Our viands

WE have never met with an explanation of the reason why all the principal events in human life should require to be celebrated by different kinds of cakes. We have cakes for christenings, weddings, birthdays, schooldays, and funerals. Almost all the festive seasons have their special cakes — such as Twelfth Day, Easter, Mid-Lent, etc. — and even such solemn seasons as Good Friday and the Jewish Passover have their appropriate cakes; but perhaps the most singular of all these cakes are those sold in Northern Italy on All Souls' Day (November 2), and known as Pane dei morte — that is, ' bread of the dead.' These are made chiefly at Brescia, and resemble in form parts of the human body. Rough pieces of flesh are represented by a reddish compound something like toffee, but highly flavoured with cinnamon and other spices, whilst the bones are simulated by a lighter-coloured compound, or by almonds. Thus you may purchase a jaw, in which the teeth are formed of almonds, etc. The most singular part of this All Souls' custom is that the superstitious appear to fancy some real connection between these cakes and the parts of the dead which they resemble. We do not know the origin of these cakes, but they would seem to be a survival from the days 52 CAKES AND PUDDINGS 53 of cannibalism, when, as among some savages even now, it was considered respectful to partake of the dead bodies of relations. At all events, whatever may be their origin, they are very delicious and highly appreciated. In many parts of England there is an approach to the Italian Pane dei morte in the distribution of funeral cakes, which sometimes are served only at the house of the deceased, but in some counties they are sent round to the neighbours after the funeral. The following lines refer to this custom in Yorkshire : — ' Roundlegs to Wadsley went, Wi' burying cakes he was sent, He knocked at our alehouse door — " Does any dead folk live here ? " ' These ' burying cakes ' do not appear to have any especial form, but they are generally slightly bitter. One of the most celebrated of English cakes, and which would seem to have originally had some religious significance, is that known as the ' Simnel.' This is a cake resembling a rich plum-pudding enclosed in a crust, like a raised pie, and its great peculiarity is that it is boiled first and baked after- wards. The season appropriate to it is Mid-Lent Sunday, known as ' Mothering Sunday,' because on that day it was formerly the custom of families to assemble and to join in a little feast. The popular story as to the origin of this cake is that an old couple, named Simon and Nellie, in preparing the Mid-Lent feast for their children, found a remnant of Christmas plum-pudding and a piece of unleavened Lenten dough, which they resolved to convert into a cake, but a violent quarrel ensued as to whether it should be baked or boiled. At last, after much altercation, ending in blows, a 54 OUR VIANDS compromise was arrived at, by which the cake was first boiled and then baked, and this turned out so very satisfactorily that cakes thus prepared became famous under the name of ' Simnels,' from the first syllables of the names of the old couple. The tradition has been embodied in the following poem : — 'THE CAKE OF SIMONELLIE.'* ' Where Girlith village looks adown To birlie Morecambe Bay, Old gammer Nell did blythelie dwell