Twelfth Night

Photo © Rob Jones

Last day of Christmas,

And surely even Ms. Minhall must be putting away her baubles until June at least.

Decorations down or there shall be bad luck. I have a feeling we left ours up one year until the beginning of February though I can’t quite remember why. It may have been that we had particularly high ceilings in Jones Manor, and it was just too much effort to get up the step ladder to take down the crepe paper decorations that festooned every room. The tree usually made a hastier exit just to stop the cat climbing it bringing it crashing to the floor. Some keep their decorations up till Candlemas which is February 2nd.

But I digress, albeit relevantly.

Surely there would be some kind of culinary tradition to Twelfth Night - and indeed there is.

The most common seems to be consumption of cake - specifically Twelfth Night Cake, which consisted of a rich brandy covered fruit cake covered in a hardened shell of royal icing. And just to make it distinct from the Christmas Cake that no one particularly wanted to eat over the holidays, a large bean or pea would be baked into the mix. Whomsoever found the legume would be crowned king or queen for the rest of the day. They knew to have fun in those days. The tradition seems to go back to the early seventeenth century at least and probably long before.

Try as I might, I couldn’t find a Twelfth Cake anywhere in the bakers about town so i had to make do with some Walnut cake. But that apparently is OK because the main thing is the insertion of the bean.

Oh, it’s sometimes called a King Cake, which you’ll find in other countries across Europe, though some look more like tarts or galettes.

Apart from taking down decorations, people seem to have forgotten what to do on Twelfth Night. But the consensus seems to me yet more carol singing, having one’s house blessed and general merry making.

I suppose it keeps you warm.

R.