Mammock pie was all I remember my mother cooking at home. To us it came to mean a concoction of any left-over morsels that could be found in the larder, it varied widely and was never the same twice. “We have nothing else to tear it with,” replied Wamba; “but mine are scarce fit to make mammocks of freestone and mortar.” The word probably derives from a Gaelic word for a hill or handful. The word has come to mean something torn or shredded, and was used by Shakespeare in its verb form.
I had originally earmarked this Czech calendar (2001) for making a recipe book as it has two tags in its card end sheets which lock together to make it free-standing. (Because of this I would ask people to add recipes or notes with the text written landscape facing the edge of the book. This may make the ingredients face one way when open and the recipe the opposite, but will mean it can sit in the kitchen in use and readable.)
On reflection I wanted it to contain more than just food recipes – uses for all sorts of surpluses like rose petals, collected beach pebbles, hazel nuts, a good catch of fish, plants that will dye fabrics, as well as the usual rush of runner beans, green tomatoes, blackcurrants, apples etc. that your garden or friends may give you. My most unusual urban surpluses have been tiny buttons from a shirt-making factory and lumpy glue from a factory making suitcases; my country surpluses include a spring flush of milk, redcurrants, mushrooms, grass cuttings and horse manure!
Take opposite pages for an entry, use more than one pair anywhere you please, perhaps in the appropriate month, and please keep the journal circulating so that it can return to me completed as soon as possible.Send me images if possible to add to the journal site slide show, and contact me if you have any problems or queries or it is full or damaged.
Gill Tennant, Cymru / Wales BM id: tennantfamily:U.K. December 2010
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