The Seaforth News, 1955-07-28, Page 2TA ; LE TALKS
ekluz Andttews.
Up in northern Michigan you
will see wayside stands and small
bakeries selling Pasties - a rich,
flaky pastry holding a well -sea.
seined mixture of meat and vege.
tables. (By the way the "a" is
pronounced short so that Pastie
rhymes with "nasty" rather than
"tasty" although the latter is
really the word for them.
Cornish settlers who came from
Cornwall, England, about 1830
id explore the lead and copper
mines in this area, brought with
them their traditional dishes.
The one most generally adopted
was the Pastie often called
"Cousin Jack Pasties."
In place of sandwiches, Corn-
ish miners took Pasties, eating
them hot or cold. The story goes
that the Pastie is crescent-
shaped because it was carried
In the miner's hip pocket!
Just as popular today, th:' Pas -
tie is eaten as casually in this
area as the hot dog and ham-
burger is eaten in other parts
Of the country, They make
heatrty snacks and are good
lunch box or picnic food, too.
When served as a Cornish
meal the menu might consist of
the delicious Pastie with mush-
room sauce and pickles, Devon-
shire cream (clotted cream) and
Saffron cake in the dessert role.
Tea, of course, for the beverage,
with a tossed salad to top things
off.
CORNISH PASTIES
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2/3 c shortening
5-6 tbs. cold water
1 e finely diced raw potatoes
c finely diced carrots
i4. a sliced onions
?i lb. round steak slieed about
1.i" thick and cut into ?-i"
pieces
2 tsp. salt pepper
2 tbs. parsley water
1. Sift flour and salt into a bowl.
FREED BY SHERMAN - Matt
Carter, former slave, is 103
years old, but his memory is
still vivid enough for him to
describe the CMI War days
when he was freed by Gen.
William Tecumseh Sherman
during the Union leader's
march to the sea, The centen-
arian lived on a plantation
near Pheni City, Ala., then. He
was the property of a Doctor
Ingersaw, who bought him for
$500.
2. Cut shortening into dry ingre-
dients until mixture is the
texture of coarse cornmeal,
3. Add cold water until dough
is stiff.
4. Roll dough on a lightly floured
board; cut into 6 -inch rounds,
5. Put a layer of potatoes, car-
rots, onion and meat on half
of each round, Sprinkle each
with s/.t tsp. salt, pepper and
about 1 tsp. parsley and 1i
tsp. water.
6. Dampen edges of pastry, fold
over and crimp edges. Prick
top.
7. Bake on coolie sheet in a
pre -heated oven at 400° for
10 min., then 350° for 30-40
min, or until well browned.
Here's a Swiss -style spinach
which may appeal to those who
ordinarily can't g et excited
about this vegetable.
Swiss Style Spinach
2 pounds fresh spinach
(or a 12 -oz, package frozen
spinach)
1 tablespoon butler
X tablespoon flour
...2 pounds fresh spinach
(or a 12 -oz package of
frozen spinach)
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon flour
IS teaspoon ground nutmeg
2/3 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Wash and stem spinach and
cook covered in water, adding
1 teaspoon salt before cooking.
Drain, chop coarsely, and toss
with the following sauce:
Melt butter in saucepan, stir
in flour, salt, pepper, and nut-
meg until well blended. Stirr in
milk slowly. Cook, stirring,
until smooth and thickened
Serve hot. Four servings. •
" * *
The next time you cook fresh
snap beans, serve them with this
unusual sauce. Wash beans, cut
off tips, and cut into 1 -inch
pieces. Place in saucepan with
about 1 inch of boiling water.
Add 3, teaspoon salt to 1 pound
beans. Cook until crisp -tender,
lifting cover 3-4 times during
cooking. Serve with Vinaigrette
Sauce.
Vinaigrette Sauce
!S cup French dressing
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 tablespoon chopped green
pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped
Pickles
1 teaspoon chopped chives
Combine all ingredients. Beat
well with hand or electric beater,
Serve on hot, cooked beans
* * *
Serve this tomato rabbit in
your chafing dish for a light, hot
supper. Whip it up on your kit-
chen stove and serve in the cha-
fing dish at rhe last minute, if
you like.
Tomato Rabbit
is cup finely chopped celery
1.i cup chopped green pepper
?4 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons fat
2 tablespoons flour
211 cups fresh or canned toma-
toes (No. 2 can)
1 cup grated cheese
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
Melt fat in skillet and cook
celery, green pepper, and Onion
8-10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Blend in flour. Add tomatoes,
cheese and salt. Cook aver low
heat; stir constantly until mix-
ture thickens and cheese melts.
Gradually add some of the to-
mato mixture to beaten eggs;.
mix well, then pour all back
into the tomato mixture. Con-
tinue to cook over low heat; stir
constantly until thickened and
creamy — 2-3 minutes. Serve on
toast or crackers. Six servings.
NO LITTLE LITTER Miss Priss feels she needs an lcebag atop
her head as she contemplates her outsized litter of 14 pups.
Four of the English boxer's. youngsters are farmed out to "wet
nurses" because Miss Priss ran out of faucets,
DOUBLING IN BRASS - Don Butterfield, left, and Harry London
team up on the two -headed tuba featured by the Cities Service
Band of America during concerts. It is the only instrument
of its kind in use today. Both musicians blow at the same time,
but only one of them fingers the single set of valves. Puffing
and valve -pushing have to be synchronized perfectly to get the
desired result.
Why People Take To A
Hermit's Life
Far the last thirty-five years
of her life a rich Scots woman,
who was once a lovely and pop-
ular hostess, sought strict pri-
vacy behind barbed wire iii.her
lonely mansion near Edinburgh,
it was revealed when she died
some time ago, aged ninety-five.
Notice boards warned intru-
ders away from the house which
once rang to the sound of music
and happy, carefree laughter.
The barbed ivire emphasized
the threats. And everyone ven-
turesome enough to persevere in
their efforts to establish contact
with the woman was likely to
be chased by dogs kept for that
purpose.
Sharing the woman's strange
hermit -like existence was her
son. A few hens and a vegetable
garden supplied most of their
needs.
On the few occasions they were
seen to leave the house they
travelled in a car whose win-
dows were curtained off.
At her request the old lady
was buried in a private burial
ground near the house. Now her
son lives on their alone to tend
the grave of his mother, whose
fortune has been estimated at
$1,250,000. It is known she ob-
tained a divorce in 1910 and af-
terwards resumed her maiden
name.
What drives some people to cut
themselves off from the world
and lead a solitary existence?
Many have done so in the past;
many still do so in 1955.
Sometimes it is shattered ro-
mance, sometimes grief for a
loved one, long dead or missing.
Sometimes, again, it is avarice
or fear.
There are records of hundreds
of men and women in Britain
alone who never left their homes
for years. Some spent their days
and nights in rooms which be-
came dust -buried museums of
the past.
When these pathetic hermits
have died it has sometimes been
weeks ,or months before their
bodies have been discovered.
Holidayers staying at a little
coastal town in England some
years ago were intrigued by the
sight of a dilapidated cottage in
a thicket within a few hundred
yards of a lonely beach, They
decided to look at it more
closely.
They walked along the weed -
covered path and peered through
dirt -laden windows into rooms
where enormous cobwebs hung.
Suddenly they had a shock, for
they saw staring out at them
through a landing window the
lined and tragic -looking face of
a once lovely woman.
Now she was old. Her hair was
awry, her clothes unkempt. The
holidayers quickly withdrew.
From a gamekeeper living in the
neighbourhood they heard that
•evening the strange story of the
woman's reasons for living as she
did.
A pretty young bride of World
War I, she had gone to live there
with her merchant seaman hus-
band. The pair were devoted to
each other. Whenever he return-
ed to sea she was disconsolate,
but they planned that he should
quit it at forty-five and take a
part-time job ashore.
One day his ship was mined in
the North Sea and lost with all
hands. The young wife was in-
consolable.
Her haapiness wrecked, she
decided to live on alone in their
pretty cottage. Why? Because—
she told her startled relatives
and friends—she had a strong
presentiment that he would re-
turn there one night from the
sea.
Ten years passed. The tragic
widow never abandoned hope.
She began, however, to shun all
company, refused to talk even
to tradesmen and left them notes
of her requirements and money
in the cottage porch.
Then she began to go regu-
larly at midnight every night and
in all weathers down to the beach
with a lighted lantern. She would
stay there half an hour waving
it towards the sea and then walk
slowly hone.
Gradually she became a com-
plete hermit, did no housework,
but never neglected her strange
nightly vigil.
They found her dead on the
beach one stormy night eighteen
years after her husband's death,
the lantern still burning beside
her.
Police had to dig a tunnel to
reach a starving North London
hermit who lived for four years
in a small room barricaded with
a two -foot thicic wall of odds
and ends.
They tunnelled through the
rubbish and when the room was
cleared seven tons of milk bot-
tles, old tins and other "junk"
were carted away to a refuse.
dump.
The hermit had let his hair
grow so long that it was like a
fur collar over his shoulders, he
wore only a loin -cloth as if he
had come straight out of the
jungle and he pleaded with the
police to give him food and then
leave him to die.
Faded letters found in the
room gave evidence of a broken
romance, There was also a pic-
ture of a lovely fair-haired girl
who had jilted him and so caused
him to live alone in his bar-
ricaded room.
Another man who was crossed
in love shut himtelf away from
mankind in a hut in a deserted
part of Essex for fifty years.
His story was published in a
newspaper. Next clay a woman
penetrated his extraordinary sol-
itude --the first he had seen for
half a century.
She proved to be a relative of
the girl the hermit had loved.
And she had to tell him the news
that the girl, although she had
married another man, had died
abroad of a broken heart, ut-
tering the hermit's name.
Neighbours in Yorkshire
brought to light the story of an-
other recluse who never left his
room in a busy city for ten years
and ate so little food that he
was a living skeleton when wel-
fare workers went to his assis-
tance.
This man had taken a vow of
lifelong bachelorhood because he
"had always hated women."
He had only six shillings in
his pocket and, a bank balance
of five shillings, but his room
was stocked with art treasures
worth $40,000 and there were no
fewer than 8,0,00 books scattered
about.
William Adams, who was
About That Famous
"Better Mousetrap"
You learn something every
day...
Like the fact that the famous
"mousetrap" quotation attribu-
ed to Ralph Waldo Emerson and
the subject 02 a never-ending
literary controversy, originated
in Oakland.
The quotation, as oft -repeated,
is: "If a man can write a better
book, preach a better sermon, or
make a better mousetrap than
his neighbor, though he builds
his house in the woods, the
world will make a beaten path
to his door."
That was a theme frequently
expounded by Emerson, b u t
while the mousetrap reference
made it known around the world,
no reference to such an article
appears in any of his • writings.
In his "Journal" Emerson re-
peated the idea with several
variations, declaring the world
would find a skilled attorney,
men who can pipe or sing, or
paint, or raise good corn, or sell
wood or pigs, or make better
chairs, or knives, or crucibles,
or church organs.
But nowhere does he leave a
written mention of mousetraps.
It appears certain that the
mousetrap quotation was made
verbally by Emerson in a lec-
ture he delivered in 1871. in the
old Hamilton Church, predeces-
sor of Oakland's First Unitarian
Church.
It was first printed in an an-
thology, "Borrowings," which
was published by the women of
the latter church in 1889, to raise
funds for church activities.
Years later, when controversy
over origin of the quotation de-
veloped, Mrs. Sara B. Yule, wife
of an Oakland judge, John Yule,
confirmed that she had recorded
it in her notebook at the time of
the Emerson lecture here. Mrs.
Yule had made a practice of not-
ing such statements and her col-
lection provided much of the
material for "Borrowings".
At one time Elbert Hubbard,
founder of the Roycrafters, main-
tained he had written the mouse-
trap phrase, but it was published
earlier in "Borrowings."
Incidentally, worshippers at
the First Unitarian Church will
be interested to know that the
central portion of the altar from
which the Rev. Arnold Crompton
now preaches was made from the
desk at which Emerson stood
when he lectured here and de-
livered the famous phrase 84
years ago.—Oakland (Calif.) Tri-
bune.
22% OF HOMES HAVE
TV SETS
An estimated 820,000 Cana-
dian homes had TV ' sets last
September, or about 22% of the
country's households. There
were some in every province,
but the bulk were in Ontario
(478,000) and Quebec (266,000).
British Columbia had the third
largest number (51,000) and
Manitoba the fourth largest
(14,000).
THE ATOMIC AGE
Clemenceau once remarked
that modern war was far too
serious to be left to the Generals.
Can it be that modern science is
far too serious to be left to the
Professors?
known as The Hermit of the
Fens, lived alone for many years
in the heart of Cambridgeshire,
surrounded by thirty-eight cats
all descended from a pair of
Persian kittens.
He used to say he kept cats
"for luck." They gave their own-
er warning of any visitor and
were, he said, better than the
best house dog. The old man
lived principally on roots, net-
tles and other wild plants. His
home was a hut no bigger than
a fowl -house, but he called it
'Marshland Hall."
Everything St;, ps
For Tea Except
Jumbo
London remains the insurance
capital of the world, with New
York a poor second. Lloyd's and
famous companies in the City
cover such risks as whale -hunt-
ing in Antartic seas, hurricanes
in Central America, Australia's
wool harvest, camel caravan
treks across the Middle East's
arid wastes, and every kind 02
sea risk.
Struck by roaring seas oppo-
site Sugar Loaf Mountain, at
the entrance to Rio de Janeiro
harbour, the 17,5000 -ton a.s.
"Magdalena" began to break in
two. She had been insured in
February, 1949, for £2,500,000,
and her cargo of meat and
oranges were covered for about
£250,000, On May llth, Royal
Mail Lines notified their Lon-
don brokers to proceed with
collection of total risk. On May
16111 the brokers wrote out a
cheque for £2,295,970 10s. 00.—
ane of the largest single
cheques ever handed Over.
London also covered a lorry
carrying sixty-six chests of tea
on the road from Neriamangal
am to Alwaye, India. Unforun-
ately, on his travels,, the driver
met a bull elephant running
amok,
The trumpeting bull, after
smashing and hurling into a
stream two lorries laden with
timber logs, turned its fury on
the tea truck. It first dislodged
some of the top tea chests, then
shoved the whole truck into the
stream, overturning it on top of
the wrecked timber lorries, For
Jumbo's onslaught a British
firm paid out £1,500.
Infectious Jaundice: Thera
were 4182 cases reported in
1952, more than four times the
normal or expected number.
HOLEY HAIRSBREADTH - That
dark line down the center is a
human hair. The curving line is
a wire acne -thousandth of an
inch thick, threaded through
holes drilled in the hair. The
holes were mcide by instrument
makers. at General Electric's
Engineering Laboratory. They
used a one -mil. (001 -inch) drill
which is too small to be seen
with the naked eye and so deli-
cate it can be damaged on con-
tact with a piece of facial tissue.
ICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET .IT - Herman J. Wiedel, manager
of an ice company, has an ideal hobby for these hot days.
He makes ice sculptures in his 28 -degree plant studio. Here he
works on the figure of a swan, with an ice statue of a dog in
the background.
ssliez