Time for pancakes and a leek supper
As a lad in Daventry, I remember hearing the Verger, Mr Clark, ring the Pancake bell. For some reason, it was always called Pan-burn-bell! The bell was half-muffled, meaning that the clapper had leather fixed to one side of it.
This was the case at Staverton as well. At Blakesley and Oundle they used to ring two bells that were supposed to represent the words “pan-on”.
Of course tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday and soon as the supermarkets empty their shelves of St Valentine’s goodies, they fill them with flour and lemons, plastic and real, ready for Pancake Day.
The Clown in Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well says, “As fit as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday”, so clearly, it was a well-established custom long before 1602, when the play was written.
There was a time when churches all over Northamptonshire would have rung the Pancake Bell at noon.
In some villages including Islip, Lowick and Stanwick it was a school holiday and the children were allowed to “jangle” the bells and in liberated Sudborough women were allowed to do the same!
Tradition has it that in All Hallows Church, Wellingborough the sixth heaviest bell was known as “old pancake” because that was the one used for the tolling on Shrove Tuesday. I bet no one calls it that nowadays.
The long-dead local paper, the Wellingborough News carried the story that pancakes used to be taken up onto the church roof and thrown at passers-by while the bell was ringing.
There are two reasons for the bell being rung. One was that it told the faithful that they must go to church to confess their sins and the other was to tell the cook of the house to start making the pancakes for lunch, the batter having been made earlier and left to stand.
This week is steeped in traditions, most of which, of course, have their origins in religious observance.
Today is called Collop Monday in some parts of the county. It takes its name from a collop, or slice of meat because traditionally all the meat and rich food in the larder had to be eaten today before the start of Lent.
Lent, which begins on Wednesday – Ash Wednesday – is the season when the Church keeps 40 days of abstinence commemorating Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness. Sundays don’t count, you’ll be thrilled to note!
Thursday is called Fritter Thursday, odd since if you are to fast in Lent, why have a fry-up the day after it starts?
Friday of this week is known as Kissing Friday, as any Yorkshire man will know, because on that day lads could kiss any girl they choose without getting punched in the jaw!
One custom is still alive and well in Earls Barton, where tomorrow the villagers will be tucking in to their Leek Pie Suppers. Each year two Leek Pie Suppers are held; one by the Church and one by the Methodists, but the traditional fare is the same.
Quite how it started and why, no one knows, but the soil around the village is reckoned to be good for growing leeks. Perhaps one year, on Shrove Tuesday, they had a glut and some bright spark invented the Leek Pie Supper. Who knows?
Residents who were born and brought up in Earls Barton are affectionately called “Leeks” and no doubt they all have their own variation on the recipe.
Quite simply the pies are made with well seasoned beef and pork, casseroled until tender with loads of chopped leeks added and baked with a suet crust on top.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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