Basket cases and pies
COFFIN, n. I’ve been baking a lot lately—honestly sort of an unhinged amount, but what else am I supposed to do with myself, write my novel? (Yes.) Naturally, my baking includes reading about baked goods, so when I came across a mention of etymology in an essay about baking, I knew it had to go in this newsletter. Here’s the passage, from Ruby Tandoh, writing about hot-water crust in The New Yorker:
Some of the earliest documented English pies, appearing in “The Forme of Cury,” a collection of medieval recipes, were called coffyns. These proto-pies were likely made with a simple flour-and-water pastry, perhaps with a small amount of fat, designed not to delight the senses but to protect and enclose the pie filling. The thick dough would act like a sturdy casserole dish or a couple layers of kitchen foil might today: inside it, the food was shielded from the fierce and fickle heat of the oven. It’s a technique that appears to stretch as least as far back as the Romans, though a case could be made that the English perfected this stodgy art. A robust container for something precious, the dish predates the contemporary, more sombre use of the word “coffin” by a few hundred years.
Pictured: a coffin?
It’s not only the pie crust that goes back as far as the Romans: they’re also the source of coffyn/coffin, which comes from Latin “cophinus,” meaning “basket,” originally from Greek κόϕινος, basket. Let’s not lie to each other: I just copy-and-pasted this Greek from the OED and can’t read it. The internet tells me it says kóphinos, so the Latin didn’t stray far.
Kóphinos is also the origin of “coffers,” as in cases or boxes where people keep money, which is quite similar to the varied usage of “coffin” hundreds of years ago in English: basket, chest, case, box—even a pie casing or a pie dish. (For more on coffin-as-pie, I recommend this short Atlas Obscura article.) There are many, many other technical uses of “coffin,” indicating a horse’s hoof or a chrysalis or the frame of an old printing press, some obsolete and some current, but they all have in common the notion of enclosure. It encases something.
“Coffin” came to its final resting place—meaning the box in which a person is buried—sometime in the 15th century, as the OED’s first written example dates from 1525. I hope to eat as many pies as possible before this usage becomes relevant to me.
I also hope to read as many books as possible. As the year draws to a close, I’ve been trying to reduce my gigantic To Be Read pile—figuratively speaking, since as I mostly read ebooks, there isn’t an actual pile—and have almost managed to read all the books I bought in 2021. I only have four left. Of course, I still have books left over from 2020, 2019, 2018, and before, but one thing at a time.
Here’s what I’ve read lately in small-r romance.
The Duke Who Didn’t (m/f, both cis and het, historical) by Courtney Milan. Completely charming, lighthearted historical about a no-nonsense, list-making young woman of Chinese descent in the fictional small town of Wedgeford, populated by immigrants and people of color, who is determined to take over the English sauce market as revenge upon the saucemakers who stole her father’s recipe, and who absolutely does not have time to fall in love with the silly, joke-making, ridiculously posh, handsome half-Chinese young man who may or may not own all of Wedgeford because, though he’s never mentioned it, he’s the duke. A joy to read. Content guidance: some discussion of racism, death of a parent in the past, sex.
The Larks Still Bravely Singing (gay m/bi m, both cis, historical) by Aster Glenn Gray. This book begins in a convalescent home for amputees during World War I and both main characters are disabled and traumatized by the war. It’s such an unusual historical moment and premise, but Aster Glenn Gray does such a beautiful job developing the characters. I always appreciate how often her characters connect through reading and discussing the same books, and this book is no exception. Her historical characters in particular feel very shaped by their era, with outlooks on happiness and sexuality that diverge from how most of us now think about those things. This is a very quiet, intimate, emotional book, and it was perfect to read with a cup of tea while it was pouring rain outside. Content guidance: death/violence/trauma due to WWI, some discussion of ableism and homophobia, mention of suicide, past infidelity, sex.
He’s Not My Boyfriend (m/f, both cis and het, contemporary) by Jackie Lau. I love a mischievous grandma character in a romance, and this book really delivers on that count. Iris’s Ngin Ngin learned English late in life, but that’s not going to stop her from reading kinky romances or asking Iris inappropriate questions about her love life. In fact, Iris’s whole Chinese-Canadian family wants to meddle in her love life. Her relationship with her grandmother works because you can also tell how much they love each other, and Ngin Ngin is immediately prepared to fuss over Iris’s not-boyfriend Alex when she brings him home for dinner; both Iris and Ngin Ngin sense that Alex, grieving his mother, is missing being teased and quizzed and fed by family members. This is a very sweet and sexy contemporary that also deals very thoughtfully and tenderly with grief. I also love that Jackie Lau writes women who unapologetically love sex and are not ashamed of their histories. This genre has a history of shaming female characters and praising male characters for this very same behavior, and I’m so glad to see authors deliberately writing against that. Content guidance: death of a parent due to cancer, grief, pregnancy/infertility/birth (supporting characters), sex.
All the Feels (m/f, both cis and het, contemporary) by Olivia Dade. This book is too good for me to convey how good it is in one small paragraph. Its predecessor Spoiler Alert was probably my favorite read of 2020, and this meets the same standard—funny, heartfelt, moving, so perfect in tension and pacing that I tossed aside all my responsibilities to finish reading it in a day. Like Spoiler Alert, this is a romance between a celebrity and a normal person that will delight anyone who’s ever been in fandom, and it stars a fat heroine and a hero who’s smitten with her. I loved the pairing of outgoing, charming, scattered Marcus with reserved, practical, extraordinarily competent Lauren. Content guidance: discussion of physical abuse, sex.
The Perks of Loving a Wallflower (cis f/nonbinary f, both lesbian, historical) by Erica Ridley. Look, sometimes you want a historical that really feels historical, and sometimes you want Leverage-inspired lesbian heist shenanigans, but with frock coats, and this is perfect for that. Orphan Tommy Wynchester and her ragtag group of misfits form a found family that does capers together, and she excels at disguising herself and becoming someone else, which is good because she can’t bring herself to speak to beautiful bluestocking Philippa without the aid of a disguise. Posing as a foreign baron, Tommy courts Philippa right under the noses of her overbearing parents. Together they bring down a man who has stolen the credit for a cipher invented by one of Philippa’s friends. Content guidance: sex.
