This post complements the special podcast episode I made for my £3 monthly subscribers on the topic of sourcing and cooking the organs of the central vervous system – brain, spinal cord and eyes – a most taboo topic. Inside you will find the episode itself as well as my method to prepare brains for cooking as well as a few recipes – should you get your hands on any.
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I have some very exciting news: A Dark History of Sugar did not only get nominated for the Guild of Food Writers’ Awards 2023 in the Best First Book category, but it also won! Bloody hell!
Some past podcast guests were there at the ceremony: Diane Purkiss, who appeared on the podcast recently to talk about her book English Food: A People’s History won her category Best Food Book. Nominated in that same category was Felicity Cloake for her brilliant breakfast Odyssey Red Sauce, Brown Sauce. Scroll to the foot of the post to listen to those podcast episodes.
It was a fantastic night. The awards were hosted by chef and Saturday Kitchen presenter Matt Tebbutt, and the award itself was sponsored by the excellent Sea Sisters. Collecting the award was all a bit of a blur as the adrenaline was pumping somewhat, but the guild just released the official photographs (taken by Martin Behrman) so there is actual evidence of it occurring! There were some food-writing royalty at the ceremony too in the shape of Dames Mary Berry and Delia Smith. I was starstruck, let me tell you.
Although I am still reeling, I need to crack on with writing the current book. One shouldn’t rest on one’s laurels now, should they? I’ll be back with a proper blog post soon. Cheerio! x
As promised on the ‘School Meals Service with Heather Ellis’ episode of the podcast, I have written a recipe for a stone-cold school dinners classic for my monthly subscribers. I went for the pink-sponge and custard because quite a few people have mentioned this as a favourite on social media, so it was the obvious choice. Heather Ellis said on Twitter that there were several different colours of these sponges: I also remember brown (though I don’t think it was chocolatey, just coloured brown). Others remembered white, and I wondered if yellow was perhaps a colour? Let me know your thoughts/memories.
Listen to the podcast episode here:
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This post complements the episode of The British Food History Podcast called ‘The School Meals Service with Heather Ellis’:
Speaking with Heather Ellis on the podcast about the School Meals Service and school dinners really fired off some food memories, good and bad. If it has in you too, please let the School Meals Project know about them – and let me know about them too – there’s a postbag episode of the podcast coming in just two or three weeks’ time. Three stuck in my mind: sago or tapioca pudding, pink sponge and custard, and Spam fritters. Of those, my favourite is sago/tapioca pudding – it genuinely is one I cook at home regularly. I know it was called frogspawn by children across the country, but if made well, it is delicious. Honest.
For anyone unfamiliar with it, it is one of a tribe of puddings known as milk puddings which are essentially a starchy ingredient cooked in milk and sweetened with sugar, but in my opinion, they need to also contain cream and flavourings such as bay leaves, vanilla or lemon rind. The best-known of these is rice pudding, but there are also semolina, macaroni and arrowroot puddings. They became popular in schools because they were an excellent way of providing children with their calcium. Sago and tapioca come in the form of small balls or pearls, which turn translucent when cooked in liquid – tapioca pearls are used to make the ‘bubbles’ in bubble tea.
Sago and tapioca can be used interchangeably in recipes and taste the same, but there is a difference between the two; sago comes from the sago palm and tapioca from the cassava plant. The former is found in India and some parts of East Africa, and the latter in the Americas. The starch is extracted from the plants’ pithy centres by grating and squeezing. It is then suspended in a little water to make a paste, which is then passed through a colander to form little pellets that are then dried.[1]
Both are very much associated with Empire, and recipes using sago begin to appear in 18th-century cookery books. In Sarah Harrison’s The House-keeper’s Pocket-book sago is simmered in water and flavoured with sugar, cinnamon and lemon.[2]Elizabeth Raffald has a complex, red-coloured sago pudding containing red wine, sugar, bone marrow and egg yolks. She does have a simpler version closer to what we would recognise today: sago simmered in milk and cream, and flavoured with sack, sugar, eggs and nutmeg.[3] Through the 18th and 19th centuries, the typical way to prepare the pudding would be to cook it on the hob and then bake it in pastry. Mrs Beeton uses sago in two more recipes: a sweet sago sauce for desserts and a sago soup.[4]
If you are unsure about making sago or tapioca pudding (or returning to it after eating the runny school kind of years past), the great food historian Alan Davidson provides some words of encouragement: ‘[I]t is sometimes despised by the ignorant, that is to say, persons who have no knowledge of how good they are when properly made.’ He casts down a caveat, however: ‘[The] texture delights a few cognoscenti in Britain but is repellent to the majority and has no doubt contributed to the virtual disappearance of the pudding from British tables.’[5] And I say that it is a crying shame. It is rarely included in cookery books anymore, not even those specialising in puddings. Justin Gellatly is a fan though, and there are a couple of recipes in Helen Thomas’s excellent Pudding Book, but that’s about it.[6]
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The typical way to cook the pudding these days is to either bake it I the oven or cook it on the hob, and I provide methods for both, though I prefer the latter. It is quick to make and, despite what other recipes say, requires no soaking – just a careful swish in some cold water.
I’ve left the amount of sugar to you. If you intend to eat the pudding with sweet jam, go for around 90 grams, if you are eating it on its own, or with tart fruit like rhubarb or gooseberry, perhaps use 120 grams of sugar.
Serves 6 to 8 people, depending upon greediness. If more appropriate, half the amounts.
Around 30 g butter (if baking)
120 g sago or tapioca pearls
90–120 g caster sugar
1 litre full-fat milk
150 ml double cream
Flavourings: 3 or 4 strips of pared lemon rind, a lightly-crushed fresh bay leaf, a few drops of vanilla extract (or replace caster sugar with vanilla sugar), almond extract, cocoa, etc.
Oven method:
Preheat the oven to 160°C. In a baking dish of 1¼ litre capacity dot the bottom with small knobs of butter. Place the sago pearls in a jug and pour over plenty of cold water to release any starch. Pour through a sieve and then scatter the sago over the base of the dish with the sugar, milk, cream and flavourings. If using cocoa powder, whisk it into the milk before pouring into the dish. Place in the oven and bake for 60-90 minutes, stirring every now and again to disperse lumps. When the time is up, and you want a browner top, you could place it under a hot grill for a few minutes. Leave the pudding to stand for 10 minutes before serving.
Hob method:
Wash the sago pearls as described above and place them in a saucepan with the remainder of the ingredients, bar the butter. Bring slowly to a simmer, stirring gently. Leave to simmer for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. After the 15-minute mark, keep a closer eye on it: cook a further 10 to 15 minutes, but stir more frequently, scraping any stuck bits from the base. Sago pearls stick and catch easily!
Stop cooking when the pearls are soft and gelatinous. Let the pudding stand for 10 minutes before serving. If it seems a little on the thick side, stir a little more milk through it.
References
[1] Beeton, I. (1861). The Book of Household Management. Lightning Source; Davidson, A. (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press.
[2] Harrison, S. (1751). The House-keeper’s Pocket-book And Compleat Family Cook (5th ed.). R. Ware.
[3] Raffald, E. (1769). The Experienced English Housekeeper (First Edit). J. Harrop.
[6] Gellatly, J. (2016). Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding: Sweet and Savoury Recipes from Britain’s Best Baker. Penguin Books Limited; Thomas, H. (1980). The Pudding Book. Hutchinson & Co.
Hello everyone, a quick message for any readers in, or around, Manchester, Ludlow and Chelsea this September because I am taking part in events in all of these places, and I thought you might be interested in attending:
I’ll be speaking at Manchester Central Library about Elizabeth Raffald. The event is called ‘Elizabeth Raffald – England’s Most Influential Housekeeper’, and not only will folk hear a talk about Elizabeth, but the library with be showing items from their Elizabeth Raffald archives – so something not be missed! The event is on 13 September 2023 at 6pm. Tickets are free but you do need to book. Click this link to book a ticket.
I will be at Ludlow Food Festival talking about Elizabeth Raffald, her achievements and her legacy. The talk is on 10 September at 2.30pm For more information, and to book a ticket, click on this link.
I will also be selling and signing copies of my books, A Dark History of Sugar and Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald, England’s Most Influential Housekeeper.
I do hope that you can come to one of these events – if you do, please and say hello!
I have been meaning to give you this recipe for that most beloved of teatime treats, the humble malt loaf for ages; indeed, I have had a jar of malt syrup sitting in my food cupboard for at least three years I bought especially for this post. Well, hopefully, it’s a case of ‘the best things come to those who wait’.
For those of you unaware of this stalwart of the British teatime spread, let me explain what it is. It is a member of a tribe of baked goods known as tea loaves. They are tea loaves because they’re eaten at teatime, but also because they contain tea. They are easy to make and also contain dried fruit, and usually do not contain any butter, and should instead be eaten spread liberally with it. They are loaf-shaped but are a type of cake. A malt loaf specifically is made with malt syrup and black treacle, and like Yorkshire parkin, it needs to be left awhile to turn nice and sticky. Before we get to the recipe, let’s have a look at the history.
Looking into the origins of the malt loaf has been rather difficult; I can find a recipe for malt loaf in the June 1930 edition of the Derbyshire Times and Cheshire Herald. It sounds like a malt loaf: dark and sticky, but black treacle is used not malt syrup.1 It seems to be called a ‘malt’ loaf because of the brown, malted flour used, which is not the same. Other malt loaves certainly contained malt syrup; beloved British brands Hovis and Allinson made them. However, these loaves were of the regular sort: loaves of white bread ‘improved’ by the addition of malt syrup.2,3 The malt syrup improved the colour and flavour and produced a moister loaf. Again, not the same.
John Sorenson’s original Beswick shop (pic: Manchester Libraries)
And so, we must turn to the iconic Soreen malt loaf, which has been baked in Manchester since the 1930s. The recipe, which has supposedly never changed, was invented by Danish immigrant John Rahbak Sorenson who lived in Hulme, Manchester. He first opened a business selling bakery equipment, before starting his own bakery in Beswick, where he sold his ‘Sorenson Malt Loaf’. He sold the business in 1938, but the loaf continued to be baked, the only thing that changed was its name.4 Today, the factory resides in Trafford Park (home to Manchester United FC), where it cranks out 300,000 loaves of Soreen per day.5
Their recipe is a secret, but we do know that they use wholemeal flour; in fact, it is because of the inclusion of wholemeal flour that Soreen is marketed as a health food.4 That it is sticky with sugary syrups undoes this claim somewhat, but the combination of easily digested sugars and slow-release complex carbohydrates apparently make Soreen a favourite food for athletes.
Well, their recipe is a secret, but mine is not and it’s a tried-and-tested one. I used to make these sticky loaves for my little traditional market stall back in the day, and the recipe is based on one which appears in Gary Rhodes’ excellent book New British Classics.6 It is easy to make, but I must advise you about the flour: it must be sifted. It’s one of my most hated kitchen tasks, and I avoid it whenever possible, but in this case it is necessary. Wholemeal flour does tend to clump in the bag and seeing that the wet and dry ingredients need only the briefest of mixing, you need to be sure your flour is lump-free. That said, don’t forget to tip the bran left behind in the sieve back into the sifted flour.
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Just the quickest of quick posts to let you know (in case you didn’t know already) that the 6th season of The British Food History Podcast has started. I’ve already recorded several chats and still have a good few more to do. I’m really pleased with them: I think I have got a good mix of diverse topics, with England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland all covered.
If you don’t already follow or listen to the podcast, you can find it anywhere you normally find your podcast. Two episodes have already dropped, which you can listen to via this page in case you’re not usually a podcast kind of person.
Episode 1: Cake Baxters in Early Modern Scotland with Aaron Allen
Episode 2: Recreating 16th Century Beer with Susan Flavin & Marc Meltonville
Other episodes to come include Tudor cooking, medlars, the Tavern Cook Richard Briggs, canned food and hopefully quite a few more.
If you weren’t aware, I also recorded a tripe special when I was between seasons. It was a collaboration between me and historian and author Sam Bilton. Have a listen here if you fancy:
Don’t forget I do a postbag episode at the end of each season so if you listen and have a question, comment or query, please contact me – either by leaving a comment at the end of this post, or by emailing me at neil@britishfoodhistory.com. I’d love to hear from you.
If you are a monthly subscriber, you access the Easter Eggs associated with these episodes – full cuts of interviews I had to trim down, outtakes, etc. all very interesting (in fact often the most interesting!) but sadly excised because of time restraints. There is also an extra mini-season of episodes about forgotten foods, as well as an extra bonus episode from season 5. Subscribers also get premium blog content and a monthly newsletter.
If you like the blogs and podcast I produce and would to start a £3 monthly subscription, or would like to treat me to virtual coffee or pint: follow this link for more information.Thank you.
The harbour porpoise was the most commonly species eaten. They are 1.5 to 1.9m meters in length (Ecomare/Salko de Wolf Den Hoorn Texel)
It seems almost inconceivable that the porpoise – a type of small dolphin – would ever have been eaten, but it was once a most high-status ingredient. Although it is obviously a mammal, in the Middle Ages it was considered a fish, and therefore it could be eaten on fast days (all of the cetaceans were ‘fish’ as were seals and beavers’ tails) and it was usually served on fish days as a substitute for venison, another very high-status meat.[1] It seems that this was a bit of a blip for Europe: for the last few centuries, as well as in antiquity, dolphins have been very much considered a ‘friend of man’, and not an animal that should be eaten, not so in the Middle Ages.[2] The word porpoise comes from the Old French words porcus and piscus: ‘pigfish’ They have also gone by the names ‘mere-swine’ and ‘seahog’[3] and were eaten at the poshest of posh feasts. When George Neville celebrated becoming Archbishop of York in 1466, he held a huge feast, inviting 2000 guests of very high rank, the fish course was made up of 608 bream and pike, and 12 porpoise and seal.[4]
There were several ways of preparing it; if fresh it was poached and served in slices. In the late 14th century manuscript Forme of Cury, it is served with frumenty.[5] Sometimes it was cooked in a broth with wine, vinegar, bread, onions and its own blood.[6] It was also salted and cooked with dried peas and beans, rather like salt pork. If tip-top fresh, ‘porpesses must be baked’. The carving term for a baked porpoise is ‘undertraunche’[7], and it is served dressed with vinegar, cinnamon and ginger.[8]
The earliest mention of a porpoise hunt occurring in the British Isles comes from the 7th century just off the Irish coast by ‘foreigners’ most probably Vikings. The 10th century manuscript Ælfric’s Colloquy does mention the hunting of dolphins[9] and when we tick into the 11th century – during the reign of Æthelred II (the Unready) – there are rolls listing fisheries in Gloucester which specialised in fishing for them. Just one porpoise is mentioned in the Domesday Book – it was paid as geld at an estate in Kent. Post-conquest, they appear more frequently in ordinances for example: 10 people were supplied for Henry III in 1256 at the Feast of St. Edward – a feast that always occurs during Lent.[10]
A medieval depiction of a dolphin eating a fish (from Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 60v)
One does have to wonder how much luck was needed when it came to ‘hunting’ them because the majority of them seem to have been opportunistically acquired after the poor beasts were found beached. One, therefore, also has to wonder just how fresh these porpoises were when delivered to a noble’s kitchen. I suspect that they were very quickly salted down and stored until there were ordered. There were laws laid down as to who owned the poor creatures after they were found beached; for most of the Middle Ages they were considered ‘wrecks of the sea’, so it was a case of finders’ keepers, but in the 13th and 14th centuries – the period when eating porpoises reached its peak – it was asserted that all beached porpoises belonged to the Crown.[11]
The number of porpoises consumed really drops in the Early Modern Era: Henry VIII was gifted a porpoise at Calais in 1532, and in 1575 (during the reign of Elizabeth I) one appeared for sale at Newcastle Market. After that, mentions of porpoises as food seem to dry up.[12]
If you are a historical cook, you might be wondering what you could substitute if you wanted to recreate a dish containing porpoise for a medieval menu. Historian Peter Brears has one fine suggestion: use a large piece of the freshest, firmest and largest block of tuna you can afford![13]
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[1] Brears, P. (2012). Cooking & Dining in Medieval England. Prospect Books.
[2] Davidson, A. (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press.
[3] Gardiner, M. (1997). The Exploitation of Sea-Mammals in Medieval England: Bones and their Social Context. Archaeological Journal, 154(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/00665983.1997.11078787; The Shuttleworth Family. (1858). The House and Farm Accounts of the Shuttleworths of Gawthorpe Hall, in the County of Lancaster, at Smithils and Gawthorpe From September 1582 to October 1621 · Part 4 (J. Harland, Ed.). The Chetham Society.
The good thing about being a lover of British puddings is that there is an almost infinite number to cook and try. All of the pudding recipes I have posted on the blog thus far have all been of the sweet variety, and they have all been fairly well known, but this year I am going to try and write some posts and recipes for savoury or obscure ones. First up is dock pudding which happens to tick both of those boxes. This pudding is one I have been meaning to cook for years, but I’ve only gotten around to it until now.
Dock pudding used to be very popular in Yorkshire, especially in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. The dock in question isn’t the common dock (the one you rub on nettle stings) but a particular species that goes under several names including bistort, passion dock and sweet dock, its Latin name is Polygonum bistorta.[1] It can be distinguished from the common dock by its yellowish spear-shaped leaves. The leaves are collected when young, alongside tender nettle tops, there is a recipe for it in Alexis Soyer’s classic 19th century work A Shilling Cookery For the People, where it is made with a mix of two-thirds passion dock, and one-third nettles.[2] These were supplemented or replaced with whatever greens were around: sorrel, raspberry leaves, chives, spinach, etc, the choice changing with the season. These are washed, sliced and cooked with onion or leek and oatmeal to make a very dark green porridge, which is fried in dollops in bacon fat, lard or beef dripping.[3] It has been likened to Welsh laverbread in colour and flavour, in that you will either love it or hate it.[4] It sometimes goes by the name herb pudding, which makes sense seeing as docks are only eaten in the springtime when they are tender. It is mixed with more oatmeal and water, tied in a cloth and boiled, cooled and fried in slices.
My patch of Passion dock
Technically, then, I could have used any green leaves, but I really wanted to make it with Passion dock; so called because it is found growing during Passion Week, the last week of Lent.[5] It was an extremely important food, the first fresh green vegetable after a winter of eating only pickled vegetables and salted meats. Many people were showing signs of scurvy by early spring, so few fresh vegetables were eaten. Dock is also said to be an excellent blood cleanser and good for the skin too, being a preventative of spots and pimples.[6]
Dock pudding was especially popular in the Victorian era, but was considered a famine food in the 20th century.[7] Very few people eat it now, but there is an outlier because the West Yorkshire town of Mytholmroyd has held the World Dock Pudding Championships every May since 1971.[8] I’m going to try my best to go next year.
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I found a patch of Passion dock growing in the Cheshire town of Lymm last year, but they were far too old and tough to pick, but I remembered this year. Oddly, I couldn’t find any nettles, but I did spot some sorrel and some wild garlic. I was in a bit of a rush, and didn’t have enough to make the very green sort of pudding, but I didn’t want to boil one (to save on fuel), so tried a common trick of cooking it in a saucepan, pouring and setting it in a tub so I could slice and fry it. This method is sometimes used for other savoury puddings such as black pudding or mealy pudding.
Makes 8 to 10 slices of pudding:
100 g trimmed, young leaves of any amount of the following: passion dock, nettles, spinach, sorrel or any other edible greens you like
1 leek or onion, sliced thinly
80 g oatmeal (not rolled oats)
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
400 ml water
A smidge of flavourless oil such as sunflower or groundnut
8 rashers of streaky bacon
30 g lard or dripping, or 2 tbs of your favourite frying fat or oil
Your pudding needs to be cooked, cooled and set the day before you want to eat it (or several days before if you like). To do this, shred the leaves and add them to a pan with the leek or onion, oatmeal, salt, pepper and water. Bring to a simmer, stirring so that it doesn’t form lumps.
Cook for around 20 minutes and all of the vegetables are soft, then take off the heat. Now take a tub of around 1 litre capacity and brush with the oil. Pour the pudding into the tub, cover, cool and then refrigerate.
When you want to cook your pudding, first fry the bacon in your chosen frying fat or oil over a medium heat until very crisp. As they cook, prepare the pudding: turn out onto a board and cut even slices between 1 and 1.5 cm thick. It’s best to use a serrated knife for this task.
Remove the bacon rashers and keep warm as you fry the pudding slices: turn up the heat to medium-high and pop in the slices. It’s a bit like making bubble and squeak in that you need to wait and allow them to build up a good, crisp fried layer before you disturb them: a good 5 minutes. Turn over with a spatula and fry the other side for a further 4 or 5 minutes.
When ready, serve up with the bacon and whatever other breakfast things you like. I went with fried eggs.
Notes:
[1] Brears, P. (2014) Traditional Food in Yorkshire. Prospect Books.
[2] Soyer, A. A Shilling Cookery for the People: Embracing an Entirely New System of Plain Cookery and Domestic Economy. (Geo. Routledge & Co., 1855).
[3] Davidson, A. (1999) The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press.
[4] Mason, L. and Brown, C. (1999) The Taste of Britain. Devon: Harper Press.
[5] If you want to know more about the food of Passion Week, listen to this episode of the podcast:
Readers of ‘British Food: a History’, might be interested in this post I wrote for the other blog ‘Neil Cooks Grigson’: it’s a look at Jane Grigson’s recipes for and using cured meats.
In the cooking and eating of #446 Lincolnshire Chine I have now ticked off all 17 recipes (by my reckoning) in the Cured Meats section of the Meat, Poultry & Game chapter of Jane Grigson’s English Food. The recipes contained within it were key in developing my own skills in traditional cooking and I acquired skills I didn’t think I had in me: dry and wet curing, pressing, smoking, potting, etc. Aside from acquiring new skills, cooking the recipes really made me appreciate good food, properly made: proper ham, bacon and salted (corned) beef – foods that have now largely become diluted-down commodity products. The majority of the recipes are pork-based; it seems that Jane wasn’t keen on fresh pork (there are just 2 recipes in her Pork section that use fresh pork joints) but finds pork products delicious. I must say I’ve never been that…
British Food: A History 