THE P
Snapdragon
RTAL
March 2018 Page 5
Huddon and Duddon and Daniel O ’ Leary
Dragons , living as we do in caves beset with damp , bats and awful acoustics , have a varied diet . Lent is obviously a time for abstinence and fasting and having been beset by moles it seemed only right to offer this recipe up as a way of entering into the spirit of things and helping those of an adventurous nature to keep an unusually rigorous Lent .
Take four moles , skin and gut them and remove the flesh from the flank and the rump . Rub the flesh side of the skins with fine salt and put them to one side for twenty-four hours . Cut the flesh into small pieces and then cover them with three parts white wine vinegar and one part dark rum . Leave overnight and then throw away the juices , which have an over earthy taste to them .
Roll the meat in a mixture of black pepper , flour and Parmesan . Cut up two leeks and a decent sized onion very finely and fry until tender . Par boil three large potatoes which you have cut into slices and remove from the pot after five minutes . Add the leeks and onions to a tin of tomatoes and stir in rather a lot of Tabasco , heavy red wine and celery salt . Add the mole to the mix and simmer for forty-five minutes .
the eye because the Holy Father would never suggest anything egregiously wicked . I do so hope that this is not another example of the church sucking up to those in power , as so many who ought to know better are doing to the all powerful regime in China .
All this talk of digging and wickedness makes one think of Pope Formosus after his death in April 896 . Dug up in 897 , vested , enthroned , put on trial , condemned as a heretic , stripped , de fingered and thrown into the Tiber . All good old fashioned dragon work for which there is regrettably no call these days . If only the college of cardinals had had the wit to insist on an annual re enactment , we might have been spared much of the unhelpful tonnage of word that spills out of Rome every year : and Popes might have learned that silence is indeed golden and that they are not rock stars but the servants of the servants of God .
Layer the potato and put it on top of the mix . Then add some very thick slices of strong farm yard cheddar on top . Brown off under the grill for 10 minutes . This being Lent I ’ m afraid it can only be Adam ’ s ale . At other times this is very good with a Muscat Baume de Venise .
Recover the skins and wash them thoroughly in lukewarm water and a little lemon juice and hang them out to dry . Once dry , brush them off carefully along the nap and sew them together using dark blue silk thread . Carefully cut they make excellent collars for covert coats or very fine chasuble neck linings .
As if moles weren ’ t enough to vex the faithful , we now have a problem of a wholly different order with which to cope . The news from Rome is that the long suffering , persecuted , but very faithful , Catholic Church in China , which has resisted every attempt to break it since 1949 , is to be abandoned in favour of the communist state sponsored national church . That is not what Rome actually said but the call is for the catholic bishops and priests to abandon their underground life and for the faithful to acknowledge the orders of the state church . What a wholly shameful thing to suggest . There must be more to this than meets
The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief is a noble thing : in its own way not dissimilar to Keble College ; bold , over stated , ugly , yet self important . Once upon a time , in the lifetime of many who are still alive , charity was what the church was about . Now the word has been taken by others and our duties sub contracted to them . Today , to the surprise of many , it is suggested that some of those who work for Oxfam molest those in their care .
As to that , my only observation is that those who are surprised have obviously never lived in the places where these charities abound . Hotels , houses , servants , drivers , swimming pools , diplomatic immunity , tax free salaries and very large 4x4s are an essential part of the life of those who live the life of the NGO and the charity world .
The palpable sense of entitlement , springing from the virtuous knowledge that what they are about is essentially good and of God , is quite nauseating . In so many ways they remind me of the church twenty years ago : and that dear reader is why I suggest we all pause a little and attend to the beams which litter our own lives .