Transcript
The pot’s on. It’s always on — been simmering since first light and it’ll keep going till after dark. Pottage, mostly. Beans and leeks today, thickened with a bit of oat. There’s stock from the mutton we had two days back, so it’s got some body to it. Anyone working can come through and take a bowl when they need it — workers, lads from the mill, the men out with the sheep. Just dip and go. The brothers eat separate, of course. They have their meal in silence, scripture being read while they eat. Brother Jean sorts that. I serve them first — better bread, more of the meat if there is any — then the rest of us eat after, and we talk while we’re at it.
It’s a fast day tomorrow, so no meat. Fish instead, if the lad’s brought any up from the river. Salted, most likely — the fresh doesn’t keep. Lent’s the hard stretch. Six weeks of no meat, no eggs, no cheese, and it’s the time of year when the stores are running low and nothing’s growing yet. You make do. Turnips. Dried peas. A lot of bread.
This wasn’t my first work. I worked the fields same as most when I was younger, but I had a knack for the fire and the pot, and the old cook here needed a hand. Stayed on. It suits me well enough. The kitchen’s always warm and there’s always something needs doing — bread to bake, ale to check on in the brewhouse, the garden lad bringing in whatever’s ready. Brother Jean keeps me straight on the saints’ days and what’s coming up — I lose track otherwise. Easter, Christmas, all of that.
There’s a cat lives here. Keeps the mice down. Fat thing now, but she earns her keep.
‘Morel’, I call this pot. No reason I know. Just seemed right.
Language
- Pottage: soup type dish liquid and grain based
Jon Eland 