Another of Beatrix Potter's stories is the story of Mr Tod. This tale is about a fox named Mr Tod and a badger named Tommy Brook, Tommy Brook steals Benjamin bunnies children and then breaks into Mr Tod's house intending to eat the children later in the day. Complications arise and the story unfolds from there. It is A very dark tale if looked at in a certain light. From a previous post I wanted to carry on the trend of animals being food and how Beatrix Potter uses this to her advantage. The Tale of Mr Tod is one of the darkest stories that ever came from Beatrix Potter and in some cases parents wanted it removed from editions of the text. This is to do with the dark undertone of the narrative. Nearly all of the images are dark and bold showing both the badger and the fox. What is again unusual about this text is how civilised Potter has made the characters. From reassuring her readers 'Now Tommy Brock did occasionally eat rabbit pie; but it was only very little young ones occasionally when other food was really scarce' (Potter 208) this language is used to make the reader sympathise with Tommy Brook. But children will be looking at the characters as people and not animals. By saying this about Tommy Brook it makes him seem more of a gentleman.
(2) Potter 227 quote
Further, into the text there is civilised human actions an example is the description of how the dinner table in Mr Tod's home is set out (figure 2) This meal is for Tommy Brook and the thing that is most disturbing about it is the knowledge that the baby rabbits are inside the oven waiting to be cooked. The scene is set out to be very human and civilised but behind the facade, there is a darkness. This is something Beatrix Potter does very well. Behind the innocence there is darkness, it makes the reader more aware of predator vs prey.
(3) Roald Dahl's The Magic Finger
The Predator vs prey theme is a moral issue within these texts, this tale is more aware of it than many others. But Beatrix Potter isn't the only children's writer to put this as a theme within their texts. Within Roald Dahl's The Magic Finger, the whole text is focused on the rules of being a predator vs being prey. The magic is that the humans have duck features and have to act like ducks when they have killed and hunted ducks previously in the story. This is also swapped when the ducks start to have human characteristics and start hunting the people. The reader gets pulled into a world in which they realise that it is not okay to assume you are the predator. This is what Beatrix Potter plays on within her texts, by making her characters more human there is an instant reaction and care for their well-being.
(4) Potter 237 quote
The Tale of Mr Tod is also interesting because the worry and care for innocence is represented in another way throughout the passage on the left there is the same sense of being civil and human rather than having an animistic side. It shows the direct comparison between something nice and human (the plate) and then the hunting for food like an animal. The Plate in this description adds context and feeling to the character of Mr Tod right before he essentially kills and eats eggs (babies). As readers we don't have the same reaction to this as we would do if they were living creatures, the baby rabbits are a different matter as they are living and breathing. But again the illustrations throughout the book are depicted as very dark scenes. The image of Mr Tod is interesting because even though he is a predator, he is worried about Tommy Brook's teeth. This shows that even a predator is fearful and can become food if the situation arises.
Images and Works Cited
Potter, Beatrix. The Beatrix Potter Collection. Vol. Two. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2014. Print.
One of the Stories that Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated is The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or, the Roly-Poly Pudding (1908) This story Is about a naughty kitten called Tom kitten who gets in trouble with the rats into his house and gets made into a roly-poly pudding This intrigued me because of the ingredients that were used within the text:
(1) Beatrix Potter Illustration
(2) Potter 73 quote
(figure 2)This use of ingredients made me want to research the proper way to make a roly-poly pudding. Throughout my research, I came across a recipe by Eliza Acton in her cookbook Modern Cookery for Private Families. It details a recipe for a suet pudding 'half a pound of fine stale bread-crumbs, three-quarters of a pound of flour, from ten to twelve ounces of beef-suet chopped extremely small, a large half-teaspoon of salt, and rather less of pepper, with two eggs and a little milk.' (Acton 408)
(3) Eliza Acton recipe
This is the first version I could find of a roly-poly pudding, within this recipe Acton also has a variation only for fruit. It also follows the same principle of making the mixture, rolling it up and boiling it in water to cook the pudding as modern day recipes follow. The relation to Beatrix Potter and the quote I just used from her work, is, in my opinion, a nod towards the different recipes that you can use. Acton says that you can use 'a paste as for a beef-steak pudding, either with suet or butter'(408) by getting Samuel Whiskers to argue about this within Potters text it shows her knowledge of a roly-poly pudding recipe and how to make it. The characters go with butter and dough in the end which in relation to the text is the most simple. Potter using this also shows the inclusion real food and ingredients into her work
(4) Mrs Beeton Recipe
Mrs Beeton's book of household management also has a very similar version to Eliza Acton of a roly-poly pudding. This is because she used the recipe from Acton's book in her own. This time it is a variation called a rolled treacle pudding which is made with suet or lard. But it still holds the idea of a rolled boiled pudding. Beeton's version is portrayed as a favourite with the children and also can be used for a plain family dinner.
With this in mind, I want to try and create a version of my own roly-poly pudding which will follow the same principle of suet, flour, salt, sugar etc.
Works Cited
Acton, Eliza. Modern Cookery for Private Families. London: Elek, 1860. Google Archives. Harvard University. Web. 22 Feb. 2017. <https://archive.org/details/moderncookeryfo00actogoog>.
