[Sca-cooks] mysterious query

Johnna Holloway johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu
Thu Jan 25 04:33:57 PST 2007


I suspect that the biscuit is 18th century, but under what name
this regional treat went by, it's hard to say. The term parliament and dumps
seems to be very much Blackmore and not used commonly. I think
he had the character associated with what might been at best a Georgian
treat in a book set in the late 17th century. How they got to Exmoor is
another
matter, but it is fiction after all.

Johnnae

Huette von Ahrens wrote:
> My reasoning?  Since the cookie doesn't appear until 1812 or so and the book was written in
> the 1860's with a setting of the 1660's, then the use of the cookie is anachronistic.  It
> has nothing to do with an actual parliament, either English or Scottish.  The reference
> in the book is about cookies not parliament.
>
> Huette
>   
>>> So, I would say that Blackmore's use of "parliament" as the name of  
>>> a kind of gingerbread
>>> cookie was very anachronistic, since 'Lorna Doone' was set two  
>>> hundred years earlier.
>>
>>     
>





More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list