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The Advertiser
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Susan has uncovered the scandals and strife lurking behind nursery rhymes
Nursery rhymes, including Humpty Dumpty and Old Mother Hubbard, may be passed off as fun, but Susan Ackroyd has found they often have hidden meanings. The author has done a deep dive into the back stories of some of these childhood favourites, which she described as "cultural treasure". "It tells us the history; parliamentary democracy, a constitutional monarchy, we learn all of that through knowing these rhymes." Read more in The Senior She explores the stories behind 26 rhymes from the 1200s-1700s in her book Rhyme & Reason Edition 2: Mystery & History. There, she uncovers royal scandals, political upheaval and religious power struggles, and commentary around these all hidden in creative ways. She said Old Mother Hubbard was about King Henry VIII seeking an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn. In that rhyme, King Henry VIII's advisor Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was the mother, Henry is the dog, and the bone was the annulment. Mrs Ackroyd said Humpty Dumpty was a name given to a large cannon mounted on a wall in Colchester that King Charles I's army used during the English Civil War in the 1600s. But the opposition shot at the wall, causing the cannon to fall. "The egg [analogy] is rather ridiculous when you think about it, but that reflects the fragility of the weaponry at the time," she said. Mrs Ackroyd, 78, who lives on a rural property near Lithgow, NSW, found the information about the rhymes through sources including University of Oxford professors, plus other texts, and has annotated the references in the book. The book includes the rhymes, Mrs Ackroyd's research about the stories behind them, and illustrations by her neighbour Nicol Reid. Mrs Ackroyd said it was interesting how people expressed themselves when there was great upheaval, and many of these rhymes were shared orally, particularly as literacy was low and retribution was high. "If you went around saying 'King Henry VIII sucks' publicly, you would probably end up in jail or with the head lopped off... so he's described in a little rhyme," she said. Mrs Ackroyd said the melodies that went with these rhymes were among the reasons they've lasted so long. She likes to share some of the rhymes with her grandchildren, aged three and one, including Baa Baa Black Sheep and Humpty Dumpty. As some rhymes have dark or violent themes, she said she wouldn't share those sections with children. But what could be done is use the rhymes as launchpads to share the stories behind them. The book is out now through Boolarong Press, RRP $29.99 Share your thoughts in the comments below, or send a Letter to the Editor by CLICKING HERE. Nursery rhymes, including Humpty Dumpty and Old Mother Hubbard, may be passed off as fun, but Susan Ackroyd has found they often have hidden meanings. The author has done a deep dive into the back stories of some of these childhood favourites, which she described as "cultural treasure". "It tells us the history; parliamentary democracy, a constitutional monarchy, we learn all of that through knowing these rhymes." Read more in The Senior She explores the stories behind 26 rhymes from the 1200s-1700s in her book Rhyme & Reason Edition 2: Mystery & History. There, she uncovers royal scandals, political upheaval and religious power struggles, and commentary around these all hidden in creative ways. She said Old Mother Hubbard was about King Henry VIII seeking an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn. In that rhyme, King Henry VIII's advisor Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was the mother, Henry is the dog, and the bone was the annulment. Mrs Ackroyd said Humpty Dumpty was a name given to a large cannon mounted on a wall in Colchester that King Charles I's army used during the English Civil War in the 1600s. But the opposition shot at the wall, causing the cannon to fall. "The egg [analogy] is rather ridiculous when you think about it, but that reflects the fragility of the weaponry at the time," she said. Mrs Ackroyd, 78, who lives on a rural property near Lithgow, NSW, found the information about the rhymes through sources including University of Oxford professors, plus other texts, and has annotated the references in the book. The book includes the rhymes, Mrs Ackroyd's research about the stories behind them, and illustrations by her neighbour Nicol Reid. Mrs Ackroyd said it was interesting how people expressed themselves when there was great upheaval, and many of these rhymes were shared orally, particularly as literacy was low and retribution was high. "If you went around saying 'King Henry VIII sucks' publicly, you would probably end up in jail or with the head lopped off... so he's described in a little rhyme," she said. Mrs Ackroyd said the melodies that went with these rhymes were among the reasons they've lasted so long. She likes to share some of the rhymes with her grandchildren, aged three and one, including Baa Baa Black Sheep and Humpty Dumpty. As some rhymes have dark or violent themes, she said she wouldn't share those sections with children. But what could be done is use the rhymes as launchpads to share the stories behind them. The book is out now through Boolarong Press, RRP $29.99 Share your thoughts in the comments below, or send a Letter to the Editor by CLICKING HERE. Nursery rhymes, including Humpty Dumpty and Old Mother Hubbard, may be passed off as fun, but Susan Ackroyd has found they often have hidden meanings. The author has done a deep dive into the back stories of some of these childhood favourites, which she described as "cultural treasure". "It tells us the history; parliamentary democracy, a constitutional monarchy, we learn all of that through knowing these rhymes." Read more in The Senior She explores the stories behind 26 rhymes from the 1200s-1700s in her book Rhyme & Reason Edition 2: Mystery & History. There, she uncovers royal scandals, political upheaval and religious power struggles, and commentary around these all hidden in creative ways. She said Old Mother Hubbard was about King Henry VIII seeking an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn. In that rhyme, King Henry VIII's advisor Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was the mother, Henry is the dog, and the bone was the annulment. Mrs Ackroyd said Humpty Dumpty was a name given to a large cannon mounted on a wall in Colchester that King Charles I's army used during the English Civil War in the 1600s. But the opposition shot at the wall, causing the cannon to fall. "The egg [analogy] is rather ridiculous when you think about it, but that reflects the fragility of the weaponry at the time," she said. Mrs Ackroyd, 78, who lives on a rural property near Lithgow, NSW, found the information about the rhymes through sources including University of Oxford professors, plus other texts, and has annotated the references in the book. The book includes the rhymes, Mrs Ackroyd's research about the stories behind them, and illustrations by her neighbour Nicol Reid. Mrs Ackroyd said it was interesting how people expressed themselves when there was great upheaval, and many of these rhymes were shared orally, particularly as literacy was low and retribution was high. "If you went around saying 'King Henry VIII sucks' publicly, you would probably end up in jail or with the head lopped off... so he's described in a little rhyme," she said. Mrs Ackroyd said the melodies that went with these rhymes were among the reasons they've lasted so long. She likes to share some of the rhymes with her grandchildren, aged three and one, including Baa Baa Black Sheep and Humpty Dumpty. As some rhymes have dark or violent themes, she said she wouldn't share those sections with children. But what could be done is use the rhymes as launchpads to share the stories behind them. The book is out now through Boolarong Press, RRP $29.99 Share your thoughts in the comments below, or send a Letter to the Editor by CLICKING HERE.
The Spinoff
27-05-2025
- General
- The Spinoff
Is homemade butter worth it? Two methods, put to the test
With butter prices slipping through our fingers, we took matters into our own hands. Every day it feels like there's a new headline about Aotearoa's butter price blowout. With Stats NZ reporting a 65% price hike since February last year, a block of butter is slipping out of reach for many, with the rise unlikely to melt away anytime soon. People are lining up at Costco to bulk buy blocks of slightly cheaper butter, with one man even driving 750km to fill his van with the stuff. And it's putting pressure on cafes around the country, with some forced to hike their cheese scone price up to a whopping $8, and others resorting to buying butter from Australia. It got us thinking: would it be cheaper to make butter yourself at home? How hard can it really be? And will it taste just as good as Costco's finest? Alex Casey tried the shaking method My recipe for homemade butter came from The Stay at Home Chef, whose promise of 'a fun old-fashioned activity for kids' seemed achievable even for me, an adult who once let a whole unopened bag of frozen corn melt onto the sizzling hot element because I got distracted on my phone. The only prep required was picking up 300ml of fresh cream from Pak'nSave Riccarton for just $3.25, digging out an old jar from the garage, and washing the spider corpses out. As I watched the arachnid exoskeletons circle the drain, I felt a sense of old world charm seep in. There was no electricity or machinery needed here, and no fancy chemicals or additives apart from good old fashioned elbow grease. I diligently poured one cup of cream into the jar, twisted it shut, and began to shake with reckless abandon. Alas, within seconds of vigorous motion, I was splattered with cream (not accepting any blue humour at this time). With the jar safely secured with packing tape, I settled in again to listen to a 5.02 minute long voice note from a friend while doing my first round of shaking (the Stay at Home Chef promised 5-7 minutes). About 20 seconds in, my right arm started to ache and I had to swap to the left. This went on for a while, until I settled on using both hands and shaking from side to side like an excited trophy winner, and then back and forth in front of me like I was doing high speed netball passes. As the voice note finished, I was delighted to hear no more sloshing in the jar. Could it be that I had just made butter in half the time of the 'All Too Well' 10-minute version? I sliced through the sellotape feeling like Old Mother Hubbard, but was crestfallen to find nothing but whipped cream within. I ate a conciliatory teaspoon, and got back to work. The next voice note I shook my way through was eight minutes long (my friend is fine) and by the end of it I heard a satisfying 'THONK' inside the jar. The contents had separated into a thin white cloudy liquid housing what can only be described as a bright yellow brain within. I strained it all through the sieve and was delighted to find a near perfect sphere of butter waiting to be mooshed into a small bowl with a bit of salt and garnished with parsley. This is the 90s after all. I burnt a piece of Vogel's to a crisp and slathered it from coast to coast in my luxury hand shooketh butter. It was delicious, creamy, just like from the shop but possibly even better because of the delectable analog smugness. All in all, I got about 78 grams of butter from my 250mls of cream (minus the sleeve spill and the conciliatory teaspoon of cream) which means I'd be spending $20.80 to make my own 500g block (which is not the projected price until August). Daylight robbery you cry, but there is hidden value here. Consider the free arm workout, the free science extravaganza, free buttermilk, and free 50mls of leftover cream. The next morning I made two pancakes with the leftover buttermilk, served with leftover (jar whipped) cream, and of course my own melted homemade butter. It was a turducken of dairy products that had gone farm to plate, nose to tail, liquid to solid and all the way back again. A priceless bit of fun in a bleak ass world. Anna Rawhiti-Connell tried the KitchenAid method I set the task of making butter with my KitchenAid for myself, confident it would be easier than Alex's shaker method. Bridget Jones famously described married people as 'smug marrieds'. I am describing KitchenAid owners as smug KitchenAiders. When someone comments on something impressive you've made with a KitchenAid, you can't just take the compliment, you have to say you made it with a KitchenAid, but you're allowed to pretend you're saying that to highlight it's no big deal to make homemade pasta when you are aided by precision engineering. Those are the rules of KitchenAid club. KitchenAid's 'recipe' for butter is cheerfully titled ' Homemade Butter – Colour of the Year 2025 '. It's a) a Pantone-esque announcement about their colour of the year and b) a sales pitch for their cheerful and accidentally bleak-sounding colour range, described as a 'soft, energising butter yellow with a creamy satin finish'. Like butter, I guess? I woke up yesterday morning, my butter-making task on my list, and promptly handed half the job off to my husband by asking him to get some cream on his way back from the gym. 'Why?' he said 'Work' I replied. He nodded wearily, knowing it would be for some cockamamie experiment that my type A personality couldn't resist partaking in. I'd said I needed a 330ml bottle of MeadowFresh cream to match Alex's cream 'for science'. He wearily said there wasn't any and wearily put a 500ml bottle of Anchor cream in the fridge. The experiment has been corrupted and has already cost me $4.84 and a spousal favour backlog. I poured 330mls of cream into my KitchenAid bowl along with half a teaspoon of salt. One KitchenAid recipe I googled mentioned a 'whipping disc'. I don't have a whipping disc. I panicked for a brief second before returning to the first KitchenAid butter recipe I'd found the day before which just used the standard whipping attachment. I don't know why there are so many 'recipes' for something made of cream and centrifugal force. The recipe advised it would take 10-15 minutes for the butter fat solids to separate from the buttermilk. I'd half read a message from Alex the night before about how long it took her to make butter using just her arms and a jar and was immediately crestfallen because I thought she'd said seven minutes. I've just read her butter odyssey properly and my zest for life has returned. The KitchenAid recipe advised slowly dialling up the machine from one to turn-it-up-to-11, Vin Diesel speed. From cream to separated fat and buttermilk, it took eight minutes to get butter. I drained it in a sieve as per the instructions and rinsed it a few times with cold water to rid it of the last of the buttermilk. Voilá, le beurre! The magic of making something you have spent your life assuming required a gigantic industrial manufacturing process and the feeling of pretending you're sticking it to Big Dairy are enough to make the extremely dodgy economics of this endeavour worth it. I got 86 grams of butter from 330mls of cream. To make 500 grams of butter would have cost me $28.13, so it makes zero fiscal sense. I suspect the mixer approach, while faster, also wastes more cream by the time you lose the precious fats of our land to the bowl, the wall, your face, a spatula and a sieve. The butter was taste-tested by my colleagues yesterday, who praised it after spreading it on bread and putting that into a toasted sandwich press. I can confirm without the mask of a toastie, it tastes like butter, and I feel like a science wizard. A+++ would make it again if I won Lotto or owned a cow.
Chicago Tribune
21-02-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
From the Farm: Reader looking for waitress Rosie's navy bean soup recipe
Last month's column tribute to Rosie Amidei, a favorite smile in our small town and waitress extraordinaire, prompted kind words from readers along with some recipe requests. After Rosie's passing, her family shared with me Rosie's handwritten copy of her homemade potato soup recipe, prompting reader curiosity. 'Thank you for the lovely story on Rosie,' wrote Marsha Fingerhut Reimbold of North Judson. 'You mentioned you have published other recipes of hers. Where could I find those? In particular, her ham and bean soup and split pea soup recipes. My brother purchased Doug's Restaurant in North Judson, and Rosie worked for him as well. Rosie and Al's and Donny and my brother grew up together as well. Bruce's kids were just reminiscing about Rosie and mentioned these other delicious soups. I thought I'd see if you happen to have gotten those recipes as well. Thanks Phil.' Rosie's 'Stuffed Green Pepper Soup' is found in my original published cookbook 'From the Farm: Family Recipes and Memories of a Lifetime' published in 2004. Rosie's rich and inviting chocolate fudge (secret ingredient: pastel-colored mini marshmallows) and her pecan pie recipe are both featured in my second cookbook 'More From the Farm' released in 2007. Every Christmas, we could count on Rosie delivering a large flat aluminum butter pan of her delectable fudge. As for the two requested missing soup recipes from Rosie's restaurant specialties, those were never shared with me. But I can recommend my own mother's recipe for Ham and Navy Bean Soup, which appears in my second cookbook, and Mom's Split Pea and Ham Soup recipe shared and showcased in my third cookbook 'Further From the Farm' published in 2010. Like Rosie's recipe, my mom's recipes both begin with a ham bone broth base, much like the late Joann Scamerhorn's recipe for Beef Oxtail Soup included in my second cookbook. Anytime a recipe starts with an old-fashioned butcher's soup bone, I'm reminded of the old nursery rhyme about 'Old Mother Hubbard,' who found a bare cupboard when she went to look for a bone for her dog. I grew up with this rhyme along with so many others, as did my older siblings, because of the bedtime stories we were read. Many of our favorite stories, fables and rhymes came from the volumes of the set of Childcraft Books published in 1954 which accompany our family's ages-old set of World Book Encyclopedias. The illustrations that share the pages of the stories and fables on the pages of the Childcraft Books are whimsical treasures. And who knew? The rhyming tale of Old Mother Hubbard and her hungry (and quite theatrical dog) continues for many more verses after the empty cupboard revelation. On the subject of bones, reader Nancy Henke-Konopasek of Munster wrote to me with the bonus good news for anyone who doesn't have the advantage of a friendly neighborhood butcher. 'After reading that column about Rosie's soups, I'm craving ham and bean soup with cornbread and honey butter, like my Mom used to make,' Nancy wrote. 'I usually pick up a ham bone from the Honey Baked Ham store in my neighborhood. Yes! I've been doing that for years. Did you know you can just purchase a ham bone with trimmings intact from their stores if you ask? Heavenly Ham does it as well. There's usually enough meat left on the bone for a sandwich, and the rest goes in the pot for soup! They come frozen. They don't always have them, and you do have to ask. They usually run about $5.' Thank you, Nancy, as this was a new revelation for me while hunting for soup ingredients. I followed your advice and purchased a beautiful hambone (frozen) from Honey Baked Ham for $6. In light of reader Marsha's recipe request, I'm sharing a scrumptious, rich and hearty black bean soup recipe that was originally served at Billy Jack's Restaurant in Valparaiso, which closed just over a decade ago in 2013. I was given their signature soup recipe in 1993 by the restaurant's kitchen wiz chef Jack Richey in restaurant portion size to freeze some for later. Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is a radio host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at PhilPotempa@ or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374. Billy Jack's Black Bean Soup Makes 20 servings 1 cup margarine 1 1/2 cup flour 3 pounds black turtle beans 4 cups diced onions 4 cups diced celery 3 cups diced carrots 2 cups chopped green onions 4 tablespoons chopped garlic Stock (recipe follows) 3 pounds chorizo sausage, cooked and drained 4 cups sour cream (for garnish) Stock recipe: 5 gallons water 2 tablespoons cumin 2 bay leaves 2 cups chicken base 1 tablespoon salt 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper 3 cups roux Directions: Soak beans overnight in salt water and drain. Sauté onions, garlic, celery, carrots and green onions until tender. Add flour, beans and then stock and bring to a boil. Simmer for 1-2 hours until beans are very soft. Add roux (equal amounts of flour and butter, as needed, cooked together in a skillet) and cook soup for five minutes. Cook sausage and add undrained to soup.
