When I had figured out that I wanted to do a bit of a series on food from books, I decided to canvas opinion from my nearest and dearest about what literary food memories they have. It turns out that, perhaps unsurprisingly, most people's reference points were from childrens' fiction. This makes sense - most people's own good memories are often linked to childhood foods, first-tastes, food phobias, and palette-forming school dinners.
Anyway, one of the first suggestions was frobscottle from Roald Dahl's BFG. It is described as follows:
"'Here is frobscottle!' he cried, holding the bottle up proud and high, as though it contained some rare wine. 'Delumptious fizzy frobscottle!' he shouted. He gave it a shake and the green stuff began to fizz like mad.
Oh gosh, how delicious it was! It was sweet and refreshing. It tasted of vanilla and cream with just the faintest trace of raspberries on the edge of the flavour. And the bubbles were wonderful. Sophie could actually feel them bouncing and bursting all around her tummy. It was an amazing sensation.”
Fortunately, Roald Dahl having thought ahead here, there is also a recipe for frobscottle.
As the video below shows, we followed it pretty much to the letter. And the results? Surprisingly delicious. Fizz with a tang from both the yoghurt and the kiwi. Fruity without being overly sweet; cross between a smoothie and a cream soda. It is not quite like any other drink - the closest I've tasted being Calpis, a very Japanese and similarly unusual concoction. And the resultant whizpoppers? I'll keep you guessing.
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