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Folklore, Food & Fairytales
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Exploring worlds & history through food & stories

Folklore, Food & Fairytales
Tuesday CheeseDay
Podcast Episodes
Newsletter
About
Contact
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Exploring worlds & history through food & stories

These are recordings of talks I have given:

Edgeways – 27 August 2022

About Me

Fascinated though sometimes alarmed by vintage cookbooks, enjoys traveling around the world and through time via the medium of food, stories & books. Loves history, stories, cheese, cocktails, photography and cats (not necessarily in that order).

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The look you get when you explain that Italian cha

The look you get when you explain that Italian charcuterie and Saint Agur Crème is not for kittens. Strangely similar to when you have the conversation about the difference between cat biscuits and human biscuits. He gets very odd about food around the Full Moon.

My newest letter is out! From a Lenten Moon to Bad

My newest letter is out! From a Lenten Moon to Bad Man’s Bridge via Easter Food Folklore, A Figgy Sunday Recap, Herb Pudding and Sowing & Grafting

Full of Easter food folklore, bank holiday weekend food, historic recipes (well one at least) and an excellent Welsh folktale plus some valuable if untested gardening advice. I will also admit that the hot cross bun is there to draw you in and has no real significance. Letter via link in bio.

It’s the Vernal Equinox in the northern hemisphe

It’s the Vernal Equinox in the northern hemisphere as well as Nowruz, the Persian New Year and I thought I might share this letter I wrote last year. It’s full of information about the wonderful festival, Spring myths, gorgeous writing about Persian food both instructional & fictional as well as a fabulous trickster folktale. Link in bio.

There is also nonsense about flummery which appears in the fourth picture created from a 18th century recipe from that amazing cook, Mrs Elizabeth Raffald by the talented @dr_neil_buttery. You can see his article here: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/blog/womens-history-month-neil-buttery/ or visit his website britishfoodhistory.com

For those of you who have listened to my latest ep

For those of you who have listened to my latest episode, the news that FFF will become a purely storytelling podcast & that I am launching a new podcast won’t be a surprise. However if you haven’t, I present A Question of Death: what death can teach us about living.

It’s a podcast exploring and improving our relationship with death through respectful enquiry. Here you’ll find conversations with those who work with the dead and grieving as well as those who study death, in addition to episodes examining death through a lens of history & the arts, folklore and food.

I’ll take you from ancient funerary rituals to forensic anthropologists via green burials and Persephone’s pomegranates, learning on the way what death can teach us about living. I hope the journey & stories will provide you with some of the knowledge and empathy you need to navigate this vast hidden world as well as shine a light on the kindness and tenderness displayed by those professionals who truly take care of our dead.

You may well find me following you shortly from my new account.

Is it wrong how much I love these fairytale earrin

Is it wrong how much I love these fairytale earrings?

Some candles for St Brigid’s Day or Imbolc. I al

Some candles for St Brigid’s Day or Imbolc. I also have all the tiny lights plus a fake fire on my tv. I have many golden, fried, round shaped paneer momos with lots of hot momo sauce arriving shortly to add to a celebration of light and fire. It’s far from traditional but after a long working day it’s the best I can do and I’m going to enjoy it.

Soup - non specific. I’m aiming to reduce food w

Soup - non specific. I’m aiming to reduce food waste and using a way of doing so that has been popular for millennia. I absolutely love the way cooking can link us back in time to other, perfectly ordinary people who shared some, if far from all, of our concerns and worries. Warm soup is comforting in winter at whatever point in history you exist.

However, I am also pretty keen on modern conveniences, food variety and food safety too so I haven’t completely converted to the past. I had a fish finger sandwich for lunch which was delicious and if experienced by those ancient cooks, actually pretty bloody magical 😋.

First meal of the New Year: Beef, lentil, spinach

First meal of the New Year: Beef, lentil, spinach & pancetta lasagne, homemade cheesey garlic bread and rocket & herb salad with lemon & garlic dressing. I have been making lasagne for New Year’s Day since 2010 when I finally realised that after giving the old year a good send off, I needed something that was filling, delicious and, most importantly, suited being made ahead. The recipe has changed slowly as I have incorporated more symbolic ingredients for the New Year. I swapped out half the meat for French green lentils (similar to puy lentils but cheaper) added to the ragu for the last 1 hour of 4 hour cooking time. This has made it just as delicious but means you can move around again in less than 5 hours after eating. Would anyone else like to guess/share what some of the folklorically significant elements are?

I took this photo on Christmas Eve Eve in a Lichfi

I took this photo on Christmas Eve Eve in a Lichfield church which is a now a library, cafe and community arts space. The volunteers and staff were so helpful and welcoming and the building is so beautiful. I am going to echo what Icy Sedgwick said in her post and say we are going to need our communities in the times ahead. We need to start treating people as people and not things. That, as Terry Pratchett says is the start of all evil. In the year ahead I want to share more voices and start breaking down more barriers between us, using stories and food as a tool to achieve that. Wishing peace to all at this New Year whilst understanding that wishes on their own won’t be enough xxx

Christmas Eve breakfast of champions. Excellent fu

Christmas Eve breakfast of champions. Excellent fuel for various festive tasks ahead including making horseradish sauce with an actual horseradish root, frying latkes, sending a last Christmas letter and fighting a king size duvet cover. I wish everyone a hopeful, peaceful and restorative festive break in whatever shape that makes you happy! I know that for some it’s not a great time, but hopefully you can find something in the chaos or the silence that brings you some joy or at the very least solace. xxx

Festive Food Folklore - Day 24 Special Christmas

Festive Food Folklore - Day 24

Special Christmas Eve breads are common across Europe, many of which contain symbolic items such as coins or beans for fortune. They are often blessed ceremonially and distributed to the family. The breads often have dough decorations that depict a successful harvest such as vegetables or a large sheaf of wheat. My favourite is the Yule Boar which was sometimes actually a loaf of bread shaped like a boar, incorporating the last grains of the harvest rather than a meat dish.

Festive Food Folklore - Day 23 On Christmas Eve i

Festive Food Folklore - Day 23

On Christmas Eve in some parts of Norfolk, hot spiced ale was made and then sprinkled on orchards and meadows. This was to remind the earth of warmth and ensure a good crop in the following year. No-one mentions what happens to any leftovers.

Festive Food Folklore - Day 22 The ceremony of th

Festive Food Folklore - Day 22

The ceremony of the Yule Candle in the Yorkshire Dales: a house would light 12 candles on the evening of Christmas Eve & the household would hold them alight in their fingers for 10 minutes. Then all but one were blown out, the remaining candle was left to light the cutting of the cheese. The cheese was then cut up by the master of the household. All the family were given a piece of the Christmas cheese & a Yule Cake, part of which was saved for Christmas Day breakfast. The candle was kept alight for the rest of the night.

My newest letter is roaming the wild: From The Win

My newest letter is roaming the wild: From The Winter Solstice to Dipping Sauces via The Magic of Trees, Dumplings, Lucrezia Borgia’s Belly Button, Fertility & Fortune-Telling. Link in bio

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From Regency Romance & Queens of Crime to Cough Cures

From Regency Romance & Queens of Crime to Cough Cures

Via Reading for Comfort, Problematic Classics, Doctor to the Fair Folk and Healing Wells [...]

From a Lenten Moon to Bad Man’s Bridge

From a Lenten Moon to Bad Man’s Bridge

Via Easter Food Folklore, A Figgy Sunday Recap, Herb Pudding and Sowing & Grafting [...]

From Folklore, Food & Fairytales to A Question of Death

From Folklore, Food & Fairytales to A Question of Death

Via Explanations, Promises & A Moral Tale [...]

From Change to Crackernuts

From Change to Crackernuts

Via Cosy Murder Subgenres, Strange Tea Mixtures and Crimes Against Icing [...]

From A Snow Bear to European Christmas Bread

From A Snow Bear to European Christmas Bread

Via Festive Frying, Duvet Cover Wrangling & Horseradish Tears [...]

From The Winter Solstice to Dipping Sauces

From The Winter Solstice to Dipping Sauces

via The Magic of Trees, Dumplings, Lucrezia Borgia's Belly Button, Fertility & Fortune-Telling [...]

From Festive Cookbooks to a Cheese Toastie of Joy & Wonder

From Festive Cookbooks to a Cheese Toastie of Joy & Wonder

Via Food Rituals & Tradition, The Benefits of Change, Festive Food Folklore and Light, Warmth & Feasting in the Dark of The Year [...]

From Festive Folklore to Festive Food Thoughts

From Festive Folklore to Festive Food Thoughts

via the Launch of a New Project, a Little Light in the Darkness & Sharing Joy [...]

From Tinned Sardines to Beer & Apples

From Tinned Sardines to Beer & Apples

Via Mediaeval Cookbooks, Anglo-Saxon Foods, Sicily & a Resourceful Heroine [...]

From Ghosts and Shadows to Winter Appetite

From Ghosts and Shadows to Winter Appetite

Via A Feast for All Hallows & Skulls on the Line [...]

From Equinox Soup to Pats de Putain

From Equinox Soup to Pats de Putain

Via Autumn Foods, Bangles, The Science of Comfort Food, The Perils of Hospitality and the Swoons [...]

From The Beekeeper & The Hare to Slavic Kitchen Alchemy

From The Beekeeper & The Hare to Slavic Kitchen Alchemy

Via Food, Funerals & Mourning in the American South [...]

From Rebel Folklore to a Podcast Birthday

From Rebel Folklore to a Podcast Birthday

Via an Interview with Icy Sedgwick [...]

From Paint Drying to Postatia Cream

From Paint Drying to Postatia Cream

Via Thresholds, The Goddess Cardea, A Maiden Fair and The Fountain Fairy & To Cure A Cough [...]

From an Eighties Cookbook to an As Yet Unnamed Salad

From an Eighties Cookbook to an As Yet Unnamed Salad

via Frugality, Food Waste and Inspiring Food Writers [...]

From Oyster Grottoes to Scorzoneras

From Oyster Grottoes to Scorzoneras

Via Apple Harvest Blessings, Random Meat Pies, A Golden Apple, Jealous Brothers, Dragons, Plague Water & A Potage of Health [...]

From Prosciutto e Melone to A Westminster Fool

From Prosciutto e Melone to A Westminster Fool

Via 90’s Recipes, Kindness, Selkies and Dr Bartlet’s Medicine for Aches [...]

From Supernatural Housework to White-Pots

From Supernatural Housework to White-Pots

Via Brooms, Witches, Brownies & A Remedy to Take Away a Hoarseness [...]

From The Apple Harvest to The Best Panperdy

From The Apple Harvest to The Best Panperdy

via Cairo, Just One Tale from 1,001 Nights, Kitchen Protections, and A Cure for Cramp [...]

From Potion Ingredients in Disguise to Spirits of Spice

From Potion Ingredients in Disguise to Spirits of Spice

Via Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dumb Cake, Farthing Loaf Day, Midsummer, Summer Solstice Foods & Recipes and A Remedy for Sore Eyes [...]

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