Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #11 - Foods Named After People

The Challenge:    Beef Wellington? Charlotte Russe? Choose a dish named after a person, either fictional or real, to create. Bonus points if you tell us about the link between the person and the dish!

It's always such fun to see the next Challenge for the Historical Food Fortnightly and then to find a recipe in our CBS Homemaker's Exchange Recipes from 1950 and 1951.  So far we've met each Challenge but we were not quite so optimistic about Challenge #11.  But we needn't have feared!  The recipe booklets gave us a lot of options:  Sherlock Turnips, Bumsteds, Oysters Rockefeller, Aunt Ester's Cream Pie, Tillie's Scrapple, just to name a few.  We had a lot of fun planning the blog around Humpty Dumpty Salad and Jack Horner Rolls.  My grandmother was English and I was fed a constant diet of nursery rhymes as a child.  We would sit for hours reciting who fell off the wall and who was sitting in the corner.  Great memories!

As we were writing the recipe possibilities one name kept occurring, Sally Lunn. 

July/August/September 1951 Page 4 Sally Lunn Bread

October/November/December 1950 Page 1 Raisin Sally Lunn



July/August/September 1950 Page 2 Blueberry Sally Lunn

Who was Sally Lunn?  Was she a real person?  Was she the baker that homemakers in the mid-century were copying?  The mystery had to be solved!

 

The link:  http://www.sallylunns.co.uk/    

Our research first introduces us to a tea-house in Bath, England.  The Sally Lunn Eating House is on the site of what was originally the Bath Abbey.  The lowest floor level dates to the reconstruction of the Abbey after a great fire in 1137.  The current building was constructed in the 1600s.  In the 1930s it was acquired by Marie Byng-Johnson who opened it as a tea room selling Sally Lunn buns.  Marie claims that she discovered an ancient document in a secret panel above the fireplace explaining that Sally Lunn (then called Solange Luyon), a young French Hugenot refugee, brought her recipe to Bath around 1680.

There is other mention of the elusive Sally Lunn in our research.  In 1798 The Gentlemen's Magazine uses Sally Lunn as an example during a discussion of foods named after people.  In 1827 it was noted by correspondent William Hone that an historical person sold buns on the street "about 30 years ago".  The story is that a baker bought her business, composed a song for the vendors, and sold the buns in mobile carts.  There is evidence of an 1819 advert for Sally Lunn cakes sold by W. Needes of Bath, bread and biscuit maker to the Prince Regent.  A simpler interpretation is that the name comes from French Sol et lune, or sun and moon, representing the golden crust and light interior.

So is Sally Lunn real?  Or fictional?  In all these centuries leading up to 1950/1951 we still don't know, but we can bake Sally Lunn bread and consider the thought of a recipe that has survived those many years.

While the typical Sally Lunn made and sold at the tea house in Bath, England and the sister tea houses in Chester and Chatham,New Jersey, United States are a large bun or teacake made with a yeast dough and served warm with butter, the name is also applied to various unrelated breads in the US since the early 20th century.  The latter would be the recipes we discovered in our booklets and we have decided to bake the Sally Lunn Bread recipe.

Here is what we did:

The ingredients.

The ingredients prepared.

An almost dough-like consistency means the batter has to be spread in the pan.

Batter sprinkled with brown sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter mixture.

Baked!

Cut while still warm.  A beautifully baked exterior and white interior.  A texture almost like a muffin or cake.

Tea Time!!

Earl Grey for Patrick.

Lady Grey for Jeanette. 

We can't say enough good things about the flavor and texture of this bread!  Of course we love it because of the cinnamon and brown sugar - a favorite combination in our family - but the bread recipe itself is sweet and satisfying.  No doubt we'll be making this one for many years to come!

Can you tell who had two pieces?

Enjoy!

Patrick and Jeanette