FLUMMERY MUMMERY From Guest Author Janet Kellough

Vicki here, and I’m delighted to introduce you to a close friend of mine, the historical fiction writer Janet Kellough. Janet draws closely on real-life historical characters in bringing her stories to life. It would appear she takes her traditional cooking seriously as well.

This is definitely a recipe for those of you who don't like to use too many ingredients. 

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 The Oxford English Dictionary defines “flummery” as nonsense, especially praise that is silly or insincere. It’s one of those evocative descriptors that goes hand-in-hand with words like jiggery-pokery, flim-flam and humbug. But what, exactly, is a flummery and how did it come to mean nonsense?

 When I was writing “The Four Dead Wives of Captain John Clapp” which takes place in the late 17^th century, I needed to track down all sorts of weird and wonderful terms that were used for things like parts of ships, items of clothing, and most of all, names of things that people ate.

Flummery, it turns out, is a sort of pudding-y, mousse-y concoction that sits there in the dessert department with things like syllabubs and possets. It originated in Scotland and traditional recipes describe boiling oats for hours, and then combining the water (but not the oats) with fruit and milk. The oat water, apparently, is what made the whole thing set. (Producing food in those days was laborious and time-consuming, which is why people had so many servants.)

Fortunately, thanks to the miracle of modern domestic science, making a flummery today is actually really easy. All you need is:

 

1 package (85 g)  fruit-flavoured jello

1 can ( 357 ml.) evaporated milk

 

Scottish recipes usually use orange as the fruit, but I used raspberry jello because it’s red for Christmas.

Dissolve jello in 250 ml. boiling water (1 cup)  and put it in the  fridge for about an hour until almost set.

Remove from fridge and add evaporated milk. Beat until well combined. (With an electric mixer beat on high for about 5 minutes until thick and glossy.)

Pour into dessert bowls and place in the fridge for 1-2 hours to continue setting.

Preparation time is about 10 minutes, tops plus 3 hours setting time.

I spooned mine into wine glasses and topped with whipped cream and fresh raspberries. You could use Greek yogurt instead of whipped cream if you want to pretend it’s healthy. I ended up with eight servings. This would be an easy, impressive make-ahead dessert to present at a dinner party, along with traditional biscuits like almond macaroons or, in a nod to its Scottish origins, shortbread cookies.

After I made it, I understood why flummery has become a synonym for something silly and insubstantial – it is as light as a feather, a lovely mouth-watering bit of sweet froth.

Janet Kellough is the author of seven books in the historically-based Thaddeus Lewis Mystery Series, the fifth of which was short-listed for the 2017 Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel. As well, her speculative fiction thriller “The Bathwater Conspiracy” was nominated for a 2019 Alberta Book Publishing Award. Her latest book “The Four Dead Wives of Captain John Clapp” is a work of biographical fiction and is available at Amazon. Visit her at www.janetkellough.com or follow her on Facebook at Facebook

Do you have a traditional recipe that has been mercifully streamlined for modern use?