Posts Tagged ‘rose-in-bloom’

August 8th, 2010

Mr Rose-in-Bloom and Lady Mondegreen

I have had a couple of e-mails from relations of ‘Mr Rosenblums’ and they’ve been wondering how Jack got his name. I’ve blogged before about how Jack came to be called Jack (he was ‘Sam’ for a while — so wrong) but not about the origin of Rosenblum. It is not a family name — I have no relations called Rosenblum.

My grandfather was Paul Schwartzscheld (a German name meaning Blackshield) but when he arrived in England with his brother, they split the name in two, my grandfather becoming Mr Shields and his brother Mr Black. I always found this very sad, and I knew that this name-splitting was a scene I wanted in the novel. So, I needed Jack to have a German name that could be split in two, not simply anglicised. The breaking of names and tradition is a central theme in the book. However, so is landscape and Jack-in-the-Green and I also wanted a name that evoked that sense of nature and wildness.

Rosenblum is perfect as it is a Mondegreen*: the locals call Jack ‘Mr Rose-in-Bloom’ – a lovely version of his name with wonderful connotations of Jack and Sadie blooming in Dorset, wild roses etc.

*A ‘Mondegreen’ is a mishearing of a phrase due to near homophoney. The American writer Sylvie Wright coined the phrase, explaining that as a child she misheard the final line of a ballad: ‘They have slain the Earl O’ Moray, and Lady Mondegreen,’ instead of the correct line  ‘They have slain the Earl O’ Moray, And laid him on the green.’

A quick note… the lovely people over at Bookhugger are running a brilliant competition where you can win a week’s holiday in Mr Rosenblum’s Cottage (the real cottage that my grandparents bought after the war, which inspired me to create Chantry Orchard). Check it out and you might win!

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June 18th, 2010

Rose-in-Bloom in London

Mr S and I are in London at the moment and happily writing the screenplay to Mr R. Instead of pacing across the Dorset fields we’re strolling through Regent’s Park when we need to tease out a tricky bit.

I’ve been busy with a few more stops on the book group tour and one of the questions that I’m asked for most often is ‘may I have the recipe for Baumtorte’. Here it is:

Baumtorte:

Whip together a batter made of eggs, the right amount of sugar, sufficient flour, the zest of enough lemons and the perfect quantity of vanilla. Oil a tin and heat up the grill until it is the correct heat, spread a thin layer over the bottom of the pan and grill until it is done. Ladle on layer after layer and grill until the side of the cake looks like the rings of a tree. Bake a layer for everyone you need to remember. Decorate with sugared lemon and orange peel, or in spring, frosted violets.

Sadie’s recipe is taken from a book of my grandmother’s – her quantities and cooking method being every bit as mysterious as Sadie’s. My mother (an excellent baker) and I (a terrible one) have through a process of trial and error and burned cakes, worked out the approximate measurements.  For each baumtorte use half a pound of butter, six eggs, one lemon and half a pound of vanilla sugar, and last of all mix in around half a pound of flour. My grandmother insisted that three cakes should be made at once: one cooking, one spreading and one pondering.

And lastly, I was at an event in Cambridge for Women’s Word with the lovely Sophie Hannah and Toby Litt discussing men writing female characters and women imagining men. Can’t wait to read their books now…

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