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| Herman baby |
We set Herman up on the kitchen bench in a bowl covered with
a tea towel and proceeded to stir him with a wooden spoon each time we passed,
talking to him as instructed, until the
fourth day when we had to feed him with milk, sugar and flour, then continue the
tlc for another four days. On the 9th day we were to divide him into
five little Hermans , four to give away and the last to cook into a cake.
Herman is as demanding as a pet but makes an absolutely
delicious cake. I took one into the
Enquiry Unit last week for everyone to share.
People asked why it was called a friendship cake. As I started to explain, the whole office
became involved and it reminded me of Arlo Guthrie doing his 1967 monologue of Alice’s Restaurant.
It starts
“This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the restaurant,
but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name
of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's Restaurant” then
meanders in the most wonderful fashion for a further 18 minutes.
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| Alice's restaurant album cover |
As I explained how Herman was alive and needed lots of
nurturing a debate arose about what was alive and what wasn’t. Jo** started it by stating that Herman could
not possibly be alive. The conversation
went something like this:
Jo: I mean he is not wandering
around my house having a shower and helping himself to the contents of my
fridge is he?
Me: No but Jo – really … Is that tree outside
alive?
Jo: Yes but that is different.
Me: No it’s not. It’s alive and it is not
wandering around your house is it?
Jo: Look you’re being silly.
Me: …and an elephant is alive and it is not
wandering around your house taking a shower and helping itself to the contents
of your fridge. Ants are alive and they
are not either.
Jo: …but at least they have legs.
Me: …but a snake is alive and it
doesn’t have legs and neither does a worm or a tree.
By this time I had enlisted my fellow pedant Cherie as
staunch supporter while Steve, the sane and sensible one in the office who
deals with the schools of science informed us of the link he had emailed
us. We opened it to an email entitled ”ALIVE!” with the following
link:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=watch-yeast-live-breathe
This explains how yeast is alive and gives full instructions
for setting up an experiment to show how
it breathes. Jo then went rather quiet
but Cherie and I were not going to let him get away with it that easily.
Cherie and me: There you go! See! See!
Jo: How do you expect me to believe that – it’s
American!
Now that was below the belt- I felt I had to defend my
heritage but by this time Jo suddenly became very busy immersing himself in his
work. Then Anne, also very sane and
sensible, announced that she had found a whole Herman website. That was truly exciting especially with its
world map showing all the people who had logged onto it and lots of new recipes
for me to try. If you aren’t lucky
enough to be presented with a baby Herman, you can learn how to birth your own
little one on this site:
These are the instructions that came with my Herman:
…and while you are happily tending your little Herman you
can listen to some more Arlo Guthrie. I
love his motorcycle song and happily sang it to my kids as they rode pillion on
the back of my motorcycle trying not to fall asleep.
“I don’t want a pickle
I just want to ride on my motor cycle
I don’t want to die
I just want to ride on my motorcy ……cle.”
*If you do not know this great monologue from 1967 catch it here – it’s a classic! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m57gzA2JCcM&feature=fvwrel
** I have changed all names to prevent any undue embarrassment that may arise from the publication of this blog
Sources:
Herman baby: http://victoriapitkin.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/german-friendship-cake-baking-from.html
Alice’s Restaurant album cover: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alice's_Restaurant.jpg
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