Editing Frumenty (section)

===History===
[[Florence White (writer)|Florence White]], founder of the [[English Folk Cookery Association]], wrote in ''[[Good Things in England]]'' (1932) that frumenty is England's "oldest national dish".<ref>White, Florence (1932) ''Good things in England'', London: Jonathan Cape, reprinted London:Persephone, 1999</ref> For several centuries, frumenty was part of the traditional Celtic Christmas meal. According to an 1822 ''Time's Telescope'', in Yorkshire, on Christmas Eve:
{{quote|Supper is served, of which one dish, from the lordly mansion to the humblest shed, is, invariably, furmety; yule cake, one of which is always made for each individual in the family, and other more substantial viands are also added. [[Poor Robin]], in his Almanack for the year 1676, (speaking of the winter quarter,) says, "and lastly, who would but praise it, because of Christmas, when good cheer doth so abound, as if all the world were made of minced pies, plum-pudding, and furmety{{sic}}."<ref>{{cite book|title=Time's Telescope for 1822, Or, a Complete Guide to the Almanack|date=1822|page=299|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LAt-8Dsb6oYC|access-date=24 May 2018}}</ref>}}

It was often eaten on [[Mothering Sunday]], the fourth Sunday of [[Lent]], in late spring. On that day many servants were allowed to visit their mothers and were often served frumenty to celebrate and give them a wholesome meal to prepare them for their return journey.  The use of eggs would have been a brief respite from the Lenten fast. In Lincolnshire, frumenty was associated with [[sheep-shearing]] in June. A diarist recalled of his youth in the 1820s that "almost every farmer in the village made a large quantity of frumenty on the morning they began to clip; and every child in the village was invited to partake of it".<ref>quoted in James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society: South Lindsey 1825-1875 (Oxford, 1976), p. 57.</ref>   A second batch, of better quality, was produced later and taken round in buckets to every house in the village.

Food historian [[Polly Russell]] describes one of the first English recipes for it in the 1390 manuscript ''[[The Forme of Cury]]'', and how this served as the inspiration for the 2013 Christmas menu at [[Dinner by Heston Blumenthal]], transforming Victorian [[workhouse]] food for paupers into modern luxurious dining.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Russell|first1=Polly|title=The history cook: frumenty|url=https://www.ft.com/content/f983f7e2-57ca-11e3-86d1-00144feabdc0 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/https://www.ft.com/content/f983f7e2-57ca-11e3-86d1-00144feabdc0 |archive-date=2022-12-10 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|work=Financial Times|date=29 November 2013}}</ref>