A taste for the good old days

Foragers are rediscovering ancient wild foods, mead sales have rocketed, and barely a week goes by without a TV celeb dining in the manner of the Victorians/Tudors/Romans. Add it to the surge of interest in local cuisine and you have a heady mix that at least one Yorkshire restaurateur finds irresistible.

“Apple cake without some cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.” Quite what St Wilfrid would have made of this saying is anyone’s guess – it hardly sounds very biblical. Still, he was apparently partial to the finer things in life, so might have enjoyed the desserts that bear his name.

Wilfra Cakes – actually more a pie than a cake – combine apple and Wensleydale cheese in pastry, and are, says Clare Oglesby, irresistible. She and husband, Mark, own the five-star Goldsborough Hall, 19 miles from Ripon, and will be serving the cake as a finale to a three-course Mothering Day Sunday lunch, on April 3.

The cakes were traditionally made in Ripon for Wilfra Week, when every household would bake them. The celebration commemorated the return from exile of the popular St Wilfrid – or Wilfra – the seventh-century bishop who built Ripon’s first cathedral.

On the day of Ripon’s fair, the townspeople would form a procession led by a horse carrying an effigy of the saint; in the mid-19th century, a local took the place of the dummy. Along the route, Wilfra Cakes would be placed on front steps and window-sills for passers-by to help themselves.

The early August celebration, now called St Wilfrid’s Procession, is still very popular, but the tradition of baking Wilfra Cakes – and their cousins, Wilfra Tarts, which are made with lemons, eggs, butter and ground almonds – appears to be dying out. Which is why Clare is doing her bit to keep the culinary tradition alive.

Clare said: “Not only is Wilfra Cake a traditional Yorkshire dish, but it’s one with a real connection to Goldsborough Hall. When Princess Mary lived at the Hall in the 1920s, Wilfra Cake was served to her mother, Queen Mary. Because Princess Mary served it to her mother, we thought it would be nice to serve it to our mothers.”

Clare admits she has little experience of reviving old recipes, but it is something for which she is developing a passion.

“Our chef recently found an old Yorkshire recipe book and we’ve been having fun looking at all these old dishes. We’re hoping to incorporate a few more of them into the menu over the coming months. It’s an acknowledgement that Yorkshire’s cuisine – whether ancient or modern – is one of its greatest assets.

“I think you’ve got to come up with something different to keep things fresh,” says Clare. “After all, when people come to Yorkshire, they want Yorkshire things – and rightly so.”

RECIPE: WILFRA CAKES

Line a pie tin with shortcrust pastry.

Cover the pastry with slices of peeled apple – preferably Bramleys, or similar – to a depth of at least three-quarters-of-an-inch.

Cover the apple with sugar or golden syrup and sprinkle with grated cheese – preferably Wensleydale.

Cover with pastry, cut two slits in the lid, and bake in a moderate oven.