Читать книгу The Taste of Britain - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Страница 162

Mothering buns are a speciality of Bristol made on the Saturday immediately preceding Mothering Sunday (Mid-Lent Sunday). This is a day on which the Lenten fast was relaxed to allow consumption of richer foods. In the past, it was also associated with the better-known custom of the Simnel Cake (see below). The buns are small and rather plain, and the cakes large, rich and elaborate, although there is evidence for plainer, yeast-raised simnels in various places.

John Williams, a baker who has taken an interest in Bristol specialities, comments that mothering buns have been made for as long as anyone can remember, and that at the beginning of the twentieth century, they were coated with caraway or aniseed comfits, rather than the hundreds-and-thousands now used. This links them to the tradition of Bath buns which once incorporated caraway comfits, and to the many other bun and wig recipes of 200 years ago which used the same flavouring. All bakers in Bristol make mothering buns, only on the Saturday before Mothering Sunday.