The Bourbon Era
However
to compensate for being away from home for over 9 months and make meal times
more palatable our mothers armed us with survival kits at the beginning of each
term - amazing Tuck Boxes! These were large tea crates crammed with gorgeous
home-made goodies which we unpacked and stored in the large deep wooden
cupboards or wire mesh cages dotted all around.
Tuck
rules were strict and even 30 years later remain indelibly etched in my memory.
You were allowed to take out certain things during specific meals -no idea when
or who had set these up but we faithfully followed them - a bit like the gospel
lessons.
Breakfast
allowed you cheese, butter, milk powder, the ubiquitous "Bournvita"
etc to make that watery liquid and soggy sponge squares passed off as milk and
bread more palatable whilst lunch and dinner allowed pickles, squash and fruit
that was stored in the wired cage in the corner. (Fruit usually lasted a week
into term).
Tea
times were a lot more flexible - that's when the cakes, biscuits and other
treats made an appearance. Everything that was taken to the table at tea time
was supposed to be passed around which meant that usually by the second or
third week into term we were back to the meagre bread and butter rations served
as staple. After that we did have some sort of saviour in the form of Radharani
stores where generous parents had a tab running for their perpetually hungry
children.
The
store proprietors knew this and kept both prices and service equally high. At
the age of eight, this offered us great freedom of choice that we exercised
unwisely and I for one remember large bills my mum signing off at the end of
term before embarking on our long journey back home. The sole contents of those
hugely inflated bills consisted mainly of chocolates, Bourbon biscuits and
"jhal chips " all of which had zero nutrition but 100% taste. However
even today chocolate filled "Bourbons" remain a firm favourite so
here goes ... As in those days - both the nutrition content and taste remain
unchanged!
Ingredients:
250 gms plain flour
250 gms plain flour
125 gms
unsalted chilled butter
125 gms
caster sugar
2 tbsp
golden syrup
50 gms
cocoa powder
1tsp
soda bicarb
3 tblsp
milk
Filling:
75 gms unsalted butter
125 gms
icing sugar
15 gms
cocoa powder
Method: Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Combine
all the biscuit ingredients in a food processor until lumpy and then tip on a
work surface and bring together. Roll out dough on a sheet of parchment keeping
it rectangular and dusting with flour. Trim to approx a 23 x 30 cm rectangle.
Cut
into 3 even strips and then at 2.5 cms. Mark five dots on each. Chill for 30
min. Bake for 25 min, carefully remove and separate the biscuits. Leave to
cool. Make the filling by combining all the ingredients and sandwich the
biscuits together. Stays for five days if you can manage to keep it that long!
Boarding school meals! How we loathed them. They made home cooked food taste like 5 star, gourmet stuff.And tuck taught us the joys of sharing. Those were the days worth remembering.
ReplyDeleteI remember the deep lockers lining the refectory bursting at the seams with tuck at the beginning of school year. A meal fit for a king was a slice of bread smeared till dripping with condensed milk, cans of which I used to cart literally cartloads to school in a parallel black trunk thanks to a generous dad with North Point boarding experience!
ReplyDeleteThink our tables sat only 8, and a drawer at one end housed our napkins neatly scrolled into an assortment of napkin rings. Mine was a sturdy silver specimen with my name engraved on it....darlng father again!
I'm speaking of LCD.....and you?
My boarding school had more solid Indian meals, with major trading of yogurt and sweets for all sorts of things! And, the dares one took on for said trades...ah! Tuck shop was once a month int he girls' hostel and limited to Rs. 5/- back then. Ah, RV!
ReplyDeleteThe very word 'tuck' conjures up images of hungry schoolgirls/boys digging into tinned fruit and sponge cakes over midnight feasts! Delightful tale & thanks for sharing the Bourbons recipe!!
ReplyDeleteI'm reading this article along with the comments five years after they were published. Rather late in the day 😀.
ReplyDeleteHowever for those of us brought up in boys school, our tuck usually disappeared about a fortnight into term. One was usually cajolled, threatened or sweet talked into parting with whatever Elmac or the like were packed in our trunks. School grub, as I understand was unpalatable all over, but nowhere else have I found grown up ex boarding wallas banning squash and pumpkin from their households forever.