This old fashioned homemade pancakes recipe is part of the third post from my book Dreams and Recipes Reimagined. I’ve reworked the original recipe and added it to the story too.
Jump to Recipe Print Recipe
Here are the links to the introduction and the first chapter:
Dreams and Recipes 1904–1914 Reimagined: Introduction
Chapter one: Dreams and Recipes: Emigration and Pineapple Pudding
Chapter two:
‘Tommy’.
Monday September 12th, 1904
Belfast
Dear Lillie,
I hope you’re keeping well. Have you heard from Sophia yet? I think she’s very brave.
We’re all well here and really loved the pineapple pudding. Miss Porter’s hotel guests must really love it too. I called in with Auntie Annie last week to give her the recipe and I bumped into the new lodger in the porchway.
Oh Lillie, he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. He’s nearly six feet tall, with lovely dark hair and the most adorable brown eyes. He smiled at me and I just fell to pieces. I was so nervous I didn’t know what to say until Aunt Annie came out and introduced us. His name is Tommy and he works down in Queen’s Island in the shipyard.
Aunt Annie says he just thinks of work all the time. She says the Andrews family are strict Unitarians, and Tommy’s mother promised her sons a big reward if they didn’t touch cigarettes or drink before they were twenty-one years old. She says he’s advancing at work every day. Apparently, his mother is a sister of Lord Pirrie, who is the owner of the shipyard. I wonder has he any time in his life for romance. He’s so handsome I’d just like to get lost in his arms Lillie. He just seems like the kind of person you could trust with your life forever.
Last Saturday Mother took us to see a wedding in Ballysillan. It was one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen. Violet Villiers Ewart, from the linen merchant family, got married to Mr Gerald Lutwyche. He comes from Beckenham in London. The bridal party walked from the house to the church and most of Ligoniel came out to watch. The children from St. Mark’s school stood at the entrance to the church and threw flowers in the path of the bride. Violet’s uncle Sir William Ewart gave her away. I stood there dreaming it was I who was getting married, and Tommy was my true love.
The bride’s dress was white crepe-de-chine, trimmed with point lace, and the bodice was drawn up into a deep swathed belt. The Court train was made from lovely satin, edged with tulle and lilies-of-the-valley. Her veil of embroidered tulle was fastened by a coronet of orange blossoms, shamrocks, and white heather. The bridesmaids wore dresses made of India muslin and long lace mittens. They had coronets of white heather and shamrocks and the little train bearers had these too—they looked so lovely in their Empire dresses with waistbands of white satin.
Violet’s mother, Mrs Ewart, wore a lovely gown of black lace and chiffon over white silk and a toque made of black chiffon with ostrich plumes. She carried a bouquet of crimson roses. Lillie, you should have seen Lady Jaffe—she’s from The States and is married to Sir Otto Jaffe; he was born in Hamburg and is Belfast’s Lord Mayor again this year. She was wearing a beautiful grey dress with a bodice of cream satin and point lace. Her toque was made of satin and trimmed with velvet and roses, and she wore a beautiful grey feather stole.
Oh Lillie, Mother talks most days of the years she worked in New York as a nurse maid. She learnt so many grand ways out there in just under six years. Can you believe she was only twelve years old when she went out to Mr Chapman and his family in New York?
She was so small looking when she arrived that he sent her to school with his own children for half a term. When Mr Chapman saw how pretty Mother was, he warned her to walk well out on the pavements away from the buildings in case any bad men dragged her in off the street. I think she is very brave and strong.
She only came home because Grandmother was ill, but then again if she hadn’t returned, she wouldn’t have met Father and I wouldn’t be here now to write this!
Before I bumped into Tommy the other day, I had been thinking that I should like to go to the States too … What do you think Lillie?
Please write back soon,
Eliza
PS Aunt Annie says Tommy sits up until 11 o’ clock every night working at his desk and is up at ten to five each morning to be at the yard at six!
Do you know, one of his favourite poems is Henry Van Dyke’s “Work”? … He has brought a framed picture of it to hang up in his room. Grandma says it’s a good way to think if you’re a shipbuilder and not short of a pound like Tommy.
If you’re working at slaughtering speed in one of the factories and barely making enough to keep food on the table, then it’s not the kind of poem that’s going to make you feel any better at the end of the day.
She says the well-filled belly has little understanding of the empty. Then again, Henry Van Dyke is from the States, and couldn’t have been thinking of the factories in Belfast when he wrote this.
