Bread Recipes for Lammas Day

A lovely selection of traditional recipes for Lammas Day, including my Grandma’s Yorkshire Season Pudding with Herbs recipe.

Yorkshire Day and Lammas Day – 1st August

A lovely selection of traditional bread recipes for Lammas Day, including my Grandma’s Yorkshire Season Pudding with Herbs recipe.

The 1st August is Lammas Day and Yorkshire Day………but let’s talk about Lammas Day first; the traditional beginning of harvest falls on the first of August and is called Lammas day.

This is believed to be a corruption of “loaf-mass”, due to the loaves of bread that were taken to church, or “lamb-mass”, as lambs were often dedicated to the church on this day as well.

Lammas day was the festival of the first harvest, also called “The Feast of the First Fruits”. As wheat tended to be the first crop to be harvested, it was customary for parishioners to take a loaf of bread made from the new crop to church, as a gift – the beginnings of our modern Harvest Festival in churches and schools.

At Harvest time, it was traditional to make a ceremonial corn figure; called “Harvest Queens” or “Kern Dolls” from the last sheaves of corn that were cut, these figures were believed to harbour the “Corn Spirit”.

The Kern Doll was then dressed in white and festooned with coloured ribbons and taken to the Harvest Supper to be placed in pride of place.

Another tradition was to plant the Kern Dolly in the following spring on Plough Monday; this was supposed to release the “Corn Spirit” and ensure a bumper crop and harvest for the year.

I remember making smaller versions, simply called a Corn Dollies, when I was at primary school – they were considered very lucky, especially when hung up in your homes and particularly kitchens.

And, this leads me very nicely into Yorkshire Day, as I remember walking up to church when my daughter was little, with her Harvest  Festival Gifts, on the 1st August one year in Thornton-le-Dale.….

…….to tell you more about Yorkshire Day, it is celebrated to promote the historic English county of Yorkshire. It was first celebrated in 1975, by the Yorkshire Ridings Society, initially in Beverley, as “protest movement against the Local Government re-organisation of 1974”.

The date alludes to the Battle of Minden, and also the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, for which a Yorkshire MP, William Wilberforce, had campaigned.

For me, it is a day to celebrate all that is wonderful about this amazing and diverse county, and my recipe for today is a VERY special family recipe, it’s my Grandma’s Yorkshire Season Pudding with Herbs.

This lovely old family recipe is frugal and yet comforting……it’s tasty and savoury, and “fills” out a meal, when times were hard and pennies were in short supply

It takes advantage of seasonal herbs and even nettle leaves, which, are a GREAT source of iron….it’s loved by all ages, from children to adults.

It also makes a GREAT stuffing mix for poultry, as well as being JUST wonderful when served with lashings of hot gravy.

You can enjoy my Grandma’s Yorkshire Season Pudding with Herbs for breakfast, supper or for a proper high tea, as I remember it being served.

It’s suitable as a vegetarian main meal or accompaniment as well as being the perfect partner for crisply fried bacon and eggs, although we enjoyed this with tinned tomatoes last time I made and served this.

I think it’s the PERFECT recipe to share with you all to celebrate Lammas Day and Yorkshire Day, and I am also raising a cup of tea to my grandma too, Karen

Bread Recipes for Lammas Day and Yorkshire Day

• Easy Sourdough Sandwich Bread
• Cheese and Garlic Sourdough Bread
• Gold Hill and “Hovis” Granary Bread Loaf
• Country Style Walnut Bread Rolls
• Oatmeal Bread for Toast, Soup & Sandwiches
• Mum’s Scottish Morning Rolls – Baps
• Rustic Flower Pot Bread Loaves
• Eight Grain Cheese & Onion Sourdough Wreath

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Recipe for Grandma’s Yorkshire Season Pudding with Herbs