Halloween the British way

English Heritage carved turnips at Dover Castle last year

Pumpkin Day was trending on Twitter in the UK yesterday and ever more shops are selling them for carving. Indeed, on Broadway Market in Hackney – the epitome of trendy hipsterdom these days – an empty restaurant had been turned over to the sale of pumpkins and pumpkins alone last weekend.

People all over the world have long carved vegetables for all sorts of reasons, but there is evidence that the custom of carving jack-o’-lanterns at this time of year originated in Ireland and, by the 19^th century, turnips and mangel wurzels were being used to create grotesque lanterns at Halloween in both Ireland and the Scottish Highlights, where Halloween was also the festival of Samhain.

Jack-o’-lanterns also cropped up in Somerset on Punkie Night, which is possibly linked to Halloween – ‘punkie’ is an old English name for a lantern.

In Cornwall, Allantide was celebrated on 31 October – although it has also been called Allan Day as part of attempts to claim it as being connected with a little-known Cornish saint, Allen or Arlan, rather than anything older and pre-Christian.

Allantide involves giving large, polished red apples as gifts – and sometimes, carving turnip head lanterns, plus the lighting of ‘Tindle Fires’ – the latter being in common with the traditions of other Celtic peoples.

Whatever the origins, there’s no history of carving pumpkins in the UK. It always comes back to turnips and swedes.

For instance, there’s evidence that turnips were used to carve a ‘Hoberdy’s Lantern’ in Worcestershire in the 18^th century.

Jabez Allies – one of the earliest English writers on folklore – said that, “in my juvenile days I remember to have seen peasant boys make, what they called a ‘Hoberdy’s Lantern,’ by hollowing out a turnip, and cutting eyes, nose, and mouth therein, in the true moon-like style; and having lighted it up by inserting the stump of a candle, they used to place it upon a hedge to frighten unwary travellers in the night.”

In an article titled Halloween Sports and Customs, penned for the American magazine, Harper’s Young People, in 1885, Agnes Carr Sage clarified the trans-Atlantic differences: “It is an ancient British custom to light great bonfires (Bone-fire to clear before Winter froze the ground) on Hallowe’en, and carry blazing fagots about on long poles; but in place of this, American boys delight in the funny grinning jack-o’-lanterns made of huge yellow pumpkins with a candle inside.”

So, if you feel tempted to buy and carve a pumpkin – thing again and get yourself a turnip or a swede for the job.

And lest we forget, trick or treating is NOT a British tradition either: instead, we have Mischief Night, a pranking holiday that usually takes place the night before Halloween itself.

Like so many traditions, the exact roots of it are unclear, but it’s thought to date from the 18^th century, when a custom of Lawless Hours or Days still existed.

It only appears on record as Mischief Night in the 1830s, when it took place on 30 April. Indeed, in Germany, Mischief Night is still celebrated on 1 May.

There seems no certainty about why it moved or how – or even when it takes place. Some say it’s on 4 November – some, the night before Halloween, although this confusion may be linked to the country’s shift from Julian to Gregorian calendar in 1752, meaning that 11 days were ‘lost’.

But while we have Halloween, Bonfire Night and Mischief Night at different times, but they all originate from the same festival.

“These were times when normal laws were suspended and tricks could be played ranging from throwing cabbage stalks at people, to the swapping of shopkeeper’s signs and gates, Simon Costin, the director of the Museum of British Folklore, told the BBC in 2009.

So if your gate is taken off its hinges on Sunday night – just remember: that’s a proper British tradition.

Sinister warnings, infantilised debate and British 'values'

In the last few weeks, as the phrase has floated back and forth, like a cloud over the post-election horizon, I have found myself mulling precisely what “British values” are.

If there are values that are specifically “British” then they must be unique to this nation and different from values anywhere else.

Otherwise, why keep insisting that they are “British” values? And let’s face it, there has been little meat on the bones of that soundbite.

I suspect that most Britons like to think that we’re a fairly tolerant lot, so is tolerance a ‘British value’? In which case, does no other nation share it or, if they do, have they nicked the idea from us because we created it – hence it being a particularly ‘British value’?

Freedom of speech, perhaps? Exactly the same questions apply.

Freedom from illegal imprisonment? I suppose we can go back to Magna Carta on this one – fitting, in the year of its 800th anniversary. Of course, in that document, it was not about the plebs being protected from illegal imprisonment, but rebellious barons having a right to be tried by their peers.

However, let’s not get too pedantic about these things.

This, though, might give you an idea of my problem: I’m looking for a value that is quintessentially British and I can think of not a one – well, certainly not without resorting to sarcasm.

There’s going to be no suggestion here that there are ‘universal’ values, because a glance around the world would show that to be far from the case.

Values have to be developed, and while the West shares many of the same values – not least as a result of western Europe in particular having experienced the Enlightenment at the same time – other parts of the world do not. They may at some point in the future, but they do not now.

And values are not set in stone, they evolve over time: see the changing attitudes toward LGBT people in the UK – and the West in general – over the last 50 years. Which, of course, illustrates that, if tolerance is a value we rate particularly in the UK, why are we only in recent years become tolerant toward such people, both in terms of most of the populace and the country’s institutions?

But David Cameron’s post-election statement that our society has been ‘passively tolerant’ for too long, allowing things if they were within the law, is perhaps the most sinister uttering from a UK politician in a very long time.

Nobody will be in doubt as to which group are the main targets of this pumped-up rhetoric. This is about Muslims, radicalisation and extremism, and how to avoid the second and third in that list. And few people would object to that aim or fail to understand how important it is.

Last November, the then government released advice to maintained schools on Promoting fundamental British values as part of SMSC in schools.

‘SMSC’ stands for ‘spiritual, moral, cultural and mental’.

The document is quite clear that the main issue it was addressing was situations where teaching of religious law might conflict with law in this UK.

It also states that “fundamental British values” are “democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs”.

Which is all well and good, but brings us right back to the question of what about any of these is so fundamentally ‘British’?

Interestingly, that doesn’t mention ‘free speech’, although one could probably suggest that that would fall within “individual liberty”.

The next question after that, though, is why, if they’re so fundamental, do all schools not have to promote these values and only maintained ones? This actively excludes any religious school, for instance, that is operating in a realm without state funding.

Perhaps one could avoid some issues by having a strictly secular education system where every child, no matter their religious background, has access to thought and debate that can show them a world beyond the strictures of the faith that their parents have decided they belong to?

At present, we have a situation where religious schools, for instance, can opt out of sex education to some degree or other.

Should it not be a fundamental value that all young people, irrespective of the religious beliefs (or lack thereof) of their parents, has the right to a clear and informed education about something like sex?

Ours is the same system where, at present, one particular religious sect can say that it will ban any child from its schools if they are driven to school bytheir mother, because women should not drive – but it’s okay because none of the women want to drive.

Indeed, only yesterday, the school’s leaders have claimed that such a ban is essential to maintaining “religious principles and strong traditional values” and noting that, “as private schools we have the freedom to set our own high standards by which we seek to live and bring up our children.”

Ah yes, “high standards” that include telling girls that it’s ‘immodest’ for a woman to drive a vehicle. And see that bit about being a private school allowing such things.

Let’s be clear: this is no more in tune with ‘British’ values than brainwashing children with any other religious, fundamentalist bigotry and idiocy.

A properly secular education system is far from being the be all and end of dealing with fundamentalist religion, as the situation in France illustrates, but it could help to break down the ghettoising effect of religion in general.

By all means have your places of worship and your religious traditions in the home, but education should be a free space for pupils.

We need to be encouraging young people to be able to think more philosophically – and not to run scared of ideas that may challenge their beliefs.

We need to promote the idea that nobody has a right to be not offended or have their beliefs challenged. We do not need anything that drives us down the same infantilising path as in the US, where students increasingly object when anyone voices a view that challenges their own – and run away to ‘safe rooms’ full of videos of playful puppies and Play Doh.

What can never work, though, is destroying precisely the things we claim to be defending – in the name of defending them.

The censorship and the increased snooping that are being proposed; the replacement of human rights legislation with a bill of rights – with the degree of rights one is afforded dependent on where one is from; the suggestion that simply living within the law will no longer be good enough for some to avoid government intervention … all these are absolutely the opposite of what most people would consider to be ‘our’ values.

In particular, that statement on ‘passive tolerance’ is pernicious. Few people would be actively supportive of terrorists of any ilk, but such vague statements can only give rise to a feeling that we are moving into the realms of an assault on free speech; of thought crime, even.

If someone says, for instance, that ‘the Charlie Hebdo murderers had a point’, will that now be a cue for state intervention?

And if so, how long before saying that the government’s heads should be on spikes for all to see be put on the same level?

Who gets to choose, once the rationale has ceased to be breaking the law? Start down such a route and you’re on a very slippery slope.

And saying that only one group has its capacity for free speech impinged upon is really not a way to defeat the substantial issues of the radicalisation of the young.

Frankly, it’s like handing the extremist groomers an additional recruitment tool, never mind doing one of the sort of things that the very same people would like to do to us, in attacking our way of life.

Double standards and bad laws win no hearts and minds.

And it would be hoped that they were most certainly not what anyone views as ‘British values’.

  

Of hats and hockey

The abbey from the bishops' summer palace

We’d decided that, irrespective of the weather, Tuesday would be a day off – or to be more specific, would not involve a long walk.

It had taken half an hour or more the previous evening just for my feet, once out of boots, to stop throbbing. A phone app said that, all told, we’d done nearly 19km the previous day, including 15 flights of stairs (that’s ascending – it doesn’t register going down).

A very great deal of water has passed under the bridge since I’ve done anything like such a lengthy walk. I like walking – but London is not really conducive to the sort of walking I like, a point not helped by crowded pavements, or cyclists trying to mow you down, even on the canal towpaths, where pedestrians are supposed to enjoy right of way.

So we set off at a gentle pace to do more exploring of the old town, with stops for bowls of milky coffee as required.

That walk took us into the inner courtyard of the summer palace of the bishops of Augsburg for the first time. At this time of year, it’s only open to the public on a Friday afternoon, though much of it – together with parts of St Mang’s Abbey next door – serve as civic office space.

Summer palace of the bishops of Augsburg

The inner court was built between 1490-1504 by bishop Frederic of Zollern, but what makes it most distinctive is the illusionistic paintings on the outer facades, which date from 1499 and are unique in German late-Gothic architecture.

These trompe-l’oeil windows, brickwork and door frames are extraordinary, but while they are unique, painting on buildings in the Alps is hardly rare, and we saw plenty of delicate work on walls around the town, including clearly recent work that maintains the tradition.

And talking of tradition, there is plenty in the area – and not least sartorially.

In Munich on the Saturday, we’d even seen a gaggle of young men walking around in bits of regional dress, with soft, brimless caps. Students, we concluded, in a fraternity.

Looking into the palace courtyard

There was also a group of young women with matching clothing walking around too.

Alpine-style jackets were visible all over the place – some more traditional than others. We even spotted one man wearing a tracksuit top that had a round Bavarian collar and was trimmed in green, while hip, young men were wearing them with jeans.

There was even a smaller amount of lederhosen on view, and many eateries in the region see female staff wearing the dirndl.

I like it: I like what feels to be a statement against the globalising homogeneity. And that aside, a lot of it looks damned good.

Then there are the hats.

There are various types of regional headgear, as this hat lover had discovered via the internet by way of pre-trip research.

View of the palace from our room

We’d only been in Munich a short time before I managed to get one on my head. Indeed, this was such a specific hat that it an Allgäuer loden hat – from the very region of Bavaria that we were on our way to.

Loden is becoming familiar in the UK as a shade of green, but it’s actually a material. Items made from loden are often a dark hunter green or an olive green, certainly, but not always.

The word comes from the German ‘loda’ for a cilice, a coarse, rough garment worn by medieval monks to show repentance.

Once that’s complete, it becomes a dense but light fabric that can repel water, while also cheating wind and keeping the wearer warm. It’s sheered and brushed up to 20 times to gain the desired nap.

War memorial between the abbey and palace

Long viewed as the fabric of peasants, it emerged from the mountains in the 18th century, making its way into civil jackets and military uniforms, before becoming acceptable in the upper circles of society when worn by Austrian emperor Franz Josef in the 1870s.

So, that’s loden for you. The shape of the hats vary a little, but many come with a cord ‘band’ and it is traditional to dress them with brushes, feathers, brooches and pins – the latter often being linked to walking clubs.

I’d already decided I wanted a brush for mine, and found a super one in the shop where I bought it: boar hair set in a pewter brooch.

Then, as we were rambling around the city, I stopped to browse at an antique shop. The owner had seen me coming, new hat and all, and pointed out to me some delicate, carved edelweiss pins.

One, he said, was about a century old. It was carved from bone or horn and, when he told me that it was just €20, I decided not to resist.

Trout – there was a large bowl of salad with it

A few days later, after visiting Neuschwanstein, I added a further brush and feather combination, held in a mountain goat brooch, sold to me by a woman who was managing to dance and sing to Status Quo’s In the Army Now.

The final pin was added from a shop in Füssen and is a metal walking stick and hat, with fir leaves and ‘Neuschwanstein’ on a slender strip, with a single crystal hanging below.

It’s a cracking statement hat.

We took a rather fuller lunch on Tuesday, sitting outside Nostalgie-Restaurant Madame Plusch, where I enjoyed some trout, with mental accompaniment by Schubert.

We’d decided to make this our main meal of the day because we’d spotted a poster on

Sunday that had given us an idea for an evening out.

Ice cream van outside the old fire station, now a market

The local ice hockey team, EV Füssen, were due to play a home match on the Tuesday evening against EV Weiden in a Oberliga ‘best of five’ game.

Neither of us have ever seen an ice hockey match before, but it seemed an ideal cultural counterpoint to seeing a piano Wagner had played.

We snacked on more cake and coffee at Kurcafe and then headed off, managing to take the scenic, but ridiculously long, way around to the stadium. It did, however, provide another good sunset shot.

Another lovely sunset

EV Füssen was founded on 11 December 1922 and are historically one of the most successful ice hockey teams in Germany, having won 16 titles before slipping into the third tier.

Nicely, their shirts bear a silhouette of Neuschwanstein.

We took our seats as the players were warming up and in time to see the opposition manage to shatter one of the glass panels around the edge of the rink, which provided entertainment of a different variety as staff worked to replace it before the game could kick – puck? – off.

Having not a shred of knowledge of the rules between us – not bad for two former sports journalists – didn’t hamper our enjoyment and, at the end of the first period of play, Wikipedia came into its own with a run down of the sport.

EV Füssen take to the ice

We were obviously lending our support to our hosts – The Other Half had rapidly decided that their colours could pass for Castleford Tigers, making it even easier to get behind them, particularly when he also decided that the opposition could pass for Wakefield Trinity Wildcats.

Unfortunately, by the end of that first period of play, Füssen were 4-0 down. By the end of the second period, they’d pulled back two goals, and the third ended with a final score of 6-4 to the visitors.

Hopefully, it wasn't our presence that had jinxed them. We did, however, see a couple of superb goals from distance. And all in all, it was fast, furious and hugely entertaining.

I’ll say this though: if ever I go to an ice hockey match again, I need to wrap up more warmly – it was freezing in the stadium!

All hail the mighty haggis

Burns Night (2011)

It was on the Isle of Skye, in something or other BDC (before digital cameras) that I first tasted haggis.

On one our relatively rare holidays – and helped enormously by generous friends that we were with – we spent a week on the island, based in Uig.

The name derives from the Norse Vik, meaning bay. And with a population of 200 it could make Tebay – population 728 and the first place I lived – seem like a veritable metropolis.

Many of the few locals spoke Scots Gaelic and would pointedly do so in front of we Sassanachs on occasion.

The trip was memorable for a number of reasons.

There was a sighting of the Northern Lights – very lucky for October.

There was the rather puritan B&B in which we stayed, where disapproval of the unmarried state of The Other Half and I was clear, together with a complete inability to take cheques.

Then there was my first ever horse ride – which culminated in being thrown after the horse behind mine bit the bum of the mount I was just starting to get used to, and left me with massive bruising all down one thigh and leg: and that after I’d landed well, according to the woman in charge.

Then there were all the walks – the Quiraing is an amazing sight to behold, like stumbling into a fantasy world, but I do not do unprotected heights very well at all, and pea gravel is a nightmare to try to scramble up.

And finally there was the food.

Now this was in the days before I ‘discovered’ food, but two things still stand out.

First, the vast, magnificent Staffin Bay prawns that I tasted after surviving the Quiraing, and second, the haggis.

For most of the week, we ate in the pub/caff next to the ferry terminal. And after a debut taste of haggis on our first evening there, it became regular fodder.

The place was presided over by a delightful woman who, rumour had it, doubled as the local tart, the place was welcoming and warm. And it also boasted a pool table, which was about the sum of Uig's night life.

So ever since – even if only when Burns Night hoves into view – we have quaffed haggis.

With Andy’s game stall now sadly long gone from Broadway Market, I ordered one from Waitrose to make sure.

It was, however, a Macsween – very traditional and with nary an additive to be found.

Larousse Gastronomique, that bible of matters culinary, says: “Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour”.

Although it’s synonymous with Scotland, there’s no historical evidence to make it certain where it originated.

The first known written recipe for anything like it – ‘hagese’ – made with offal and herbs, is in the verse cookbook Liber Cure Cocorum dating from around 1430 in Lancashire.

Try reading the following in your best Chaucerian:

For hagese’.

_e hert of schepe, _e nere _ou take,

_o bowel noght _ou shalle forsake,

On _e turbilen made, and boyled wele,

Hacke alle togeder with gode persole,

And there’s another printed recipe from in 1615’s The English Huswife by Gervase Markham.

Haggis is a doddle to cook. Either simmer in water for an hour or so, or remove the outer casing, wrap tightly in foil and roast in a dish with 2cm of water in the bottom and cook for an hour at 160˚C (fan).

I tend to go for the former, but decided that, since a change is as good as a rest, I do it the other way this evening.

Then there’s the question of the accompaniment. ‘Tatties and neeps’ is, of course, the properly traditional one, which is only a tad confused by English regional differences in whether a ‘neep’ is a swede or a turnip.

The former again, for me.

So some plain boiled spuds on the side, with diced swede, cooked and then crushed roughly, and with butter and plenty of freshly-ground black pepper added.

All of which leaves the small matter of the sauce.

Now the really traditional way to do it involves whisky. A sauce can be made with this and mustard, but since neither of us is a particularly big fan and haggis can be a bit dry, I decided to look for something else this year.

Nick Nairn – a Michelin-starred chef and a Scot himself – has recipes for using Scotch, but suggests reducing half a pint of beef stock and some red wine, before whisking in a knob of butter and seasoning for an alternative to the whisky route.

So that was what I decided to do this time around.

The complication was that I had no beef stock in – and I’m increasingly reluctant to use any form of bought stock, whether cubes of powder or liquid: they’re all far too strong a taste.

So instead, I started with sweating onion, carrot and celery in butter, before adding water and wine, plus bay leaves and black peppercorns.

After you’ve reduced that, you can strain and then add the butter to give a little gloss and thicken slightly.

We don’t do any ceremony with our haggis, but it’s a most enjoyable meal and, in this case, the sauce worked excellently in providing moisture without the whisky.

Unbeatable fodder for a cold, dark January night.

Food as fuel – and a Yorkshire pudding challenge

Now that's what a proper Yorkie pudding looks like

The subject of food seems to bring out some very strange attitudes in people – and it’s no different when the context is television and food.

As the finals week began on Monday, the Telegraph managed to publish three articles on the subject of Masterchef The Professionals, all with the chance for readers to comment.

Some of the comments were quite absurd, but also rather revealing.

“There should be less of this daft adulation of chefs, women or men. Period,” stated one reader emphatically.

“It makes me laugh. All they do is cook food and you would somehow think they were performing open heart surgery such is the importance they place on themselves,” said another.

“What amazes me is that people actually watch these programmes ........ it’s only food, and it’s always been perfectly obvious, the more you do to it the less appetising it becomes, and the more expensive!”

“Food as God, another form of self-worship!”

As a little experiment, just try to imagine any of these comments being about, say, art and artists or composers and music. You can’t really, can you?

Equally, can you imagine those comments being made in France?

Masterchef The Professionals remains one of the least dumbed-down programmes on TV; one that celebrates and showcases serious skills, and encourages those on it, without being shouty – and yet some people actually object to that because it’s related to food.

The “adulation” comment received 11 likes: “all they do is cook food” received six.

“… the more you do to it the less appetising it becomes, and the more expensive!” suggests that somebody doesn’t understand what can go on in some high-end restaurants and probably hasn’t actually eaten in one either – certainly none of the ones I’ve had the fortune to dine in.

But “it’s only food” and “all they do is cook food” suggest people who really don’t get the pleasure of good food – or perhaps they merely don’t approve of it. It’s the food-as-fuel argument all over again.

In recent years, new-build flats in the UK have sometimes been designed and built with no kitchen, but just the space for a microwave. The assumption is that people don’t want to cook properly, but only consume ‘ping’ food or eat out.

Also in the UK, sales of dining tables have declined.

As Joanna Blythman noted in Bad Food Britain, when one developer built some holiday homes, they had a problem once visitors from abroad started staying – those visitors wanted and expected rather more than a microwave with which to cook, so the developer had to start installing proper kitchens.

In terms of Europe at least, this attitude to food seems to be a particularly British thing, although it’s changing elsewhere too, with France, for instance, seeing an increase in some people working and eating lunches at desks and increasingly eating junk food.

The root of all this is the attitude toward food that views it simply as fuel, to which can be added a rather puritan distrust of taking pleasure in what you eat, as though this is something inherently bad – or even immoral.

It reminds me of my own mother intoning: “We don’t live to eat; we eat to live” as a warning against too much pleasure in what was on your plate. And equally, her attitude toward teaching me and my sister any cooking skills or any recipes, which boiled down to: ‘you’ll learn when you have to do it’.

It’s a quite extraordinary attitude that pretends there is little or no skill involved in the kitchen, and that there is no reason to spend time learning about it.

It’s an incredibly basic life skill, yet so many leave it to chance.

My mother also pulled me out of any cooking classes at school fairly rapidly, having decided that it was a waste of money.

Perhaps that’s why so many cookery books are sold in the UK each year – because nobody has a clue what they’re doing in the kitchen and they end up trying to use such tomes to fill that gap?

I was in exactly that category myself when I started living on my own. But however well you can read a recipe, if you don’t have those basic skills, you’ll come unstuck.

It’s all very well, for instance, to say: ‘brown the meat’, but how much is right? How hot do you need the fat first? What fat works best? And so on.

My mother’s approach was hardly unique. Survey after survey has shown that cooking skills are low in the UK – few people, for instance, can cook more than three meals without having a recipe in front of them.

A few years ago, Tesco – with no apparent understanding of its own role in this – published a survey that showed that only elderly people really know what to do with different cuts of meat and how to make traditional dishes such as Lancashire hot pot.

People in middle age know less and such knowledge declined even more in still younger people.

It’s as though our parents decided to stop cooking properly the moment that they could grab ready meals from the rapidly expanding supermarkets and with the advent of the microwave.

And this lack of knowledge seems to be repeated in other countries – New Zealand has similar survey results, for example. And these are also countries, like the UK, that have rising obesity.

But there’s not just the health implication – there’s a cultural one too. Do we really care so little about our culinary heritage that we don’t mind if that hot pot dies out altogether, as Tesco suggested could happen when it published that survey?

There are people who claim that British food has nothing to recommend it, but that’s nonsense.

There are plenty of classic British dishes that, cooked well, are superb. That hot pot is just one – it merits an individual entry in Larousse Gastronomique – but what about Yorkshire pudding as another example?

It’s difficult to imagine anything much easier: all you need is to mix together some plain flour, milk, water, an egg, then heat some fat in your oven, pour the batter into a dish and Bob’s your uncle, yet people spend far more than that little lot costs on frozen ones or even on a mix, the latter of which includes stacks of additives.

Here’s the ingredient list for Auntie Bessie’s Yorkie mix – 79p at Ocado for 128g, which makes 12:

“Wheatflour, Dried Egg, Skimmed Milk Powder, Raising Agents (Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Aluminium Phosphate), Salt, Sugar, Potato Starch, Emulsifiers (Mono- and Di-Glycerides of Fatty Acids, Lacto Glycerides, Propylene Glycol Esters of Fatty Acids), Dried Glucose Syrup, Maltodextrin, Stabiliser (Diphosphates)”

The marketing spiel says: “I’ve used only the best ingredients to create my perfect Yorkshire pudding mix. Now it’s over to you! Just add water and whisk to create a smooth batter and bake in the oven for irresistible Yorkshire puddings just the way you like them!”

Now there’s a challenge, Auntie.

Let’s try Delia’s recipe and using some seriously high-quality ingredients.

This is what we need and the prices are via Ocado (so essentially what I would have in and use):

1.5kg plain organic flour – £1.89;

Organic full-fat milk – £1.85 for 2 litres;

Organic, free range eggs £2.18 per 6;

Dripping – 72p for 500g.

For Delia’s measures, therefore:

75g plain flour – just under 10p;

1 egg – 36p;

75ml milk – so just over 7p;

Two tablespoons beef dripping – at 0.13g per spoon, that’s 0.26g of fat, coming in at 19.2p;

Water and seasoning – let’s assume you’ve got these in. You still need the former for the packet mix, but what would you realistically add for the best-quality salt and pepper? It’d still only be a penny at the most.

So that’s a total of 72.2p. In other words, using the really best, readily-available ingredients, it’s still cheaper than a box of pre-mixed powder.

There’s a lot more weight for your money too – 150g as opposed 128g, and that’s without adding the egg and water, which suggests that the 12 that the packet says it will make will be substantial enough for the feast in a doll’s house.

So even with top-quality ingredients, it’s cheaper to make your own Yorkshire pudding mix than buy it, and you also avoid additives.

You’ve still got to whisk up the packet mix, and measure the water out, so it’s hardly as though the packet mix it’s a whopping big time saver – and don’t tell me that measuring the flour and milk is staggeringly onerous, because it’s not.

People have been conned – utterly conned. And if you’re thinking that my example was only a difference of a few pennies, remember that for the sake of this post, it was all top-end ingredients, and remember that those pennies can mean a great deal in a climate where food costs are rising and wage are not.

But how much of this is down to a lack of basic cooking skills and a lack of confidence in the kitchen?

Nobody’s going to watch Masterchef The Professionals to learn cookery from scratch. But the idea that a serious celebration of culinary skills is over the top, and that cooking is “only food” are an indicator of the parlous state of affairs that exists in many British kitchens – and that’s not good for health or pockets.

And if we could only stop thinking of food as fuel, and learn to enjoy it – and why not, since we have to eat? – then how much would that improve the nation's health and wellbeing too?

* If you’re in the Wigan area and would like to learn more about cooking, and about food on a budget, Shirley Southworth at Food Positive can help.

In Liverpool, Can Cook and Happy Go Cooking can help.

In Cardiff, Communities First is involved in schemes to help people learn to cook – Bill King, who I interviewed in the summer, is involved in that scheme.