Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Flummery along with all the Flummery containing recipes presented on this site, with 7 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Flummery recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Flummery as a major wild food ingredient.

A flummery can be defined as: Any of several soft, sweet, bland foods, such as custard. Indeed, there are several types of flummery known throughout Europe. In Britain, Northern Europe and Russia flummery is a set dish made from the starch (sometimes fermented) derived from steeped grains (typically oats).

In the Netherlands and France it's a dish of milk and almonds set with gelatine (sometimes including eggs) and in Spain it's a custard flavoured with sherry or Madeira.

The origin of the dish and the name in Britain seems to be Welsh, derived from the Welsh Llymru (or llumruwd [thin porridge] and sucan in South Wales); literally 'too much sharpness' in the sense of a both the sharp taste of the dish and the pain in the belly during lean times; and the name hearkens back to those times when llymru was used as a starvation food. Indeed, there is a Welsh saying which states:




Llymru lled amrwd i lenwi bol, yn lle bwyd

Flummery; more than crude to fill the belly, in place of food

which suggests that the dish was not considered all that nourishing.

In essence, Llymru is a sour-grain soup made by pouring fine oatmeal (known as blawd llymru [flummery flour]) into an earthenware pot and covering with a tepid mix of water and buttermilk. This was stirred and allowed to stand and ferment for at least three days; until the contents soured.

After this time the mixture was strained through muslin or a fine sieve. The grains were discarded and the liquid (known as tewion llyru [flummery thickener]) was poured in to a cauldron which had to be set on a very bright fire:


tân llym o dan y llymru, tan mall wna'r uwd yn well

A keen fire beneath the llymru, a dead fire improves the porridge

and then stirred constantly with a stick known as a morpan until it had boiled and thickened to the desired consistency (some would take this thin and soup-like others would like it almost set). When thickened sufficiently the Llymru would be poured into a bowl and allowed to cool. It was then served with hot milk and according to tradition it should be swallowed without chewing. A richer version including stale bread, ginger and black treacle was also made.

Recipes for Welsh Llymru can be found here:

Llymru Recipe

Rich Llymru Recipe

It is mentioned by Robert Owen in his The Life of Robert Owen, written by Himself. 2 vols. London: Effingham Wilson (Royal Exchange), 1857-1858:

I used to have for breakfast a basin of flummery, - a

food prepared in Wales from flour, and eaten with

milk, and which is usually given to children as the

Scotch use oatmeal porridge. It is pleasant and

nutritious, and is generally liked by young persons.

Llymru seems to have spread from Wales to the neighbouring counties of Cheshire and Lancashire in England where the dish was adopted and Anglicized to 'Flummery' with the English ending '-ery' appendef to llymru.

Indeed, in England, the first reference to Flummery we have comes from Gervaise Markham's The English Houswife (1615) where we have the following description:

em>From this small Oat-meal, by oft steeping it in water and

cleansing it, and then boiling it to a thick and stiff Jelly,

is made that excellent dish of meat which is so esteemed in the

West parts of this Kingdom, which they call Wash-brew, and in

Cheshire and Lancashire they call it Flamerie or Flumerie.



And whilst this is not exactly like the Welsh version you can see the relation. Indeed, the dish described above is more like Frumenty. However, you can find a redaction of Markham's recipe in this Elizabethan Flummery recipe.

In America, flummery was popularized by Susannah Carter in her 1803 book The Frugal Housewife or Complete Woman Cook which gives two recipes for Flummery:

Flummery

Take a large calf's foot, cut out the great bones and boil them in two quarts of water; then strain it off and put to the clear jelly half a pint of thick cream, two ounces of sweet almonds and an ounce of bitter almonds, well beaten together. Let it just boil, then strain it off and when it is as cold as milk from the cow, put it into cups or glasses.

This recipe is redacted in the Calf's Foot Flummery

Oatmeal Flummery

Put oatmeal (as much as you want) into a broad deep pan, cover it with water, stir it together and let it stand twelve hours; then pour off that water clear, and put on a good deal of fresh, shift it again in twelve hours, and so on in twelve more. Then pour off that water clear, and strain the oatmeal through a coarse hair sieve, pour it into a sauce pan, keeping it stirring all the time with a stick, till it boils and becomes very thick. Then pour it into dishes. When cold, turn it into plates, and eat it with what you please, ether wine and sugar, or milk. It eats very wel with cyder and sugar.

You may observe to put a great deal of water to the oatmeal, and when you pour off the last water, put on just enough fresh to strain the oatmeal well. Some let it stand forty-eight hours, some three days, shifting the water every twelve hours; but that is as you like it for swetness or tartness. Groats, once cut, do better than oatmeal. Mind to stir it together when you put in fresh water.

This second recipe is almost identical to Markham's, a link to which can be given above. Thus both the English and Dutch versions of Flummery are given in this book. During the 19th and early 20th centuries American flummery recipes continued to evolve until they reached their modern forms as fruit purées thickened with cornflour (cornstarch). Whilst this may sound a million miles away from the Welsh original these fruit flummeries are actually closer in essence than the English version.

What you are doing when soaking and fermenting grain is extracting the starch and it's this extracted starch that allows the flummery to set. Even in the Welsh versions you had flavourings added. All that's happening in the American versions is that the starch is being added in the form of cornflour (cornstarch) rather than being extracted directly from the grains. For a range of modern and traditional flummery recipes, see the links below.

Note that flummery is almost invariably a sweet dish, but llymru can be served as a dessert, but it can also be cooked until stiff, sliced and served as a starchy accompaniment to a main meal or stew.