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Mrs Hibbert's Pick-Me-Up and Other Recipes from a Yorkshire Dale
By Joanna Moody The History Press
Copyright © 2013 Joanna Moody
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-9683-2
CHAPTER 1
Recipes
Advice to Wives
Occupy yourself chiefly with household affairs, and do not trouble yourself with other matters, or offer suggestions and advice to your husband until he asks for them.
Nidderdale Olminac, 1868
Shrovetide in Nidderdale
Each day in Shrovetide week was known by its own peculiar name: Collop Monday, for eggs and collops (an old word for thick slices of meat); Shrove or Pancake Tuesday; Fritter or Frutas Wednesday; Bloody Thorsday, for black puddings.
At Shrovetide we used to make a special treat called fritters. They were composed of all kinds of dried fruit, sugar, flour, a good lot of eggs and yeast, warm milk – mix[ed] all together to a batter and left to rise up then fried them up in a frying pan in our own pig lard. We used to measure it with a cup the size of a small crumpet and turned over until brown. They would keep a few weeks and were good either cold or warmed like toast.
Memories of Sarah Ann Carling née Beecroft (b. 1879) of Westfield
Shrovetide Pateley Fritters (i)
¾ oz yeast
1 pt warm milk
12 oz flour
1 oz lard
3 oz currants
1 ½ oz raisins
a little lemon peel if liked
1 tablespoon sugar
salt spoon cinnamon
salt spoon salt
1 large apple chopped finely
Crumble the yeast into a little of the warm milk and let it rise. Warm the flour in a bowl. Melt the lard in the remainder of the milk. Pour the yeast into the centre of the flour, add the lard and milk and let it rise a few minutes longer. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat to a stiff batter. Let it rise in a warm place for one hour.
Heat a little dripping or lard in a frying pan, put in the batter in large spoonsful and when well browned underneath turn over and cook on the other side till brown.
[JD notes 'WI recipe']
Pateley Fritters (ii)
1 oz yeast 1 teaspoon sugar dash of pepper 2 lb flour 1 lb sugar ¼ lb currants ¼ lb sultanas 2 eggs pinch of salt a little grated nutmeg warm milk
Mix the yeast with a teaspoon of sugar and a dash of pepper. Mix all the other ingredients together, make a well in the centre and add the yeast and enough warm milk or milk and water to make a soft mixture rather thicker than a Yorkshire Pudding batter. Let it rise in a warm place for a few hours, then drop in tablespoonfuls at a time into a hot greased frying pan. When brown on one side, turn over and cook on the reverse.
Eggs
Eggs become plentiful at Whitsuntide and so does milk as the cows are turned out on to the hillside pastures after the long Nidderdale winter. A traditional delicacy found on the tea table, along with a wonderful variety of assorted baking, are custard tarts.
Baked Custard Tarts
Short crust pastry
1 pint milk
4 eggs
1 tablespoon sugar
Line a deep pie dish with short crust pastry, pressing it well in. Beat the eggs well and add the sugar, then the milk and stir well together. Pour into the pastry and bake in a fairly hot oven for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to moderate and bake until the custard is set (about another half hour). Make sure the fat is well rubbed into the flour for the pastry, otherwise this will rise to the top of the custard.
Pateley Omelette
Chop a small onion very fine, add pepper, salt, a little sage or parsley, 1 egg and 2 tablespoons of milk. Fry in hot dripping until done, turn half over and serve.
This came from Mrs Green of Pateley – the Greens appear in the Pateley Church registers from the 1720s. Thomas Green was a great friend of John Wesley and entertained him in his house up Old Church Lane on several occasions. He was a skilled builder and carpenter, and built the first two chapels in Pateley Bridge, one adjoining his house, and then the 1776-1908 chapel on the site of the present one. He also restored Middlesmoor Church in the 1770s.
Haytime
The Dales economy depends on a good hay time. Every new Minister coming into Nidderdale realises that the busy round of weeknight chapel meetings has to cease completely from mid-June till the start of the Harvest Festivals of which Heathfield, the first week in September, is the first.
Mowing starts at dawn and work goes on until after dark. Dales weather is very unpredictable.
Farmers' wives and daughters are kept busy taking 'drinkings' to the fields – drinks as well as food are prepared and stored on the stone slabs of the old farmhouse larders.
Elderflower Champagne
A delicious and popular drink for hot summer days and hay time.
1 ½ lb sugar
2 lemons
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 gallon cold water
4 heads of elderflowers
Put all ingredients except the lemons into a large bowl; squeeze the lemons and quarter them and add to the other ingredients. Stand for 24 hours, stirring occasionally. Strain and bottle into screw-top bottles. The 'champagne' will be ready for drinking in a few days.
TRUE FRIENDSHIP
True friendship unfeigned
Doth rest unrestrained,
No terror can tame it:
Not gaining or losing,
Nor gallant gay glossing,
Can ever reclaim it.
In pain, and in pleasure,
The most truest treasure
That may be desired,
Is loyal love deemed,
Of wisdom esteemed
And chiefly required.
When the men and women came in at dark from the hayfield it was the custom to sit down to a good supper of boiled bacon, cold beef and a hot savoury dish, followed by fruit pie and cheese.
Bishopside Supper Dish
Take 1 large onion, ¼ [lb] cheese, 1 tablespoon milk. Chop the onion fairly small, grate the cheese and mix in a basin with the milk, pinch of salt and pepper. Line a large plate with pastry, put in the cheese and onion, cover with more pastry. Bake in a moderate oven. Can be eaten either hot or cold.
A savoury dish from Pateley Bridge Church Restoration Fund Book, 1924
Potato and Onion Balls
Boil a Spanish onion till soft, whip it up well with 4 times its volume of mashed potato. Moisten with butter, cream or milk. Season, salt and pepper, bind with egg yolks. Roll into balls, egg and breadcrumbs, and fry in deep fat.
Potato Cake
4 oz flour
4 oz butter
1 egg
4 oz mashed potato
3 oz sugar
little milk
Beat the butter and sugar, add beaten egg, then flour and potato, using a little milk. Turn into a greased cake tin and bake for ½ hour. Split open, spread well with butter, sprinkle with sugar. Serve hot.
Crusty Cheese Bake
5 thin slices white bread
2 oz ham, chopped
2 eggs
1 pint milk
2 oz cheddar cheese, grated
1 oz mushrooms, peeled and sliced
1 level teaspoon dry mustard
Cut each slice of bread into 4. Fill greased ovenproof dish with a layer of bread, 1 oz cheese, mushrooms and ham. Finish with a layer of bread. Sprinkle with rest of cheese. Beat eggs with mustard. Gradually add milk and whisk together. Pour over bread. Bake in centre of a moderate oven for 45 minutes or till golden and puffy. Garnish with grilled mushrooms. Serve hot with a green salad or hot green vegetables.
Mushrooms
August and September was mushroom time. Mushrooms used to grow in abundance in Nidderdale in the days of horses, and before artificial fertilisers and reseeding of pastures became common.
The Houseman family of Hartwith recalls scores of baskets being dropped off the train at all the halts sent by Bradford wholesalers. Whole families rose at 4 a.m. and the 7 a.m. train went down with the luggage van absolutely full of fresh picked mushrooms; it was chaos on Monday mornings when each station was full of baby calves in sacks going to Knaresborough and Otley markets.
Boiled Mushrooms
Take good-sized mushrooms, thick and firm. Peel, wash and drain. Steep 2 hours in salad oil, pepper and salt. Then put on a gridiron and broil over a clear fire. Turn to get done on both sides. When done put on a dish. Serve with a sauce made thus: put into a stewpan some chopped parsley and a very little chopped onion and salad oil and a little lemon juice or vinegar pour over the mushrooms and serve very hot.
A popular Dales supper dish, eighteenth century, from an old almanac.
Lovefeasts
Lovefeasts, established by John Wesley, were days on which Methodists from around a local area gathered in open chapel to reaffirm and strengthen their commitment to their faith. Special and lively preachers were engaged for lengthy services, when appropriate hymns were sung and testimony could be given by any of the members present. Wesley once said that the 'Very design is free and familiar, everyone has liberty to speak whatever may be to the glory of God. The flame ran from heart to heart; one told how my morning sermon had set her heart at liberty.'
To sustain them during the long service, and probably to remind them of the Last Supper, Lovefeast bread was handed round, together with a large two-handled loving cup, first filled with ale but later with water.
Each area had its own particular recipe, with the oldest being based on the traditional yeast mixture which was the foundation of all celebration cakes before the advent of baking powder in the mid 19th century. These recipes, however, are all baking powder adaptations – quicker and more reliable than the yeast versions.
Middlesmoor Lovefeast Cake
2 lbs flour
1 lb sugar
1 lb currants
½ lb sultanas
3 eggs
spices to taste
5 oz fresh butter
5 oz lard
¼ lb lemon peel
2 oz baking powder
1 pint of milk
Mix flour and baking powder. Rub in the butter, add the fruit. Beat the eggs with the milk and dry ingredients. Put into loaf tins and bake in a moderate oven.
Miss Brown, Ramsgill, 1903
Pateley Bridge Lovefeast Bread
2 lbs flour
1 lb butter
1 lb sugar
¼ lb lemon peel
1 pint of milk
2 eggs
2 oz baking powder
currants & sultanas if desired
Method as Middlesmoor.
Mrs C Grainge, Otley
Laverton and Pateley Lovefeast Bread
2 ½ lb flour
7 oz lard
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 lb fruit and peel.
9 oz sugar
1 oz yeast
Nutmeg and salt and spice to taste.
Lovefeast Cake of the Verity and Simpson Families
2 lbs flour
1 ½ lb sugar
1 lb sultanas
pinch salt
6 eggs
a little milk
1 lb butter
1 lb currants
2 oz lemon peel
2 oz ground almonds
3 teaspoons baking powder
The children had their celebrations. The annual Sunday School Treat usually involved a procession of teachers and scholars to the home of a local worthy – in Pateley Bridge, either Castlestead (George Metcalfe) for Methodists or Bewerley Hall (Squire Yorke) for Anglicans. There they would sing hymns, have races and enjoy the gardens, plus tea.
Sunday School Treat Cakes
3 lbs flour
1 ½ lbs sugar
¼ lb lemon peel
1 pint new milk
2 lbs currants
1 lb butter
10 eggs
2 tablespoons baking powder
Oatcakes
Because of the wet climate in the upper dale, the only cereal crop which could ripen was oats. Each farm had a small plot of arable for growing sufficient for the family's needs. In the old days, oats were ground to meal in the stone querns and blended with a little fat and water into a paste, then patted out and baked on the hearth stone. Farmers' wives made as many as 15 dozen. They were eaten with white cheese and a light home-brewed beer.
Built-in bakstones were common in Nidderdale. Lucas's Studies in Nidderdale (1878) mentions clapcake, riddle cake, held-on cake and turned-down cake, of which the last three were made by pouring into a bakstone. Mrs J. Beckwith (b.1873) talked of using a round piece of brown paper for throwing the batter on to a girdle at New Houses in Upper Nidderdale.
Oatmeal was mixed with water in a wooden trough or 'knade-kit', poured onto a wooden board or 'bak-brade' and covered with muslin. From this it was transferred to the 'bakstone', by the side of the fire grate (which was always kept hot, for simmering stews etc). After a few seconds it was turned with a wooden 'spittle', then whilst still moist it was hung over a 'bread creel' or 'bread fleak' to dry.
NB. Bakstones were often fixed to a metal frame, and could be used over the fire.
Men worked for long hours on oatcake and cheese without lacking endurance and strength.
When a batch of oatcakes was ready, they were sometimes stored on an 'oatfleak'-a rack suspended from the beams often later used as a clothes airer – to protect them from vermin. They dried, and pieces could be broken off as needed. [In JD's collection are extracts on oatcakes from Hartley & Ingleby Life and Tradition in the Yorkshire Dales (1956)].
Three Dales Plain Oatcakes
(i) Oatcake or Haverbread
½ pint milk
½ pint water
2 saltspoons salt
6 heaped tablespoons fine oatmeal
3 heaped tablespoons flour
1 oz yeast
Mix together the dry ingredients, warm milk and water, crumble in the yeast, and let it stand 20 minutes. Cook in a lard-greased frying pan, turn when brown, and cook on the other side.
[JD notes 'Mrs Appleby (Dalesman)']
(ii) Oatcakes to Serve With Cheese
½ best medium oatmeal
pinch bicarbonate soda
1 oz butter
½ teaspoon table salt
¼ pint milk
Put butter in saucepan with milk, stir in other ingredients, mix well. Put on floured board, roll quickly very thin, cut with cutter, bake 3 or 4 minutes, moderate oven. Goes crisp when cold.
Miss Alice Simpson, Covill House, 1907
(iii) Oatcake
7 oz oats
3 oz butter
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 oz flour
3 oz sugar
1 egg
Roll out.
Fruit Oatcake
2 oz chopped dates
4 oz porridge oats
4 oz margarine
a little spice
2 oz chopped raisins or sultanas
4 oz self-raising flour
4 oz sugar
Heat dates with a little water till soft. Rub fat into flour and oats and spices. Add sugar and mix to stiff dough. Divide into ½ and roll out to fit 2 sandwich tins. Spread with fruit mixture. Cover with other ½. Bake 20 minutes.
An havverceeake Nell left her backstan an' bread
Convinced 'at oade Tim had geeane rang in hiz heead
Oade bandy leg'd Dicky wer stop-thacking t'hoose
An sueger tung'd Mary were mucking her goose.
From T'Deeacre Pig Hunt
Clap Cake
Old Danish Klappe-brod – these are thin cakes, beaten with the hand. A recipe which probably goes back to Viking times, with baking powder being used to make a lighter mixture, another variation on the oatcake recipe.
1 ¾ lb medium oatmeal
10 oz lard
4 teaspoons baking powder
¾ lb flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 gill milk
Mix altogether, roll out and cut in squares. Bake in a moderate oven.
Mrs Ben Skaife, Darley, née Alice Mawer, Ramsgill
Mestyng Bread
½ wheat ½ rye
Mestlyng Bread
½ rye ½ barley
Pateley Pepper Cake
Pepper was sometimes used to speed up the action of the yeast, so the pepper cakes were probably again yeast based originally.
12 oz plain flour
12 oz black treacle
4 oz butter
2 beaten eggs
4 oz soft brown sugar
½ oz ground cloves
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Rub the fat into the flour, add the sugar, spices, then the bicarbonate of soda mixed with a little milk, the treacle and the eggs. Mix well, put into a suitable, well greased tin and bake at Gas 4 (350°F) for about an hour.
Lower Nidd Valley Pepper Cake
1 ½ lb flour
1 OZ powdered cloves
½ lb butter
1 teaspoon pearl ash melted in a little milk
½ lb moist brown sugar
1 ½ lb treacle
5 well-beaten eggs
Mix all together with the eggs and bake at 350°F (Mark 4) for 2 hours.
A little bit of Pepper Cake,
A little bit of cheese,
A cup of cold water
And a penny if you please.
Ginger Loaf
1 lb flour
4 oz butter
a few caraway seeds powdered fine
1 lb treacle
Candied peel cut fine
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Butter and treacle to be made milk-warm and the flour to be mixed in gradually. The soda to be put in last dissolved in a little milk – let it stand ½ hour to rise, bake in slow oven.
Pateley, 1885
Ginger Biscuits
10 oz flour
4 oz lard
4 oz sugar
2 teaspoons ground ginger
3 tablespoons golden syrup
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Beat lard and sugar together, add syrup (warmed), flour and ginger. Dissolve soda in a little water, work all into a stiff dough. Pull off pieces size of a walnut, roll into balls with the hand. Bake on a well-greased tin 350°F (moderate oven).
Mrs Lumley, Hartwith
Gingerbread
½ lb self-raising flour
2 oz Demerara sugar
2 oz glace cherries
1 egg
3 oz margarine and lard mixed
½ lb golden syrup
2 teaspoons ground ginger
3 good tablespoons milk
Mix flour, sugar and ginger, add chopped cherries and the beaten egg, then the melted fat and syrup and milk to make a soft mixture. Pour into a tin 10ins by 8ins and bake in the oven for 45 minutes. 350°F for 10 minutes, then turn down to 325°.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mrs Hibbert's Pick-Me-Up and Other Recipes from a Yorkshire Dale by Joanna Moody. Copyright © 2013 Joanna Moody. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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