For Neirin & Ianthe, who I’m sure will like this, &, in a couple of years, try making it as well as eating it
OK then, my little ones, this
like you is very much a work in progress
improving as we go along like you
& like you cheering, even ludicrous
full of potentiality to transform
now, except to you, things are never new
& this recipe gains from its mirroring
throwing back an individual & thus disordered mess
against the commonplace of branded uniformity
except they aren’t, but vary quite pleasingly
like little children again, each a separate self
so we’ll make these as small pots
to eat where & how we wish
sweet transient drops I offer
For it we’ll need
(it’s almost believable)
here to make 2 portions
30 g tapioca – not big balls for bubble tea
but littler that’ll grow like seeds
30 g sugar
160 ml coconut milk – well mixed!
40 ml single cream (but rich!)
+ either a can of mango purée
or 1 fresh, soft, ripe mango
depending on what you can find
things needed simply thus
place all but the mango in a little pan
& put on a low heat
stir it & check it
everything frequent
when it sets to boiling
lowest heat that’ll simmer
still stirring occasionally please
& in about 25 minutes or more
you’ll find this translated
not commonplace but creamy
when the tapioca pearls
have gained their translucence
soft, oh yes, as frogspawn
– meanwhile if you’ve got fresh mango
perfectly ripe1 & delicious
cut off & peel one side
then process into mush
put this inside 2 little pots
ramekins or jars
so it’s a low level
oh a fifth
then once the tapioca is ready
let it cool a little
but not to set
then spoon on top
& eat at your leisure
just at room temperature2
[I have got this recipe by reconstructing a gorgeous pudding Ginie & I regularly buy at Waitrose, that combines the mango/tapioca/coconut we variously got in some Malaysian dishes at the C & R in Rupert Court3, but gaining a hit of pure West Country cream. The home made version is a little rougher, but fresher. The tapioca cream could be spiced – cook in a cardamom pod or two, sprinkle cinnamon – but, really, it’s just a good specific taste as it is.4 Try it, dear little children! Not just for its own sake, but as a post‑colonial relic, linking these grandparents’ childhoods, one of tropical tastes & Singapore streetfood (and beyond, the exoticism of cassava cultivation – beware the cyanide!), with the other’s stodgy but comforting English nursery food of the days of Empire, what all good children named frogspawn.]
1 is all, too & absolutely
2 Yes, it is a Laodicean dish! Embrace this! Never stark antinomies, fit only for Manichees, but all the infinite gradations of actuality.
3 We look forward to taking you now it’s reopened, as we took your mother & Uncle Nick.
4 Other variation is to use sago pearls – though our local East Asian store, Oriental Spice (now reborn as Oriental Phoenix), next to the launderette at Hockerill, doesn’t stock them, nor any of the local supermarkets shelve dry sago or tapioca.