SPAWL

Hubby and I made our first-family-spawl this Christmas and it was quite the event. The original recipe involves 18 pounds of meat, preferably as many different kinds as you can possibly find. Roadkill is of course frowned upon in present times, although from stories I've heard, it may not have always been. Lots of onions and potatoes and dough and a mixture of secret spices that can only be divulged under one condition - those of interest must participate in the making of spawl by cutting up the number of onions required without breaks (which is a terrible task bordering on impossible). It was hubby's job this year. Some would say all of his crying was due to the onions, but I would argue he cried tears of joy for making his first spawl.

After all the cutting, layers of dough and meat and spice are added to a large pot (our spawl was half the size of an ordinary family spawl).



It's kind of like a large fruit parfait, except you substitute the fruit for an array of meat, the granola for raw dough, and the yogurt for potatoes and mystery spices.


The morning after: Spawl bakes in itself for 12 hours. It goes in the oven at night, and must be checked to make sure it's doing okay at least once at 3am. When you wake up, groggy from all the spawl preparations the night before, you smell cinnamon and other things that can only be described as Spawl. If you are hubby, you leap out of bed for your first taste of the masterpiece. In order to partake, you have to punch a hole in the thick crust (the top and bottom crusts are not to be eaten), and spoon out a hefty helping for breakfast.



The finished product. Do not let the gray hue of the masterpiece discourage you from digging in. At this point, the pot of spawl may be taken out of the oven. Do not worry about reheating, spawl is an exothermic reaction and remains at temperature for 24 hours at least, if not the entire month.



I do not eat spawl. But, I do like the smell of it. I have to say it smells a bit like Christmas, cinammony and nutmegy. In fact the smell is so potent, if you go visiting after making spawl, some will say 'Hm. You smell like spawl. Have you made spawl recently?' And then you can feel good about yourself because you smell like Christmas.