That Rye Flour

 

The rye flour bought for £2.40 from the Farmers Market to make a medieval/Tudor maslin* loaf - just out of curiosity, then needed the purchase of a different blade for the bread-machine, which I'd not realised.

So I bought a spare ordinary blade at the same as they came in a pack of  one of each for £5.99.  AND THEN ........even sillier, when I came to set the menu for the loaf on the bread-machine I found my model didn't have that setting, which of course is the very reason it didn't come with a rye flour blade....Duh!

 I let the machine do the dough making and then bunged it in a loaf tin and cooked in the oven.....curiosity can be more complicated than it was meant to be!

It's taste? Deliciously nutty and different. 

Below is info I found from a blog called Breadclub20. (My loaf didn't include floor sweepings!, just rye and wholewheat flours)

*Meanwhile, down at the other end of the social ladder.....and, really, you couldn't get much lower, the peasants and the lower orders ate Maslin, a bread originally made using barley and pea flours and a fair bit of millstone grit. Not necessary for roughage, but probably accounted for all manner of dental problems as people moved into adulthood. Add to that, chaff, straw and the sweepings-up from the bakehouse floor, and you had a bread fit for only the very poor. 

By the time we reach Tudor times, the 'best' Maslin was made from a blended flour of wheat and rye often grown together. 

Briefly Last Week............

Thanks for all the weather comments yesterday - I always love it when a comment turns into a post and makes lots more comments!

.

Briefly last  Saturday I thought about a week of meal photos, but then the leek and kale fritters served with bacon and tinned tomatoes on Sunday weren't very photogenic (although it was a very filling and tasty meal for a day with snow).

Which started off looking like this, got heavier with huge flakes which somehow settled on the very wet ground for an hour before everything turned to rain - quelle surprise!

I eat my main meal about 1 o'clock-ish nowadays, preferring to eat a much smaller meal later in the day...............sign of old age I reckon!

The famous nutritional advice to "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper" is most commonly attributed to Adelle Davis (1904–1974), a prominent American nutritionist and author. She popularized this phrase in the mid-20th century to promote eating a heavy breakfast, a moderate lunch, and a light dinner for better health. 

Breakfast each morning at the moment, until I fancy a change. Chopped apple/pear and prunes, warmed for a minute in the microwave, toast  (home made bread  50/50 wholemeal/white) and cheats home made marmalade and a large coffee.

 This was one day.............

Main meal - Stir fry carrots, onion and chopped kale with noodles and soy sauce and two each cook-from-frozen party food ....... mini spring rolls and tempura prawns. Small meal - Celery, Hovis biscuits and Blue Stilton cheese.

That was the end of that brief foray into a food blog week!

Last weeks good news was the letter from NHS telling me all was well with my mammogram. Last weeks  bad news was a letter from HMRC telling me I'd earned too much money from my savings so they'd have to tell Suffolk County Council to tax me more on the spouses pension. 

Oh well, I downsized to have some savings - Ha!

I know lots of people aren't watching the Winter Olympics but if you can cope with it have a look today at the GB team in the Men's Curling at 6pm this evening. They did so well to get through to the final. It's a fascinating sport, tactical and more difficult than it looks of course. I'll be cheering them on from Mid Suffolk

Back Monday

Why?

This was a comment last Saturday.  

Anonymous15 February 2026 at 07:09

So many posts on UK blogs about depressed-sounding pensioners sitting around looking out at the rain. Don’t you ever long for a bit of adventure in foreign lands? With the internet it’s so easy now to organise affordable accommodation for a couple of months. Have you never considered escaping the winter? Helen.

I know why I don't long for adventure or fancy two months somewhere warmer - it would be no fun on my own and I'd be bored stiff!

And anyway, I'm English, moaning about the weather is what we do and always have........

On 26th February 1768, MP  Horace Walpole said in his journal "We are drowning again for the second winter, and hear of nothing but floods and desolation"

And weather folklore says..... 

                                                         "If in Februeer there be no rain,

                                                           The hay won't be good, nor the grain.

                                                          All other months of the year

                                                            Most heartily curse a fine Februeer"

Apparently rainfall records have been broken this winter in many places, so we aren't imagining it!