Page 48 - Phonebox Magazine September 2014

Our Great British menu
Roast dinners dripping in gravy, toad in the hole with comforting Yorkshire pudding and piping hot shepherd’s pie – if there was a menu made up of British classics, it would be bursting with traditional recipes from our illustrious history (with a slice of Victoria sponge snuck in there too).
Along with red London buses and the Union Flag, food is a big part of our fair isle’s heritage, but what about all the dishes a little closer to home?
Our meals have ancient origins, with meats, pies and boiled vegetables coming from the gardens of labourers, many of which worked in rural agriculture. However, a lot of recipes lost popularity after the Second World War, with the emergence of supermarkets and fast food.
One such dish is the Bedfordshire Clanger. Almost like a type of Cornish pasty, the pastry dish was made with suet, with a savoury filling one end and a sweet one at the other.
Recently, it was brought to national attention with Jamie & Jimmy’s Fright Night Feast episode, Save The Bedfordshire Clanger. Historically eaten in Buckinghamshire too, it’s a truly traditional dish of the area.
Gunns Bakery is widely credited as the home of the clanger and owner David, whose grandfather started the bakery nearly 90 years ago, is still selling them at their shops in Sandy, Bedford and Biggleswade.
“The clanger was traditionally made for people to take into the fields to keep them going throughout the day,” explains David.
“Bedfordshire was always an agriculture county traditionally. Wives and mothers would generally make them the night before at home, out of whatever food they had leftover.”
Following the visit from Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Doherty, the bakery now has a range of recipes – beef with rhubarb and custard, gammon hot pot with apple, vegetable curry with mango and pork with roasted apple, as well as special breakfast clangers and Christmas versions.
Have you got any recipes we haven’t mentioned? Just get in touch
Northamptonshire
cheese cake, a leek pie and a pastry dish with the offcuts of ham are just some of the dishes that originate from the county lying at the heart
of England.
Traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday, Earls Barton has a leek pie and the ock ‘n’ dough is a pastry filled with ham, onions and stock. Originally from Wellingborough, the town now has a pub named after it.
The Long Buckby Feast pudding is traditionally made in August, whereas the Northamptonshire pudding (a steamed treat full of raspberry jam) was popular in the 1930s. Finally, a seed cake was traditionally served at sheep shearing time.
Widely recognised businesses have also made their name in the county, with Weetabix harvesting in Northamptonshire since 1932. Oliver Adams, the chain bakery with dozens of outlets in the area, was originally started by Thomas Adams when he arrived in Northampton to learn the trade. And it was his family that created the Towester Cheesecake, made from puff pastry, cheese curd and currants.
Bedfordshire
Search for traditional recipes from this county and you’ll be greeted with a lot of clanger recipes, but there are plenty of other dishes ranging from the
David adds: “We bake them instead of boiling them nowadays, but the fundamental A
essence of the clanger is the same as it always was, which is the important part.”
48 Phonebox Magazine