Slow Life Blog from the Lake District
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me

Slow Food Christmas Dinner with Ivan Day (part 1)

18/12/2009

0 Comments

 
It was minus 5 centigrade outside when I arrived at Ivan Day’s cottage in Shap for the Slow Food Christmas dinner. Inside it was deliciously warm; I was welcomed by an open log fire in an old cooking range, in front of which a whole leg of lamb was roasting on a rotating spit. Ivan Day is the country’s foremost authority on the history of cooking and he and his friend Gill had generously agreed to cook a Christmas meal as it might have been enjoyed in Cumbria 150 years ago. Here is the menu:

Plumb Potage with Havercake
Roast Herdwick Mutton stuck with anchovies
Potato Pie
​
Desserts:
Trotter tart
Chestnut Ice cream with candied fruit
Charles Elme Francatelli’s Christmas Pudding
Arrack Punch
​
Ivan told us how each dish was made and the history of the dish. The first video tells the story of the “bottle jack” roasting spit, which dates from the 1780’s and operates with a clockwork turning mechanism; the origin of the potato pie, which is a typical northern dish of the 18th century; the Westmorland way of cooking havercake; clap cake hand syndrome; the havercake maiden; the Christmas potage (also known as plumb potage) and much more.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    ​About Slow Life

    The idea of Slow Life is to take the principles of Slow Food, which are “good, clean and fair”, and extend them to life in general.

    Here in the Lake District, the air is clean, the pace is slow and the atmosphere is calm. If we don’t grow food ourselves, we can buy it in friendly small shops, where you know the quality is going to be the best.

    This blog is a celebration of the Slow Life, with forays into the world of design, music, the arts, gardens, and my particular weakness, Japan.

    Archives

    September 2024
    June 2017
    December 2016
    August 2015
    May 2015
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009

    RSS Feed

Home   |   About Me   |   Contact Me

Jonathan Denby's Slow Life blog from the Lake District

© Copyright Slow Life 2024. All rights reserved   |   cookie policy    |   Site by Treble3
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me