Scottish and Irish Christmas Dinner Recipes

Many people were asking for the recipes of the food we served for the Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 2019 Christmas Dinner.  Here they are below.  Just click on each name and it will take you to the recipe.   

Colcannon Soup

Creamy Neeps

Dundee Cake

Irish Apple Cake

Oatcakes

Scottish Black Bun

Scottish Shortbread

Smoked Salmon on Tattie Scones

Traditional Irish Soda Bread

Christmas at the Page Farm

Thanks to Iris Page (daughter of Morley and Grace Page) and her daughter Michelle for sharing their memories of Christmas. 

Christmas at the Farm

Christmas dinner at the farm was a big affair with lots of good food. We always started with a glass of tomato juice, we never had it at any other time. We would eat chicken, not turkey as we had chickens on the farm. We would have 3 vegetables, always potato, turnip and peas and carrots. Mother would make gravy and the chicken was always carved at the table. For dessert we would have a choice of plum pudding with home made ice cream or minced meat pie with home made ice cream. The plum pudding would have lots of dip, Dad always loved lots of dip for it. There would be light and dark Christmas bread, shortbread and squares as well.

We would have family come for dinner, Aunt Edna and Ruth, Uncle Herm and Aunt Gert with their kids and sometimes Aunt Glad and Uncle Harry from Detroit. Herm and Glad were Dads brother and sister. We would switch each year with Uncle Herm and Aunt Gert, one would do Christmas dinner , the other New Years. At home after dinner we would go tobogganing, there always seemed to be lots of snow.

Recipes:

Mince meat pie and plum pudding recipes have been lost, the plum pudding recipe did not have any suet type ingredient in it, it was very much a plum pudding and always had a dip with it to pour over it.

Christmas cake recipes also not found although the dark Christmas cake was the usual type, and the light Christmas cake was basically a white cake with raisins, peel and candied cherries in it.

Squares and shortbread :

Shortbread:

1 cup soft butter

½ cup brown sugar

2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar, gradually add flour ¼ at a time. Roll out to ¼ inch thickness and cut into shapes, decorate with cut up candied cherries.

Bake at 325 for 9-12 minutes will be done when golden around the edges

Cherry Squares:

Bottom:

1 ½ cups flour

¼ cup brown sugar

½ cup butter

Mix like pastry and press in 11x7 pan. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes

Top:

2 egg whites (beaten stiff)

1 tsp. baking powder

1 ¼ cups brown sugar

2 tsp flour

1 cup glazed cherries , chopped up

½ tsp vanilla

Mix all the ingredients together and spoon on top of cooled bottom

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes

Butter Mallow Squares:

Bottom:

¾ cup soft butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 ½ cup flour

Mix like pastry, put in 9x12 pan and prick well. Bake at 325 for 15 minutes

Top:

2 envelopes of unflavoured gelatin

½ cup cold water

2 cups sugar

½ cup warm water

½ tsp vanilla

Food colour , red or green

Options – ½ cup maraschino cherries, cut up and /or ½ cup walnuts in small pieces, if you do both then use ¼ cup each

Soften gelatin in cold water

Combine sugar and warm water in a pot, boil for 2 minutes

Dissolve gelatin in hot syrup

Beat with mixer until stiff

Add vanilla, food colouring and cherries/walnuts, mix

Pour over shortbread bottom

Cool

Cut with hot knife

Fall-Winter 2019 Events at Backus-Page House Museum

Instead of multiple posts of upcoming events I thought is would be easier to put them altogether for your viewing pleasure.  Hope to see you out soon. 

Nov. 2 Paranormal Investigation - 4 tickets left  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/paranormal-investigation-with-cpi-tickets-70684317697 

Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 Christmas Dinner in the Museum - 2 tickets left each night  https://christmasdinner2019.eventbrite.com

September 27-29 Closed for Wallacetown Fair.  Visit us in the Commercial Exhibit building for your Heritage Farm Calendars, newly published history books, and a chance to win a 2020 membership and toy John Deere tractor. 

Oct. 26 is Clean Up Day - volunteers needed for outdoor work

Recipes from our WW2 Page Family Christmas Dinner

Better late than never!  I meant to post this before Christmas. 

Below are the recipes sent to us by Iris Page and her daughter Michelle that were favourites with Morley and Grace Page's families at Christmas.  We served these at our most recent WW2 themed Christmas Dinner in the Museum on December 1 and 2, 2018.  In conversations with locals we established that the shortbread recipe was the one most of the community used including Marion Pearce and Marion Foreman which makes sense since they were neighbours and/or friends.  Thanks again to Iris and Michelle for sharing. 

Shortbread:

1 cup soft butter

½ cup brown sugar

2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar, gradually add flour ¼ at a time. Roll out to ¼ inch thickness and cut into shapes, decorate with cut up candied cherries.

Bake at 325 for 9-12 minutes will be done when golden around the edges

Cherry Squares:

Bottom:

1 ½ cups flour

¼ cup brown sugar

½ cup butter

Mix like pastry and press in 11x7 pan. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes

Top:

2 egg whites (beaten stiff)

1 tsp. baking powder

1 ¼ cups brown sugar

2 tsp flour

1 cup glazed cherries , chopped up

½ tsp vanilla

Mix all the ingredients together and spoon on top of cooled bottom

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes

Butter Mallow Squares:

Bottom:

¾ cup soft butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 ½ cup flour

Mix like pastry, put in 9x12 pan and prick well. Bake at 325 for 15 minutes

Top:

2 envelopes of unflavoured gelatin

½ cup cold water

2 cups sugar

½ cup warm water

½ tsp vanilla

Food colour , red or green

Options – ½ cup maraschino cherries, cut up and /or ½ cup walnuts in small pieces, if you do both then use ¼ cup each

Soften gelatin in cold water

Combine sugar and warm water in a pot, boil for 2 minutes

Dissolve gelatin in hot syrup

Beat with mixer until stiff

Add vanilla, food colouring and cherries/walnuts, mix

Pour over shortbread bottom

Cool

Cut with hot knife

Fun Fact Friday #25 - You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry...🎅

      Did you know that Santa Claus was a real person? 

The first depiction of the red suit Santa wears.
Thomas Nast c. 1869

     Of course you did!  Most people know that he is based off of somebody known as Saint Nicholas, but historically, we do not know much more about him. According to tradition, or legend, Saint Nicholas was known to to be the secret gift giver to children on December 6, the day the Church celebrates him and supposedly the date of his death. In Europe it became a custom for people to place nuts, apples, and sweets in shoes left beside beds, on windowsills, or before the hearth on his day.

      It is a popular notion that these traditions of gift giving in North America come from the Dutch when they founded New Amsterdam (New York) and then passed around from there. 

       Ever since the anonymous poem "The Night Before Christmas" was popularized in 1823, Santa was depicted as an elfin figure with "a little round belly/That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.". Even today the image of the jolly big guy continues to thrive.

Learn more about the history of Christmas traditions at the Backus-Page House Museum. Book a tour today!
29424 Lakeview Line, Wallacetown, ON
519-762-3072
     

Fun Fact Friday #24 - O Christmas Tree 🎄

The Royal Family's Christmas Illustation

      Did you know that it was Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, that popularized the modern and familiar Christmas traditions?

      Prior Prince Albert's influence, Christmas was scarcely celebrated and treated much more religiously than it is today. By 1870, in Canada, the holiday had become a community and family celebration. This is also when familiar attributes such as Santa Claus, Yule logs, holly and mistletoe, caroling, and Christmas trees became extremely popular. 

      Although the royal families had been decorating Christmas trees since at least 1800, Prince Albert's family were the first ones to display their tree in an illustration that was published in 1848. The general public liked this idea and started doing it themselves and it was eventually brought over to Canada due to British immigration. 

Learn more about early Christmas traditions when you book a tour at the Backus-Page House Museum.
29424 Lakeview Line, Wallacetown, ON
519-762-3072

The Twelve Days of Christmas

This is one of my personal favourite Christmas songs.  My Grandmother, Marion (Davy) Foreman taught me all the Christmas carols and we would start practicing them in November.  She played the piano and we both sang.  When I could read music, I was in charge of turning the pages.  With The Twelve Days of Christmas I would sing the numbers as fast as I could to see if I could sing them all before she could play them all on the piano.  I always won the race and we would laugh and laugh.  These are some of the best Christmas memories.  

The twelve days of Christmas lie between December 25 and Epiphany, January 6.  it was on January 6 that the Three Magi brought gifts to the Christ Child in the manger - the first Christmas gifts!  It was a common folk belief that on the even of January 6 animals were given the power of speech.  

The Twelve Days of Christmas is an English Christmas carol that enumerates in the manner of a cumulative song a series of increasingly grand gifts given on each day.  The song, published in England in 1780 without music as a chant or rhyme, is thought to be French in origin.  The tunes of collected versions vary. The standard tune now associated with it is derived from a 1909 arrangement of a traditional folk melody by English composer Frederic Austin, who first introduced the now familiar prolongation of the verse "five gold rings".

The Holy City

A few years before she passed away, my Grandmother, Marion (Davy) Foreman gathered by Aunt and I at the piano on Boxing Day to teach us this song.  She said it was her mother's favourite (Ida Mae Wilton Davy).  I had never heard it before and the sheet music she used was old and frayed at the edges.  My Aunt remembered hearing it ages ago.  I have since heard it sung at a couple church services, but it isn't one of the more well known Christmas carols.  I've included a link with this one so you can hear it. 

The Holy City is a religious ballad dating from 1892, with music by Michael Maybrick writing under the alias Stephen Adams, with lyrics by Frederic Weatherly.

The song is mentioned in James Joyce's Ulysses, published 1918-1920.  It gained renewed popularity when it was sung by Jeanette MacDonald in the 1936 hit film San Francisco.

 - Angela Bobier

What Child Is This?

The lyrics were written by William Chatterton Dix, in 1865. At the time of composing the carol, Dix worked as an insurance company manager and had been struck by a severe illness. While recovering, he underwent a spiritual renewal that led him to write several hymns.  The words of this carol are sung to the old English tune "Greensleeves".  The lively tune has been popular since the time of Elizabeth I; "Christmas comes but once a year" is also sung to this air.  Shakespeare mentions it twice in "The Merry Wives of Windsor".  Sir John Stainer arranged this version.  

We Three Kings

This is a carol particularly associated with Twelfth Night celebrated in most countries as the day the Three Wise Men from the East were led to the manger at Bethlehem.  Also known as "We Three Kings of Orient Are" or "The Quest of the Magi".  The words and music were written in the year 1857 by John Hopkins.  At the time of composing the carol, Hopkins served as the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and he wrote the carol for a Christmas pageant in New York City.  Each of the kings of the Orient tells what gifts he has brought to the Christ Child in this popular carol.

Silent Night

The parish priest of the little church of  Oberndorf bei Salzburg, Austria, wrote the words for this beautiful Christmas song on the day before Christmas Eve in 1818.  Mice had eaten at the bellows of the church organ.  The priest and organist were sadly troubled by the lack of music for midnight Mass, but when the organist, Franz Gruber, heard the words, he set them to the lovely music now so familiar to all of us.  Silent Night was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2011.  The song has been recorded by a large number of singers from every music genre. The version sung by Bing Crosby is the third best-selling single of all-time.

O Little Town of Bethlehem

One of the few carols by American writers, this lovely hymn was composed by Phillips Brooks in 1868 while he was Episcopal Rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia.  In 1865 he had visited the village of Bethlehem.  His Sunday School classes asked him for a Christmas song, and after writing this, he took it to the church organist for a tune.  The organist, Lewis H, Redner, says he heard this melody in a dream on Christmas Eve and finished the arrangement in time for the service next day.  

O, Christmas Tree

The decorated fir tree was first introduced in Germany about the time of Martin Luther.  The German words "O Tannenbaum" were set to a tune which may be one of the oldest tunes in existence.  A tannenbaum is a fir tree.  It was so well known and loved in America that the tune was used during the Civil War as "Maryland, My Maryland." The modern lyrics were written in 1824, by the Leipzig organist, teacher and composer Ernst Anschütz.  The lyrics do not actually refer to Christmas, or describe a decorated Christmas tree. Instead, they refer to the fir's evergreen qualities as a symbol of constancy and faithfulness.

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Originally sung in Latin, Adestes Fideles, this famous hymn became popular after the English translation, made in 1841 by Frederick Oakeley.  The author of the music is unknown, but has been attributed to various authors, including John Francis Wade (1711–1786), John Reading (1645–1692) and King John IV of Portugal (1604–1656), with the earliest manuscript of the hymn bearing his name, located in the library of the Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa.  An original manuscript of the oldest known version, dating from 1751, is held by Stonyhurst College in Lancashire.  Few hymns are so stirring.  

Joy To The World

This inspiring carol was written by Isaac Watts, the founder of English hymn writing.  It was first published in 1719 and is based on Psalm 98, 96:11-12 and Genesis 3:17-18, in the Bible.  The music is usually attributed to George Frederick Handel, but there are some other theories for the composer.    

Jingle Bells

Who else had or still has this Little Golden Book "Jingle Bells".  I put mine on display every Christmas because I love the vintage covers.  An earlier title of this popular song is "The One-Horse Open Sleigh".   It was written by American, James Lord Pierpont and published in the autumn of 1857.  Its happy words and vigorous rhythm have made it so loved that it has become an indispensable part of the Christmas season.  "Jingle Bells" was often used as a drinking song at parties: people would jingle the ice in their glasses as they sang.  The double-meaning of "upsot" was thought humorous, and a sleigh ride gave an unescorted couple a rare chance to be together, unchaperoned, in distant woods or fields, with all the opportunities that afforded.  In the winter in New England in pre-automobile days, it was common to adorn horses' harnesses with straps bearing bells as a way to avoid collisions at blind intersections, since a horse-drawn sleigh in snow makes almost no noise. The rhythm of the tune mimics that of a trotting horse's bells. 

It Came Upon The Midnight Clear

This is sometimes sung It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, which is what I thought the words were.  A Unitarian minister in Wayland, Massachusetts, near Boston, Edmund H, Sears, wrote a poem in 1849.  Writing during a period of personal melancholy, and with news of revolution in Europe and the United States' war with Mexico fresh in his mind, Sears portrayed the world as dark, full of "sin and strife," and not hearing the Christmas message.  A year later Richard Storrs Willis wrote this joyful music for it, giving us one of the few hymns of the 19th century with the real Christmas message, "Peace on earth, good will towards men."  

I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day

Although much of American, Henry W. Longfellow's poetry was religious, little of it has been set to music.  His brother Samuel was a noted writer of hymns and the work of the two is sometimes confused.  Written as "Christmas Bells" in 1864 these words were later set to this very appropriate music; the bass sound like the ringing of a bell.  The last four bards come from an old "Amen".  

In 1861, two years before writing this poem, Longfellow's personal peace was shaken when his second wife of 18 years, to whom he was very devoted, was tragically burned in a fire. Then in 1863, during the American Civil War, Longfellow's oldest son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, joined the Union cause as a soldier without his father's blessing. Charles soon got an appointment as a lieutenant but, in November, he was severely wounded. Charles eventually recovered, but his time as a soldier was finished.  References to the Civil War are prevalent in some of the verses that are not commonly sung.

The Holly and The Ivy

A traditional English folk Christmas carol.  Holly, especially the variety found in Europe, is commonly referenced at Christmastime, and is often referred to by the name Christ's thorn.  Since medieval times the plant has carried a Christian symbolism, as expressed in this popular Christian Christmas carol "The Holly and the Ivy", in which the holly represents Jesus and the ivy represents His mother, the Virgin Mary.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

One of the most famous of Protestant hymn writers, Charles Wesley, was inspired to write this beautiful carol as he walked to church one Christmas morning in 1730 and heard the pealing of the bells.  An organist at Waltham Abbey later set it to this music Mendelssohn had composed for a festival at Leipzig in 1840.  It was finally published in 1856, although the composer once declared that such happy music would never fit sacred words.  The current words are the work of many alterations over the years.