, they discussed ' the remarkable number of bequests made to Dr. Adams in the wills, of his elderly women patients, To the outsider the columns of the, weekly Eastbourne Gaz- ette would appear tocontain no- thing more exciting than news of thelatest whist drive or of a ,meeting of the Psychical Re- search Society, ("Death is not tranquility, but a challenge," was the message of a Mrs. Blackwell, spiritualist leader from- London). But to the practiced eye there is drama that would make mys- tery writer Raymond Chandler green with envy in the little write-ups under . the heading "Probate , of Wills." .' Items such as: Mrs. Emily L. Mortimer, 75, widow, died ofcerebral throm- bosis. Left $6,000 to Dr., Adams "in return for his kind help and attention." Mrs. Amy Constance Ware, 76, widow, died of cerebral thrombosis. Beqeauthed $3,000. to Dr. Adams with the bizarre request that her body not only be cremated, but be examined by Dr, Adams before cremation "to ascertain that T am, in fact, dead." Mrs. Julia Bradnum, 85, wid- ow, died of cerebral hemor- rhage, naming Dr. Adams' sole executor of her will and leaving him $3,000. How the° tongues clacked in the tearooms as news of the Dr. Adams bequests spread. Many could remember when Dr.- Adams arrived in Eastbourne 30 years ago, fresh from Queen's University, Belfast, where he had taken his M.D. degree, pen- niless and with a widowed mother to support. A group of kind-hearted doc- tors had taken up a collection to buy the raw Ulster lad his first medical instruments. Now, Dr. Adams had a big Eastbou rne THIS 15 THE LAST WELLAND TSSTAta;HT of ae Meet MOM T or. Bfxaga.The Ridge Maybury Hi11 Woking in theCounty of Surrey but temporarily reeiding.atEeaulisu`Hotel gutbourne in the Count? of Sussex Single• WoSmn 3. I MOIST Doctor John Eodkln Adame•pf Hent todgi Seaside goad Xutbourae aforesaid to be the sole YxeeutorW this y W111 4. E. oIvr sen Munn( free of al ,dntUir.. ('2)' To the said bootor John Hedkin.Ad*m* as a slight token for all bis kiMnon* to me which I flan raver repay the ' atm of_Onii thoneend,pounds "FOR ALL HIS KINDNSS:" - Excerpts from photostat of will , of Mrs. Irene Herbert, 50 -year-old Divorcee who died in East- bourne in 1944, show how she made Dr. Adams executor and deft him one thousand pounds ($3,000) "as a slight token." house on fashionable Trinity Trees, the heart of Eastbourne. A big, gray, neo -Georgian affair —not to everyone's taste, per- haps, but substantial, exuding an air of opulence. He was president of the local Y.M.C,A. He taught Sunday school. pr. Adams was getting on in the world. As the years passed the num- ber of legacies to Dr. Adams from wealthy women increased. In 1954 two spinsters in their eighties died leaving Dr. Adams sole executor of their wills. Miss Clara miller, 87, daugh- ter of an iron and steel mer- chant, died of coronary throm- bosis, leaving Dr, Adams $15,000, while Forence Cavill, 82, left him $7,000. Now the rumors began to take an ugly turn. Heretofore the gossip had been goodnatured, people confining themselves to "catty" remarks about Dr. Adams' winning bedside manner. But now people began to no- tice that Dr. Adams, who made his first rounds in Eastbourne On a bicycle, was being driven by a chauffeur in a flashy sports model MG and that he used a Rolls-Royce for social occasions. DR. ADAMS' HOUSE IN EASTBOURNE: The hall table was piled high with Christmas cards from his admiring patients. • THE DOCTOR BECOMES A PRISONER* "I did not. think .;yoi. could,.prove murder," he mvan i'1ed Other facts about him were, recalled. His passion forclay- pigeon shooting: Police found a:. remarkable collection of guns in Dr. Adams' house when they arrested him.. They also found his basement stacked with brand-new . tires still in their wrappings. Dr. Adams blandly said, "You never can tell, there• may be a shortage of them." The sudden death last July Of' Mrs. Gertrude Hullett, 50, wid- ow and popular hostess, brought the rumor -mongering to a head, and, incidentally, touched off the Scotland Yard investigation. Mrs. Hullett was well -liked. Somehow the news leaked out that she had changed her will less than 10 days before her death, leaving Dr. Adams her Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn mo- torcar. Also, that she had made out a check for $3,000 to Dr. Adams less than a week before, her death. At the coroner's inquest it was found that Mr. Hullett had died of an overdose of sleeping pills •(115' grains of barbitone were found in her organs, enough to kill two ani a hall normal, healthy persons). Un- accountably, the coroner's jury returned a verdict of suicide. But this satisfied no one. Bridge games were forgotten as the tension arose. There were wild rumors of a maniac at large, of a hypnotic killer who mesmerized his victims into changing their wills before fin- ishing them off with poison. It was at this point that Scot- land Yard was summoned. East- bourne suddenly was invaded by tough - looking detectives, whose pin-striped suits were a trifle too loud, who smoked cigars and cocked their bowler hats on the side of their head. Then the rumors took a fresh turn: "Three hundred wills, they're looking them all up...." "They say that 10 bodies are to be exhumed...." * • 0 Rumor is a fool, but fools have babbled truly. The truth is that Scotland Yard did scru- tinize over 300 wills, eventually narrowing its investigation down to 17 elderly persons, nine :of them widows. Ali were Dr. Adams' patients, and they died leaving him 'richer by $90,000. This does not include gifts made to him during the patients' life- times, nor the motorcars, shares of stock left to him at their deaths. Twelve of the deaths under investigation occurred within a year after the patients had • changed their wills to make Dr. Adams a beneficiary; two wid- ows died within 10 days of rnal5- ing new wills. In addition to the murder of Mrs. Edith Morrell, Dr. Adams is charged with having unlaw- fully procured the cremation of four of his deceased patients by falsely representing that he had. no financial interest in their deaths. In filling out the cremation forms, Dr. Adams 1 -ad answered "'No" to the following. questions: "Have you, so 'faryou are aware, any pecuniary interest in the death of the deceased?" "Have' you any reason to sus- pect that the de`ath of the de- ceased was due, directly or in- directly, to (a) violence, (b) poison, (c) privation or neg- lect?" He: was also . required to 'cer- tify: "I' know of no reasonable cause to suspect that the de- ceased died either a Violent or unnatural death or. a sudden deathof which the cause is un- known or died' in such, place or circumstances as to require an inquest in pursuance of an 'act.'' Dr. Adams; lied in making these statements, according to Scotland Yard.