Parkin is not traditional in the south of England, as it was eaten in areas where
oats, rather than
wheat, were the staple grain for the poor. It is closely related to tharf cake—an unsweetened cake cooked on a griddle rather than baked. The traditional time of the year for tharf cakes to be made was directly after the oat harvest in the first week in November. For festive occasions, the cake would be sweetened with
honey. In the seventeenth century (about 1650) sugar started to be imported from Barbados, and
molasses was a by-product of the refining process. Molasses was first used by apothecaries; to make a medicine
theriaca, from which name the word
treacle is derived. As molasses, or
treacle, as it was called at that time, became plentiful, it was substituted for honey in the preparation of tharf cakes. In Northern Europe, honey was used as a medicine, for festive cakes and making mead; before 1750, sweetness was not a characteristic of everyday food. Honey cakes had a special festive significance. They were baked to be hard, but after storage for a couple of weeks they regained their moisture becoming soft and even sticky. Molasses has
hygroscopic properties. German
Lebkuchen and
Pfefferkuchen were other examples of hygroscopic holiday gingerbreads. They too were baked hard in summer and allowed to moisten for consumption at Christmas. Though parkin and tharf cake appear to be synonymous, all parkins generally were sweet tharf cakes.
Tharf cake Parkin and tharf cake were used interchangeably in Lancashire and South Yorkshire until 1900. Over the 500 years the recipe and taste of these cakes have changed considerably. It was the food of the poor. Ovens were rare in the houses of the poor (hence Soda bread is baked over a fire), and they generally had no access to public bakers before the 1820s, so the cakes were cooked on
griddles or
bakestones on an open fire. The best parkin was made with fresh oatmeal, which fixes the date around the first week in November.
Festivities In southern Lancashire and West Yorkshire, parkin is linked to the
Guy Fawkes Night celebration. Jennifer Stead, in her study
Prodigal Frugality, identifies the link between Guy Fawkes and parkin as the bonfire. The first two weeks in November had many Christian festivals, and like Celtic festivals that preceded them, they were celebrated with a fire and ritual cakes. November starts with
All Hallows Eve, that runs into
All Saints Day (1 November), which is followed by
All Souls Day (2 November).
Little Lent and the forty-day fast until Christmas, started at
Martinmas. (11 November). On All Souls Day,
soul cakes were baked. The Martinmas fair was important, being the traditional day when cattle were bought and sold, and servants were hired for the following year. It was also the date that cattle were slaughtered and salted to preserve them for the winter and for general feasting and dancing. The Celtic festival of
Samain, the festival of the dead on 1 November, was celebrated with special cakes and bonfires. It was Christianised into
All Hallows by the church in 837 AD, and the culinary tradition continued. In 1605, when Guy Fawkes gave the English church a reason to celebrate with a bonfire, the tradition was adopted under the new name, just four days later on 5 November. During the period of industrialisation, many traditional holidays were discontinued, but Guy Fawkes Night continued to be celebrated. In the 19th century (1862), parkin and
treacle toffee with
potatoes baked in the fire had become the traditional foods of Guy Fawkes Night, and in Leeds, 5 November became known as Parkin Night. ==Ingredients==