Ben Gazur

Hello All! Thank you everyone who has supported A Feast of Folklore so far. It really means a lot that so many people seem interested in the topic! While I’ve been working on this book I seem to keep coming across food being used in folk medicine. In the past people must have used anything they had to hand to ward off illness and obviously food was easy to get. But did any of it work? In the spirit of scientific investigations I decided to get out my onions. In folklore the person who knows their onions was a wise one. An apple a day may keep the doctor away but onions were practically a panacea. Onions were the go to cure for a bewildering number of ailments I’ve discovered. Got pneumonia? Then slice open an onion and strap it to your feet. Got an ear ache? A small onion covered in oil and inserted into the ear will do wonders. But if you don’t want to be smelling of (or possibly hearing) onions then there was one way to use your vegetable cupboard to ward off all evils and give your home a festive, if pungent, makeover. Hang up your onions. Amulets made of onions were, until surprisingly recently, used in homes up and down Britain. When a smallpox outbreak struck Sheffield in 1927 onions could be seen strung up in many houses. Whether they worked to slow the spread of the disease is not recorded. There is one use of onions however that has been playing on my mind since the start of the pandemic. When a nasty flu season struck in 1915 there were no clear ways to detect who may have been infected and who should be isolated. One household turned to onions to clear things up. By hanging an onion in the house it was thought they could get forewarning of a pestilent visitor. If someone with the flu entered the house then the onion would turn black in their presence. A lot simpler, than poking about in your nose and throat for a lateral flow test, if of dubious efficacy, Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and hang an onion to check any of our guests for infections. Thanks again for your support! Ben P.S. Please do not stick onions in your ear without first consulting a doctor with a medical degree, and not a plague doctor wearing a beaked mask stuffed with spices.

Hello All!

Thank you everyone who has supported A Feast of Folklore so far. It really means a lot that so many people seem interested in the topic!

While I’ve been working on this book I seem to keep coming across food being used in folk medicine. In the past people must have used anything they had to hand to ward off illness and obviously food was easy to get. But did any of it work? In the spirit of scientific investigations I decided to get out my onions.

In folklore the person who knows their onions was a wise one. An apple a day may keep the doctor away but onions were practically a panacea.

Onions were the go to cure for a bewildering number of ailments I’ve discovered. Got pneumonia? Then slice open an onion and strap it to your feet. Got an ear ache? A small onion covered in oil and inserted into the ear will do wonders. But if you don’t want to be smelling of (or possibly hearing) onions then there was one way to use your vegetable cupboard to ward off all evils and give your home a festive, if pungent, makeover.


 Hang up your onions.


Amulets made of onions were, until surprisingly recently, used in homes up and down Britain. When a smallpox outbreak struck Sheffield in 1927 onions could be seen strung up in many houses. Whether they worked to slow the spread of the disease is not recorded. There is one use of onions however that has been playing on my mind since the start of the pandemic.

When a nasty flu season struck in 1915 there were no clear ways to detect who may have been infected and who should be isolated. One household turned to onions to clear things up. By hanging an onion in the house it was thought they could get forewarning of a pestilent visitor. If someone with the flu entered the house then the onion would turn black in their presence. A lot simpler, than poking about in your nose and throat for a lateral flow test, if of dubious efficacy,

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and hang an onion to check any of our guests for infections.

Thanks again for your support!

Ben

 


 P.S. Please do not stick onions in your ear without first consulting a doctor with a medical degree, and not a plague doctor wearing a beaked mask stuffed with spices.

An onion a day...

Hello! Just wanted to let you all know that A Feast of Folklore has reached its crowdfunding target. I cannot thank you enough for all the support you have given and without you it would never have happened. Everyone at Unbound has been incredible in helping this book get over the line. Now it is time for me to put all the research I have been gathering from old books of folklore to good use. Get ready to learn more about the magical uses of onions than you ever thought possible. There's still time for people who want their name immortalised in the book to pledge too. We're now at 101% funding, but there's always room for more. Thanks again for all your support! Ben

Hello!

Just wanted to let you all know that A Feast of Folklore has reached its crowdfunding target. I cannot thank you enough for all the support you have given and without you it would never have happened. Everyone at Unbound has been incredible in helping this book get over the line. 


 <img alt class="doksoft_image_img" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0728/3615/3620/files/Packshot_2e3780da-82ec-4b3d-a728-f8abbb1038bc.png?v=1690916140" width="500" height="500">


Now it is time for me to put all the research I have been gathering from old books of folklore to good use. Get ready to learn more about the magical uses of onions than you ever thought possible. 

There's still time for people who want their name immortalised in the book to pledge too. We're now at 101% funding, but there's always room for more.

Thanks again for all your support! 

Ben

Cooking up A Feast of Folklore!

Hello! It has been a little while since I last posted an update. Please forgive me. I fell a little ill last year but thankfully I’m back up to full speed and ready to get to work on this book – which may be soon as we have just crossed the 90% mark on the crowdfunding! Thank you so much to everyone who has pledged! I thought I’d have a little look at some of the folklore cures that people have turned to in the past to try and get better which involved. Luckily I didn’t have to resort to any of these as you have to be a bit braver than I am to stomach most of them. But if you wonder how folk medicine was done read on. Please don’t try any of them at home though. If you have a child who has a touch of whooping cough there is a relatively simple solution. All you need is a bowl of milk and a ferret. Place the bowl in front of the ferret and let it drink some. Snatch up the bowl before it can finish the lot and feed the rest to the child. If that doesn’t work you could try the alternative version which was to cut some of the child’s hair off, mix it with milk, then feed some to both the child and the ferret. Of course if you lack a ferret you might be stuck. Simple! Just get some milk and let a live trout swim in it. Then have the child drink the milk to cure them of their cough. Whether this is healthy for the fish is debatable. It was not always the child that had to eat decidedly dodgy bits of dairy. In 1878 a grandmother from Essex described her infallible cure for whooping cough. “You must cut a little hair from the nape of the child's neck and make it into a ball with some fat, but butter will do, and lay it on your front door step, and the first dog that comes by will eat it. My little Bill [her grandson] was bad, and I tried it for him. I had hardly laid the fat on the steps when Master Edwards (the shepherd) come by, and his dog snapped it up, and the child never whooped again." What the dog thought of this treat is not recorded. I’ll leave you with another buttery medical tip from Shropshire. If you have a burn you should mix goose dung with the middle bark of an elder tree. Fry this up in butter that has been churned in May and apply to the injury. Thanks again for all the support. With your help we’ll get to 100% soon and this book of food folklore will be in your hands in no time! Hope all’s well.

Hello!

It has been a little while since I last posted an update. Please forgive me. I fell a little ill last year but thankfully I’m back up to full speed and ready to get to work on this book – which may be soon as we have just crossed the 90% mark on the crowdfunding! Thank you so much to everyone who has pledged!

I thought I’d have a little look at some of the folklore cures that people have turned to in the past to try and get better which involved. Luckily I didn’t have to resort to any of these as you have to be a bit braver than I am to stomach most of them. But if you wonder how folk medicine was done read on. Please don’t try any of them at home though.

If you have a child who has a touch of whooping cough there is a relatively simple solution. All you need is a bowl of milk and a ferret. Place the bowl in front of the ferret and let it drink some. Snatch up the bowl before it can finish the lot and feed the rest to the child. If that doesn’t work you could try the alternative version which was to cut some of the child’s hair off, mix it with milk, then feed some to both the child and the ferret.

Of course if you lack a ferret you might be stuck. Simple! Just get some milk and let a live trout swim in it. Then have the child drink the milk to cure them of their cough. Whether this is healthy for the fish is debatable.

It was not always the child that had to eat decidedly dodgy bits of dairy. In 1878 a grandmother from Essex described her infallible cure for whooping cough. “You must cut a little hair from the nape of the child's neck and make it into a ball with some fat, but butter will do, and lay it on your front door step, and the first dog that comes by will eat it. My little Bill [her grandson] was bad, and I tried it for him. I had hardly laid the fat on the steps when Master Edwards (the shepherd) come by, and his dog snapped it up, and the child never whooped again." What the dog thought of this treat is not recorded.

I’ll leave you with another buttery medical tip from Shropshire. If you have a burn you should mix goose dung with the middle bark of an elder tree. Fry this up in butter that has been churned in May and apply to the injury.

Thanks again for all the support. With your help we’ll get to 100% soon and this book of food folklore will be in your hands in no time!

Hope all’s well.

Food Folklore Remedies

Hello all! It is cake month. At least it is according to the Anglo-Saxons. They called February “Solmōnaþ” – meaning something like “Month of the Hearth Cakes.” These were cakes that were baked on the hot stones around the fire. The Venerable Bede writing in the 8th century said “Sol-Monath can be said to be the month of cakes, which were offered to their gods.” If you lack gods of your own who want cakes then I suggest you eat them yourself. I’ve recently been thinking about cake folklore for a number of reasons. First we have been catching up on the Junior Bake Off. Don’t spoil it, but we’re Team Lola. Second I’ve been working with the Wellcome Collection by sifting through their incredible collection for artefacts relating to cakes and folklore. If you want a hint of some of the things that you have coming in my book you can see what I found on their website here! Hope all’s well with you. Thanks so much to all my supporters. Remember to tell all your friends about A Feast of Folklore so that we can get this book out quickly! Enjoy your February Cakes. Ben

Hello all!

It is cake month. At least it is according to the Anglo-Saxons. They called February “Solmōnaþ” – meaning something like “Month of the Hearth Cakes.” These were cakes that were baked on the hot stones around the fire. The Venerable Bede writing in the 8th century said “Sol-Monath can be said to be the month of cakes, which were offered to their gods.” If you lack gods of your own who want cakes then I suggest you eat them yourself.

I’ve recently been thinking about cake folklore for a number of reasons. First we have been catching up on the Junior Bake Off. Don’t spoil it, but we’re Team Lola. Second I’ve been working with the Wellcome Collection by sifting through their incredible collection for artefacts relating to cakes and folklore.

If you want a hint of some of the things that you have coming in my book you can see what I found on <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/Yfe1NxAAACUADUKQ">their website here!</a>


 <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/Yfe1NxAAACUADUKQ">
 <img alt class="doksoft_image_img" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0728/3615/3620/files/Screenshot_2022-02-03_112225.png?v=1690916144" width="500" height="418">
 </a>


Hope all’s well with you. Thanks so much to all my supporters. Remember to tell all your friends about A Feast of Folklore so that we can get this book out quickly!

Enjoy your February Cakes.

Ben

Happy Cake Month!

Hope everyone is making some pancakes tonight. Here are a couple of tips from British food history to make the day even more festive! First when you toss your pancakes make sure there are real consequences to messing it up. It used to be that whatever happened to your pancake you had to eat it. Yes, from the floor. Yes, even if you had to wrestle it from the mouth of your dog. As one folklorist said “The awkwardness of the tossers, who were compelled to eat their share, even if it fell into the fire itself, afforded great diversion.” Don’t be a bad tosser. Also consider a penalty for anyone who eats their pancakes too slowly. On farms if you had not finished your pancake by the time the next one was made then you might be tumbled out of the house and thrown onto the midden. Honestly, who doesn’t eat their pancakes quickly? Have a lovely day and thanks so much to everyone who has supported A Feast of Folklore so far. It still needs pledges to get it over the finish line so tell all your friends to support it. Bribe them with pancakes if you have to!

Hope everyone is making some pancakes tonight.

Here are a couple of tips from British food history to make the day even more festive!

First when you toss your pancakes make sure there are real consequences to messing it up. It used to be that whatever happened to your pancake you had to eat it. Yes, from the floor. Yes, even if you had to wrestle it from the mouth of your dog. As one folklorist said “The awkwardness of the tossers, who were compelled to eat their share, even if it fell into the fire itself, afforded great diversion.” Don’t be a bad tosser.


 <img alt class="doksoft_image_img" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0728/3615/3620/files/0bb0010f6f619bbf2068c07a2a4fd9a5.png?v=1690916147" width="500" height="352">


Also consider a penalty for anyone who eats their pancakes too slowly. On farms if you had not finished your pancake by the time the next one was made then you might be tumbled out of the house and thrown onto the midden. Honestly, who doesn’t eat their pancakes quickly?

Have a lovely day and thanks so much to everyone who has supported A Feast of Folklore so far. It still needs pledges to get it over the finish line so tell all your friends to support it. Bribe them with pancakes if you have to!

Happy Pancake Day!

Merry Christmas! Hope everyone is ready for Christmas and has stocked up on food. You might, or might not, like to try this bit of foody folklore to get your party started. It used to be a tradition to hide a dried bean and a dried pea to the fruit cake to be eaten on Twelfth Night. Whoever got the slice with the bean in was crowned the king of the feast, and the pea decided who was the queen. I wonder how many of these merry monarchs ended up with broken teeth from biting down on the bean? In Elizabethan times this same ritual was used to anoint the Lord of Misrule. The lord of misrule was in charge of all the festivities around Christmas. They got to arrange the food (lots of it), the drinking (even more), and the games that everyone played. In Scotland the person with the bean was called the Abbot of Unreason. Either seems like a title worth having. Samuel Pepys in his diaries records a party where this tradition was played out. “...to my cousin Stradwick, where, after a good supper, there being there my father, mothers, brothers, and sister, my cousin Scott and his wife, Mr. Drawwater and his wife, and her brother, Mr. Stradwick, we had a brave cake brought us, and in the choosing, Pall was Queen and Mr. Stradwick was King. After that my wife and I bid adieu and came home, it being still a great frost.” Still count yourself lucky if you only find a bean in your cake. In New Orleans the traditional King Cake comes with a charm hidden in it that means good luck to whoever finds it. This charming charm is shaped like the little baby Jesus. Some are fine porcelain but some are terrifying plastic ones like the one shown below. (Image via Wikimedia) Merry Christmas, and try not to have too many nightmares about what might be lurking in your cake. Thanks so much for all your support for this book. Here’s to getting it funded next year! Ben

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone is ready for Christmas and has stocked up on food. You might, or might not, like to try this bit of foody folklore to get your party started.

It used to be a tradition to hide a dried bean and a dried pea to the fruit cake to be eaten on Twelfth Night. Whoever got the slice with the bean in was crowned the king of the feast, and the pea decided who was the queen. I wonder how many of these merry monarchs ended up with broken teeth from biting down on the bean?

In Elizabethan times this same ritual was used to anoint the Lord of Misrule. The lord of misrule was in charge of all the festivities around Christmas. They got to arrange the food (lots of it), the drinking (even more), and the games that everyone played. In Scotland the person with the bean was called the Abbot of Unreason. Either seems like a title worth having.

Samuel Pepys in his diaries records a party where this tradition was played out. “...to my cousin Stradwick, where, after a good supper, there being there my father, mothers, brothers, and sister, my cousin Scott and his wife, Mr. Drawwater and his wife, and her brother, Mr. Stradwick, we had a brave cake brought us, and in the choosing, Pall was Queen and Mr. Stradwick was King. After that my wife and I bid adieu and came home, it being still a great frost.”

Still count yourself lucky if you only find a bean in your cake. In New Orleans the traditional King Cake comes with a charm hidden in it that means good luck to whoever finds it. This charming charm is shaped like the little baby Jesus. Some are fine porcelain but some are terrifying plastic ones like the one shown below.


 <img alt class="doksoft_image_img" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0728/3615/3620/files/King_Cake_Baby.jpg?v=1690916151" width="299" height="450">


(Image via Wikimedia)

 

Merry Christmas, and try not to have too many nightmares about what might be lurking in your cake.

Thanks so much for all your support for this book. Here’s to getting it funded next year!

Ben

Merry Christmas Cakes!

Looking through old books of folklore I found a few references to witch cakes. If you do a quick search online your likely to find cakes covered in lurid green icing and a little woman in a pointed hat. But the witch cakes made in the past were just a bit different - and probably not ones you'd want to eat. One of the first mentions of witch cakes comes from the Salem witch trials. When the young girls of Salem began behaving strangely the obvious cause was the curse of a witch. Luckily one of the villagers had a quick way to identify who the malefactor was. She ordered a witch cake to be made. This witch cake was a simple one made of dough with one unorthodox ingredient. For the witch cake to work it had to contain some urine taken from the bewitched victims. Once this urinal cake was made it was fed to a dog. The witch was then supposed to reveal themself, but nothing happened. In British folklore witch cakes were not meant to actively find witches but rather to stop them entering your home. In houses across the country folklorists of the 19th century reported witch cakes could be found hanging behind doors. These cakes were made with a hole in the middle and spikes radiating outwards, before being baked rock-hard. The cakes were made each year in early April and were meant to be hung for an entire year. I decided it was time to make my own. To make sure my witch cake lasts a whole year I made the dough with a huge amount of salt. I think it turned out rather well. And so far as I know no witches have made it into our flat. Thanks so much to everyone who has supported my book so far. If you want a witch cake of your own you can choose to support A Feast of Folklore at that pledge level. Please tell all your friends about the book so we can get this book into your hands all the sooner. Hope all's well, Ben

Looking through old books of folklore I found a few references to witch cakes. If you do a quick search online your likely to find cakes covered in lurid green icing and a little woman in a pointed hat. But the witch cakes made in the past were just a bit different - and probably not ones you'd want to eat.

One of the first mentions of witch cakes comes from the Salem witch trials. When the young girls of Salem began behaving strangely the obvious cause was the curse of a witch. Luckily one of the villagers had a quick way to identify who the malefactor was. She ordered a witch cake to be made.

This witch cake was a simple one made of dough with one unorthodox ingredient. For the witch cake to work it had to contain some urine taken from the bewitched victims. Once this urinal cake was made it was fed to a dog. The witch was then supposed to reveal themself, but nothing happened.

In British folklore witch cakes were not meant to actively find witches but rather to stop them entering your home. In houses across the country folklorists of the 19th century reported witch cakes could be found hanging behind doors. These cakes were made with a hole in the middle and spikes radiating outwards, before being baked rock-hard. The cakes were made each year in early April and were meant to be hung for an entire year.

I decided it was time to make my own. To make sure my witch cake lasts a whole year I made the dough with a huge amount of salt. I think it turned out rather well. And so far as I know no witches have made it into our flat.


 <img alt class="doksoft_image_img" src="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0728/3615/3620/files/witch_cake.jpg?v=1690916155" width="281" height="500">


Thanks so much to everyone who has supported my book so far. If you want a witch cake of your own you can choose to support A Feast of Folklore at that pledge level. Please tell all your friends about the book so we can get this book into your hands all the sooner.

Hope all's well,

Ben

Witch cakes

Hiren Laxman

Hello everyone, A Feast of Folklore has a shiny new cover! Designer Mark Ecob has done a fantastic job of capturing the weirdness that waits for readers. Everything on the shelves can be found in the bizarre history and lore of British food. I am now hungry to read it – and also eat a pie with fish heads poking out. Without further ado I give you the new cover… Thank you everyone who has supported this project, it could never have happened without you. The final edits are just being done now so hopefully we will have a release date for you soon. Ben Gazur

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