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Very old recipes

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:13 pm

Seatallan wrote:Clootie Dumplings are sweet- a bit like Christmas Pudding.

We used to regularly stay in a community in the Highlands around the time of their annual Highland Show and one of the classes was Clootie Dumplings. If I recall correctly, the same local woman won first prize every year. :D


Clootie meaning in a cloth I believe?

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby liketocook » Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:15 pm

Stokey Sue wrote:
Clootie meaning in a cloth I believe?

Yep or "Cloot" as in "Ne'er cast a cloot till May is oot" aka keep your vest on until the end of May :lol:

When I was growing up one of my friend's Gran made the best Clootie Dumpling ever it was a real treat. My friend's birthday was in November and she always had this instead of birthday cake at her birthday tea. :yum An old silver sixpence was popped in the mix and the finder got to swap it for a prize. The best bit was as it was so huge you always got a massive wodge to take home which my Dad would slice and fry with bacon for Sunday breakfast. :yum You can buy special cloots to boil them in but often folk use a cotton pillow case.
They are much lighter in texture than Christmas pudding and tend not to have alcohol in them.

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Earthmaiden » Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:21 pm

I didn't realise that the 'cloot' of the rhyme referred to clothing and never quite understood what it had to do with the garden it though I always refer to it!

My grandfather (who died before I was born) was Scottish. My father used a few words which I grew up thinking were universal but later learned weren't. We always used the word 'cloot' for cleaning cloths, I realise now it had started as a joke between my Home Counties parents which had stuck but I had no idea for many years.

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby scullion » Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:50 pm

isn't it one of the words for clout/cloth/clothes/cladding that have descended from the germanic kleide?

doesn't may refer to hawthorn blossom rather than the month?

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby liketocook » Tue Mar 23, 2021 3:59 pm

Could well be scully on both counts.
That said I'm not that far north and last frost dates here tend to be late May so could well be the blossom or the month.

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Seatallan » Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:05 pm

Earthmaiden wrote:I We always used the word 'cloot' for cleaning cloths, I realise now it had started as a joke between my Home Counties parents which had stuck but I had no idea for many years.


My dear, deceased friend (who hailed from Abderdeen) always called cleaning cloths clooties. As in 'steep the clootie in some hot water'. :)

You also find clootie wells sometimes (where people hang bits of cloth/ribbon from trees around the well). For example:

https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/ ... index.html
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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Seatallan » Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:07 pm

scullion wrote:
doesn't may refer to hawthorn blossom rather than the month?


Yes, that's my understanding. In other words, don't cast away any of your winter garb until the hawthorn is in flower. May blossom belongs to the Little People by the way. It's extremely unlucky to pick it and bring it indoors.
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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:12 pm

My friend's mother was very posh Scots, sounded like the Queen Mum, she always said "let me just put on a clothe and then I'll come outside"

Took me a while to realise that was a strange hybrid of posh English and Scots syntax, or it could as Scullion says equally well be a used in German, which she spoke fluently

Seatallan wrote:You also find clootie wells sometimes (where people hang bits of cloth/ribbon from trees around the well). For example:

https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/ ... index.html

ooh, that name is a new one on me, though I think the phenomenon occurs in Sussex too

Round here the hawthorn hedges on the common were going full throttle in April last year, and it was flipping cold
I noticed that all the blackthorn in the area came in to flower at the end of last week, as if someone had given a signal

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Suffs » Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:50 pm

scullion wrote:isn't it one of the words for clout/cloth/clothes/cladding that have descended from the germanic kleide?

doesn't may refer to hawthorn blossom rather than the month?


Those have always been my understanding too.

Decorating wells (they are holy places after all) is a Celtic tradition stretching right down to https://theculturetrip.com/europe/unite ... -on-trees/

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby jeral » Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:26 pm

Fascinating. Not adding much, but my Yorkshire dad referred to clout when speaking of dish clouts (but not otherwise that I recall) as we kids were always told off if we didn't ring it out properly after washing up with it.

"May" and "out" referring to blossoms would make sense as it's a really recent phenomenon to have snow in May.

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Pampy » Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:51 pm

jeral wrote:
"May" and "out" referring to blossoms would make sense as it's a really recent phenomenon to have snow in May.

It snowed in May in the Cotswolds in 1987 - on my honeymoon.

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby WWordsworth » Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:53 pm

doesn't may refer to hawthorn blossom rather than the month?

My understanding too.

My mother disliked her father ( he died before I was born) and one of his foibles was to insist his 5 offspring wore winter woolies until 01 June.

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby WWordsworth » Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:56 pm

Decorating wells

That's a very strong tradition in Derbyshire too.
Each village has a specific date for their well dressing.
Some of them are spectacular.

https://www.visitpeakdistrict.com/whats ... ng-p751941

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue Mar 23, 2021 9:13 pm

jeral wrote:Fascinating. Not adding much, but my Yorkshire dad referred to clout when speaking of dish clouts (but not otherwise that I recall) as we kids were always told off if we didn't ring it out properly after washing up with it.

"May" and "out" referring to blossoms would make sense as it's a really recent phenomenon to have snow in May.

A friend of my parents, also Yorkshire referred to dish clouts, I'd forgotten

I knew someone born during a snowstorm on May 19th in London - he's older than me, I think 1948, his mother had a general anaesthetic and I remember her telling me she woke up and though for a second she'd dies, as it had that strange snow hush

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Binky » Wed Mar 24, 2021 10:26 am

I'm Yorkshire born and bred, and my older relatives referred to a 'dish clart'.

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Seatallan » Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:35 am

jeral wrote:Fascinating. Not adding much, but my Yorkshire dad referred to clout when speaking of dish clouts (but not otherwise that I recall) as we kids were always told off if we didn't ring it out properly after washing up with it.

"May" and "out" referring to blossoms would make sense as it's a really recent phenomenon to have snow in May.


There was a brief flurry of snow on my birthday once when I was a child (birthday is mid-June) so late spring/summer snow isn't that recent a phenomena. According to the Met, there have been 342 accounts of snow in May from 1910-date, and the May with the most frequent snow showers was 1979, so it certainly isn't unknown.... apologies for the anorack moment... :D
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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Mar 24, 2021 11:48 am

Ah - 1979- that explains why we were discussing snow on K’s birthday then, though when he was born it actually settled in a blanket for a short time

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby Binky » Wed Mar 24, 2021 12:31 pm

Ah, the snow of 1979. OH had a job interview with another council's environmental health department. The interviewer was more impressed with OH's tenacity getting from Yorkshire to Warwickshire in such bad conditions. He got the job.

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby liketocook » Wed Mar 24, 2021 12:34 pm

This is first I've heard of May referring to blossom rather than the month, every day's a school day. :D

My Papa had a photo taken when he was in his early teens near Lanark so around 1925. It was mid summer day and it had snowed, he was holding a newspaper to prove it.

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Re: Very old recipes

Postby scullion » Wed Mar 24, 2021 12:44 pm

Binky wrote:I'm Yorkshire born and bred, and my older relatives referred to a 'dish clart'.

the word 'clart' is also used in jamaica for a cloth (mainly(?) in a couple of insults to do with bodily functions!)

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