Ely Sugarbeet Cake

From monstrosity to deliciousness.

Something grisly is buried in the fenland fields, gnarled and ugly as a monstrous bulldog / wasp hybrid chewing its way through a crate of lemons. Bearing a striking resemblance to the deadly screaming mandrake in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, this little monster is just as revolting to behold and looks like it might be every bit as fatal. Harvested between now and Christmas (when the sugar content is at its highest), the Cambridge Spy first stumbled across a field of these bad boys in a field on the marshes outside Ely a few years ago, when curiosity got the better of him and he pulled a couple up. What a horrible sight greeted his eyes:

 O grisly beasts! O scabby monstrous veg dug from a boggy fen! You too will have your place in the cake world!

Lover of nature and incorrigible glutton that he is, the Spy instantly sent a picture of this fearsome fiend to a botanist chum of his to ascertain a) what is was and b) whether it was edible. Various suggestions were bandied about (manglewort, crab fusticator, cribbly snort), before it was identified as that fenland staple sugarbeet. The Spy reasoned that if it had the words 'sugar' and 'beet' in it, it was damn well edible, and not just in a 'boil it up to make sugar' way. So, to counteract its bulbous, tentacled appearance, the Spy turned it into the kitschest, most 1950s-retro cake in the history of mankind. Raspberries from the Pick-Your-Own Farm in Butt Lane (teehee) just outside Ely. Cath Kidston eat your twee, chinzty heart out. 

The monster still lurks within...

Sugarbeet Cake:

(recipe in cups as it was adapted from www.cooks.com, but convert as appropriate)

3 cups grated sugarbeet (substitute for beetroot if you cant find sugarbeet / are not a pilfering thief)

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/5 tsps bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup chopped nuts (optional, the Spy doesn't like them so opted out)

to decorate: 

icing sugar

glacé cherries, raspberries, hundreds and thousands etc

Grease a 9 x 13 inch loaf tin (or similar)

Pre-heat oven to 180 C / 350 F 

Beat sugar, eggs and oil together

Sieve in dry ingredients

Add vanilla 

Stir in grated sugarbeet

Pour into tin, bake for 35-45 minutes

Cool for 5 minutes, remove from tin

When cool, ice and decorate as you wish (as long as it's kitschy)

When you have greedily polished off the raspberries, you could also try glacé cherries on top. Equally kitsch.

Bergen

Bergen from the top of Fløibanen Funicular, at the summit of Fløyen mountain.

Sometimes life gets tough as a gristly wartime sausage. As hairy as a bearded lady from a Victorian sideshow. As desperate as a band of despairing desperadoes desperately making one last desperate stand from behind a scrutty desert cactus. As perilous as a periwinkle sipping Perrier... ok, enough! When the cards are on the table, the writing is on the wall and the clock-hand is pointing to squeaky-bums-time, it can only mean one thing. The Spy is holed up in another hotel room (enemies doubtless patrolling in the street below) on another windswept Scandinavian mountainside, with his stomach growling and grumbling like a caged beast. His workload is now so mighty that he forgot to pick up food before everywhere closed, and now he is faced with a terrible, life-or-death decision. Does he eat the other half of the jar of pickled gherkins he has sitting on his desk, thereby risking corroding his stomach with its acidic contents? The room is already awash with the stench of vinegar; the desperate Spy was forced to break into the jar by piercing the lid with a fork, as it was too tight to open (O noble, piteous Spy, made weak as a lamb through lack of sustenance!). The only other hope of nourishment was a fruit salad that had lain forgotten for several days, but when the Spy discovered it and eagerly tucked in, he found that something horribly ... fermenty ... had occurred... And so with that lesson in mind, when the chips are down and you find yourself down on your luck and eyeballing a jar of elderly gherkins, you've gotta ask yourself, do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

A Spy's gotta do what a Spy's gotta do...

Enough of this melodrama. Breakfast is a mere night away, and the Spy is in Bergen, which he loves with a passion as strong and hearty as the hardy mountain folk that this fine city breeds. He has trod these streets many times, frequently gumbooted, for last time he was here it rained Every Single Day for a month straight. (Being nestled between seven mountains on a fjord coastline that backs directly onto the North Sea will do that for you.) Yet as a happy result, the Spy now knows every lovely cafe and bakery in the area like the back of his soggy, wrinkling hand, for he took to diving into the nearest one whenever the heavens reopened and he became too sodden to go on. The Spy has precisely ten minutes before his work jumps on him again. Just enough time to post some pictures, but if you ever find yourself in Bergen and need recommendations, contact the Spy. Hell, he'll even fly out to give you a guided tour if you settle the small matter of his airfare...

           Bryggen, taken from the fish market.

Best for traditional Norwegian (soups representing):

 

Best for Bergen's legendary fish soup and delicious homemade bread, mighty Pingvinen (The Penguin). On Thursdays, try their local speciality of pinnekjøtt and raspbeballer (the Spy beheld the dumplings and quaked). Try also Cafe Opera, same kind of atmosphere, fish soup nearly as good...

Best for the ancient dried salt cod dish of bacalao, Byggeloftet & Stuene is down on Bergen's picturesque wooden sea front and always worth a visit. 

Best (and cheapest) for Italian / Noodles:

 Zupperia (although this mighty fish dish was absent from the menu last time the Spy went to guzzle: curses!)

Pasta Sentral: and two half portions of pasta for a tenner! Unheard of in Norway - the Spy nearly swooned! And yes those are prawns on that pizza. This is Norway.

The Spy's time is up, and he must flee. Be warned, go nowhere near the fish and chips in the fish market: the Spy was nearly poisoned, and wept many tears for the far-off Petrou Brothers of Ely and Chatteris:

Despite those fish tails curled up like the toes of the Wicked Witch of the East, post-farmhouse, the Spy is so hungry right now he would happily guzzle them...

The Spy's time has definitely elapsed. He hasn't even started on the best hot chocolate, the best waffles, the best cinnamon buns, the pros and cons of the fish market (where you can sample raw whale meat if you've a mind to)... However, if he doesn't get back to work right now, something grisly will happen. Don't ask him what, but it will be bad; he might even be forced to drink all that pickle juice and turns into a dessicated Egyptian mummy. One final picture, lest you are left with that horrible image in your head: Bergen at 4am on a beautiful clear morning, just to prove it doesn't rain all the time.

Loverly.