School: Loughill, Longford

On this page

1. Food in Olden Times

   

   Share Share Post

   Long ago the people had four meals a day, breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. For breakfast they had rasp and tea. For dinner, a few potatoes, a mug of buttermilk, and a pinch of salt. Potato bread for tea, and porridge for supper. Every morning the people worked two or three hours before breakfast. Potatoes were used at three meals, rasp in the morning, potatoes in their ordinary way for dinner, and potato fried for tea. Milk was often drunk, both goat's and cows, and when it is scarce the people made gounds. Some people had their table in the centre of the floor, others had it against the wall, but in most houses they had a basket in the middle of the floor. The table was also hung on the wall. There was an iron bar along the wall. There were two hinges attached from the bar to the table. They used to slide the table along the bar, and when they were not using it they used to hang it up, and it was fastened by a catch to the wall. There were different sorts of bread - rasp, potato-bread, oaten-bread, and dumplings. Almost every Sunday meat was used, and the people used to kill pigs. Almost every Friday they had fish. The grew a great amount of vegetables in their gardens. They used, noggins, piggins pails and tin plates. All these dishes are now out of fashion. Sometimes throughout the year to commemorate great feasts such as Easter they would have competitions to see who would eat the most eggs. The would eat a great amount of eggs in order to beat their companions. I heard of a man who ate ten hen-eggs, 5 duck eggs and two goose-eggs on Easter Sunday. At hallow Eve they ate barn bracks and

   (continues on next page)

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

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

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Kevin Doherty

   Gender

   Male