Day: February 21, 2023

Dia is mhuire diobh go leir a cairde and welcome to my weekly Report.

I love Pancake Day, it gives us an opportunity to have a party. There were few sweet things when I was a child, my Dad was a savoury person, always sticking to the plain unsweetened foods. Except at Christmas when he would make a huge cake, put a few currents in it and loads of margarine to make crumbly and delicious. But that was it then until shrove Tuesday and pancakes. Our cook, Pete had very few culinary gifts, but he would try. In summer if we could steal a few apples from the neighbours orchard, we’d bring them home and he would cut the up and put them into the mix of the everyday soda bread as a treat when the Da wasn’t around. No sugar added in case it would be missed. But sour and all as it was we’d eat with relish. The thought of having an ‘apple tart’ gave us a great sense of pride. The mix for the pancakes was easily got. Eggs, of which there was plenty and the same went for the flour and the milk. We never heard of lemons, at pancake time, but the good blessing of sugar made it all go down well and that was it. Pancake day over. But when my Father married again our step mother came, she would continue to make pancakes for my Dad for a few more days after Shrove. Never a lady for the open countryside, she’d still make her way to the tillage field where he would be ploughing the land in readiness for the Spring sewing. Plate in hand and a gallon of hot tea, she spared no effort to please her new man. The horses taking advantage of the break would as it were, switch off close their eyes and dip the head their lower lip flapping slightly up and down as if in prayer, until tea time was over and then it was back to the task in hand. It really was a beautiful time of year back then. So full of promise and the program was the very same year in and year out. Same horses, same plough, same harrow, same everything that was handed down from Father to Son to continue the same work and methods of work that their forefathers did for generations in the past  right up through  the 40’s.  They say that many new inventions come after a war and looking back I think that it was in the late 40’s and early 50’s that we saw the first signs of change. New methods began to appear and since then nothing seems to stay the same.  Primitive and all as they were, we still remember the old times and customs  with love, they never fail to bring a smile.   Enjoy the  pancakes.

[read more …] “Eily’s Report – 21st February 2023”