Coronavirus chronicles: Errantry cakes?

[lblanchard]

Errantry, calligraphy by J. R. R. Tolkien
https://www.tolkienestate.com/en/painting/calligraphy/calligraphies/elvish-script-01.html
Lots more at the link

I am going to bake cookies or little cakes based on ingredients in a Tolkien poem. But first, a little backstory:

The backstory is in fact the story of what got me going on the whole Tolkien/Swann song cycle. We were out back watching the bumblebees bumble along in the wisteria and I said, Oh, look, a Dumbledore." Roy said "???????" so I told him it was an archaic word for bumblebee. "?????," he said, so I whipped out my phone and Googled "Dumbledore bee." One of the first hits was to a YouTube video of Errantry. A little more Googling and I found the text of the poem, which excited me in the same way that fine needlework or miniature painting does -- intricacy of rhyme and scansion. According to Wikipedia, Tolkien invented this rhyme scheme, which was so fiendishly difficult to compose in that he never tried it again. I understand that it can also be sung to the tune of "I am the very model of a modern major-general."

The text of the full poem is here: https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Errantry

Independently of my interest in the song cycle -- or maybe not, who knows how the mind works? -- a week or so ago I developed a hankering to play with cardamom as a spice variant for my spent sourdough applesauce cake. Side note: a cardamom/orange oil flavor palette turns out to be quite tasty, especially when the cake is topped with vanilla yogurt and a dollop of marmalade.

But back to Errantry. I played the Elvin/Swann cycle the other day and this time the word "cardamom" jumped out at me. In the first stanza he stocks his gondola:

a load of yellow oranges
and porridge for his provender;
he perfumed her with marjoram
and cardamom and lavender.

Later, after battling with the dumbledors, the hummerhorns, and honeybees, he returns with honeycomb.

So I am meditating on some kind of porridge-y honeycake infused with orange peel and oil, marjoram, cardamom, and lavender. I wonder if I'll like it. More to the point, I wonder if Roy will like it.

Errantry, composed and played by Donald Swann and sung by William Elvin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye53tRTq_jk&list=PLyXYyeDNdJ1V4AGF7taf9xDzlOWOIzSse&index=5

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

There’s no cinnamon in the poem, though...

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Heh. I know. And this is a poem-loyal cake!