Terry Pratchett - Nanny Oggs Cookbook: A Useful and Improving Almanack of Information Including Astonishing Recipes from Terry Pratchetts Discworld

About the Book

They say that the way to a mans heart is through his stomach which just goes to show theyre as confused about anatomy as they genrally are about everything else, unless theyre talking about instructions on how to stab him, in which case a better way is up and under the ribcage. Anyway, we do not live in a perfect world and it is foresighted and useful for a young woman to become proficient in those arts which will keep a weak-willed man from straying. Learning to cook is also useful.

Nanny Ogg, one of Discworlds most famous witches, is passing on some of her huge collection of tasty and above all interesting recipes, since everyone else is doing it. But in addition to the delights of the Strawberry Wobbler and Nobbys Mums Distressed Pudding, Mrs Ogg imparts her thoughts on life, death, etiquette (If you go to other peoples funerals theyll be sure to come to yours), courtship, children and weddings, all in a refined style that should not offend the most delicate of sensibilities. Well, not much.

Most of the recipes have been tried out on people who are still alive.

Nanny Ogg Gratefully Ackowledges the Assistance in this Literary Argosy of: Mr Terry Pratchett, Mr Stephen Briggs, Mlle Tina Hannan and Master Paul Kidby.

CONTENTS

INCLUDING RECIPES, ITEMS of Antiquarian Lore, Improving Observations of Life, Good Advice for Young People on the Threshold of the Adventure That is Marriage, Notes on Etiquette & Many Other Helpful Observations that will Not Offend the Most Delicate Sensibilities.

PREFACE

by

THE AUTHOR

NOT A DAY goes past but Im glad I was born in Lancre. I know every inch of the place and every one of the people an I look out over its mountains, hills, woods and valleys and I think: That young couple have been in that spinney rather a long time, I shall have to have a word with her mam.

But a lot of the old ways I knew when I was a girl are passin now. Theres six oil lamps in the kingdom to my knowledge, and up at the castle they put in one of them privies that cleans emselves, so instead of having to dig out the pit every week my lad Shawn, who does all the jobs up there apart from kinging, now merely has to fill up the 200-gallon tank on top of the tower. That is Progress for you. Of course it all ends up in the river so what you gains in convenience you loses in compost.

All this means that these are changin times, and thats when people go around bewildered and full of uncertainty and they turn to me, because I am a grande dame, or big woman as we would say here, and ask me the questions that is puzzling them, viz., if you are givin a dinner party, what are the issues of etiquette involved in seatin the man who makes a living putting weasels down his trousers at fairs, and who is therefore quite respected in these parts, next to the daughter of a man who once mugged the second son of an earl? Which is the kind of knotty problem a society hostess has to face every day, and it takes Experience not only to get it right but also to make sure theres a really soft cushion on the weasel jugglers chair, since the poor man suffers for his Art.

They ask me things like: what is the right way to address a duke? An once again I have to point out that it is a matter of fine details, such as, if theres a gate needs holdin open and it looks like half a dollar might be forthcoming, its Gday, your graciousness, whereas if youve just set fire to his ancestral piles and the mob is breakin the windows it is more suitable to address him as you bloated lying blutocat! It is all a matter of finesse.

People are coming to me all the time to ask things like, what kind of wedding anniversary dyou call it after ten years, or, is it lucky to plant beans on a Thursday. Of course, it is natral for people to ask witches this sort of thing on account of us bein the suppositories of tradition, but the younger girls I see around dont seem very keen on picking this sort of thing up, them being far too keen on candles and lucky crystals and so on. I reckon if a crystals so lucky, how come its ended up as a bit of rock? I dont trust all this occult, you never know who had it last.

Anyway, theres a lot more writin around these days than there was when I was young and I thought, I will write down some of those little hints and tips which can smooth the lumpy bits on the pathway that is life. Ive gone heavy on the recipes, because so much in life revolves around food. In fact good manners started to happen as soon as all the mammoths were killed off and there was no piece of food big enough for everyone to eat at the same time. A good meal is good manners.

G. Ogg

A NOTE

from

THE EDITORS

GYTHA NANNY OGG , the author of these works, is a renowned practitioner of that combination of practical psychology, common sense and occult engineering known as witchcraft.

Her genius even extends to the written language, since it will be obvious to our readers that she has an approach to grammar and spelling that is all her very own. As far as punctuation goes she appears to have no approach at all, but seems merely to throw it at the page from a distance, like playing darts.

We have taken the liberty of smoothing out some of the more rumpled sentences while leaving, we hope, some flavour of the original. And, on that subject, we need to make a point about the weights and measures used in the cookery recipes. We have, reluctantly, translated them into metric terms because Nanny Ogg used throughout the very specialized unit of measure known as the some (as in Take some flour and some sugar).

This required some, hah, experiment, because the some is a unit of some, you see, complexity. Some flour is almost certainly more than some salt, but there appears to be no such thing as half of some, although there was the occasional mention of a bit as in a bit of pepper.

Instinctively, one feels that a bit of flour is more than some pepper but probably less than a bit of butter, and that a wodge of bread is probably about a handful, but we have found no reliable way of measuring a gnats.