I have been reading a curious booklet entitled ‘A Cargo of Recipes’, collected in aid of the Rye, Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital, and published in Rye in 1936. Among the recipes for the likes of Sussex Pond Pudding, a few items caught my eye. A sauce to enliven boiled cod, submitted by thrice-Mayor of Rye, E.F. Benson, calls for not only Russian caviar and ‘the flesh of two hen-lobsters, omitting the roe’, but also glasses of brandy and Chateau d’Yquem. Admittedly in the latter case a ‘small glass’ is specified.
E.F. Benson’s series of ‘Lucia’ novels, written between the wars, are an amusing dissection of genteel snobbery and backbiting, set in Tilling, a fictional equivalent of Rye. Two contributors to ‘A Cargo of Recipes’ suggest that the actual Rye was equally, and quite literally, poisonous.
One named ‘Pancakes a la Borgia’, begins:
‘Procure a small piece of glass (any broken window will serve) about one square inch. Pound this in mortar... and thoroughly mix with six or eight times the amount of sifted sugar.’
Digitalis and belladonna are also required but a warning is appended:
‘digitalis and belladonna may be procured from any chemist, but they are not always fresh, and it is wise to pick these ingredients yourself.’
And a note from a certain Miss Burra, ‘regarding poison bottles’, reads:
‘If you have a deadly poison bottle... buy a penny bell, thread a riband through it and tie it to the neck of the bottle. If you pick up that bottle by mistake, the bell would tinkle out its warning'.
Could this be Edward Burra, the artist? He had an ambivalent attitude to his hometown, often referring to Rye as ‘Tinkerbell Town’.