Historic Family Recipes: North Yorkshire

Photo Credit: Laura Waldie

Well, I want to launch something fun here at “History to the People” and something I hope you will both enjoy and want to be a part of. One of my little hobbies on the side is to experiment with and try out a vast array of culinary dishes from around the world. I have to admit, I am a foodie at heart and just love to cook. I also have the embarrassing ability to name all the shows currently showing on Food Network Canada! I thought it would be a cool idea to post some recipes onto this site from readers. But, in keeping with this site’s focus on heritage and history, I would like to post some recipes that have been passed down through the generations. You may never have known your great, great grandparents, but you keep their spirits alive by preparing their favourite recipes  such as Scotch Baps or Newfoundland Chowder for your loved ones still to this day. If you have a favourite hand-me-down recipe you would like to share with others, please email me and tell me the story about your favourite generational recipe and I will post it on this site. Perhaps this can be the start of a Heritage Canadian Cookbook! For the first post I will pass along to you a couple recipes that have been passed down in my family. 

Photo Credit: Laura Waldie

Photo Credit: Laura Waldie

Like many Canadians, my family is a mix of multi-generational Canadians and recent immigrants. My father’s family came to Canada in 1808 from Scotland’s the Isle of Skye and settled in southern Quebec, where my father grew up on the family farm. My mother was born in York, England to a Yorkshire war-bride mother and a WWII RCAF father who was born in Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec to immigrant parents from Glasgow, Scotland. My mother then grew up in Trois Rivieres, Quebec with a nice mix of Yorkshire, Scottish and Quebecois culture including a wide array of culinary influences. She had the most diverse background of my parents for she heard Gaelic spoken by her grandfather, adapted to the strong North Yorkshire dialect of her mother, yet was perfectly bilingual as a great many of her friends spoke only French.  Here are two recipes that have been passed down through my mother’s Yorkshire side of the family and come courtesy of my great-aunt Margaret in Selby, Yorkshire. She was my grandmother’s only sister, and these recipes were given to my mother and I on one visit we made to Yorkshire several years ago. They have been used in the family for many generations and it has been estimated that these recipes have not altered in at least 130 years. So my grandmother would have been very familiar with these dishes while growing up in Yorkshire. The original recipes talks of “stoking the fire to 350F” which alludes to the wood-fire ovens of the day. But modern convection oven will still be heated to the specified temperature indicated.

This first recipe is probably the most well known to those outside Yorkshire and is served traditionally with roast beef or Christmas turkey.

Photo Credit: Essentially England

Traditional Yorkshire Pudding

2/3 cup all purpose flour

1 egg

1 cup of milk

2 pinches each of salt and pepper (or to taste)

1 tablespoon of drippings per each muffin tin cup: beef or bacon works best

In a bowl whisk the egg well with a fork until it is very frothy. Add about ¼ of milk slowly along with the salt and pepper, beating continuously. Work in all the flour, a little bit at a time, until everything is blended together and has no more lumps. Add the remaining milk and blend well together. Set into the fridge for an hour.

After an hour has passed, heat oven to 350F and take batter out of fridge. In each muffin cup, add a tablespoon of beef or bacon drippings. Once each cup has been filled with the drippings, place the muffin tin into the oven until the drippings are very hot (about 10 minutes). They should actually be emitting a bit of smoke at this point. Remove the muffin tin and slowly add the batter to each cup until all are filled equally. Place back into oven and cook at same temperature until well risen and golden brown (10-15 minutes). Some ovens are hotter than others, so keep an eye on them as they may burn easily in hotter ovens. Remove when done and serve hot with your roast beef or turkey dinners. The bowl shaped appearance allows the pudding to hold gravy very well. Extras can be refridgerated and served cold the next day.

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This second recipe is a very traditional lunch dish served in winter months to farmers on the Yorkshire Moors. Yorkshire can be quite cold in winter, with lots of rain and even snow up on the Moors and in the Dale Country. When I was living in Yorkshire, I couldn’t get enough of this dish. It is versatile, hearty and can be adapted with different spice blends to suit individual tastes. This recipe, however, is a family favourite and has been served to many generations of children in my family. My mother used to make a version of this for us when we were growing up.

Photo Credit: CookUk

Yorkshire Rarebit

¾ cup of grated sharp Wensleydale cheese (if you can’t find Wensleydale in your grocer, use sharp old cheddar cheese)

½ cup of diced ham. (Don’t use deli ham, use good quality ham)

½ cup of melted butter

1/3 cup of flour

1/4 cup of milk

5 teaspoons of mustard (English grainy mustard is most traditional)

Pinch of salt and pepper

Splash of Worcester sauce

Melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a rue. Cook for 2 minutes until well blended. Slowly add the milk and stir until it thickens. Add the cheese, ham, mustard and Worcester sauce and mix thoroughly until well blended. Set aside. Toast 4 slices of bread of choice, then spread the ham and cheese mixture evenly over the bread slices. Top with salt and pepper, then toast on the middle rack of a 350F oven until the cheese is bubbly and golden brown. Serve with green or English potato salad and enjoy. Ahhhhh, I can see the snow covered Moors and Dales plus feel the roar of a Yorkshire kitchen fire and smell the Rarebit browning in my great grandmother’s kitchen! You may see this dish referred to also as Welsh Rarebit. It is the same thing, but uses traditional Welsh cheeses instead of Yorkshire cheeses.

Hope you enjoy these traditional Yorkshire recipes and that you might find new ways of putting your own twist on them. If you want to share a favourite, traditional family recipe, email me at [email protected] and I will be happy to post it here.

Enjoy and happy historic cooking!

Culinary History, Fun Stuff Cooking, family recipes, Yorkshire