School: Ceathrú na Laithighe (Brownsgrove) (roll number 12138)

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1. The Food of the Olden Times (continued)

   

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   Potatoes were also eaten at dinner time. They were usually eaten with a kind of porridge called bruchán which was water and oat-meal
   and salt and pepper and onions (if the people had them) boiled together. This was supposed to be very healthy food. The potatoes were also eaten with a salted herring or two because for an egg you would get a salted herring (red herring) at Chresham's shop and the people thinking that a herring would last longer than an egg at a meal used to exchange eggs for herrings. Cabbage and turnips were also eaten at dinner time but meat was seldom eaten except on special days such as Christmas Day.
   At baggin'-tea the meal consisted of boxty-cake and oat-meal bread with milk or sweeden or prásán. Boxty cake was like a potato-cake. It was kneaded and shaped like an ordinary cake and was baked in an oven or pan or griddle the ingredients consisting of potatoes;
   some caiscín (wheaten flour); salt and pepper. Oat-meal cake was supposed to be the best food for keeping the hunger away from you and for that reason men who used to be walking to Dublin to cross on the cattle-ships to England used to bring two oat-cakes with them in
   their pockets. Mike Cáit of Graiguechullare used to do this. Sweeden or súidín was oat-meal and water and sugar mixed. Prásán was oat-meal and milk mixed.
   The supper nearly always consisted of Indian-meal stirabout or oat-meal stirabout eaten with a cup of milk. At every meal the table
   which used to be resting against

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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 Mc Gagh

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Beagh (Browne), Co. Galway

   Informant

   James Kennedy

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   77

   Address

   Beagh (Browne), Co. Galway