Photos: Passport & Plate - Gries Schmarn

thefoodieat — Fri, 6 Mar 2015 11:06:00 GMT

Ingredients
280ml milk
50g sultanas
15g butter
1 egg
50 grams semolina
25g sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

How to prepare this recipe
Pour the milk into a pan, and bring to a gentle simmer. Take it off the heat, and then add the sultanas. Allow them to absorb some of the milk, and grow plump and juicy for 15 minutes.
Use a little of the butter to grease an oven-proof bowl.
Mix the egg, semolina and sugar in with the milk and sultanas, and then pour the mixture into the greased bowl.
Bake at 180°C for 30 minutes. Stir after 10 minutes, and 20 minutes.
Once cooked, sprinkle the cinnamon over the pudding, and then cut the remaining butter into small cubes allow them to melt on top – trickling down the sides, turning the cinnamon a dark, glossy brown and filling the room with rich-spiced aromas.

The story behind this recipe
The smell of cinnamon changes when hot butter melts over it. It fills the air with a rich, sweet spiciness. And it transports me to my granny's kitchen.
It's a small but light kitchen, overlooking a neat English lawn, lined by primrose-filled borders. The 1960s house isn't dissimilar in style to others in the Leicester cul-de-sac. But inside is a treasure trove of objects which paint the colourful picture of my granny's life.
There's the urn filled with buttons which were designed by her father, Hans, when her family lived in Chennai – then Madras. And there's the Star of David armband which she was forced to wear in the late-1930s when she returned to her home town of Roudnice – now in the Czech Republic. It's still kept in a cupboard upstairs.
Stored next to the arm band is a note addressed to Hans: "It's no longer safe here for Jewish families" the letter explains. But on top of the neat, typewritten lines is an urgent, handwritten scrawl: "Leave now." And so it was that granny ended up on the last train out of Prague in 1939, winding her way north to Britain.
With just hours to pack, she was left with eclectic reminders of an already-distant childhood: the urn of buttons, an Edelweiss brooch and a small, gold bead necklace.
But recipes can't be left behind. They can't be stolen or lost. And for the rest of her life, granny filled her Leicester kitchen with flavours from northern Bohemia: sticky glace cherries and plump sultanas entwined in plaits of glistening pastry. Breadcrumbed schnitzel and sweet pastry knödel. Vanillekipferl and pariser stangen and pishinger biscuits.
As is often the way though, the simpler things are the most nostalgic. And for me, the dish which whisks me back to that Leicester kitchen is a simple semolina pudding called gries schmarn. As the butter melts into the cinnamon, and fills the kitchen with warm-spiced smells, perhaps it used to whisk my granny away too – back to the banks of the Elbe in the heart of pre-war Bohemia

Last Train from Prague

Photos: Passport & Plate - Gries Schmarn