Travel around the North West of England through the pages of this book and discover a selection of the delicious traditional food of the area, as well as stories and fascinating facts behind the recipes. Your journey is given added flavour by the delightful historical images from The Francis Frith Collection, showing the people and places of the North West of England in the past.

A Taste of the North-West includes 33 recipes, some traditional, some reflecting local products that the North West of England is famous for, some linked to characters or historical personages or events, some versions adapted to suit modern tastes.

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A Taste of the North-West is peppered with topic boxes of additional snippets and information about regional dialect, words and phrases, traditional customs and local trivia, to convey a true flavour of the North West of England. Read on for a just a few of the fascinating facts from the book.

More about this book

• ISBN: 1-84589-457-X
• Compiled by Julia Skinner
• Printed to order and Despatched in 3-5 days
• Add your own inscription! - tell me more...
• 96 pages, Paperback
• Size: 246mm x 189mm (10" x 7")

• Dried peas rescued from a shipwreck once saved the people of Blackpool from starvation. The story goes back to the year 1799, when the Lancashire potato crop failed and the corn harvest was so poor that prices rocketed. On top of this, a freak storm broke along the coast, wrecking fishing boats, flooding inland and destroying or damaging many of the cottages. The people of Blackpool were now facing winter with little or no food reserves, and were unable to meet the prices being demanded inland, but the disaster brought its own answer to their problems. As the storm destroyed their homes and livelihoods, it also carried with it a merchant ship, sails torn away and rudder smashed. Despite their own suffering, men made their way down to the beach to try and help the crew of the stricken ship, which by now was aground and in danger of breaking up. Suddenly a giant wave lifted the vessel and brought it further up the beach, enabling the crew to be rescued before she broke up. Amid the debris were barrels, sacks and packages – it turned out that the ship’s cargo was mainly provisions, the bulk of it dried peas. The people of Blackpool survived the winter of 1799-80 on a diet of peas, fish and cockles.
• Scouse - The well-known nickname of "Scouser" for anyone from Liverpool originates from a sort of stew popular in the Merseyside area known as Lobscouse, shortened to Scouse. The dish and its name were probably derived from a north German stew called Labskaus, which was popular with seafarers in the 18th and 19th centuries. There are many variations of Scouse, according to family tradition – one of them is given in this book, but is not claimed to be the definitive recipe!
• Black Puddings are a great favourite in Lancashire. They are made from pig's blood and oatmeal, cereal, seasonings, onion and flavourings. There are many local variations of black pudding recipes, but Bury is particularly famous for the version made and sold there – the herbs pennyroyal and thyme are believed to be some of the secret ingredients used in the Bury black pudding recipe. Black puddings are still sold in Bury's famous market, one of the largest markets in Lancashire, where they are served hot, with mustard.
• Lancashire Hotpot - Originally this dish of mutton, onions and potato was cooked in a pan over a fire. When ovens became more common in homes the ingredients were layered in a "hot pot" – a tall earthenware pot – and then slowly baked in the oven. The hotpot lid was removed towards the end of the cooking time to brown the potato topping. In the days when they were cheap, a layer of oysters might also be placed beneath the potato crust. It is said that the dish was originally devised by cotton-mill workers' wives, who could prepare the dish in the morning and leave it to cook all day, to be ready to eat when the family returned from work. A woman's ability to make a good hotpot was said to considerably enhance her marriage prospects! As with many traditional recipes, there is no definitive recipe, but the dish is better the longer it is cooked – aim for at least 3 hours. Lancashire Hotpot is traditionally eaten accompanied by pickled red cabbage.
• The cotton-weaving towns of Lancashire suffered badly during the Cotton Famine of 1861-1865. This was caused by the blockade of the cotton-producing southern states of the USA by the north during the American Civil War, which prevented raw materials reaching Britain's cotton mills. Thousands of workers were made unemployed, experiencing great hardship, and Relief Committees were formed which ran soup kitchens and tried to find employment for some people on public works such as road-building. Rather than spend money on unemployment pay, most Lancashire corporations took to the idea of creating work for at least some of the unemployed mill workers to keep them from starving, and used their labour to create parks and public spaces. In Preston, Avenham Park, Moor Park and Miller Park were begun to provide work for some of the thousands of mill workers laid off at this time, and the residents of today still benefit from these green spaces around the city.
• Hindle Wakes - This recipe for cold, boiled chicken, stuffed with prunes and served with a lemon sauce, was traditionally served during the annual "Wakes Week" when many towns and villages of Lancashire held local festivals and fairs, giving rise to its name of Hindle Wakes, or Hen-of-the-Wakes.
• Cheshire Cheese is said to be Britain's oldest cheese, and is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. The crumbly, nutty Cheshire Cheese was originally made in Chester but is now made throughout the county; "real" Cheshire Cheese acquires its flavour from the salt marshes of the region and was said to have been the favourite cheese of Queen Elizabeth I. Cheshire Cheese was described by the French in the following rhyme: "‘Into the Cheshire cheese, dry and pink, The long teeth of the English sink".
• Local tradition says that the Marshside area of Southport was the first place in England where potatoes were grown, after a ship was wrecked here in 1575 and its cargo of sugar and potatoes was washed up on the beach.
• Though fishing was the principal industry of the village of Wallasey on the Wirral, James Stonehouse, who knew the area in the late 17th century, portrayed the inhabitants as a shifty lot who made their real livings through less legal means. He wrote that "the inhabitants were nearly all wreckers and smugglers – they ostensibly carried on the trade and calling of fishermen, farm-labourers and small farmers; but they were deeply saturated with the sins of covetousness, and many a fierce fire has been lighted on the Wirral shore on stormy nights to lure the good ships on the Burbo or Hoyle Banks. There is scarcely a house in the north Wirral that could not provide a guest with a good stiff glass of brandy or Hollands." Perhaps that explains why it was said that the flames had the blue haze of burning brandy on one of the occasions when St Hilary's Church in the village burnt down!
• Nine villages in central Cheshire compete every year at the end of July and early August in the old art of gooseberry showing. The gooseberries are weighed in the ancient measures of pennyweights and grains, and the growers compete in classes for the heaviest berry, twins, triplets and colours. The largest gooseberry ever grown was exhibited at the Marton Village Show in Congleton in 1993 – grown by Kelvin Archer, it was a Montrose Berry which weighed 39 pennyweights and 9 grains (61.9g - just over 2oz).
• Three 19th-century men who were famous for their opposition to the hated Corn Laws, which banned the import of cheap foreign wheat and kept the price of bread high, are commemorated by statues in north-western towns. Manchester remembers Richard Cobden with a statue in St Ann's Square and his colleague John Bright, whose statue is in Albert Square. Rochdale also remembers John Bright, with a statue which now stands in Broadfield Park. In Bury, a statue of Sir Robert Peel, one of the area's most famous sons, stands in the Market Place; it was placed there in 1852 to commemorate his repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 during his term as Prime Minister. Sir Robert Peel is also famous as the father of the modern police force in Britain; he set up the Metropolitan Police Force in London during his period of office as Home Secretary in the 1820s, giving rise to the nicknames of "Peelers" or "Bobbies" for policemen.
• Parkin is a dark sweet cake made from oatmeal instead of flour that is a heavy, sticky cake due to the liberal addition of black treacle. Parkin was traditionally eaten on Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes' Night) on 5th November, but its older tradition is associated with the feast days marking the beginning of winter, around the time of All Saints' (or All Hallows') Day on 1st November, and All Souls' Day on 2nd November. These Christian feast days themselves have origins in the ancient Celtic feast of the dead called Samhain. North Country Parkin came to be called "Harcake" and would be offered to visitors on All Saints' Day, which commemorated the saints and martyrs of the Christian faith.

• 

  A Taste of Yorkshire

• 

  A Taste of the North-East

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  A Taste of Lincolnshire and the Fens

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  A Taste of East Anglia

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  A Taste of the South-West

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  A Taste of the South-East

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  A Taste of Cumbria and the Lake District

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  A Taste of the East Midlands

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  A Taste of Scotland

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  A Taste of Wales