Snapdragon

On Saturday, I went to a not-quite-New-Year's party at the home of eredien and raxvulpine, and we played snapdragon.

Snapdragon is a Victorian childrens' party game, which some of you may remember from Through the Looking Glass (a snap-dragonfly). You take raisins, and pour brandy over them, and set it on fire; and then you take turns reaching into the dish, plucking out raisins and eating them, moving quickly enough not to singe your hands. The goal is to eat the raisin while it's still on fire, so that it goes out in your mouth.

The Victorians had different ideas about children's entertainment than we do.

Anyway, eredien had been wanting to try this for a while, and now has nice high ceilings and about an acre of dining table and a handy fire extinguisher. Also, alcohol burns almost smokelessly and tends to keep going out anyway; really perfectly safe, as long as nobody sets their hair on fire, which nobody did.

We found we had to turn out the lights to really see the flame, as that gorgeous light flickery blue is barely visible under indoor lighting. There were both raisins and golden raisins in the dish; Eredien's source for how this should be done said that an advanced version can be done using currants, but that raisins were best for beginners.

There was a sort of wall of shed heat about three inches above the dish, and I kept getting my hand to that and then sticking, even though I could tell that it stopped being that hot further down. It is actually very hard to overcome the thing in your head that tells you not to stick your hand into a fire, you fool, what are you thinking, even with your brain knowing perfectly well that it's like passing your finger through a candle flame, just keep moving and it will be fine...

Eventually another guest, someone who has done fire-eating and hence does not have this reluctance so strongly, managed to start eating raisins, and this was reassuring enough that I was able to start. It was actually rather strategic after that: does one want the ones on the edge? The ones in the very middle? The ones that have just started going? You don't want to eat the ones that have been burning long enough to actually accumulate some char, because they taste it, but you want enough of the alcohol to have burned off to be able to actually taste the raisin.

It turns out the best-tasting ones really are plucked out of the very middle of the flames. These have a caramelized crust over a chewy warm raisin, with a dash of the aroma of brandy. Also, they taste better if you eat them when they're still on fire-- the lack of oxygen in a closed mouth puts them out instantly, so they aren't on fire very long, but you can tell.

The best way I have to describe what it tastes like eating something that's on fire is a rather tortuous analogy, I'm afraid. Imagine taking a hairdryer, and aiming it directly at your mouth. Then imagine biting off a bit of the beam of hot air, the flicker of heat, the force, the sense of movement. Now imagine there wasn't any rest of the hairdryer beam; only the part you bit off. That's about right. It goes very well with caramelized raisin.

The fire itself doesn't register as anything, to the fingers, not even heat. I found it both beautiful and unnerving to watch my fingertips in the middle of all that gorgeous blue, unable to feel what I could plainly see was danger. (Of course, if you wait long enough to feel it, you're getting burned.)

Ruth held my hair back for me while I plucked, and I held hers back for her. Everyone talked for a while about how different the Victorians were, and nineweaving pointed out that this would have been a laborious game, too: imagine whoever it was in the kitchen who had to sit there and stone the raisins! Seedless raisins are one of those things it had never occurred to me to take for granted.

Beautiful, tasty, fun, a little scary: would definitely play again. Good party game. But do have a fire extinguisher.

Snapdragon

On Saturday, I went to a not-quite-New-Year's party at the home of eredien and raxvulpine, and we played snapdragon.

Snapdragon is a Victorian childrens' party game, which some of you may remember from Through the Looking Glass (a snap-dragonfly). You take raisins, and pour brandy over them, and set it on fire; and then you take turns reaching into the dish, plucking out raisins and eating them, moving quickly enough not to singe your hands. The goal is to eat the raisin while it's still on fire, so that it goes out in your mouth.

The Victorians had different ideas about children's entertainment than we do.

Anyway, eredien had been wanting to try this for a while, and now has nice high ceilings and about an acre of dining table and a handy fire extinguisher. Also, alcohol burns almost smokelessly and tends to keep going out anyway; really perfectly safe, as long as nobody sets their hair on fire, which nobody did.

We found we had to turn out the lights to really see the flame, as that gorgeous light flickery blue is barely visible under indoor lighting. There were both raisins and golden raisins in the dish; Eredien's source for how this should be done said that an advanced version can be done using currants, but that raisins were best for beginners.

There was a sort of wall of shed heat about three inches above the dish, and I kept getting my hand to that and then sticking, even though I could tell that it stopped being that hot further down. It is actually very hard to overcome the thing in your head that tells you not to stick your hand into a fire, you fool, what are you thinking, even with your brain knowing perfectly well that it's like passing your finger through a candle flame, just keep moving and it will be fine...

Eventually another guest, someone who has done fire-eating and hence does not have this reluctance so strongly, managed to start eating raisins, and this was reassuring enough that I was able to start. It was actually rather strategic after that: does one want the ones on the edge? The ones in the very middle? The ones that have just started going? You don't want to eat the ones that have been burning long enough to actually accumulate some char, because they taste it, but you want enough of the alcohol to have burned off to be able to actually taste the raisin.

It turns out the best-tasting ones really are plucked out of the very middle of the flames. These have a caramelized crust over a chewy warm raisin, with a dash of the aroma of brandy. Also, they taste better if you eat them when they're still on fire-- the lack of oxygen in a closed mouth puts them out instantly, so they aren't on fire very long, but you can tell.

The best way I have to describe what it tastes like eating something that's on fire is a rather tortuous analogy, I'm afraid. Imagine taking a hairdryer, and aiming it directly at your mouth. Then imagine biting off a bit of the beam of hot air, the flicker of heat, the force, the sense of movement. Now imagine there wasn't any rest of the hairdryer beam; only the part you bit off. That's about right. It goes very well with caramelized raisin.

The fire itself doesn't register as anything, to the fingers, not even heat. I found it both beautiful and unnerving to watch my fingertips in the middle of all that gorgeous blue, unable to feel what I could plainly see was danger. (Of course, if you wait long enough to feel it, you're getting burned.)

Ruth held my hair back for me while I plucked, and I held hers back for her. Everyone talked for a while about how different the Victorians were, and nineweaving pointed out that this would have been a laborious game, too: imagine whoever it was in the kitchen who had to sit there and stone the raisins! Seedless raisins are one of those things it had never occurred to me to take for granted.

Beautiful, tasty, fun, a little scary: would definitely play again. Good party game. But do have a fire extinguisher.