Our viands

In modern times the bun appears to have become an almost exclusively English cake, and in the last century there were special houses to which the elite resorted to con- sume this delicacy. Two of these are historically famous, the Chelsea bun-house and its rival the Royal. At Easter cakes of a different kind appear; they are generally very thin and sweet, and have a certain affinity CAKES AND PUDDINGS 59 with the unleavened Passover cakes of the Jews, but they vary considerably in different counties. In Dorsetshire the Easter cakes contain currants and spices, and are sprinkled with white sugar. These were formerly carried round by the clerk of the parish, who expected for them a small Easter offering. In Durham at one time the clergy and laity used to play ball in the churches at Easter for tansy cakes, which are still esteemed in some parts. In many places endowments exist for the distribution of cakes at Easter. There is one of these at Biddenden, in Kent, consisting of twenty acres of land, to provide cakes for all attending the parish church on Easter Sunday, the parishioners each receiving, in addition, a loaf of bread and a pound and a half of cheese. All the boys of the Blue- Coat School receive a bun and a new shilling from a fund of this kind, and probably endowments of a similar character exist also on the Continent, for in some churches on certain days huge baskets of small cakes are carried round and distributed to the congregation. To turn from cakes of a semi-consecrated character to those of festal use, the first place must be given to the twelfth cake, formerly everywhere seen, of gigantic size and elaborate decoration on every festal board on Twelfth Day, and which was used as a sort of lottery or medium of divina- tion, a bean being concealed in it. The one to whom this fell was ' King of the Bean,' and was considered especially lucky, and sometimes we read that this ' King of the Bean ' was lifted up, in order that he might mark crosses on the rafters to preserve the house from evil spirits. This custom of choosing a ' King of the Bean ' seems to have descended to us from pagan times, and is not peculiar to England, for 60 OUR VIANDS in France the proverb exists for a peculiarly lucky fellow— // a trouve la j eve au gateau. Twelfth-Day cakes and Twelfth-Day observances have, however, faded almost into oblivion in these utilitarian days, when even children begin to say, * What is the use of this and that ? ' but in Ireland many of the old customs are still kept up, and a thimble, a crooked sixpence, and a wedding ring are baked in cakes, the first for the old maid, the second for wealth, and the ring, of course, for a wedding; but, if memory serves aright, these fortune-telling cakes are eaten on Halloween instead of Twelfth Day, and I do not know whether the Twelfth-Day ' King of the Bean ' is still elected. We read that in 1613 the gentlemen in Gray's Inn were permitted by Lord Bacon to perform a Twelfth-Day masque at Whitehall, in which a character called Baby Cake was attended by an usher bearing a great cake with a bean and a pease.* The ' King of the Bean ' is supposed to have been derived from the Roman Saturnalia, in which lots were drawn with beans as to who should be king.