The Waverley Gazette

When Christmas was banned in Scotland, with a recipe for Yule Cake from The Glasgow Cookery Book

Hello everyone,

We ran this blog piece last December just before Christmas and it was so interesting, we are running it today. The Yule Cake is more of a bread, than a cake, but good with cheese, or just with a soup.

Christmas in Scotland had been a religious feasting day until the time of the Scottish Reformation in 1560, when Scotland split from the Catholic Church and new beliefs and practices came in to being.

Yule

In 1640, the Scottish Parliament passed a law that made celebrating ‘Yule vacations’ illegal. The Reformation abolished Christmas as the greatest festival of the Christian year. Even baking Yule bread was an offence. Christmas was frowned upon in Scotland for a long time, which is why Hogmanay and New Year celebrations in Scotland became important. 25 December didn’t become a Scottish public holiday until 1958.

Previously, Yule bread had been a tradition for hundreds of years across the British Isles, as Yule was a pagan tradition, and part of the 12 day festival in winter that began with the winter solstice. Yule festivities were observed and practiced in Germanic nations and northern Europe. The ancient Celtic practice of bringing in a living tree to the home to bless it. Bringing in misletoe was also a tradition to praise nature.

Yule Bread

Although Christmas itself was banned, it largely remained as an occasion on which to make merry.

The ceremonial fare consisted of two kinds – the Yule bread, and a sour cake.

The Yule Bread was a thin bannock of oatmeal – a standard recipe – the only difference between it and any other bannock, being that it had to be cut into four quarters before being placed on the girdle. This was symbolical of the cross, baked to honour the birth of Jesus.

Yule Cake

The other was a cake of Sowans (or sowens) made using the starch remaining on the inner husks of oats after milling. The husks were soaked in water and fermented for a few days. The liquor was strained off and allowed to stand for a day to allow the starchy matter to settle. The liquid part, or swats, is poured off and can be drunk. The remaining sowans are boiled with water and salt until thickened, and used in a cake mixture. The flavour – distinctly sour and acidic.

Don't break your bannock!

The bannocks were baked before daybreak on Christmas morning – one for each of the family, and each tried to keep it intact until the evening feast.

What happened to that cake in the course of the day – whether it broke or whether it remained whole – till the proper time for its consumption arrived, was emblematic of the fate of the owner during the coming year. If it remained whole, the owner could expect unbroken prosperity in the year ahead. If broken – hopes of good fortune were similarly shattered.

In Shetland, Yule-brunies were round in shape with a hole in the centre to keep the ‘trolls’ away, and the edges are pinched together in points which symbolised the rays of the sun. The Yule-brownie is a relic of sun-worship, with ancient Scandinavian influences.

From ‘A History of Moray and Nairn’: The old superstition, that on Christmas Eve, exactly at twelve o'clock, midnight, every living thing "voices" its share of praise of joy on the birth of The Saviour, and was an article of faith in every Morayshire homestead.

Keep the powers of evil away from the beasts!

The kindly custom, too, of giving the whole of his farm stock (animals) a supper of unthreshed corn was also religiously observed by the farmer. And to guard them from the malign influence of witches, fairies, and other powers of evil who were especially industrious at this season, he never omitted to hang up branches of the rowan-tree over the door and above the walls of the byre.

Today, Yule Bread and Sowans cake are also represented by other festive recipes.

This, from The Glasgow Cookery Book : Yule Cake (copyright Glasgow Caledonian University), published by Waverley Books.