School: Doire na Cathrach, Dúnmaonmhuighe (roll number 13543)

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1. Food in Olden Times

   

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   The staple food used in olden times was yellow meal stirabout. Three meals a day were taken, breakfast and dinner of stirabout and potatoes for supper, and also some hot milk before retiring to bed. People always did some work in the morning before breakfast which they generally partook of at nine o'clock. The dinner which they called the big meal was at two o'clock. Most people had a hanging table hung on timber hinges on the back of the settle with one long leg. On this table they always took their meals; they had big shallow dishes, and they used fill these with stirabout and place it in the centre of the table, and then all the family used to gather around it with their spoons, and when the meal was over they always hung the table up again.

   When they had the potatoes dug every year they usually had a great feast that night and the kind of food they used was called (stampí). I am informed this is how it was made; at first the potatoes were pealed and grated, and then made in the form of a cake and baked on a griddle.
   As the days used to be very short while they were digging the potatoes they used not go home to dinner until evening and the children who were picking the potatoes used to make a fire at the end of the field and they used to roast some potatoes on the burned ashes, and this custom was called (brothóg.)

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. products
      1. food products (~3,601)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Mary Teresa Hurley

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Derrynacaheragh, Co. Cork

   Informant

   Patrick Hurley

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   50

   Address

   Derrynacaheragh, Co. Cork