Genitian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge takes place when England is expecting an invasion by Napoleon, and I think is Goudge's second novel. It is beautifully written but did not have the star power for me of her later books.
Young Stella, the foster child of Torquay farmers Father and Mother Spriggs, was a foundling, snatched from the arms of her dead mother after they were shipwrecked on the coast of Devon near Torquay [pronounced TAW-KEE]. It is obvious to all that Stella is different from her good foster parents, an exceptional child. The novel tells of the love that she grows up to know but also solves the mystery of who her real parents could have been.
But Goudge's description of Mother Sprigg's kitchen places it near the top of my favorite literary kitchens:
The kitchen was the living room of the farm, for they scarcely used the small paneled parlor upon the other side of the flagged hall. It was a large room, roughly square, but with many nooks and bulges, like a cave, and with two wide mullioned windows with deep window seats in the long west wall, and one smaller one to the south. The walls were whitewashed and the whitewashed ceiling was crossed by strong oak beams with iron hooks for hanging the hams and bunches of herbs. The furniture--the large kitchen table, the tall dresser, the settle, and the straight-backed chairs--was of oak, shiny and black with age. The stone-flagged floor was snowy white from years of scrubbing and under the kitchen table were the pails of water that were kept filled from the big well in the yard.
But the greatest glory of the kitchen was the fireplace that filled nearly the whole of the north wall and was almost a room in itself. It was so deep that there was room for seats on each side, while across the opening in front was a sturdy oak beam with a little red curtain hanging beneath it. The wood fire never went out, winter or summer. On each side of it were the firedogs to hold the spits for the roasting, and swinging cranes for the pots and kettles. Delicious smells were creeping out now from the fireplace, onion broth cooking in the pot that hung from one of the cranes, and apples roasting in a dish placed under the outer ashes of the fire.
All the crannies and bulges of this enchanting, cavelike room had unexpected things in them--the bread oven in the thickness of the wall underneath its fascinating little arch, the grandfather clock, Mother Sprigg's spinning wheel, the warming pans, secret cupboards filled with homemade wines...shelves piled with pickles and preserves, brass candlesticks, and Toby jugs...
But though the irregular shape of the great kitchen made one think of a cave, there was no suggestion of damp or darkness, the sun streaming in all day saw to that...And there was plenty of color in the kitchen with the blue willow pattern china on the dresser, the scarlet rag rugs on the floor, the scarlet window curtains, and always baskets of apples and plums in their season, golden marrows, and pumpkins in their striped jackets of yellow and green.
I know that I quoted a long portion of Genitian Hill to give a picture of the kitchen. This is my first post here in several weeks and it's been difficult to come up with blog posts when my mind has been so much on the news in our country ever since I watched in horror as our Capitol Building was invaded. Blog posts seem trivial in the light of everything that is happening in our country so this is my attempt to begin again, my heart not really in it.
But during this time, the kitchen has called to me, meals to be cooked. And so Mother Sprigg's kitchen was something I happily read about as I read Gentian Hill at night, in bed. Books and cooking are something that calm me, comfort me, and dachshunds snuggling with me while I read and keeping me company in the kitchen as I cook.
For now, that is a start.
