Food Friday: The Downton Abbey Bowl

Last week I channeled my inner Mrs. Cleaver and baked a nice, simple, middle class chicken potpie. This week Mrs. Patmore has come a-calling. She is the little fireplug of a cook from Downton Abbey and is here to help us hapless Americans with our snackums for Sunday night.

Decisions! Do we watch football this weekend? Or do we tune in to our local PBS channel? Are we resolute in helping Lady Mary banish Matthew’s ghost? (The poor girl has obviously never eaten a sandwich! We need to comfort her with apples, at least, and some more fattening fare from the kitchens.) Sorry, Peyton Manning. Downton Abbey is what we are planning on watching this Sunday night, not football.

I have a copy of The Unauthorized Downton Abbey Cookbook tucked away on my Kindle. It has lots of recipes for things that I would not eat even if we are housebound by yet another winter storm: Lady Mary’s Crab Canapés, Mushrooms Vol-au-Vent or this horror – Anchovy-Onion Tarts! Though I might find room for Dainty Petits Fours with Buttercream Fondant.

I can’t imagine what weekend-challenged Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, would make of American football. Her zinger observations would be withering and sharpish, I think. The men of Downton Abbey, both the upstairs and downstairs, enjoy a ritual yearly cricket match, which calls for cable knit sweaters, schoolboy caps, tradition and teacakes. The ladies wear white and lounge in canvas lawn chairs in the shade, sipping tea. The men bat at balls and wickets. If the installation of a telephone, and then a refrigerator, brought a sense of doom and changing times to our downstairs friends, then imagine what our flat-screen sports and wildly expensive commercials will do to their simple sensibilities! For an evening of competition between juggernaut football and post-Great War sensibilities, Daisy (Mrs. Patmore has been overcome by vapors, and Mrs. Hughes is applying cold compresses) suggests the following:

Caviar Cucumber Canapés

4 servings

1 cup cream cheese
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 large English cucumber, cut into 15–20 slices
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1⁄2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
4 1⁄2 ounces caviar

In a small bowl, thoroughly mix together cream cheese and lemon juice. (If cream cheese feels too thick, try adding 1 tablespoon of sour cream.)
Top cucumber slices with cream cheese and lemon juice mixture. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper. Place a dollop of caviar on top of each cucumber slice, and serve.
Mr. Carson will pass the Champagne.

These Cheese Straws were a crowd pleaser after the heady excitement when Lord Crawley threw a googly for William, the second footman.

Cheese Straws

4 ounces flour
Cayenne pepper
2 ounces butter
3 ounces Parmesan cheese
1 egg yolk
Parsley

Sieve the flour into a basin, add a pinch of cayenne, rub in the butter, add the grated cheese. Mix the yolk of egg with 1 tablespoon of cold water, add this to the flour mixture and mix to a stiff paste, knead a little. Roll out on to a floured board and cut into thin strips about 3 inches long and one-eighth-inch wide and some rings about 1½ inches in diameter. Put these strips and rings on to a greased baking tin and cook at 350°F until they are just turning a pale brown. When cooked, put some of the straws in the rings, served garnished with parsley. Care must be taken when handling the straws as they are fragile.
(Both of these recipes can be found in The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook by Emily Ansara Baines)

If Mrs. Patmore is unavailable to cater your television event on Sunday, I find that Utz cheese balls are a great leveler. Even the Dowager Countess will enjoy a bowlful, if Thomas remembers to share.

Would you mind cutting these paper dolls out for young Sibby? We can’t trust her with scissors just yet…
https://www.vulture.com/2012/02/print-out-vultures-downton-abbey-paper-dolls.html

Here are some more recipes: https://downtonabbeycooks.com/tag/downton-abbey-recipes/

And our clever friends at Bon Appétit have more ideas for half time snacks if your Sunday night game strategy doesn’t consist of Downton Abbey and Sherlock Holmes: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/quick-recipes/slideshow/fast-halftime-snacks/?slide=1

“If it’s the ultimate game, how come they’re playing it again next year?”
Duane Thomas, Dallas Cowboys quarterback