by Peter Hill
An eighteenth-century handbill advertising a touring theatre performance at Brixworth.
Food and drink
People today would give a great thumbs down to much of the food eaten by our ancestors, who did not have the money or range of products we have nowadays. ‘Chitlings’ – animal intestines – were very popular and were linked together in knots, the thicker parts being known as Tom Hedge, and boiled. Other innards used to make dishes were the lungs or ‘lights’ and one dish known variously as ‘light pie’, ‘pluck pie’, ‘sweet pie’ or ‘pluck pasty’ was widely eaten. It was a form of pasty, containing finely chopped lights, apples, currants, sugar and spice. Ugs pudding (black pudding) was another favourite. ‘Race’ – the heart, liver and lights of calves – was a special treat, and ‘crow’, which was calf or cow liver fried in pig fat, was a particular favourite in farming families. Boiled egg and rook pie was a popular dish with the men, the feathers obviously being removed first!
Other dishes would be more appealing to the tastes of today. Squab pie was a widely eaten dish in the villages around the county, the filling consisting of apples, onions and fat bacon; a variation known as ‘tantarrow’ used meat instead of bacon. ‘Ock ‘n’ Dough’ was a very popular meat and potato dish, with interesting variations: the potatoes are cut in half and pressed into the pastry round the dish, surrounding the meat like a giant island surrounded by potatoes. The county had a variation of toad-in-the-hole or pudding pie: instead of using sausages in the recipe, small pieces of bacon or even steak were substituted and the dish was not baked but boiled.
For centuries, the pig has provided a vast range of products, especially tasty, affordable meat in different forms, and many a county home once had their own animal. After the pig had been dispatched by a local slaughterman or butcher, the blood was drained and the carcass cleaned up. Flo Colyer of Weldon gave a detailed account of the custom in 1976:
The entrails were removed and emptied into a large pancheon of water. The bladder was blown up for the boys to use as a football – and a good one it made too. Nobody relished cleaning the intestines, but there were no plastic sausage skins in those days, so the smaller intestines were required for the purpose, and everyone was partial to the chitterlings from the large intestine.
It was then customary to salt the flitches for ham and bacon and to make sausages, pies and black puddings. The leaf (belly fat) and flare (loin fat) were removed and boiled down to make lard, any remaining scraps being made into ‘flitters’ which, with a little pepper and salt sprinkled on, made an excellent teatime meal. It was also a tradition in some areas to make gifts of some part of the animal, farmers often making and sending a pork pie as a gift to another farmer, or perhaps a needy person. In most cases, however, family and friends were the recipients, as Flo Colyer explained:
It was customary when our pig was killed to send portions of ‘fry’ (liver and fat) to relatives and friends and neighbours. The most fortunate received a piece of pork or perhaps some sausages as well. They returned the compliment when their pig was killed in the season.
Popular food could sometimes have unusual ingredients added, albeit by accident, as in one case at Nassington, where lads working for the local butcher George Mould, or Uncle George as he was affectionately known, accidentally put sand in the sausage meat instead of pepper! Mr Mould also had another tasty surprise, when the village band that he led ended up at his home after a performance to enjoy a well-earned cup of tea. It is said that his son, not wanting their company for some reason, laced their tea with lots of sugar and Epsom salts, to get rid of them. One hopes that their music had not been the cause.
Certain dishes had amusing names: ‘mommy’ or ‘pommy’ was any food cooked to a pulp, such as crushed apples, and ‘sleepy’ was the pulp of pears. ‘Parliament’ was a thin rectangular piece of gingerbread and ‘queen cake’ was a heart-shaped pastry influenced by playing cards. A great favourite was yeast dumplings known as ‘popabouts’. Milton Malsor was renowned for its ‘100 to 1 pudding’, which was so-named because it contained at least hundred and one pieces of potato but only one piece of meat. Even more hilarious was a very popular form of plum pudding eaten in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, known variously as ‘whispering pudding’, ‘hooting pudding’ or ‘screamer’ because there were so few currants in the pastry, they had make those sounds in order to communicate with each other!
For special occasions, however, there were special dishes. Tander cakes made of yeast, flour, salt, sugar, warm water, egg, crystalised lemon peel, lard, currants and caster sugar were eaten sliced and buttered on St Andrew’s Day, washed down with tea. Cattern cakes or ‘wiggs’ were made from dough, lard, sugar and caraway seeds and were consumed on St Catherine’s Day. At the Long Buckby Feast (Buckby Plum Pudding Feast), which was originally held in August but now takes place in September, a kind of rich bread pudding is still specially baked for ten hours the day before and eaten cold the next day. For Rothwell Charter Fair, it is customary to eat boiled ham, salad and Rowell Fair tarts, the latter using an age-old recipe, with variations to suit family tastes, but consisting basically of cream cheese (originally using milk and rennet for curds), mixed fruit, breadcrumbs, butter, caster sugar, eggs, lemon rind, nutmeg – and ‘a little something from the bottle’, such as sherry.
At Earls Barton, where growing leeks was once a source of pride, leek pie is still made. The vegetables were originally taken to the village green and fed through a chaffer and water trough to be washed. The pastry was made and cuts of beef and pork added, then the pie was taken to the baker for cooking. The epithet Barton Leek was formerly given to anyone hailing from the village. Whether it was said in jest or jealousy is not known but presumably the villagers felt flattered that their unique dish had attracted such attention!
A selection of freshly baked Earls Barton leek pies.
Our modern concern with diet and health would have been ignored or treated with disdain in the eighteenth century by those members of society with the money – and inclination – to indulge in a new passion in the form of eating contests or ‘gorging matches’. One such occasion was recorded in the detailed diary of the Oundle carpenter John Clifton on 7 August 1782. One wonders if the servants mentioned usually dined on such fare, in which case any vacancy for their position would have been much sought-after:
Today Mr Edens gave another specimen of his Noble abilitys in the Bolting way in Dr Walctt’s kitchen, he being invited in to Dine with the Servants. First he devoured a fine plate of Ham and fowls. Second, a Charming Mess of Nice Beans and Bacon as any common man could cram down for Dinner. Third, a Precious Plate of Haunch of Venison. Fourth, Another exact the same quantity. Fifth, Another exact the same again. Sixth, A fine Hunk of Bread and Cheese and as much Ale as made six Horns with what he drank at his Dinner. Bless his poor Stomach! He said himself that each Plate of Venison weighed full three quarters of a pound, besides a full flow of very rich Sauce.
Not so appetising, perhaps, was the Sunday dinner awaiting a certain landlord of West Haddon in the nineteenth century. A poem describing the supposedly true incident was written by William Page in 1928. It tells the story of a travelling navvy going into the Crown public house for beer, bread and cheese. Setting his basket down, the landlord notices a freshly caught hare. Licking his lips, he goes away, kills his cat and when the navvy’s attention is elsewhere, substitutes the dead animal for the hare. After his meal, the navvy sets off on his journey but after some distance notices the basket is lighter than before. Discovering he has been duped, he returns to the hostelry on the Sunday morning and finds the landlord has gone to church. He asks the serving girl for some small beer and, as she goes off to the cellar, he takes out a leg of mutton from a steaming cooking pot nearby, replaces it with the cat and cheerfully makes his way out, justice done. He is far away by the time the hungry landlord returns and asks for some of the broth but is about to have two surprises:
Now when it was tasted,
he said in great wrath,
‘Oh wench, what the plague have you put in the broth?
All around it is swimming a great lot of hair,
You may eat it yourself – I’ll not, I declare!’
‘Come, bring up the mutton, and mind you make haste,
The turnips and capers, the butter to taste’,
So Betty with all needful things did prepare
To take up the mutton, not doubting ’twas there.
But alas, it had gone, and nowhere could be found,
Though they searched for the navvy, the roads all around.
Before the advent of piped water, Elsie Harrison of Little Oakley, who was over 100 years old when I interviewed her, recalled seeing freshwater eels in the well at the rear of her garden on frequent occasions. Even as late as the 1970s, you might see transparent freshwater shrimps in a glass of tap water in the north of the county. This would give rise to the humorous comment that it was full of protein! Water, or ‘frog wine’ as it used to be called in some parts of the county, was formerly drawn from wells using pumps which sometimes had fanciful names such as the One-handed Lady.
Ale was once drunk by young and old, in varying degrees of strength, and there was also ‘buttered ale’, where beer was boiled with sugar, butter and spice, and cobbler’s punch or hot pot, in which warm ale was thickened, sweetened, and mixed with spirits – gin being a particular favourite. Home-made wines were also popular, as was ‘cool tankard’, which was a mixture of wine, borage, water, lemon and sugar.
A less inviting drink, used in some cases as a food, was ‘kettlins’, also known as ketley broth and teakettle broth, in which hot water was added to bread and salt, sometimes with pepper, milk or butter added. It was a common and integral part of life in poorer homes, where money was short and families were large.
When tea became cheaper, and hence more widely drunk, in the mid-nineteenth century, it gave rise to some pet names, one of which was ‘Willy call your father’. If the tea was over-diluted with water, making it weak, the man of the house might say, ‘You’ve put the miller’s eye out’. Bottles of cold tea became a popular refreshing alternative to beer for some workers, especially those who needed to take extra care in their tasks, such as the workers in the nascent iron and steel industry in the north of the county. Tea is a diuretic, of course, and the more one drank, the more a visit to relieve oneself would be necessary, which gave rise to the expression: ‘I shall pee over nine hedges and the tenth.’
On St Martin’s Eve (November 10), it was customary, according to John Clare, to gather around the hearth and place large apples on the fire to cook, after which they were added to a pitcher of ‘creamy’ ale with nutmeg. The drink was known as lamb’s wool, after the fleecy appearance of the froth. There were more elaborate, pre-prepared versions, such as this one which was used in parts of the county in 1886:
One gallon of light ale or stout
Half a cup of sigar
An eighth of a teaspoonful of nutmeg
A quarter of a teaspoonful of cinammon
Half a teaspoonful of ginger
Twelve small apples
Two cups of heavy whipping cream
A quarter of a teaspoonful of salt
Two tablespoons of brown sugar
Take the apples and either broil, boil or bake them until bursting. Heat three quarters of the ale until warm, add the remaining quarter together with the other ingredients, bring to the boil, then simmer until frothy. Pour into a bowl, and whip the cream until it peaks. Add this to the mixture. Serve when ready.
Medicine and cures
Folk medicine had an important role in everyday life for the majority of people, who could not afford a physician. Even if one was available, common folk tended to put more trust in the specialist knowledge and skills of someone in the community: a wise woman, who had probably learnt her craft from what had been passed down through generations of her family. She was the community doctor and midwife, offering expert advice and treatment for free or at little cost. She would know which plants or other sources to use for alleviating pain or for healing and curing, based on an observation, understanding and bond with the world of nature. Living in an age of superstition, she would frequently use incantations or charms, giving more apparent credibility and power to the task in hand.
John Askham, in one of his sketches of life in Wellingborough in the 1800s, describes the skills of Jenny Clay, a wise woman renowned in the district for her knowledge and dexterity:
Her case of surgical instruments consisted of a pair of scissors and a worsted needle, and with these simple instruments and an everlasting supply of green salve, the preparation of which was a secret known, we fear, only to herself, she effected cures in all kinds of eruptive disorders which baffled the skills of surgeons who had walked the hospitals and rejoiced in their diplomas. Nothing came amiss to her, from a whitlow to a cancer. She had cured whole cargoes of scald heads ... [her green salve] would draw or heal, irritate or mollify, as the case required; it suited all, young or old, in whatever form it was applied. Everybody went to her surgery who was able to get there.
In addition to her wonderful salve, she used other remedies such as applying treacle possets, tallowing the nose, and ‘pinning a stocking around the throat’, all of which had been in common use since at least the eighteenth century.
Another noted wise woman who lived at Syresham in the late 1800s would cure whooping cough by opening a nut and substituting the kernel with a spider, binding up the shell tightly in muslin and telling anyone afflicted to hang it round their neck for six weeks. She was in fact following a commonly held belief that the spider would ingest the cough and the patient would thus be cured. She also made poultices from crushed snails for applying to a carbuncle or boil but in this she was not always so successful, for it was said that her method only worsened the agony on one occasion – and a doctor had to be called in as a last resort.
One of the last wise women in the county was Kerenhappuch Briggs of Wadenhoe, who was always to be seen around her garden and the village lanes, fields and woods gathering quantities of selected wild plants to make brews, salves and potions for neighbours in need. Her skills were locally recognised and her services much in demand, even to the extent of occasionally helping to nurse ailing members of the manorial family at Lilford Hall.
A rare image of Northamptonshire wise woman Kerenhappuch Briggs.
Another well-respected herbalist and midwife was the quaintly named Reservoir Woods of Gretton, who came from an old Romany family. She was regarded as ‘a wonderful woman with her herbal drinks, lotions and ointments’ and on her death in 1911, a gravestone was erected by public subscription, in recognition of her services to the community and as a token of the affection in which she had been held.
Even without a wise woman, in the days when there were not many doctors around, folk had their own remedies for ailments. A way of countering cramp was to form a cross with one’s shoes and stockings before going to bed. Elderberry wine in hot water was a favourite tonic if you felt under the weather, and a good decongestant for colds was a boiled onion made into a thick gruel with salt and pepper to be eaten before going to bed with a shawl or towel over the head.
For earache, there were two commonly used remedies: a baked onion or a flannel bag full of hot bran tied on with a handkerchief. For toothache, a favourite was to make a brown paper strip plaster soaked in vinegar, which was then thickly coated with more paper to be tied round the face at bedtime. Bread poultices were another remedy. However, in some villages, like Polebrook, a curious if horrifying method was to take henbane seeds with a nip of whisky!
For clearing the blood, shoots of wild hops and young nettles were boiled and used as a vegetable. For nosebleed, knotweed (polygonium) was applied. For spots, a drink made from nettles was very effective, especially if the leaves or shoots were cut early in the day before the essential oils were evaporated by the sun. In fact, the nettle was and still is
a very useful plant: it was traditionally used as a tonic, as it is rich in vitamin C, as well as for milk curdling and as a salad plant, being good for the digestion. It was also well known everywhere as a stinging nettle and it was common practice to rub a dock leaf on an affected part when stung, adding saliva and chanting, ‘Nettle in, dock out, dock rub, nettle out’. Strangely, the juice of a nettle is also an antidote for its own sting.
Another plant, rarely heard of today but often featuring in the county’s mummers’ plays as a wonder cure, was elecampane, a wild sunflower-like plant with aromatic roots and leaves which were widely used in herbal medicine and were effective in treating respiratory disorders. The plant was also made into a candied sweetmeat.
Some remedies, however, seem decidedly strange – and off-putting – to modern sensibilities. For instance, around the county, the hair from the tail of a black cat was rubbed on a stye; currant plasters or heated soap and sugar were applied to draw out poison; and for chilblains, the remedy was to soak the feet in a chamberpot of urine. In 1973, Annie Beaver of Weldon recalled some of her grandmother’s remedies:
If you had whooping cough, a fried mouse was supposed to be good, but my father did not seem to agree. For burns, ringworm etc. an ointment made from house leeks pounded with pure lard was considered a good remedy. The powder of dried puffballs was used on cut hands. Failing that a good thick cobweb was used.
Sometimes, just to be sure, folk combined traditional methods with modern medicine. A combination of modern and traditional methods was recommended for the treatment of wounds in Kettering and Wellingborough in the early twentieth century. Once again, puffballs seemed to work magic and yet another kind of green ointment applied: