Vintage Weekend Cooking: The Kitchen Child by Angela Carter

Every now and again I come across a post in my archives that I think it would be fun to share again and when that happens I post them as Vintage posts!


When I was doing my Six Degrees of Separation post last weekend, I came across this post from 10 years ago, and I decided that this would be a great post to share again, especially seeing as I relistened to this short story again and still enjoyed it!

This was part of a series of short stories that were released with authors reading short stories. A lot of these authors were people I was unfamiliar with, both the authors and the readers.

The podcasts were, in order:

Philip Pullman reading The Beauties by Anton Chekhov
Julian Barnes reading Homage to Switzerland by Ernest Hemingway
William Boyd reading My Dream of Flying to Wake Island by J G Ballard
Anne Enright reading Fat by Raymond Carver
Colm Toibin reading Music at Annahullian by Eugene McCabe
Margaret Drabble reading The Doll's House by Katherine Mansfield
Jeanette Winterson reading The Night Driver by Italo Calvino
Rose Tremain reading Extra by Yiyun Li
Tessa Hadley reading The Jungle by Elizabeth Bowen
Helen Dunmore reading My Oedipus Complex by Frank O'Connor
Ali Smith reading A Conversation with my Father by Grace Paley
Helen Simpson reading The Kitchen Child by Angela Carter

It is the final story in this list, and my favourite of the 12,  that I want to concentrate on for my Weekend Cooking post this week.

When I mentioned that I hadn't heard of all of the authors, both Helen Simpson and Angela Carter were in this category. From what I can tell by what I have read online Helen Simpson is a short story writer herself, and Angela Carter was known for her fairytale retelling. From what is said it seemed that Carter's fairytale retellings can be somewhat dark and gothic, featuring werewolves and other magical creatures and wikipedia mentions that her works include feminism, magical realism and science fiction.

From the little I knew this short story was not anything like I expected. It is light and frothy, but still with substance, sunny, charming and funny, and well worth spending a few minutes to listen to.

The story is about a young boy whose mother is a cook in a large house. He doesn't know who his father was. All he knows is that he was conceived whilst the lobster souffle his mother was cooking rose ("25 minutes in a medium oven") but the identity of his father remains a mystery. Each year at the time of the grouse shoot, his mother once again cooks the souffle although she doens't overseason it with cayenne as she did that first time due to the shock of being accosted in her kitchen. The boy ("conceived upon the kitchen table, born upon the kitchen floor") is desperate to know who his father was. In this short story we shares his childhood in the kitchen from his birth, his first crib (the copper salmon kettle), the baths in the soup tureen that normally carries turtle soup. The child is precocious, learning the skills of the cook with ease at the foot of his mother. He learns his letters (A for Asparagus through to Z is for Zabligione), makes shortcrust at the age of three, and so on.

Also alluded to in the course of the story are the different levels of the household servants within the big house and the masters who don't seem to have terribly good taste when it comes to food. There is the housekeeper who seems to take her rum with a splash of tea, and who would love to replace the Yorkshire woman who is the cook with a continental chef, with the birth of the cook's baby appearing to be the perfect opportunity, but it doesn't work out that way at all.

I have now listened to this particular short story a number of times now, it doesn't lose it's charm with familiarity. If you have a few minutes spare, I would encourage you to click on link above and lose yourself for just a few minutes in the kitchen of the great house.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Six Degrees of Separation: Second Place to The Kitchen Child

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best.  The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links.  I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

This month, the book that Kate has chosen as the starting point is Second Place by Rachel Cusk who I am plannning to watch in one of the online sessions at Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) this weekend.

Another author that I  have seen at MWF is Sarah Dunant. At the time she was talking about her book Blood & Beauty which is about Lucrezia Borgia. One of the talks I attended was also addressed by an art specialist who talked about some of the symbolism in a painting.

I do have a lot of books that I have read which talk about art and history. I ended up choosing Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland which traces the various owners of a particular painting back through time. (review)

The Riviera House by Natasha Lester is a new release that I read last week which focuses on art that was stolen from owners during World War II, in particular a painting that is owned by one of the main characters in current times. I am planning on posting a review of this book in the next week or so.

As I mentioned I could just do a whole 6 Degrees post on historical fiction books that I have read about art through history. Maybe another time. For today I am linking to Mr Rosenblums List by Natasha Solomons, a book that I read and loved years ago.

There isn't really a logical link between Mr Rosenblums list and my choice, Major Pettigrews Last Stand by Helen Simonson. In my mind though, they are books that seem to have a similar feel, and I think I read them relatively closely together. I just checked my list and there was two months difference. (review)

My final link is actually to a short story called The Kitchen Child by Angela Carter. I chose it because it is read by Helen Simpson (sounds similar to Helen Simionson)  as part of a series that was original released by The Guardian around 10 years. If you have twenty minutes spare, I did listen to this story again as I wrote this post and it was still delightful. (review)

The starting point for next month is The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, and I already know what my first link is!!

Weekend Cooking: The Kitchen Child by Angela Carter

Shortly before Christmas the Guardian website had a series of short story podcasts where relatively famous authors read short stories from relatively famous authors and then share a few thoughts as to why they liked the story and why they chose it to read. I have used the words relatively because I hadn't actually heard of all the authors who were doing the reading, or all of the ones who were being read!

The podcasts were, in order:

Philip Pullman reading The Beauties by Anton Chekhov
Julian Barnes reading Homage to Switzerland by Ernest Hemingway
William Boyd reading My Dream of Flying to Wake Island by J G Ballard
Anne Enright reading Fat by Raymond Carver
Colm Toibin reading Music at Annahullian by Eugene McCabe
Margaret Drabble reading The Doll's House by Katherine Mansfield
Jeanette Winterson reading The Night Driver by Italo Calvino
Rose Tremain reading Extra by Yiyun Li
Tessa Hadley reading The Jungle by Elizabeth Bowen
Helen Dunmore reading My Oedipus Complex by Frank O'Connor
Ali Smith reading A Conversation with my Father by Grace Paley
Helen Simpson reading The Kitchen Child by Angela Carter

It is the final story in this list, and my favourite of the 12,  that I want to concentrate on for my Weekend Cooking post this week.

When I mentioned that I hadn't heard of all of the authors, both Helen Simpson and Angela Carter were in this category. From what I can tell by what I have read online Helen Simpson is a short story writer herself, and Angela Carter was known for her fairytale retelling. From what is said it seemed that Carter's fairytale retellings can be somewhat dark and gothic, featuring werewolves and other magical creatures and wikipedia mentions that her works include feminism, magical realism and science fiction.

From the little I knew this short story was not anything like I expected. It is light and frothy, but still with substance, sunny, charming and funny, and well worth spending a few minutes to listen to.

The story is about a young boy whose mother is a cook in a large house. He doesn't know who his father was. All he knows is that he was conceived whilst the lobster souffle his mother was cooking rose ("25 minutes in a medium oven") but the identity of his father remains a mystery. Each year at the time of the grouse shoot, his mother once again cooks the souffle although she doens't overseason it with cayenne as she did that first time due to the shock of being accosted in her kitchen. The boy ("conceived upon the kitchen table, born upon the kitchen floor") is desperate to know who his father was. In this short story we shares his childhood in the kitchen from his birth, his first crib (the copper salmon kettle), the baths in the soup tureen that normally carries turtle soup. The child is precocious, learning the skills of the cook with ease at the foot of his mother. He learns his letters (A for Asparagus through to Z is for Zabligione), invents shortcrust at the age of three, and so on.

Also alluded to in the course of the story are the different levels of the household servants within the big house and the masters who don't seem to have terribly good taste when it comes to food. There is the housekeeper who seems to take her rum with a splash of tea, and who would love to replace the Yorkshire woman who is the cook with a continental chef , with the birth of the cook's baby appearing to be the perfect opportunity, but it doesn't work out that way at all.

I have now listened to this particular short story a number of times now, it doesn't lose it's charm with familiarity. If you have a few minutes spare, I would encourage you to click on link above and lose yourself for just a few minutes in the kitchen of the great house.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.