A Feast of Folklore: Q&A with Ben Gazur
Pop that prosecco for today marks the 3rd anniversary of PASTA+PLAGUE! To celebrate the occasion I am adding a new section spotlighting some of my favorite people and their projects, a little grazie for keeping our world on the weird & wonderful side.
Now available for pre-order, A Feast of Folklore is a must-have for foodies, folklorists, and eldritch historians alike. Delving into the fascinating — and frequently repulsive — history of British food in matters of healing, superstition and even spellcasting, author Ben Gazur peppers his tome with additional recipes and how-to’s for the especially curious and cast iron constitutioned.
Welcoming “dark magic and deadly delicacies into the home, where they belong,” here are just some of the delicious tidbits readers can savor in A Feast of Folklore:
What initially inspired A Feast of Folklore? Was it a lifelong interest or a specific discovery or encounter that sparked the idea?
I’ve always had a fondness for slightly esoteric subjects. A childhood reading Fortean Times probably inspired my love of strange news and odd historical ideas. Then when I joined Twitter I discovered #FolkloreThursday and was introduced to a whole community of folklore fans. I was lucky enough to be asked by the founders of #FolkloreThursday, Dee Dee Chainey and Willow Winsham, to take part in helping to manage this weekly event. So many people were bringing so many fascinating titbits of lore to my attention every Thursday.
While there is always fun to be had with grand legends and mythologies I was always drawn to the more domestic aspects of folklore. The little superstitions that people in the past employed to help make sense of the world. Since food is universal and everyone had access to it I decided to delve into the folklore surrounding that. Doing research for my book has led me to some strange places indeed.
You hold a PhD in biochemistry but ultimately pursued the writer’s life. Do you feel a connection between your background in science and the wealth of topics you’ve written about since?
I left science for a number of reasons but the desire for knowledge and researching things is something that never left me. In academic science you tend to get deeper and deeper into a smaller and smaller subject but with writing I can grab onto any topic that interests me.
There is a connection between science and folklore. Many superstitions and rites were ways of attempting to understand things which seemed to be inexplicable to people in the past. The people in history were not stupid but were building mental pictures of the universe on different assumptions from ours.
People 1000 years from now will think our ideas of the universe were laughable. Was the person who thought a live fish on a person’s chest could cure whooping cough an idiot? No, I think they were desperate and doing the best they could.
I have always felt that history and folklore are all but intertwined, hence my passion for both. Storytelling, traditions, and superstitions almost always seem to reflect the collective values and phobias of a place and its people, the often harsh realities they endured and lessons they could impart. Did your research for A Feast of Folklore evoke similar revelations regarding British history and cuisine? Were there any especially poignant moments where you glimpsed the people behind the lore?
Researching the folklore of food has been incredibly moving at times. Yes, there are funny notions — like placing a live eel into a drunkard’s drink cures them of alcoholism. But then you think about what the person who tried this was trying to do. Was their loved one’s drinking sending their family into poverty? Were they violent when drunk?
Then there are other cures that speak to universal fears. So many bits of food folklore revolve around curing childhood illnesses. We sometimes forget how easy today it is to go to a doctor and get medicine for conditions that were, not long ago, life-threatening. While researching I found a dozen cures for whooping cough that involved food from turnips, to nuts, to eating a baked mouse. It must have been terrifying for parents in an age of high infant mortality to see their children sick and suffering. That they turned to any remedy which promised help is understandable.
A Feast of Folklore is packed with some devilishly eye-opening recipes & rituals but did any in particular prove a bit too much even for your stomach or elicit a knee-jerk “ewww” or “WTF?” response?
Luckily I have a fairly stout stomach but I think I’ve found a few recipes that will entertain readers. Some are fairly well known. Stargazy Pie is baked with fish heads sticking out of the crust which many people might not find appetizing but it has a great legend attached as to why it is made this way.
For some rituals there is definitely a bit of an ick factor. For whooping cough (again) there was a cure that involved placing a fish’s head in the mouth and having the patient breath through it. For some reason that’s not something I think I want to try.
Since penning A Feast of Folklore have you incorporated any new practices or additions into your own cooking?
I’ve definitely started explaining some of my weird cooking habits to my fiance since I started writing this. I think he always found it odd that I crush eggshells before I put them in the bin. I can’t even remember who taught me to do that but it’s an old tradition going back to the idea that witches could use eggshells as little boats to go to sea if they were not broken.
I have been baking a lot of witch-cakes. These are circular bits of dough with spikes on that were hung behind doors to keep witches out of the house. Luckily I have not been making the type of witch-cakes that involved a person’s urine in the recipe.
Now for the fun question: what would be your dream feast?
There are so many feasts that I would love to drop in on. The boar’s head feast sounds tasty. Or I might like to sample a medieval banquet where whimsical cakes, decorated gingerbreads, and sweet confections were presented.
Writing about food folklore does tend to make me very hungry.
Ben Gazur has a PhD in Biochemistry but has given up the glitz and glamour of life in the laboratory for a career as a writer. He has written about everything from Mudlarking for Mental Floss to terrible TV for the Guardian. His work has also appeared in All About History, i-D, the BBC, and Fortean Times. As a host for the Twitter account @FolkloreThursday he has shared his passion for folklore on social media. Based in London he can often be found in the British Library searching for folklore among a pile of dusty books before whipping up a Whirlin Cake worthy of the Devil himself.
