A Good Purchase

Generally speaking, shopping at antique and thrift stores is an exercise in uncertainty. One never knows what stock will be available, and if one leaves something behind, it's not likely one will find it again. I became reacquainted with this universal truth just recently, when I didn't buy a cookbook at a local thrift store.

It wasn't there when I went back. Dammit.

So when I stumbled across this:

I knew I would regret not buying it. Oh, I tried not buying it. I put it back on the shelf. Then picked it up again. Then put it back on the shelf. Then picked it up again. Then put it back on the shelf. Then picked it up again. Then...well, you see where this is going. But eventually, I bought the cookbook and brought it home.

And then Roommate put it tidily away and it took me two weeks to find it.

Anyway. Find it I did and, while skimming through the recipes, I stumbled across a tiny, shining gem of a recipe. It's called "Oat and Sesame Biscuits."

NB: The author, Margaret Briggs, taught school in the UK and Germany for thirty years before publishing this and other books like "Vinegar: 1001 Practical Uses. [I know.] We can safely assume, therefore, that Maggie, bless her heart, means the cookie version of the term biscuits rather than the "and gravy" type.

And! Evidently, Mag-a-rooney, as I just felt like calling her, just had to publish this treatise on all the oat's majesty and wonder. Not only could she not keep the wealth of knowledge of the history of porridge and proper spurtle etiquette to herself, she obviously had way too much time on her hands despite buying and restoring a "dilapidated house in SW France" with her husband, Lol. No, that's his name. Lol. Seriously.

You can't make this crap up.

Anyway. Back to the biscuits.

This recipe has a remarkably brief ingredient list:

Oats,
sesame seeds,
brown sugar and
cooking oil.

The method is as follows:

1. Roast the sesame seeds in a dry pan until golden.
2. Put oats, sesame seeds, brown sugar and cooking oil in a bowl and leave for one hour.
3. Add the beaten egg--


Wait a minute. What beaten egg? Upon closer examination of the four item ingredient list, I see no eggs, beaten or otherwise. Is it one egg that's needed? Is it two eggs? Is it one egg, beaten, but only half used? It is a brown egg? A green egg? An Easter egg?

I really want to call the author of this cookbook and say, "Mags! Babe! What the hell, man???" Sadly, I do not have her phone number. Possibly this is for the best. I'd hate to interrupt critical vinegar use. In a formerly dilapidated French house. With Lol.

You can't make this crap up.