A World Undone
I was searching through a lot of stories to do something Halloween-suitable. Victorian ghost stories, Frankenstein, Poe, Stephen King. I’m not much of a horror reader; I’ve never seen a horror movie. Nothing was grabbing my attention, but then I realized that, given the times we are living in, I didn’t have to talk about a typical horror story. James Kunstler’s A World Made By Hand was creepy to me even BEFORE I began considering, nightly, that civilization as we know it might come to a screeching halt at any moment this year.
The novel takes place in a small town called Union Grove in New York state, in what the book calls “the not too distant future”. There has been a catastrophic energy crisis, and without electricity, gasoline or oil, the world has plunged into 19th century living in a matter of months. I am a big fan of dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels. This one is a little bit different; the every day horrors of life in a dystopian age are not evident immediately. The inhabitants of Union Grove live by candlelight, and afternoon sun: everything seems bathed in a golden glow. Food seems wholesome and decadent, full of cream and butter and fresh herbs and eggs, brook trout caught and eaten on the same day. People put things up for winter, no one worries too much about how they look anymore, entertainment consists of locals getting together with their fiddles and guitars-everything is slower and fresher and you are almost lulled into thinking that things aren’t too bad. But then… someone needs the dentist or the doctor. There’s a murder in town. The locals get through these hiccups, and life in Union Grove keeps moving on. Until, we finally get to the terrible, awful end of the book- which really took me by surprise, making it so much worse….but, not bad enough to stop me from running out to get the next two books in the series. I love this trilogy; going through it for ideas made me start the whole thing again from the beginning.
So, by chapter twelve a neighbor has been murdered- a young husband and father- and the town has come to the widow’s home to sit with her.
Neighbors brought dishes over to give both sustenance to the the callers and some focus to the gathering. Ellen Weibel brought a ham and Jane Ann several bottles of her wine, and Eric Laudermilk brought jugs of new ale, and my neighbor Lucy Myles brought her sausage, and several women brought “pudding”, a savory staple of our tables made from leftover bread scraps, which we no longer throw away, mixed with anything else you have around, say bacon, squash, kale, chestnuts- like Thanksgiving stuffing. There was samp, which used to be called “polenta” in the upscale restaurants of yesteryear, cornmeal grits doctored up with cheese, mushrooms or what have you. Maggie Furnival brought a buckwheat pilaf, Nancy Deaver a barley pilaf. There was, of course corn bread, our staple. Donna Russo brought two coffee cakes made, she said, with the last of their wheat flour. And insofar as it was June, we had plenty of fresh greens, spinach cooked with bacon and green onions, radishes, rocket and lettuce salad, peas with mint. Elsie DeLong brought new beets. Katie Zucker brought honey cakes made of ground butternut meal. Annie Larmon brought fresh cream from their farm and whipped it up for the cakes.
Today it’s Sunday and I try to make an extra-nice dinner on Sundays. I thought honey cake sounded like the perfect dessert for after tonight’s Greek chicken dinner, although I’m going to skip the butternut meal and go with regular white flour. Civilization is still standing, after all.
I found this recipe in the November 27, 1910 edition of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Can you see what’s missing?
How many eggs? Either you were just supposed to know how many to add, or they forgot to tell us. I had to take a guess. I first tried two, but when beating up the batter, it seemed a little dry and sticky, so I added one more. Three eggs seemed to make the perfect consistency, and with that large amount of baking powder I wasn’t too worried about the batter being weighed down. I also used 350 degrees as my temperature. Your oven may vary. Thirty minutes was just right but it rises quickly, and the sugars really brown, so keep an eye on it. Also I did sift the flour, as directed.
Don’t be scared off by the caraway seed. It is a great complement to the honey flavor. I thought this was really good; I’ll make it again. It had a nice crackly crust on the outside. There is no mistaking the honey in this cake, it is very strong! I also used a very dark honey, so that probably added to the flavor.
I hope you enjoy this recipe; it’s very easy and comes together quickly. I overwhipped my cream a little bit but it still tasted delicious on the cake. You could also make a glaze and drizzle that over the top of the cake.
Happy Halloween, and wishing you a fright-less November!
If you’d like to read more dystopian fiction, these are my suggestions:
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan- this is YA fiction but I really love it
Red Rising, by Pierce Brown- another good YA pick
Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro