Carlins, Carlin Sunday

Subject: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 09:00 AM

I was in Carlisle Market on Friday and bought some carlins, which I had vaguely heard of before but never seen. The stallholder was very helpful about what you do with them. Carlin Sunday (near the end of Lent, when you're supposed to eat them) is coming up. Seems like the sort of seasonal event that ought to have it own songs. Does it?

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Raggytash
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 09:21 AM

There was a time when many pubs in Whitby would have a pan of Carlins on the bar on Carlin Sunday and people would go from pub to pub to sample them.

I have in recent years made Carlins for the Black Horse in town.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: GUEST,Roger
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 09:43 AM

Carlin Sunday.
Farting Monday.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Jos
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 10:29 AM

I bought Carling peas online. They came with a recipe, of which the following is an adaptation:

CARLING (parching, black, pigeon, maple) PEAS, as used for traditional Lancashire Bonfire Black Peas

1 cup / 150g peas soaked in water for 24 hours
After soaking and draining the black peas, cover them in plenty of salted water in a large pot, and bring to a raging boil. Then turn down the heat to a rolling boil, cover the pan, and boil for about an hour or slightly longer until they are very well-cooked, with the skins coming off. Once the peas are cooked and soft, drain them.
Now:
1. Put 250ml / 1 cup of cold, fresh water in a pan, add the peas and bring the water to the boil. Turn the heat down to a high simmer.
2. Add 1 teaspoon of vegetable stock / bouillon powder to the peas and also 2 teaspoons of cider vinegar, as well as some salt and freshly ground black pepper.
3. Allow the peas to stay on a high simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
(The peas are ready when there is a small amount of grey-black liquid in the pan, just enough for the peas to be moist but not lots of liquid left.)
4. Serve the peas individually in small pots, and season with salt and vinegar to taste.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Jos
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 10:39 AM

To make this into a folklore thread, if not quite a musical one, does anyone know if Carling peas have any connection with this rhyme?

Peas pudding hot, peas pudding cold,
Peas pudding in the pot, nine days old.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 03:21 PM

I doubt it - you're not supposed to keep cooked carlins very long.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Sue Allan
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 04:48 PM

Carlin Sunday: second Sunday before Easter. As my mother and grandmother used to say of the Sunday’s up to Easter: ‘Carlin, Palm and Pasche Egg Day’. Always had them then as a child, and loads of Cumbrian pubs served bowls of them on Carlin Sunday - for free: always cooked in stock from a ham shank, and served with plenty butter and pepper - delicious! Around that time all the school kids would be buying them too, for use in pea shooters :-)
On Easter Sunday there’d always be Pasche eggs too - eggs hard boiled wrapped in onion skins or similar or dye the. Pubs sold them for Pasche egg dumping competitions: each egg was numbered and then the numbers called out and each heat involved two people hitting their eggs against each other in turn. Winner was the unbroken one at then end of all the rounds. But even if you didn’t win you got to eat your egg!
PM me next time you’re in the area if you like, and we could meet up: I live very near Carlisle.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Feb 18 - 06:08 PM

Tid
Mid
Misere
Carlin
Palm
Paste

I think I've remembered them all. The story goes that a long time ago, the Yorkshire coast area was suffering from a severe famine during Lent. Fortunately (?) a ship was wrecked which carried a cargo of dried peas, thus averting the hunger. It happened on Carlin Sunday.
The Birch Hall in Beck Hole, near Goathland does them, if you like to try.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Jos
Date: 19 Feb 18 - 04:04 AM

Ham hock and butter sounds a much better bet than salt and vinegar.
I have always hated the green, artificially minted (chewing-gum flavoured) mushy peas you get in the south of England - I don't like chewing-gum either - so when I was given some (not green) mushy peas in a chip shop in Rochdale it was a revelation.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Johnny J
Date: 19 Feb 18 - 05:22 AM

The KARLINS with a K were a Edinburgh group from the sixties which featured three identical triplets...

They were a sort of "poor man's Scottish version of The Seekers".
Although they did have a reasonable following and their records got played a lot "on the boats", chart success eluded them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_wsEMzDsSE

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: JHW
Date: 19 Feb 18 - 06:22 AM

"each heat involved two people hitting their eggs against each other in turn"
My Dad (long RIP) from Monkseaton (Tyne) called this Jarping.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 05:17 AM

I lived in Carlisle for a while and was surprised to see carlins on sale. The only place I'd ever seen them before was in the Black Country where I was brought up (Darlaston), where they were called grey peas (pronounced 'gray pays') and eaten all year round, usually with a cheap ham hock to add extra flavour.

Dry and uncooked they made excellent ammunition for our 'pea shooters', too.

The green ones were called (in our house, at least) blue pays . . . . I have no idea why!

Harry

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 06:35 AM

The local (Eccles) sold Carlins when I was a youngster, 6p for a carton, I used to buy some nearly every Friday on my way home from Scouts.

Subject: RE: Carlins, Carlin Sunday
From: Jos
Date: 21 Feb 18 - 07:13 AM

I have been told by someone who has been described as a "fish botherer" that anglers use them for bait.

According to BBC Radio 4 this morning, Carlin (or Carling) Howe means "Witch's Hill". This is confirmed by an entry online citing the Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names:

https://teessidepsychogeography.wordpress.com/tag/carlin-howe/

Does this mean that Carlin[g] peas are "witches' peas"?