School: Tuar Árd, Áth Treasna (roll number 8893)

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1. Food in Olden Times (continued)

   

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   butter or an egg. The supper consisted of potatoes or yellow meal stirabout with milk. When they would be working in the bog, or away from the house and that the dinner should be carried out to them they had yellow meal cake and sour milk. This cake was baked in an oven without a cover, this oven was called a bastible or a sgillet.
   Griddle bread was often used by the country people long ago, this was made from yellow meal and baked on a griddle. A griddle is like a flat pan, it was about two foot in diameter and it could be hung over a fire, those cakes used be very big, they used be about twenty one or two inches in diameter. When the cake was put down on the griddle it was cut into triangular pieces and this made it easier to bake. Griddle bread never rises in the baking. The only day of the year that rich and poor had the same breakfast was on Easter Sunday. The breakfast consisted of potatoes and eggs. Every person could eat as many eggs as he wished. The use of tea came into my district about sixty years ago.
   On November's night long ago, rich and poor used have "Collcannon" for supper. This is the way it was made. A quantity of potatoes used be peeled and then boiled, a small parsnip used be boiled with them to flavour them. When they were boiled the water used be strained off them. Then they were mashed in the pot by a stick known as a pounder, then some onions cut very small and thrown in and mixed with it, then some salt and milk used be mixed with this. Then it used be served up in plates, sometimes a little butter used be mixed with it.

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. products
      1. food products (~3,601)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   John Foley

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Glanycummane Upper, Co. Cork