Loins of veal on Mid-lent Sunday

Mothering Sunday · Herefordshire

No longer kept

In Herefordshire Mid-Lent Sunday was kept by every rank, with children of all ages coming home to dine with their parents on loins of veal. The note comes from a long account of the county’s manners sent in 1819 by a correspondent signing A. B. C. D., who found the people half English and half Welsh.

Mid-lent Sunday is observed by all ranks; children of all ages then dining with their parents upon loins of veal.

From The Gentleman's Magazine Library, Manners and Customs, p. 19. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Simnel Sunday crowds at Bury No longer kept LancashireOn Mid-Lent Sunday thousands of people poured into Bury from all over the district to eat simnels, and shops and public houses stayed open in defiance of the law.
Fig-pie Wake at Draycott-in-the-Moors No longer kept StaffordshireDraycott-in-the-Moors and its neighbouring villages kept Fig-pie Wake on Mid-Lent Sunday, when friends came visiting to eat fig pies.
Mothering cakes at Bristol No longer kept GloucestershireA Bristol reader told Hone in 1827 that Mothering Sunday was kept scrupulously in the city and, he believed, all over the west of England, much as Twelfth Night was kept in London.
Shrewsbury simnels Still kept Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, ShropshireIn Shropshire and Herefordshire, and above all at Shrewsbury, rich simnel cakes were made in Lent and at Easter and Christmas.
Going a-mothering Still kept EnglandOn Midlent Sunday, the fourth in Lent, young people in service or apprenticed away went home to see their parents, especially their mothers, taking a cake or a trinket as a present.

Loins of veal on Mid-lent Sunday

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