The idea for this little sequence was born from a comment by Ainur about how at least Samona’s specialty is cooking lobscouse and not a supposedly stereotypical Roma dish like hedgehogs baked in clay … Because actually it would really be just like Samona to bake hedgehogs in clay. Not because she is (trying to be?) Roma, but because her cooking is rather unorthodox in general.
The notion that hedgehogs baked in clay would be a Roma stereotype comes from a short story that probably our entire generation read in school in Germany in the 1990’s, about a German boy who makes friends with a (as I remember it) rather stereotypical Roma boy. I don’t remember who wrote it, but in any case, in one scene they ate hedgehogs baked in clay.
Noooo the hedgiepiggles!!!
The story was probably “Jenö war mein Freund” by Wolfdietrich Schnurre – it was in my school textbook, too, although I don’t remember we ever read it in class. And as I’m commenting – interesting comic; I like “parallel / alternative Earths” stories.
That’s right! Heh, it’s so funny that you remember it too … :o)