Traditional Yorkshire recipes to love – try them yourself

Many of us love traditional recipes, tried and trusted over generations in their beloved home county. Yorkshire pork pie, Yorkshire fritters, Yorkshire tea loaf, we love keeping these recipes – some of which date back centuries – alive.

Colin Neville, of Silsden, has gone one step further, and created a special website Traditional Yorkshire Recipes, which brings together dozens of recipes not only from across the Yorkshire region, but local dishes special to towns and villages.

Bingley redcurrant cobbler, Harrogate tart, Scarborough plum pudding, Whitby potato whirls and Batley pudding are among the offerings on this entertaining, wittily-written website.

Meat and tatie pie

Herders’ fattie cakes

‘O, we do love our puddings in God’s Own,’ writes Colin, ‘And here’s a beauty, dating back to the 16th century: Tadcaster Pudding. You’ll need to do a five mile walk afterwards to burn off the calories, but what the hell!’

Old favourites like meat and tatie pie, Yorkshire hot pot and Yorkshire tea cakes are present, as well as bizarre-sounding concoctions such as meat rock cakes and woof pie, made from an ‘ugly looking devil’ type of catfish caught off the Yorkshire coast.

Retired University of Bradford lecturer Colin, who also curates the Not Just Hockney website profiling local artists, past and present, says: “I have always been interested in cooking, but was growing frustrated at convoluted modern recipes that asked you to buy some unfamiliar ingredient you might only use once, and certainly wouldn’t be stocked at the local shop,” he says.

“It was the simplicity of the old regional recipes, combined with the readily available ingredients that drew me to them. I also admired the creativity of past cooks, who could take food, often grown in their gardens, and add their own touch of magic to create something special. The simplicity of the recipes was also a pragmatic response to the fact that their kitchens had none of the electronic appliances at our disposal today.”

Colin began to look around for regional recipe books at car boot sales and charity shops and found old books going back to the 19th century. He also asked local people in Silsden for their family recipes.

“In the process I found a range of recipes that appeared to originate from the Bradford or neighbouring districts, including Ilkley Cakes, Ben Rydding Pudding, Wharfedale Orange Tart, and Skipton Pudding. ‘Baker Mike’, who writes a regular baking column in the Keighley News, has also been an invaluable source of help to me.

Skipton Pudding

Medley pie

“I decided it would be a challenge to pull the recipes together into a website and with the help of a local computer programmer, the website was launched in 2018. It is a non-commercial site, so I don’t seek advertising, nor accept it, which keeps it uncluttered and, I hope, easy to use.

“I encourage visitors to give me feedback on the recipes, which often leads to some lively online discussion, their own tweaks to the recipes and happy memories of past family meals. The recipes can generate much nostalgic discussion among visitors to the site. All the original sources for recipes are cited, which includes a number of recipe books still in print.”

The site today has around 170 recipes so far, but is still growing and I am always on the look out for more to include. As I researched the origins of the recipes, I came across interesting articles, so the website also includes over 20 articles on regional food history. These include the story of the 1901 Bradford Workhouse Food Strike, when the workhouse residents rebelled against the poor quality of the food served.”

Adds Colin, whose wife Wendy is his most truthful fan/critic of his cooking, “Visitors to the site include many Tykes now living in Australia, New Zealand. Canada, America ,and Scandinavia. This includes Alan a Yorkshire ex-pat now living in Sweden, who regularly makes a batch of his much-coveted Yorkshire recipe pork pies for the locals in his village.”

One contributor to the site, Judy Williamson, of Silsden, provided Grandma’s ‘Toss In’ Cake. She writes:

‘As the name suggests, this recipe was given to me by my grandmother and has been handed down in the family for at least four generations. This makes a lovely foolproof and light fruit cake which we use at Christmas, birthdays, anytime! It is easy to increase the ingredients and cooking time for larger cakes and icing it makes it a good ‘occasion’ cake.’’

In the past 12 months the website had had were 64,000 visitors, with a peak of 822 on one day.

Colin’s personal favourite recipe is Yorkshire Mint Pastry in the baking section. “It is so simple and cheap to make; just grab a handful of garden mint, add currants, make your pastry, and you’re in business. The smell of it straight from the oven is marvellous too. And the taste definitely hits the spot.”

He adds: “I get a lot of pleasure researching, writing up and testing the results. I can’t bear the sight and smell of tripe and onions though.”

“I enjoy cooking and the simplicity of most of the recipes attract me, combined with the often fascinating historical origins of them. Cooking too, is a way that many people express their creativity, and that is particularly important in this our Bradford City of Culture year.”

*traditional-yorkshire-recipes.info