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| Potato Cakes |
Mrs. Jarvis's recipe, late
18th century.
Potatoes became the
staple diet at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when they superceded
barley and oats. According to Thomas Quayle, writing in 1812 about Manx
agriculture, potatoes appeared "on the table of all ranks of people nearly
every day in the year".
They were cooked in
their jackets and eaten with salt herring, mashed and made into potato cakes,
and added to stews and hot-pots.
The common
name for mashed potatoes was tittlewhack - a word derived from the sound
made by the wooden pestle used to mash big tubs of
potatoes.
While jacket potatoes were put on
the table in a long wooden tray, tittlewhack was served in a dish along
with a cup of cold butter. When the first new potatoe of the season was eaten,
it was believed to be lucky to make a wish as it was sure to be
granted.
Take boiled and peeled potatoes
that are dry. Crumble them fine with your hands. Put in a little salt and
crumble a little fresh butter among them and a raw egg, white and yolk, and
beat up.
Moisten them with a little good cream
and make them into small cakes. Flour them well and bake them on a tin plate
well-buttered, in an oven or on a a griddle.
Serve these hot as a side dish for supper.
Have a saucer of cold butter to eat with them.
Garnish them with Nesturtian Flowers or yolks of hard
eggs.
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