[Sca-cooks] Easter Observances

[Terry Decker]

>I have been collecting information about holiday celebrations and
> observations for many years.  A lot of it is random and unedited, but I am
> going to throw it out here to see if it rings any bells for anyone.  I am
> always interested to hear family traditions that either confirm or debunk
> what I've found.
>
>
>
> Christianna
>
> Mothering Sunday* - Feudal Europe - On Laetare Sunday (mid-Lent) in 
> spring,
> "fostered" children would go to visit their own families. A sweet cake
> called a "simnel"- named for simila=fine flour, plum cakes or cakes with
> almond paste baked inside were taken to their mothers.

This is misleading.  It references Feudal Europe and roughly describes a 
modern simnel cake.  The term simnel first appears about the 13th Century 
and it describes a small loaf of bread (possibly filled with almond paste 
although my opinion is that it came later, possibly in the 17th Century) 
baked in a hand raised pastry shell which forms the bottom and sides of the 
loaf.  The earliest references consider the simnel to be "twice baked." but 
later descriptions give the simnel as boiled, then baked.  The pastry shell 
first disappears in a recipe from 1894.

A wood cut in Chambers Book of Days (1864) shows large and small simnels 
having a copped outer crust and a filled center.(Fig. 1)  Chambers describes 
simnels as:

"...raised cakes, the crust of which is made of fine flour and water, with 
sufficient saffron to give it a deep yellow colour, and the interior is 
filled with the materials of a very rich plum-cake, with plenty of candied 
lemon peel, and other good things. They are made up very stiff; tied up in a 
cloth, and boiled for several hours, after which they are brushed over with 
egg, and then baked. When ready for sale the crust is as hard as if made of 
wood..."

C. Anne Wilson thinks that the simnel may be a combination of recipes for 
placenta and emeum and is a continuation of the Roman holiday baking.

And to quote myself,  "Mothering Sunday has been a common name for Laetare 
Sunday since the Dark Ages.  Originally Lent commenced on Shrove Sunday and 
consisted of was thirty-six days of fasting.  Laetare Sunday occurred at 
Mid-Lent and served as a break from the austere fasting rules of Lent. 
Apprentices were free to visit their families and gifts were given to the 
Mother Church.  Four days were added to early on, but the tradition of 
Mothering Sunday continued and was brought into the Protestant churches with 
altered meaning.

It was common among the Romans to make gifts and sacrifices of fine 
pastries, including placenta, during religious festivals.  It is likely that 
the custom continued under Christianity and it is probable that the simnel 
is an evolution of placenta used in the old Roman fashion as a gift at 
Mid-Lent or Easter.

While absolute proof of the origin of the simnel is lost to us, it appears 
related to the Roman pastry placenta in that it has a hard outer shell and a 
soft inner bread filling.  Like placenta, simnel became gift for religious 
holidays, possibly with an enriched filling for Mid-Lent.  If Wilson's idea 
that the simnel is derived from two separate recipes is correct, then this 
would the first step in its evolution."  (Simnels:  From Fine Bread to Fancy 
Cake, presented at the Serve It Forth! 3rd Conference on Europen Cooking 
>From Rome to the Renaissance, 2005).

Bear