[Sca-cooks] Re: Cock-a-leekie soup reference

[johnna holloway]

I remember coming across this passage by Morrison also. I don't have
all my Scots stuff out at the moment, so I can't do the complete
search and OED this am wasn't helpful either. I always thought
23 years ago or so that probably Feather Fowlie was more appropriate
than Cock a Leekie but this was prior to Catherine Brown publishing
her books. (and by the way do not hold it against me that the article
Chicken Soup Recipes of Scotland in T.I. Fall 1981(#60) is a
bit of a muddle. That was one of those articles that was not edited
but scissored for space and it suffered. And there was a substantial
reading list for that article that was never published in proper
fashion.)

One of the problems associated with this dish is that traditional
recipes call for the chicken to be cooked and combined only at the
last minute or in some cases, the chicken is minced, placed on a
plate and the broth and leeks are added at serving. The prunes are
then scooped on or served on the side.

It also doesn't help with Cock a Leekie that Sir Walter Scott has James
VI and I calling nobles to dinner with the phrase
"for the cocky-leeky is a-cooling." !!!

Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway

david friedman wrote:snipped

> After writing the above, I decided to see what I could learn on the
> net about the history of cock-a-leekie. I found one page that said
> the recipe was more than 300 years old, which would put it in the
> seventeenth century; no source was given. I also found the following
> assertion (about cock-a-leekie):
>
> As early as 1598 Fynes Morrison recorded that it was served at a
> Knight's house with boiling fowl (thus the "cock") and prunes.
>
> Further search found the following passage from Morrison, which I
> suspect is what is being referred to:
>
> 'I myself,' says the traveller Fynes Morrison, in the end of Queen
> Elizabeth's reign, the scene being the Lowlands of Scotland, 'was at
> a knight's house, who had many servants to attend him, that brought
> in his meat with their heads covered with blue caps, the table being
> more than half furnished with great platters of porridge each having
> a little piece of sodden meat. And when the table was served, the
> servants did sit down with us; but the upper mess, instead of
> porridge, had a pullet, with some prunes in the broth.'--TRAVELS, p.
> 155.
>
> If that is the right passage, what we have is evidence that Lowland
> Scots at the end of our period sometimes ate chicken stewed with some
> prunes. But that doesn't imply it was cock-a-leekie--for one thing,
> there are no leeks mentioned.
>
> On the other hand, the quote from Morrison does give a a little
> evidence on Scottish cooking in period.
> David/Cariadoc
> ----------
> Elizabeth/Betty Cook