Extra Credit: No Bake Cookies

After reading about the history of no-bake cookies, I decided that these would capture the essence of my books and author quite well. The story behind the cookies is that in ancient times, a farmer accidentally tripped and spilled grains into the chocolate that his wife was making over a fire. They kept the chocolate and decided that it actually tasted really good, and so began the no-bake recipe. Immediately when I saw the 'ancient times' part, I connected the food to my two novels. The Inheritors takes place in the time of prehistoric man, when they did not so much as kill their food. Instead, they gathered. "There [was] no blame" (Golding 53) if the animal had already been hunted. Just as the ancient farmer gathered his grains for food, the Neanderthals gathered theirs. Similarly, just as the farmer's wife was melting chocolate over a fire, the family of Neanderthals cooked their food "round the fire" (Golding 59).

In Pincher Martin, Martin struggles to survive on the small "blue mussels [...] with green webs of weed caught over them" (Golding 62), and he becomes weak because he is not getting nearly the nutritious diet that a man needs. These no-bake cookies contain grain, dairy, protein, and sugars, all of which would help Martin to survive (although they are not the healthiest food in the world). The ingredients, while not readily available out in nature, do not contain lots of artificial flavoring, and are relatively simple. Martin is surrounded by a "deep bed of mud that had been compressed by weight until the mud had heated and partly fused" (Golding 77). When complete, these cookies remind me of the very earthy settings of both books: they are a deep brown, oddly shaped, and lumpy. These earthy, ancient cookies relate perfectly to William Golding's two novels when you take a look at the characterization and setting, and they taste great too.




Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
1 cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups oatmeal
Waxed paper


Directions:
In a heavy saucepan bring to a boil, the sugar, cocoa, butter and milk. Let boil for 1 minute then add peanut butter, vanilla and oatmeal. On a sheet of waxed paper, drop mixture by the teaspoonfuls, until cooled and hardened.