‘Stir-up Sunday’: A Multi-Generational Ritual
During the war years, my great-grandmother Margaret took her four children into Newcastle city centre with her mother, my great-great-grandmother Elizabeth. They were to visit a shop on Blackett Street that my grandma remembers as being magical. Small, strange and dark, the shopkeepers would scoop out quantities of spices and dried goods from the deep wooden drawers of cabinets that lined the shop walls. The smell was excitingly thick and heady, a sign of things to come. Margaret and Elizabeth had to come to combine several weeks’ worth of ration coupons for dry ingredients of one very specific recipe: the Christmas cake.
Although there are records of cakes and puddings being part of Christmas celebrations since before the time of Cromwell (who banned them for being frivolous, obviously), the Christmas cake is widely thought to be a Victorian invention. Twelfth Cakes, to be eaten at Twelfth Night parties to signal the end of the 12 days of Christmas, became Christmas cakes during the Industrial Revolution when more and more people had to begin working again directly after Boxing Day. At some point in the smog of time, it was decided that the cakes and puddings should be prepared the Sunday before the first Sunday of Advent to allow the flavour to mature. The reading for the Book of Common Prayer on this day reads, “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people…” and so the day became known as ‘Stir-Up Sunday’.
Given that Elizabeth was born in the 1800s and literally was a Victorian, the tradition may have been something started in her childhood, and as the family were Anglican, our ritual may have roots in this too. But by the time my grandma came along in 1935, it was simply something that had to be done and done together, each year. With Elizabeth being a widow and retired servant, and Margaret being a miner’s wife, it would likely have always been financially tricky to set aside for these ingredients each year, war or no war. That even in a time when their city was being bombed to bits around them, this cake was still important and it was still an event that had to go ahead, is magical to me.
My grandma made a cake with her mother and grandmother every year until she had left the nest and was married, in 1961. Margaret continued, of course, and my grandma made the first cake for her own family when her first daughter was born in 1962. When my brothers and I were young, my grandma would spend each Christmas with us and the cake was made at our house in readiness for consumption on Christmas Day. Rather than wait until Stir-Up Sunday in late November, Grandma would usually make the 150-mile journey in October half-term so she could start her Christmas shopping with my mum and involve us all in the ritual.
As is natural, a lot has changed since the practice began almost 100 years ago; we use a food mixer for much of the process and the background soundtrack is relatively modern compared to the recipe itself (Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass’ Christmas Album was produced in 1968). The family aren’t even Anglican anymore, Grandma married a Catholic and they raised their family in the faith.
The recipe too (which has been copied down several times and is now in a clear, sealed envelope to preserve it from splashes of treacle) consistently evolves. We measure out each ingredient carefully and then adlib something slightly different each year: it might be a dash more milk, an extra teaspoon of spice, another few glace cherries as a treat, slightly less brandy, a little more brandy, much, much more brandy… Once the mixture has been tested and tasted, and finally meets Grandma’s approval, it is carefully poured into the tin as evenly as possible. The same brown paper and string which has been used for the last four or five years (and we will continue to use until it falls apart) are tied around the outside of the tin as a kind of chimney that funnels the soothing scent of seasonal spice into the house for the next few days.
In the weeks before Christmas, we ‘feed’ it with more booze on an ad-hoc basis when we remember. With an eye for design, my mum is in charge of the decorating of the cake, and the results are dependent on how full a social calendar we’ve had that year; the cake will always have icing, but you’ll be able to tell whether it’s been a no-time year or a some-time year if Santa has reindeer, or Mary and Joseph have any shepherds strategically placed about them. And every year, when we cut open the cake on Christmas Day, we taste and critique it, like a coven of Prue Leiths, debating what we should improve on next time. And every year, without fail, we forget our constructive notes by the time it comes to starting all over again.
Last year, the cake had to be made during the November lockdown and it was just my mum and me. We’re fortunate to have a great relationship so it was still an afternoon of music and laughter but there was a noticeable absence. My grandma being able to join us again in 2021 made me surprisingly emotional. This is what being ‘back to normal’ means, I thought.
When I was a child, the best part of the day was getting to have a ‘magic stir’ wherein all members of the family are brought into the kitchen to stir the mixture individually, using a particular wooden spoon and mixing bowl we use for no other meal or recipe. As you stir, you are each meant to make a silent wish. This harks back to the Anglican tradition of the Sunday too; you’re meant to stir from east to west representing the journey of the Wise Men to the Nativity. I’ve wished for ridiculous and unholy things over the years; an iPod, a dog, for two years in a row I wished for the same boy to fancy me. I have long wondered what my mum and grandma wished for as they stirred. When I was young and they were my idols, I thought that there couldn’t be anything that they could want for. I can’t say what I wished for this year – that would be telling – but I suspect it’s something like what I imagine they wish for.
As we all get older and our family expands, shifts and roams, this will continue to be our constant ritual which brings us together each year.
Elizabeth’s Christmas cake:
Ingredients:
12 oz of self-raising flour (sieved)
1 tsp of mixed spice
4 oz ground almonds
12 oz of currants
12 oz sultanas
8 oz raisins
4 oz glace cherries (halved)
8 oz butter
8 oz demerara (dark)
4 large eggs
2 tbls black treacle
Brandy
A little milk
1 lemon
Method:
Mix flour, spice and ground almonds
Beat butter and sugar together until creamy
Beat egg and milk together
Stir the flour mix a little at a time into the creamed butter and sugar
Now add the egg and beat well
Add the black treacle
Add the juice of the lemon, and the brandy
Add the fruit and mix well (time for magic stirs is here!)
Line large cake tin with greased greaseproof paper
Pour mixture into tin
Wrap brown paper on outside of the tin
Bake for 3 ½ – 4 hours at 150 degrees
Written by Isabella Samuels
Bella has predominantly written as a ghostwriter of autobiographies and is a project manager and editor for a private publishing company. All of her favourite memories take place around a table and most of her stories significantly feature food or drink. An aspiring culture and lifestyle writer, you can find more of her writing here: https://www.bellasamuels.co.uk
