Hello everyone, hope your February isn’t looking too gloomy. Here’s something to cheer you up: news that season B of A is for Apple: An Encyclopaedia of Food & Drink has kicked off.
For those not in the know A is for Apple is a podcast hosted by Sam Bilton, Alessandra Pino and me. Each season we take a letter and focus on it; last time we did A, so now we are doing B. We all present a very short piece about our chosen topic and then discuss it. There’s usually a theme to the episode, but Sam (who was the head host in episode 1) was kind and gave us a free choice. I chose berries, Sam chose the Banting diet, and Alessandra bananas. It’s available to listen to on all podcast apps, just search for “A is for Apple” and hit subscribe. If you’re not a podcasty person, here’s a Spotify inbed for you:
For my piece I interviewed Rachel Webster, Curator of Plants at Manchester Museum, and quickly following episode 1 was the uncut interview talking about berries, flowers and fruits – and comes with some gob-smacking facts! Listen here:
You can also follow the podcast on Substack for free: click this link to check it out. There are bonus recipes and other bits and bobs to be found there.
Next episode Alessandra is in the driving seat and she gave us a theme: Places. What places beginning with B would you choose!?
Merry Christmas everyone! It’s time for my annual Christmas boozy drink recipe, and this year I’m going with a classic Irish coffee. Many have been made and drunk in the Buttery household over the last couple of weeks: all in the name of research, you understand.
The Irish coffee was invented soon after the end of World War Two in 1945; transatlantic flights had just recommenced and there were flights from the US full of visiting dignitaries landing at Shannon airport. Chef Joe Sheridan was tasked with making a special drink for the travellers that was comforting and evocative of Ireland’s warm hospitality. He came up with a ‘Gaelic coffee’, a mixture of whiskey, brown sugar cubes, hot coffee and cream. It was a great success and was given to all travellers landing at Shannon Airport thereafter.[1]
In the 1950s, the drink, now called Irish coffee, was taken to the USA where it was made bigger and sweeter, and sugar syrup replaced sugar cubes.[2]
From a personal point of view, I have great memories of going to a lovely little Indian restaurant with my parents in Pudsey, West Yorkshire in my late teens. We always ended our meal with one of their delicious Irish coffees. It didn’t occur to any of us to ask why an Indian restaurant in Yorkshire was serving Irish coffee.
This recipe is based on the one provided by Matthew Roberston in the excellent Cocktail Bible.[3] (Robertson, 2018) It’s made extra special with the inclusion of a dash of coffee liqueur and a sweetening of vanilla syrup, though you could just use regular sugar syrup and miss out the liqueur. I think one shot of syrup is too much, though not everyone in the family agreed with me on that one, so add to taste.
Merry Christmas everyone!
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Per person:
1 ¾ shots Irish whiskey
2 shots espresso, or very strong coffee
½ shot coffee liqueur such as Kalua
½ to 1 shot vanilla or sugar syrup
2 good tablespoons of lightly whipped double cream
Warm all of the ingredients, except the cream, in a saucepan until they just begin to simmer—don’t boil it hard, as you’ll lose much of the alcohol!
Pour into a small glass such as a rocks glass and spoon over the floppily-whipped cream; as it melts it will form a delicious layer of cream.
Notes:
[1] MacMahon, J. (2024) An Irish Food Story: 100 Foods That Made Us. Nine Bean Rows; Wondrich, D. and Rothbaum, D. (eds) (2021) The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. Oxford University Press.
I have been thinking and reading about baked goods rather a lot this year, having written Knead to Know: A History of Baking (out 12 September, preorder here). One thing I mention in the book is the activity we in Britain no longer partake in: dipping little sponge cakes in sweet alcoholic drinks. The closest we get to this is when we soak them in booze for a trifle, but fewer and fewer of us are making traditional trifles these days, I’d say.[1] Cakes made especially for dipping are well known: financiers, madeleines, boudoir biscuits (which are actually dry cakes). We used to dunk cake in wine though, and even came up with one of our own (the ones listed above are all French in origin); the now rather passe Madeira cake. It’s dismissed as a rather dry, plain sponge cake,[2] and perhaps it is, but that’s because we are no longer consuming it in the way it was designed to be, as Jane Grigson tells us in English Food, ‘this cake was served with Madeira and other sweet wines in the nineteenth century.’[3]
Madeira is a sweet wine made on the island of the same name (sugar was made there in the early modern period[4]), and it was a popular export to Britain from the seventeenth century.[5] The first time recipes for cakes specifically made for dipping in wine pop up in handwritten manuscripts from the eighteenth century, and the first printed recipe for Madeira cake (according to Laura Mason and Catherine Brown) appears in Eliza Acton’s 1845 classic Modern Cookery for Private Families.[6]
To produce a cake that can be successfully dipped without breaking up, it must be made on the dry side compared to, say, a pound cake or Victoria sponge: more flour is used, and no extra liquid is added (there’s no dropping consistency here). Whilst searching the internet for recipes, I spotted that people commonly search for ‘moist Madeira cake’ recipes. Well there is no such thing, it isn’t supposed to be moist. Yes, there are recipes to be found on the internet for apparently moist Madeira cakes that include additional ground almonds, milk and/or a reduced amount of flour. Well, you can do that, of course – be my guest, it will be delicious I’m sure – but it will no longer be a Madeira cake.
Creating lift is very important when it comes to sponge cake-making, and in Eliza Acton’s recipe, it is achieved by whisking eggs and sugar until frothy, before folding in flour mixed with a little ‘carbonate of soda’, and then cold, melted butter.[7] We’d call this a genoise-style cake these days. Recipes today use the more familiar creaming method and more raising agent, but don’t be tempted to use self-raising flour – that would give the mixture too much of a boost; we’re aiming for small, densely packed, bubbles here, so a more restrained amount of baking powder is required.
The characteristic crack of a loaf-shaped Madeira cake is most pleasing, but only achieved because a dry mixture is used.
Older recipes ask for Madeira cake to be cooked in a round tin (or hoop), but I prefer baking mine in a 900 g (2 lb) loaf tin.[8] I like the characteristic crack you get that runs down the length of the baked cake. Very pleasing. When it comes to flavouring, just a little lemon zest is traditional. Some ask for a decoration of candied citron strips, but I don’t think it’s necessary.
This recipe is adapted from the one given by Jane Grigson in her classic tome English Food,[9] first published in 1974, making it 50 years old this year!
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175 g softened, salted butter
175 g caster sugar
275 g plain flour
1 level tsp baking powder
4 large eggs (or 4 medium eggs + 1 tbs milk)
Grated zest of a lemon
Preheat your oven to 160°C, then line a 900 g (2 lb) loaf tin with baking paper.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy with your beaters, a most important stage as it seeds lots of air bubbles in the batter, making for a lighter cake. Now crack the eggs into the mixture one at a time: put the beater on a medium speed, add your first one, and when fully combined, add the next. If the egg and butter mixture begins to curdle (and it probably will after egg number two), add a spoonful of flour and beat on a medium-high speed until incorporated fully, then continue until all of the eggs are used up.
Mix the flour and baking powder, and tip into the mixture along with the lemon zest. Stir on a slow speed until the mixture is smooth. If your beater’s slow speed isn’t that slow, it is better to mix in the flour by hand. If you used medium eggs, add the milk at this point and mix into the batter.
Spoon the mixture into the lined loaf tin and level off. Bake for 1 hour (though check after 50 minutes) until cooked through. Do the good old test of pressing the cake with a finger: if it springs back, it is ready. You can always skewer the cake with a wooden toothpick to see if it comes out clear of any uncooked batter.
When ready, cool in the tin on a wire rack. Best eaten within the first 24 hours of baking.
Notes
[1] In Britain, the only thing we’re dunking is our biscuits in our tea.
[3] Grigson, J. (1992). English Food (Third Edit). Penguin.
[4] This is covered in Buttery, N. (2022). A Dark History of Sugar. Pen and Sword History.
[5] Mason, L., & Brown, C. (1999). The Taste of Britain. Harper Press.
[6]Ibid. I searched too and could not find an earlier example.
[7] Acton, E. (1845). Modern Cookery For Private Families. Quadrille.
[8] Most recipes, even modern ones, describe loaf tins by the weight of bread dough they are designed to bake: 450g (1 lb) or 900g (2 lb). Exact dimensions vary, but in the case of a 900g (2lb) tin, the dimensions are around 21 cm long x 11 cm wide x 7 cm high.
Merry Christmas everyone! It’s time for my annual boozy Christmas drink, and this year’s is so good, you can even give it to the kids; if you take Mrs Beeton’s advice (I advise against it, but what do I know). It is called negus; the ingredients are simple, and you are almost guaranteed to have them this time of year: wine, sugar, citrus fruit, spices. Easy.
Its origin lies with the English officer class of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, who got into the very sensible habit of watering down their wine to avoid getting too drunk of an evening. They still wanted something to drink though. It is named after Colonel Francis Negus (1660-1732), ‘a well-connected gentleman’, who, aside from being a noted member of the officer class, was also an MP, and a talented horse rider and hunter, so-much-so he was given the position of Master of the Horse and Warden of Windsor Forest. Quite the chap it would seem. The earliest description known comes in the form of a handwritten note in a 1725 edition of Tacitus’s works. It said: ‘After a morning’s walk, half a pint of white wine, made and hot and sweetened a little, is recond very good. – Col. Negus, a gentn. of tast, advises it, I have heard say.’[3] Initially it was a heated mixture of white wine and water, sugar and then some citrus juice, sometimes lemons, or sweet or Seville oranges, and it hasn’t really changed that much.
Its low alcohol made it especially good for the infirm or chronically ill. One Dr William Buchan in his 1797 book, prescribes claret negus for those with ‘Slow or Nervous Fever’, what we would call depression today.[4] In the book Oxford Nightcaps (1827), the author tells us that a doctor friend of his, a certain Doctor Willich, thinks ‘Negus is one of the innocent and wholesome species of drink especially if Seville oranges be added’. He also recommends lemons, cinnamon, cloves and all-spice. And calves’ foot jelly, which was thought very nourishing to those who couldn’t digest anything too rich or challenging.
Mr Fezziwig’s Ball as depicted by John Leech
Into the mid-19th century, negus settled down as a drink to be enjoyed by everyone, the wine most often used now being port (a drink which had been made popular since the Napoleonic Wars). It is mentioned in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843). When the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to show him the wonderful parties put on by his old boss, the kind and caring, Mr Fezziwig: ‘There were dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.’[5] What a sight they would have been!
Isabella Beeton’s considered negus a children’s drink
So inoffensive was negus that it became a popular drink with kids, with Mrs Beeton informing us in 1861 that ‘[a]s this beverage is more usually drunk at children’s parties than at any other, the wine need not be very old or expensive for the purpose.’ Her proportions are 1 pint of port to every quart of water, plus a quarter of a pound of sugar, zest and juice of one lemon and some grated nutmeg. She adds: ‘Allow 1 pint of wine, with the ingredients in proportion, for a party of 9 or 10 children.’[6]
It’s essentially a weak version of my favourite hot-booze drink,smoking bishop, but child-friendly. Hm. I suppose it’s one way to get them to sleep on Christmas Eve night!
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The recipe
Use whatever wine you prefer and your favourite citrus fruit. I went with port and a clementine and added some nutmeg and cinnamon. I must say it was very drinkable.
I’ve metricated the volumes, but the rule of thumb here is 1 part wine to 2 parts water, and you can sweeten the mixture to your taste.
Makes 1.3 litres:
400 ml wine (port, claret or white wine)
Zest and juice of 1 citrus fruit (lemon, sweet orange, Seville orange, clementine, etc)
Spices: ¼ freshly grated nutmeg, a snapped cinnamon stick, a teaspoon of cracked allspice berries or bruised cloves; choose your favourites.
800 ml boiling water
100 to 120 g caster sugar.
Heat the wine slowly with the zest and juice of your chosen fruit, and the spices until scalding hot (but not boiling). Add the hot water, then add sugar to taste. Pass through a sieve into a punch bowl or jug. To serve, ladle into beakers or cups.
One final note before I go: in Jerry Thomas and Christian Shultz’s How to Mix Drinks (1862), there is a very interesting-sounding soda negus recipe. The wine is warmed up with sugar and spices, then left to cool, then soda is added before serving.[7] Worth a try I think!
Notes
[1] Purl was an ale that had been infused with wormwood. Sounds full-on. Potential future Christmas booze post.
[2] Anon. (1776) The Free-Mason’s Calendar: or, an Almanac for the Year of Christ 1776.
[3] Wondrich, D. (2021) The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. Edited by D. Wondrich and N. Rothbaum. Oxford University Press.
[4] Buchan, W. (1797) Domestic Medicine, Or, A Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases, by Regimen and Simple Medicines. Edited by I. Cathrall. Richard Folwell.
[5] Dickens, C. (2010) A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings. Penguin Classics.
[6] Beeton, I. (1861) The Book of Household Management. Lightning Source.
[7] Thomas, J. and Schultz, C. (1862) How to Mix Drinks, Or, The Bon-vivant’s Companion. Dick & Fitzgerald.
After talking to Lindsay Middleton about her online resource Dishes for the Sick Room, an exciting deep dive into the invalid cookery recipes found in the cookery books of Glasgow Caledonian University, I decided to have a go at making some barley water.
If you haven’t listened to the episode of the Podcast episode Invalid Cookery with Lindsay Middleton, you can do so below:
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Merry Christmas everyone! It’s been yet another long and arduous year, but now it is time to kick back your heels – even if it is only for a short time – and to aid you in this I present my annual Christmas boozy drink post. This year, it one of my favourites: eggnog (regular readers will know of my love of anything custardy).
Eggnog isn’t really drunk that much in Britain, but it is very popular in the United States. Indeed, it is where I discovered it; I remember walking through the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in the winter term seeing several students chugging big cartons of the stuff on their way to lectures (it’s worth pointing out that the bought stuff in cartons contains no alcohol; you add your own later, should you wish to).
A selection of U.S. eggnog cartons
For those not in the know, eggnog is a thick, creamy drink made from a dark spirit, usually rum (though brandy, whisk(e)y or sherry can be used), cream or milk, eggs, sugar and spices. The ingredients are either whisked up and served chilled and frothy, or cooked like a custard and drunk hot or cold. Here’s a description of the process from nineteenth century American historian and politician Nathaniel Bouton, writing about the US in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries:
Another favourite drink was egg-nog, which was composed of an egg beaten and stirred together with sugar, milk and spirit…The stick used for this purpose was split at the end and a transverse piece of wood inserted, which was rapidly whirled around, back and forward, between the palms of the hands. Skilful men made graceful flourishes with…“egg-nog” sticks in those days.[1]
The drink was invented in the late colonial era, and was enjoyed all year round; it became associated with Christmas because two of the primary ingredients – eggs and cream – were expensive in wintertime and so could only be enjoyed as a treat. Therefore, it was saved for Christmastide (unless you were rich, then it didn’t matter). A tradition, one I whole-heartedly agree with, was quickly established to breakfast upon eggnog on Christmas morning. This was extended, for those who could afford it, to the full twelve days of Christmas.[2] So ubiquitous was it that eggnog was ‘consumed heartily by slave owners, slaves and children alike.’[3]
There was a drop in popularity during Prohibition,[4] but it has certainly since recovered because according to Indiana University ‘[i]n 2007, eggnog consumption nationwide was 122 million pounds with peak sales occurring the week before Thanksgiving, the weeks of Christmas, and just after Christmas.’[5]
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You may be wondering: “Er, why are you telling me about an American drink on a blog about British food history?”
Good question.
Well first you could argue that colonial America was a part of Britain, being part of its proto-empire; and second, eggnog is part of the evolution of a British drink called posset, something I have already written about. Possets were made[6] by beating or whisking alcohol – usually sweet wines and sack – with hot milk or cream, sugar and spices. Sound familiar? There was a problem for anyone making a posset in North America because sweet, imported wines were very expensive, prohibitively so for many, and so a cheap alternative was required. In eighteenth century America this was rum, and so the posset was adapted and became eggnog.
You can make your eggnog hot or cold. The hot version is a wonderful, luscious silky-thick custard, and with freshly grated nutmeg it’s just like a boozy, liquid custard tart. This you can enjoy cold too. The uncooked cold one is very different, the eggs, milk and cream froth up after a good shaking, to produce a surprisingly light and refreshing drink.
My recipe makes enough for two people so that if you are going for the uncooked version you can fit the ingredients in a cocktail shaker. If you want to make more, you’ll have to froth the mixture in a bowl with your best eggnog stick, or failing that, a whisk.
If you want to make a cold eggnog, use sugar syrup,[7] if hot can use sugar syrup or caster sugar. Note that the cold one uses raw eggs, so buy good quality free-range eggs, and avoid giving the drink to anyone immunosuppressed.
Cheers! And a very merry Christmas
Serves 2
4 shots (100 ml) dark rum (or brandy, whisk(e)y, sherry etc.)
50 ml sugar syrup or 25-30 g caster sugar
2 eggs
150 ml whole milk
150 ml double cream
Freshly grated nutmeg
Ice cubes (if drinking cold)
To make cold: In a cocktail shaker filled with cubed ice, add the alcohol, sugar syrup, eggs, milk and cream. Shake very well indeed and strain the eggnog through a fine sieve into two glasses filled with more ice cubes. Grate some nutmeg over the top and serve.
To make hot: place the alcohol, three-quarters of the sugar or sugar syrup, eggs, milk and cream in a saucepan and place over a medium-low heat and beat with a small whisk. When fully mixed, keep stirring until the mixture begins to thicken. Remove from the heat but continue to stir. Taste, and add more sugar if desired.
Pass through a fine sieve into two glasses, grate nutmeg over the top and serve.
Notes:
[1] Bouton, N. The History of Concord From Its First Grant in 1725, to the Organization of the City Government in 1853. (Benning W. Sanborn, 1856).
[2] Wondrich, D. The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. (Oxford University Press, 2021).
[3] Shanahan, M. Christmas Food and Feasting: A History. (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019).
[6] I say were made. Modern day possets are not really a drink, more a set dessert. Very delicious, but really quite different to those of the eighteenth century.
[7] To make a sugar syrup mix equal weights of white or golden caster sugar and hot water. Stir to dissolve and leave to cool. Easy.
Last post I gave you a potted history of sowans, the Scots drink or flummery made from the starch left clinging to oat husks after the oats were threshed after harvest. Well, since then I have been doing a little experimenting, and have – I think – successfully made some. It’s taken a couple of goes, but I reckon I have a good practical method for you, should you fancy having a crack of making it yourself.
In the main, oat husks are used, but I saw other accounts of sowans making and I saw that some recipes used a proportion of whole oat groats, oatmeal or porridge oats. Other recipes – and it turns out that a similar dish in Wales is made1,2 – using buttermilk or whey instead of water to kickstart the fermentation. One modern recipe by Scotland-based chef Craig Grozier uses whey and salt3; the salt providing an excellent environment for the lactic acid bacteria present in the oats and the whey, hastening the fermentation and ensuring the sowans would not be infiltrated by some other spoilage organism. I’ve made sourdough starters enough times to trust the oats and water to work their own magic, to test this, I designed a simple experiment with three conditions:
Oat husks and water;
Medium cut organic oatmeal and water; and
Oat husks plus one tablespoon of the oatmeal, to make up for the fact that the husks may be lacking in healthy bacteria and fungi. Adding some organic oats might help things out.
I left the sowans to ferment for seven days, after which I tasted the liquid and it was far too sour for my liking, but I was impressed with how well it all worked: the sour-sweet oaty smell give off was certainly not unpleasant. It turned out that actually one is not supposed to drink the sour liquid: it should be poured away and fresh water mixed in.4 I was rather surprised as to how much starch came out of the husks.
Emboldened, I tried again, this time with two conditions: one with water and organic oatmeal and the other exactly the same, except for a couple of tablespoons of the sour liquid from the first experiment, to give the sowans a boost. Note I didn’t use oat husks, and there are three reasons for this:
You get very little starch from them, and we are no longer living in the kind of poverty that existed in Scotland two or three centuries ago;
Oat husks are difficult to buy – though I did manage to get some from the Malt Miller – these oats weren’t organic however, and may have had traces of pesticide and fungicide that might kill the natural community of microbes living on the oats;
Because they were so light, it was very difficult to keep them submerged under the water, and consequently, mould grew on any husks floating on, or touching the water’s surface.
Sowans suspended in water ready to be made into porridge or flummery
I gave it a shorter fermentation time and the results were great: sowans as a drink, i.e. the sour water decantated off and the sediment mixed into fresh water. It was tart, surprisingly sweet (especially the one with the starter) and had a good, raw oat flavour. It would be great to use in a smoothie, or just sweetened with a little maple or agave syrup. However it was the settled sediment that I was more interested in and was looking forward to making the sowans porridge and the cold flummery.
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I was very pleased with the results, and I present them for you below. Whether you make the drink, the porridge or the flummery, the basic recipe is the same. It makes 550ml of drinking sowans or around 450 ml of porridge or flummery. I ate the porridge with treacle and milk, and I ate the flummery with raspberry jam, and I enjoyed them both. I think the flummery would be great flavoured with sweetened raspberry purée or orange flower water.
Basic ingredients:
150 g organic medium oatmeal
650 ml cool water
2 tbs of the clear liquid from a previous batch (optional)
For sowans porridge or flummery:
2 dsp sugar
½ tsp salt
A smidge of oil (for the flummery)
Place the oats, water and starter (if using) into a tub or jar and stir well. Cover the jar with a square of fabric secured with an elastic band. Leave to ferment for four days, giving the mixture a good stir every other day: give the liquid a sniff or a taste; it needs to have a definite acid tang.
When you are ready to strain your sowans, set a fine sieve or a colander lined with a sheet of muslin over a bowl and pour in the mixture. You might have to add a little water to rinse out all of the meal. Make sure you press the meal with a ladle to get as much sediment out as possible.
If you want drinking sowans you are now done, and it can be used now or stored in the fridge.
Cooked sowans ready to eat as porridge or set into flummery
For the porridge or flummery, leave the sowans to settle for 1 or 2 days, pour away the liquid, reserving it to use like buttermilk in another recipe. Don’t worry if there is a small layer of liquid remaining. Give it a good stir and pour into a saucepan; you should have around 150 ml of sediment. Add double the volume of water, plus the sugar and salt, and cook over a medium setting, stirring all the time until the sowans thickens – it will soon become very thick and glossy. If it seems too thick, add a little more water. It should be ready in 7 or 8 minutes.
For porridge: pour into bowls and eat with treacle and milk, or whatever you usually eat with your porridge.
For flummery: pour into a mould or moulds, I used teacups brushed lightly with oil. Cover them and refrigerate overnight before turning onto plates.
Live-fermented foods are becoming more and more popular here in the UK. We seem to have embraced sourdough bread and its heady community of wild yeasts and bacteria; a community of microbes that not only leaven the dough but also provide that distinctive flavour. They also digest the gluten and other constituents in the flour, making it easier on our own stomachs. The microbes also create nutrients such as vitamins and essential amino acids, and make the food inhospitable to other microbes which would otherwise spoil it; a necessity in a world before refrigerators and freezers. Another live-fermented food is sauerkraut, traditionally made with cabbage, flavoured with caraway, and there are also fermented drinks like kefir (fermented milk) and kombucha (fermented sugar or honey, and tea) which are available in almost every supermarket and grocer’s shop around the country.
I think for many of us in the UK, all of this enthusiasm for live ferments looks like a bit of a fad, despite the growing evidence that foods that contain live cultures of fermenting microbes are very good for us. One reason why some regard them with suspicion is that in the UK we have never had a culture – as it were – of consuming these sorts of foods, except perhaps yoghurt, which unfortunately is all too often laced with sugar, had its fat skimmed away and its healthy microbes killed by pasteurisation.
But the thing is, we did have a culture of eating live-fermented foods, we have simply lost it; but the more I read old cookery books or manuscripts, the more I come across examples of these types of foods and drinks. One of these foods has recently captured my imagination, and that is the Scots fermented oat ‘milk’ or porridge called sowans (sometimes spelt sowens, and pronounced ‘soo-ans’). Sowans goes by a couple of other names; it is called subhan or súghan in Gaelic, and is known as virpa on the Shetland Isles.1
I discovered it leafing through the classic The Scots Kitchen by F. Marian McNeill.2 She describes how it was made: steeping the inner husks of the whole oat grains in water for several days in a large jar called a sowans-bowie until it soured, before being passed through a sieve.3 The resulting liquid would be left to settle for a day or so, where there would be a layer of white starch at the bottom. The liquid would be decanted off, and the starch cooked and eaten like porridge. Reading it, I simply could not understand how a foodstuff could be made just from the oat husks, known as sids in Scots.2 The husks are obviously inedible so how could a porridge or oat milk be made from them?
After a little more detective work, I found that the husks do contain some residual starch. As the oats are threshed to remove their husks, which is a quite violent process, inevitably some of the seed would be left attached to the husks. By mixing the husks in water, the starchy seed residue becomes suspended in the liquid and the natural yeasts and bacteria present on the husks begin to ferment it. After a few days – anywhere between 3 and 14 days depending upon time of year – the mixture becomes sour, rather like, I suppose, a sourdough starter, and then passed through a fine sieve. The milky liquid was drunk as it was, or the starch was allowed to settle so it could be used to make a porridge and eaten with salt, treacle or sugar. The decanted liquid wasn’t wasted, by the way, it was used to make sowans scones, where it was used rather like the buttermilk in regular scones.2 The fermented husks would sometimes be formed into cakes and baked. More often, though, they were fed to pigs or chickens.4
Oat husks
As a foodstuff, sowans is associated with harvesttime and commonly eaten by oat farmers. It is also associated with Hallowe’en, which falls not too long after harvest and the harvest festival. By making sowans, farmers were able to extract every scrap of carbohydrate from the sids that were left behind, after they had sold their crop. In Ireland, sowans was drunk or eaten in some parts of Ireland on St. Brigid’s Day in February.5
It was regarded as good for one’s health – and no doubt it was! The starch would be a precious source of energy and the microbes, and the products of the microbes’ metabolism, provided a whole suite of nutrients. ‘Some authorities claim it had sexual qualities.’ This seems to be because of its resemblance to semen when taken as a drink, which went by the name ‘Bull’s Semen’ or ‘White Bull’s Milk’ in some places. I’ve found one mention of farmlads teasing and goading young women, saying “I’ll be at you wi’ me sowans.”6,7
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Sowans was particularly associated with Christmas. I found an article in The Family Friend, published in 1861, describing sowans drinking on ‘Auld Yule morning’. The author is simply known as ‘A.H.’. It says it was enjoyed all year round, but at Yuletide it was consumed only as a milky drink. In fact it was customary, and everyone was expected to drink some sowans out of bickers (beakers), “[n]ot that any of us were immoderately fond of sowans”, said one. That said, folk did get a taste for it and ‘there was a good rivalry, too, amongst the sowans makers.’8
After finding all of this out, I hope you can see why I was so intrigued by this unusual food. Determined to make some, I managed to get hold of some oat husks – and they are not easy to get hold of these days! I am currently part way through having a go at making sowans. They are not quite ready to drink or eat, but things seem to be working well. I shall report back soon with the results of my little experiment and hopefully a usable recipe.
Fermentation is occurring!
References
Fenton, A. Sowens in Scotland. J. Ethnol. Stud.12, 41–47 (2013).
McNeill, F. M. The Scots Kitchen: Its Lore & Recipes. (Blackie & Son Limited, 1968).
Dawson, W. F. Christmas: Its Origin and Associations (Illustrated Edition). (e-artnow, 2018).
Macdonald, F. Christmas, A Very Peculiar History. (Salariya Book Company Limited, 2010).
Nic Philibín, C. & Iomaire, M. C. M. An exploratory study of food traditions associated with Imbolg (St. Brigid’s Day) from The Irish Schools’. Folk Life59, 141–160 (2021).
Douglas, H. The Hogmanay Companion. (Neil Wilson Publishing, 2011).
Asala, J. Celtic Folklore Cooking. (Llewellyn Publications, 1998).
A.H. Auld Yule; Or Christmas in Scotland. Fam. Friend Ed. by R.K. Philp (1861).
Merry Christmas! I hope you are all able to have some fun in yet another strange Yuletide.
At Christmas we often receive bottles of booze we don’t really like as gifts. My most hated alcoholic drink is whisky, but it is delicious in a hot toddy. Well I was recently gifted some and that’s why it is this year’s Christmas boozy drink post.
What do you think of when imagine a toddy? I think of Scotland, whisky. I think of lemons and spices, and its warming effects on those who have just come in from the cold.
There is a popular myth that the drink was invented in the early 18th century at Tod’s Well Tavern, Edinburgh, to warm up the very cold patrons1, but I found that the hot toddy’s history is a little more complicated. The trouble is, toddies were not created in Scotland, not were they hot, and nor were they laced with whisky.
Whenever I am researching the vintage of a recipe, I always visit The Foods of England website – even if the recipe is Welsh, Scots, or Irish. It’s definition is I would say standard: ‘Spirit such as whisky with hot water, sugar, lemon and sometimes spices such as cloves.’ On the webpage is a quote from the 1788 book Grose Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue which states: ‘Toddy, originally the juice of the cocoa tree, and afterwards rum, water, sugar, and nutmeg.’2
Going by that quote, the drink looks like it has its origins in the West Indian plantations. Note it is not a hot drink.
It turns out, however, to have its roots in the East, rather than the West, Indies, or rather the British Raj. There was a Hindi drink known as taddy, which was made from slightly fermented palm sap since at least the early 17th century. During the British occupation of the country in the 18th century, the fermented juice was used to ‘water down’ expensive beer3: expensive because at the time it was difficult to make in hot climates, and therefore had to be imported (this is before the invention of Indian pale ale, or IPA).
By 1820 the drink had evolved into a mixture of alcohol, sugar, ginger and lime.4 It wasn’t hot, but the delicious drink spread through the British Empire, changing depending upon what was available. The palm sap swapped for ‘the juice of the cocoa tree’ in the West Indies, and perhaps the Scots were the first to think of warming it up? Who knows?
Drinking hot toddies in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House
However it became the classic whisky-based drink, it certainly became popular as a cure-all for colds and flu. And why not? There’s the lemon with its vitamin C, honey or sugar making the drink viscous and soothing, and hard liquor – nature’s anaesthetic. There may be an element of practical truth to this; those who drink a moderate amount of alcohol are able – on average – to fend off colds better than those who drink heavily, and those who do not drink at all.5
So what should I put in my recipe? I turned to another favourite of mine: the classic and comprehensive Savoy Cocktail Book (1930). Disappointingly, there are just three toddy recipes, and of those only one is hot and contains no whisky (Calvados is the booze of choice) and uses roasted apples. The cold toddies contain whisky only as an option.6 In the end I came up with my own, I had a play around and I think I have the proportions of ingredients just right. I also tried the Calvados toddy, which was also a great success.
Here are my recipes for both cocktails. Let me know if you give them a go.
Whatever you do, be safe, eat and drink plenty, and do as little as possible this Christmas. Thanks for reading my posts, trying the recipes, leaving comments, listening to the podcast, and for supporting me this year. I have the best followers! I’ll be back on 1 Jan 2022 with my usual review of the year.
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A classic hot toddy
Per person:
1 shot (25-30 ml) whisky (or rum or brandy)
2 tsp honey or sugar
Juice of quarter of a lemon
75-100 ml hot water (or tea)
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
1 slice of lemon
Freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
Put whiskey, honey or sugar, lemon juice and most of the hot water, or tea, into a small glass or coffee cup. Stir with a cinnamon stick, or a spoon, to dissolve the honey.
Taste and see if you need to add more water (I go with the full 100 ml).
Garnish with a lemon slice, the cinnamon stick and a few rasps of freshly-grated nutmeg.
Calvados hot toddy
This is adapted from the entry in The Savoy Cocktail Book. I always buy a bottle of Calvados at Christmastime, but I think rum or brandy would be good substitutes.
For four:
1 dessert apple
400 ml hot water or tea
2 tbs sugar
4 cloves
4 shots (100-120 ml Calvados)
Freshly grated nutmeg
Preheat your oven to 180°C. Take your apple and make an incision around the apple two-thirds of the way up, cutting just the skin. Place on a baking sheet and roast until, pale brown and the juices have begun to caramelise, around 40 minutes.
In a small saucepan add the hot water, sugar and cloves. Slice the apple in half, roughly chop one half and place in the pan. Keeping the heat very low, allow the flavours to steep in the hot water for around 10 minutes.
Place a shot of calvados in four small glasses, and divide the hot steeped liquid between the four cups, passing through a tea strainer or small sieve.
Garnish each with a clove and a neat piece of roasted apple cut from the reserved piece. Grate a little nutmeg over the top and serve.
References:
Schofield, J. & Schofield, D. Schofield’s Fine and Classic Cocktails: Celebrated Libations & Other Fancy Drinks. (Octopus, 2019).
Merry Christmas readers! It’s time for my annual Yuletide boozy drink recipe.
This year Christmas is a very different one, of course, scaled back so much many of us are spending it on our own of the first time, and there’s no chance of getting to a pub any time soon. But we’re a resolute lot, and I am sure we all plan to make the best of it.
If you need a bit of extra comfort this year (and I suspect you do), you could do a lot worse than making scáiltín, a delicious Irish milk punch. It’s very simple to make and you probably already have the ingredients at home.
I came across this delightful drink a few years ago inside The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook and served it up at my little restaurant in the wintertime where it was very popular. Scáiltín is a hot punch made with milk and Irish whiskey; we can agree on this. However, the flavourings vary quite a lot. I’ve scoured my books and the internet and, as so often is the case, found that there is a lot of disagreement. Some insist it should be sweetened with honey, others brown sugar; some say it’s not scáiltín unless it is flavoured with caraway, yet many claim that ginger and cinnamon must be used. Butter is added to enrich it, but only sometimes.
Of course, all of these variations are correct: by nature, regional foods vary within and between towns, and many of the differences probably came down to class. Spices were costly, so many had to miss them out altogether; though some of middling wealth would have reached for the caraway because it was one of the few spices that could be grown in Europe and was relatively cheap.
It seems to be a very old drink, probably mediaeval. However, there is very little information about this delicious drink out there, so if you know anything about this drink’s pedigree or have a recipe for it of your own, please leave a comment.
I have settled on the recipe below, essentially cherry-picking my favourite ingredients, but feel free to change them. I do insist you add the small knob of butter though. I think it makes all the difference. If you are not a fan of whiskey, you can substitute dark rum, but I must urge you to try it with the whiskey; I hate the bloody stuff usually, but somehow, combined with the ingredients below it is perfect. How many of us have received a bottle of it as a gift in the past only for it to collect dust on a shelf? Put it to good use, I say.
I hope you have a great Christmas despite everything that is going on, and if you are feeling a little too much like Scrooge this year, knock back a couple of these, I guarantee they will warm your cockles, and get you in the Christmas spirit.
See you on the other side! Neil xxx
Per person:
240 ml full-fat milk
1 to 2 shots (25 to 50 ml) Irish whiskey, dark rum or (heaven forbid!) Scotch whisky
1 tbs honey
Good pinch of mixed spice
1 tsp salted butter
A few rasps of freshly ground nutmeg
Place everything in a small saucepan except the nutmeg and heat gently whisking with a small whisk to get a good froth. Even better, if you have a proper coffee machine, heat it with the milk froth attachment for an extra silky scáiltín.
Pour the scáiltín into cups or mugs spooning the froth on top and quickly grate a little nutmeg over the top. Serve immediately.
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References
The Complete Irish Pub Cookbook (2012) by Christine McFadden
British Food: A History 