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LEICESTERSHIRE

BOS WORTH JUMBELS

Ingredients : -
8 ounces flour ; 6 ounces butter ; 1 lb. sugar; 1 large egg.

Beat sugar and butter and stir in the egg. Add flour and mix thoroughly. Shape pieces of the mixture into the form of an S and place on a hot greased tin. Bake in a moderate oven until brown. This recipe is said to have been picked up on the battlefield of Bosworth, having been dropped by Richard III's cook.


ELDER FLOWER WINE or ENGLISH FRONTIGNAC

Ingredients : -
6 eggs (whites only); 6 gallons water; quarter peck elder flowers; 4 lemons; 16 lbs. lump sugar; 8 lbs. raisins; quarter pint yeast or 1 ounce compressed yeast.


Beat the whites of egg stiff. Put on to boil with water and sugar and skim well. Add the raisins, which should be stoned and chopped, and lastly the elder flowers. When the liquid has cooled down, stir in the yeast. Put the juice and finely cut rind in the next day. Let it ferment in an open crock, but cover with a cloth. Strain and put the wine in cask or bottles after 3 days.


F RU M E N T Y
Wash wheat. Place in a stone jar and fill with 3 times the wheat's measure of water. Put in a hot oven, but turn the oven off after a short while; leave for 24 hours. By that time the husks should have burst and the wheat set to a thick jelly. This process is to "ace" or stew the wheat, and is then called "frumenty wheat." It can be eaten as a breakfast food with milk and sugar, or with eggs beaten in with it, or as a sweet with fruit and cream.


MEDLEY PIE

Ingredients : -
1 lb. each: cold fat bacon, cold roast beef (or pork) and cored apples; pastry; pepper; salt; powdered ginger; ½ ( half ) a pint ale.


Line edges of pie-dish with good crust. Fill it with meat and apples in alternate layers; season each layer with pepper, salt, powdered ginger. Pour ½ ( half ) a pint of ale over, place pastry lid on, hake in good oven for 1 hour 30 minutes.


MELTON MOWBRAY PIE

Ingredients : -
2 lb. pork cut into a small dice; 1 lb. lard ; 1½ lbs. ( one and half lbs. ) flour ; a little milk and water mixed ; 1 egg; salt and pepper to taste.


Rub ½ ( half ) the quantity of lard into the flour with a little salt. Boil the rest of the lard with the milk and water. When boiling pour half over the flour and stir well, then add the egg (beaten well) and pour over the rest of the liquid. Knead the mixture and leave to stand for a few minutes. Line a mould or tin and put in the pork with a little pepper and salt and a little water. Roll out the rest of the pastry and cover the top of the pie and decorate the edge. Brush over with a little egg and bake for 2 hours, starting with a very hot oven and then turn down. Make a stock of the bones and trimmings of the meat until it jellies. Pour into a hole in the centre of the pie with a funnel. Pie and stock should be lukewarm. Serve cold.

LINCOLNSHIRE

APPLE PUDDING

Ingredients : -
9 apples; 2 eggs ; ½ ( half ) a lemon ; puff pastry ; 2 ounces demerara sugar ; 8 ounces butter ; a little cinnamon ; clover and nutmeg.


Peel, core and slice the apples. Stew in a little water until soft, add cloves and a little cinnamon. Pass through a sieve and mix in butter, yolks of eggs, the white of one egg and sugar; add lemon juice and mix well together. Line a pie-dish with puff pastry, decorate the edges and pour in the mixture. Bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes.


BRAWN

Ingredients : -
½ ( half ) a pig's head ; 2 hocks; pig's feet ; 1 tablespoonful dried sage ; pepper and rats to taste.

Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan, cover with water and boil until the meat comes away from the bone. Take out the bones and cut the meat into small pieces, Pour the strained stock over it and boil the mixture up again in the saucepan. Pour into wetted moulds and leave to stand till it jellies. Serve cold. Some of the stock can be retained for making Soup.


CLEE SAUCER CHEESECAKES
Saucer cheesecakes and stuffed chine were special delicacies on Trinity Sunday in Clee.


CHRISTMAS PLUM PORRIDGE
This used to be eaten for breakfast over Christmas.


FRUMENTY

Ingredients : -
1 quart framenty wheat ; 1 quart milk ; 2 ounces raisins ; a little nutmeg ; sugar to sweeten.


Boil the frumenty wheat in milk for about 15 minutes, add the other ingredients when it begins to thicken, stir in a little flour made into a cream with a little milk. Boil up and serve.


GEESE (WILD GEESE)
Wild goose is best eaten when young, prepared in the same way as the domestic goose.


GRANTHAM GINGERBREAD (white)

Ingredients : -
8 ounces flour; 4 ounces butter ; 4 ounces sugar ; 1 egg ; 1 ounce ground ginger ; a little baking powder.


Cream butter and sugar, beat in yolk, add flour, baking powder and ginger. Whip the white of egg and fold into the mixture. Bake on greased paper in a moderate oven for 30 to 40 minutes, but keep pale in colour.


GRIMSBY SOLES
Grimsby is one of the largest fishing centres in the world.


MOCK GOOSE

Ingredients : -
Leg of pork; sage and onion stuffing.


Part boil the pork. Take off skin and bone. Fill the void with the stuffing. Press into the shape of a goose and roast until golden brown. Serve with apple sauce and brown gravy.


SAMPHIRE
Samphire is common on rocks along the coast (not in the North of England or Scotland). It has fleshy leaves, yellow flowers and a resinous taste. It makes a very good pickle ( see
Samphire Pickle )


SMELTS ( Sperling or Sparling in Scotland )
Smelts are best fried and served with parsley. Clean very carefully by pulling out gills, which will take the entrails with it. Do not wash, but wipe gently and dry. They are in season from September to April.


STUFFED CHINE

Ingredients : -
A neck chine of bacon ; parsley; thyme ; marjoram ; young raspberry and blackcurrant leaves ; a lettuce ; spring onions ; flour and water.


Soak the chine for 12 hours. Cut the herbs very finely and mix well together. Score the chine and stuff all the scorings with the herbs. Cover the chine with a stiff pastry of flour and water. Bake in a moderate oven, 20 minutes for each lb. and 20 minutes over. When cooked, take off the pastry, Serve the chine when quite cold.


WILD HARE
Hare should always be well-cooked. The two most popular ways of preparing it are roast or jugged. Hare soup should be made without the blood . If the hare is not a young one it is as well to soak it overnight.


YEAST DUMPLINGS .

LONDON

BOODLE'S CAKE (Boodle's Club)

Ingredients : -
1 lb. flour ; 8 ounces butter ; 8 ounces raisins ; 2 eggs ; a little bi-carbonate of soda ; 1 gill milk


Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and flour with raisins chopped up in it. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in warmed milk, add to the mixture and beat well. Turn into a greased cake tin and bake in a moderate oven for 2 hours 30 minutes.


CHELSEA BUNS

Ingredients : -
12 ounces flour ; 4 ounces butter ; 4 ounces sugar ; 2 eggs ; 1 lemon ; a little milk ; quarter of an ounce of yeast.


Warm the milk and add the yeast creamed with a little sugar. Rub half the butter into the flour and add half the sugar. Beat in the eggs and yeast, a little lemon rind and juice and leave to rise in a warm place for about 2 hours. Knead the dough and roll out on a board about quarter of an inch thick. Spread the other half of butter and sugar over the dough. Fold in three, roll out again into a square. Roll up the dough and cut into thick slices. Leave to stand for about 20 minutes to prove. Bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes.


JOHNNY CAKES (or London Buns)

Ingredients : -
2 lb. flour ; 1 oz yeast ; 4 ounces castor sugar ; 1 egg; 1 pint milk ; 3 ounces butter ; 1 ounce candied orange peel.


Sift flour and sugar into a basin. Melt butter in a saucepan and add milk. Dissolve the yeast in the milk. Pour into centre of the flour, mix well ; add finely cut orange peel. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place for about 2 hours. Knead and make into 24 round buns. Place on a greased baking sheet and let them prove. Bake in a hot oven for 30 minutes. Brush over with a little egg and sugar mixed, to glaze the buns.

MANCHESTER

MANCHESTER PUDDING
( To eat cold )


Ingredients :-
3 oz. of grated bread; ½ ( half ) pint of milk; a strip of lemon-peel ; 4 eggs; sugar to taste; puff-paste ; jam ; 3 tablespoonfuls of brandy.


Mode: Flavour the milk with lemon-peel by infusing it in the milk for ½ hour; then strain it on to the bread crumbs, and boil it for 2 or 3 minutes.
Add the eggs, leaving out the whites of 2; the butter, sugar, and brandy. Stir all these ingredients well together. Cover a pie-dish with puff-paste, and at the bottom put a thick layer of any kind of jam. Pour the above mixture, cold, on the jam, and bake the pudding for an hour.


Serve cold, with a little sifted sugar sprinkled over.
Time: 1 hour.
Average cost: 1s.
Sufficient: 5 or 6 persons.
Seasonable: At any time.

Mrs BEETON

MONMOUTHSHIRE

BACKSTONE CAKES (Barton, Bakestone)

Ingredients : -
8 ounces flour; 2 ounces butter; cream to mix.


Rub the butter into the flour and make into a stiff paste with cream. Roll out very thin and cut into small rounds. Bake on a bake stone or girdle; turn once or twice until lightly browned. Split, butter and serve hot.


CAERPHILLY CHEESE
A cheese made in Wales, also in Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wilts. It is a whole - milk cheese and sold when quite fresh.


PERRY
Perry is an alcoholic drink, much like cider, made from pears. There is the sparkling or medium dry, and the sweet perry.


TREACLE POSSET

Ingredients : -
2 pints ale; 1 pint milk; 4 ounces treacle; 2 teaspoonfuls grated nutmeg.


Heat the ale and melt the treacle in milk and mix together. Add nutmeg and serve very hot.

NORFOLK


BIFFINS
Take some Norfolk biffins (red-cheeked apples), choosing the clearest without any blemishes, lay them on clean straw on baking wire and cover well with some more straw. Set them in a very slow oven for about 4 or 5 hours. Draw them out and press them very gently, so as not to burst the skins. Put back in the oven for another hour, and press again. Rub them over with clarified sugar when cold. These are the dried biffins sold in Norwich.


BLOATERS
A bloater is a herring caught so near the shore that it does not have to be salted on the drifter. Yarmouth bloaters are best, since the herrings are at their best when they reach Yarmouth on their travels, about October or November. However, they do not keep as well as kippers. They are best served fried or grilled or as bloater paste.


BRAWN See Fork Cheese.


ROAST CYGNET (a Norwich recipe)

Ingredients : -
1 cygnet; 3 lb.. rump steak; 3 onions; a little nutmeg; pepper and salt.


Stuff the cygnet (a young swan), trussed the same way as a goose, with minced rump steak well seasoned with grated nutmeg, salt and pepper and finely chopped onions. Sew up, cover the bird with greased paper and roast for about 2 hours, according to size, basting frequently. Serve with gravy and port wine sauce. In former days, the birds were wrapped up in a flour and water paste and roasted for 4 hours.


DUMPLINGS

Ingredients : -
1 lb. flour; ½ ( half ) an ounce of yeast; quarter of a pint hot water; a little milk; 1 teaspoonful castor sugar.


Cream yeast and sugar. Pour milk and water over the yeast. Put flour into a basin and pour milk and yeast into it, making a well in the centre. Mix well and allow to rise for about 2 hours. Knead the dough well and form into dumplings. Allow these to stand for 10 minutes. Have ready a saucepan with boiling water, throw in the dumplings and boil for 10 minutes. Serve hot with a little melted butter and a sprinkling of sugar or, omit the sugar when preparing the dumplings and serve hot with meat and gravy.


PORK CHEESE (Brawn)

Ingredients : -
A hock of salt pork; pepper and sage to season.


Stand the hock in cold water for 12 hours. Place in a saucepan with enough water to cover. Boil until the meat comes off the bone. Lift out and remove the bones. Put the bones back into the saucepan and simmer. Rub a little pepper into the meat and add finely chopped sage. Cut up the meat very finely. Strain the stock over the meat [ there should be ½ ( half ) a pint left ]. Mix well and pour into wetted basin or mould. Turn out when cold.


TURKEYS
The species bred in England are the small, black plumed Norfolk turkey, and the Cambridge turkey, which has a metallic sheen to its feathers. Norfolk turkeys came from North America and Cambridge turkeys from South America. They were first introduced into England shortly after 1540. The first specimens were brought to Spain from Mexico at the time of the Conquest Merchants first introduced them to Greece, then part of the Turkish Empire. The Greeks called them Turkeys, as they were so like their masters; they were pompous and the red head-piece was not unlike the fez cap the Turks wore. Before the turkey was introduced to England, the English called the guinea-fowl a turkey. The reason why turkey is eaten at Christmas is that the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock on Christmas Day, 1620, and found masses of turkeys, which they killed and roasted, and then sat down to a thanksgiving meal.

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

CHEESE CAKES

Ingredients : -
Some short or flaky pastry; 2 ounces currants; 1 ounce butter; 1 egg; one and a ½ ( half ) ounces sugar; 1 pint sour milk; a little almond essence; a little grated lemon rind; a little grated nutmeg.


Stir butter, eggs and sugar in a saucepan over a low fire until thick; do not allow to boil. Boil the sour milk until it separates into curds and whey. Strain off the curd, press well. Add it to the mixture when cold, with currants, spice, etc. Line some patty pans with pastry, fill them with the mixture and bake in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. Cheese cakes and frumenty were eaten at sheep-shearing


DUMB CAKE
Dumb cake is made and eaten on Christmas Eve and St. Mark's Eve.


FIG PUDDING

Ingredients : -
8 ounces dried figs; 4 ounces flour; 2 eggs; 6 ounces grated suet; 4 ounces sugar; ½ ( half ) a pint milk; a little salt.

Chop the figs and mix with suet, flour and sugar. Beat eggs and add. Make into a dough with milk, place in a greased pudding basin and steam for 3 hours 30 minutes. Dried figs were sold in quantities for fig pudding on Fig (Palm) Sunday.


HOUGH AND DOUGH
Hough is the meat off the hough bone, it was served as boiled suet pudding.



SEBLET CAKES
Large seed cakes with which it was once the custom to regale the farm-hands when all the wheat for the season had been sown. A seblet is the name of the basket that held the seed, in the days when it used to be sown by hand.


SEED CAKE

Ingredients : -
1 lb. flour; 1 lb. butter; 1 lb. sugar; 8 eggs; 2 ounces caraway seeds; 1 grated nutmeg.


Beat the butter to a cream, add the sugar, and then beat the whites and add, beat the yolks and add. Beat in the flour, spices and seeds, turn into a greased cake tin and bake in a hot oven for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Seed cake was eaten at the time of sheep shearing.


TRUFFLES
Wash the truffles and steam for 1 hour. Serve very hot in a napkin; peel and eat with
butter.


VENISON PASTY

Ingredients : -
1 lb. venison; 2 onions; ½ ( half ) a pint port wine ; a few herbs; salt and pepper to taste; pie crust; red currant sauce.


Chop the meat and onions very fine. Boil for 3 hours, add port wine, herbs and seasoning and simmer until the meat is quite tender. Strain the meat and put in a pie when cold and add as much of the gravy as desired. Bake in a moderate oven for 1 hour. Serve hot or cold, with red currant sauce. Sherwood Forest is the home of venison.

NORTHUMBERLAND

COLD WATER WILLIES
These were made with flour and salt and just sufficient water to blend them into a pliable dough. They were just dusted lightly with flour, flattened out a little and baked in a moderate oven.
In the districts where these were made in the old hard times, there was a jibe which described these cakes as "Tough Cake and Pullit," and that is exactly what they were; they had to be pulled to pieces.


FELTON SPICE LOAF

Ingredients : -
4 ounces butter; 4 ounces sugar; 2 eggs; 8 ounces currants;2 ounces ground almonds; 2 ounces shredded peel; 4 ounces plain flour; 4 ounces self-raising flour; a little milk.


Sieve almonds and flour. Mix peel and currants in a separate basin. Cream butter and sugar and add eggs, beating all the time. Add flour and milk, then mix in the fruit. Turn into a well greased dripping tin and spread level. Bake in a fairly hot oven for about 30 minutes, turning the heat down half-way through.


GIRDLE CAKES

Ingredients : -
8 ounces flour; 2 ounces currants; 4 ounces butter or lard; a little baking powder; a little salt; a little milk.


Rub butter, baking powder and salt into the flour, add currants and milk to make it into a soft dough. Roll out and cut into rounds. Bake on a hot girdle. Split open, butter and serve hot.


OVINGTON FRUIT CAKE

Ingredients : -
8 ounces butter; 8 ounces flour; 8 ounces ground rice or semolina; 12 ounces currants; 8 ounces castor sugar; 3 eggs; 2 ounces grated lemon peel; a little baking powder; a little milk.


Sieve the flour, ground rice and baking powder together. Cream sugar, butter and eggs. Add fruit and flour mixture and enough milk to make a good dough. Place into a well-greased baking tin in a moderate oven for 30 - 40 minutes.


PAN HAGGERTY

Ingredients : -
1 lb. potatoes; 8 ozs. onions; a little dripping; 4 ounces grated cheese; pepper and salt.


Peel potatoes and onions, cut in very thin slices and dry the potatoes in a cloth. Make the dripping hot in a pan, put in a layer of potatoes, then of onions, then cheese and another layer of potatoes. Season each layer with pepper and salt. Fry gently until nearly cooked through, then either turn in the pan or brown the haggerty under the grill.


PICKLED SALMON

Ingredients : -
Salmon; vinegar; a little mace, cloves, pepper and salt; white wine.


Boil the salmon in salt water, sufficient to cover. Drain off the liquor when cooked and place the salmon into a deep dish, pouring equal quantities of the liquor, vinegar and white wine, seasoned with a little mace, cloves and pepper. Leave to stand in a cool place until next day. Warm the salmon in the liquor and serve hot.


SINGIN HINNIES
Singin' Hinnies get their name from the fact that they are so rich that they sing and sizzle while they cook.

Ingredients : -
1 lb. flour; ½ ( half ) a teaspoonful cream of tartar ; quarter of a teaspoonful bi-carbonate of soda; 6 ounces currants ; a little mutton fat ; 4 ounces lard ; 4 ounces butter; a little milk; a little salt.


Rub the lard and butter into the flour. Add the cream of tartar, bi-carbonate and salt. Add the currants. Make into a stiff dough with the milk. Shape into a round and roll out to half an inch thickness. Rub the girdle with a little mutton fat. Place the cake on it and cook until the underside is brown. Turn carefully with a palette knife. Turn again when cooked to have it quite hot. Cut into pieces, split, butter and serve hot.


SNAILS
Snails are best from Spring to Autumn. Drop them into boiling salt water and boil for 30 minutes. Take off the shells and cut away the hard bits. Put the meat in a fire-proof dish with a little butter, garlic, pepper, salt and chopped parsley. Cover and bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes. Serve with brown bread and butter and lemon.
Snails used to be the traditional fare at the Glassmakers' Feast.

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

BUDBY SWAN PIE

Ingredients : -
Swan meat ; 2 onions ; a little sugar ; a few mixed herbs ; salt and pepper to taste ; suet pastry.

Only the finest meat of the swan should be chosen. Cut up into small pieces and stew gently for 3 hours in water, seasoned with pepper and salt, sugar, chopped onions and herbs. Strain, and put the meat into a pie-dish, lined with pastry. Add the gravy, cover the pie and bake for 30 minutes.


COWSLIP VINEGAR

Ingredients : -
2 pints cowslip "pips"; 1 pint white wine vinegar; soda water; lump sugar; brandy.


Gather the cowslips on a dry day. Pick all the flower "pips" from the stalks. Put them into a basin. Pour on white wine vinegar and leave to stand in a cool place for 3 days to infuse. Wet a piece of muslin with vinegar and strain the liquor from the pips into a stone jar; add 1 lb. lump sugar to every pint of liquor. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Cover the jar, set in a saucepan of boiling water and boil for 1 hour. Add 1 wine glassful of brandy to each pint. Bottle when cold and seal the corks. Dilute with soda water as a cooling drink.


PORK PIE

Ingredients : -
4 lbs. pork; 8 ounces lard; 4 ounces lard; 4 lbs. flour; 8 ounces butter; 1 pint water; salt, pepper and sage to taste; stock for the gravy made from 2 pig's feet.
Rub fats into flour and knead into a stiff dough with water. Roll out 1 inch thick and line a greased tin with it. Cut up the pork very fine and put into the tin. Pour stock from the pig's feet over it (this will jelly when cold). Cover the pie but leave a little opening. flake in a moderate oven for 2 hours 30 minutes. When cool add stock through the opening. Serve cold.


ROOK PIE

Ingredients : -
Young rooks ; flaky or short pastry ; a little butter, flour and stock; a little salt and pepper .
Pluck, draw and skin the rooks and remove the back bone (it is bitter). Season with salt and pepper. Stew in a little water. Then place the birds in a pie-dish and cover with stock, thicken with butter and flour. Cover with pastry and bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes in a moderate Oven.

OXFORDSHIRE

BANBURY - APPLE PIE

Ingredients : -
5 good sized cooking apples ; 2 ounces chopped candied peel ; 3 ounces sugar ; 3 ounces butrer ; 4 ounces currants ; a little ground ginger and cinnamon ; short crust ; a little milk.


Peel and slice the apples. Place a layer in a greased pie-dish, then the chopped peel. Pour over a little melted butter. Place another layer of apples and chopped peel over it. Boil 1 pint of water, melt some sugar in it and pour over the apples. Cover with short pastry and bake for 30 minutes in a moderate oven. Glaze with a little sugar and milk.


BRASENOSE ALE

Ingredients : -
6 quarts of ale; sugar; nutmeg and cloves; 6 roast apples.


Heat the ale, season with nutmeg and cloves, add sugar to taste, and float the apples in it. It is served in Brasenose College hall, in an enormous silver tankard after dinner on Shrove Tuesday.


CARROT PUDDING

Ingredients : -
2 lbs. carrots; 2 tablespoons full flour; 1 egg; a little butter; a little milk; salt and pepper.


Boil the carrots until soft; then mash. Melt butter and brown the flour in it, add milk and mix well. Add yolk and carrots. Beat the whites and fold into the mixture. Put in a greased pudding basin, tie up and steam for 15 minutes. Turn out, pour a little melted butter over it and serve hot.


LAMB'S WOOL

Ingredients : -
1 quart ale ; 1 pint white wine ; ½ ( half ) a grated nutmeg; a little round ginger ; a little demerara sugar to taste ; crab apples.


Make the ale and wine hot and add the nutmeg. Roast some crab apples and float them on the ale. Serve hot in a large deep bowl.


OXFORD JOHNS
The same recipe as for
Lardy Johns applies.


OXFORD PUDDING

Ingredients : -
6 apricots; 4 eggs; a little cream; sugar to taste;2 whites of eggs.


Steam the apricots until tender. Cut up and add a little sugar to taste. When cold beat in the eggs and cream. Butter a pie-dish and line with puff pastry. Place the mixture over it and


bake for about 30 minutes in a hot oven; turn the oven down for the last 15 minutes. Beat up the 2 whites, add a little sugar and place over the dish. Bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes.


SPATCHCOCKED EELS

Ingredients : -
2 middle-sized eels; a little parsley, thyme, onion and sage; a little suet; 4 ounces butter; 2 egg yolks; anchovy and butter sauce.


Take the eels, clean them, cut off their heads, slit them and take out the bones; wash and wipe well. Cut into pieces 3 inches long. Put half the butter in a stew pan with a little chopped parsley, thyme, sage, pepper and salt, and a little chopped onion. Melt the butter and stir in the ingredients together. Take off the fire and add the egg yolks, dip the eels in it and then roll them in bread-crumbs. Heat a little suet in a frying-pan and place the eels in it when hot. Fry until crisp and brown. Serve with chopped parsley sprinkled over them and butter and anchovy sauce separately