Kids Enjoy A Fairy Feast At Hampton Library

It’s not every day that the children’s department of the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton smells like a bakery. But it’s also not every day that story time there revolves around cooking a delicious dessert.

It was warm and cozy inside the library, even though it was misty and drizzling last Wednesday afternoon, as seven young girls sat around two small tables in the library to hear “The Magic Pear Tree” from the book “Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook for Young Readers and Eaters.” In the book each fairy tale, written by Jane Yolen, ends with a recipe written by Heidi E.Y. Stemple. The snack at the end of the story for the day on April 20 in Bridgehampton was the Magic Pear Grumble.

“It’s a dessert that’s sort of like a dough with pears in it and it has a way of cooking in the end that relates to something in the story,” said Emily Herrick, the head librarian of the children’s department. “I never really paid much attention to this book, but one day I pulled it out and said, ‘Hey, this is cool!’”

Her audience thought so, too, as the captivated children stared up at Ms. Herrick and her fellow librarian, Kim Zettwoch, while they took turns reading the tale. The recipe sprouts from the plot of the story, which goes as follows: A priest asked for a piece of fruit from a farmer, who refused because he didn’t like beggars. There’s a commotion, and a crowd forms with guards. One of the guards buys a pear and gives it to the priest, who then plants one of its seeds. It grows into a full pear tree and he hands out the fruit to the crowd, giving two to a young boy who ran to get him boiling water to make the tree grow. The priest chops down the tree and walks away with it. When the farmer looks back at his cart, he finds it is completely empty.

“So because he was greedy and wouldn’t give the priest a pear, he ended up with nothing,” explained Ms. Zettwoch, shutting the book. The girls nodded to themselves, peeking over at the librarians as they pulled out ingredients for their fairy tale feast.

Ms. Herrick passed around a container filled with flour—half white, half wheat—sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and ground cloves for the children to smell.

“It all kind of mixes together once it’s made,” she explained. “Do you guys like to bake? Why don’t you give this a stir,” she said, dumping the ingredients into a bowl.

Next, Ms. Herrick added a half cup of milk.

“Alright, it’s going to get thick and sticky,” she warned, sending the bowl around the tables for a second lap of stirring by the children.

“Oh, use those muscles,” Ms. Zettwoch encouraged.

“Wow, it’s tough to stir!” exclaimed Caitlin Friscia, 8, of Hampton Bays, inciting a giggle from her peers.

The two librarians next handled chopping four pears into small chunks. They mixed the pears into the batter after the children were finished stirring.

The last step, Ms. Herrick explained, involved butter, a half cup of brown sugar and, oddly enough, boiling water.

“This is funny stuff, I’ve never made a recipe with boiling water before,” she said to the children. “Remember in the story when there was boiling water? We’re going to use that now, which is sort of an unusual way to make a recipe.”

She stirred the three ingredients together in a small green bowl as the girls curiously peered on. The two butter slabs started to slowly melt.

“It looks like two little boats,” Caitlin said.

“Or ice cubes,” said Violet Wilson, 8, of East Hampton.

“Sugar dissolves fast, but butter takes a little longer,” Ms. Herrick pointed out as Ms. Zettwoch poured the lumpy batter into a casserole dish. “You’ll be surprised how different all of this looks when it’s baked. It looks even weirder when you pour this stuff on top.

“Before it goes into the oven, you’re going to say, ‘Gross! I’m not eating that!’ But when it’s baked, it’s good,” she continued.

Sure enough, the girls squealed when Ms. Herrick poured the hot mixture on top of the pear batter.

“When you pour it on there, your urge is to stir it together, but you’re not supposed to. It’s really kind of weird,” she said.

The librarians popped the dish into the toaster oven and left it to bake for 40 minutes. As the dessert baked, they read aloud more stories from the cookbook.

Even 7-year-old Sofia Mancino of Sag Harbor got to take a turn reading. She sounded out her words to the ticking of the timer as the sweet smell wafted out and filled the library.

“It smells so good,” Caitlin said, exaggeratedly dragging out the “o” sounds in “so” and “good.” “I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait!” she added, excitedly bouncing up and down in her chair between stories.

The oven timer dinged right around 2 p.m., making a few of the children jump in their seats. The librarians scooped the dessert onto paper plates and handed them out to the girls and some of their parents.

“So, what’s the verdict?” Ms. Herrick posed to the munching children.

“Yeah!” they said in unison, too busy scarfing down the Magic Pear Grumble to elaborate. A few of the parents chuckled.

One mother, Emily Buccigross of Bridgehampton, said she saw the flier for the activity and thought it would be fun for her 6-year-old daughter, Maile. Plus, she said, she brings Maile to the library all the time.

“This was something for her to do during her break, and she had a blast,” she said.