Three traditional dishes for All Saints’ Day
Dear friends, one of the world’s most celebrated holidays of sleeping nature and awakening spirits is knocking on our doors. Let’s learn a little bit more about the delicious dishes specially served during that ominous evening! Let’s improve our English in parallel no matter if we are beginners or advanced learners. We hope you are already in the habit of switching to the English version of our blog to familiarize yourself with the new words and expressions.
We are certainly going to exclude all sweets and candies that became so famous for buying during the recent years as unhealthy, and shall pay attention to the recipes from various places in the British Isles. We can also skip the pumpkin because it arrived from America much later. But what were people putting on their tables before that, when the veil between our world and the world of spirits was getting thinner? What did the visiting traveling souls feast on?
Boxty – Potato pancakes: the recipe includes grated raw potatoes, which can be replaced with leftover mashed potatoes. The remaining products are milk, leavening agent and eggs. They are eaten both salted and with syrup. There was also a song about this delicious meal:
Boxty on the griddle,
boxty on the pan,
If you can’t bake boxty
sure you’ll never get a man.
Toffee Apples – Candied Apples: the apples, preferably the Granny Smith variety, are covered in a liquid candy glaze of sugar, water, cinnamon, and red food colouring. The glaze hardens and the apples start shining in enticing bright red, each one of them has a stick for the little gourmands to hold.
Colcannon – an Irish traditional dish that had a hidden surprise in it – a ring or a coin. It is made by mixing mashed potatoes with cabbage or kale. Cream or butter (maybe olive oil) is added to it, it is seasoned with salt and pepper and, optionally, it can be enriched with onions or leeks. It can be eaten like this or it can be fried to a crispy crust. Ham goes great with it. If served as a puree, a well can be carved into the top and filled with melted butter. A real delicacy!
And friends how about you? What are you going to prepare in order to welcome the hungry ghosts and the gourmands on Halloween?
Author: Iveta Radeva
Image: realfood.tesco.com