22 September, 2008

Ye Olde Willy Street Faire













A brief note on funnel cakes. You may hear that the Pennsylvania Dutch invented these but that's BS. Funnel cakes have been around at least since the late Middle Ages. Back in the day they were called "cryppys" or "cryspes". And they weren't just for riff raff like me. King Richard II's master chefs were making cryspes for the court back in the late 14th century and one of their recipes survived in The Forme of Cury:

CRYSPES. XX.VIII. II. Take flour of pandemayn and medle it with white grece ouer the fyrer in a chawfour and do the batour þerto queyntlich þurgh þy fyngours. or thurgh a skymour. and lat it a litul quayle a litell so þe þer be hool þerinne. And if þer wilt colour it wiþ alkenet yfoundyt. take hem up & cast þerinne sugur, and serue hem forth.

Medieval Times would do well to add funnel cakes to their menu for a little authenticity.







Things just ain't like they used to be on Willy Street. While there were all kinds of Obama supporters…





…I saw only one guy with a Green Party placard on Saturday and none on Sunday. On the big day of the fair, there were no barkers championing Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader. None while I was there, anyway. So much for radicalism in this town.

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