Lyr Req: Pease Porridge Hot (nursery rhyme)

Subject: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 05:23 PM

When I was a child my mother used to sing it to me.

Peas porridge hot
Peas porridge cold
Peas porridge in the pot
Seven days old

The rhyme was sung to the tune of "Farmer In The Dell"

I believe that there were more lyrics to this rhyme. Can anyone provide them for us?

SOL

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 05:27 PM

some like it hot
some like it cold
some like it in the pot
ni9ne days old.

not exactly profound, but it did provide a title for a good movie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: Joe_F
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 05:56 PM

In the version I learned when I was little, it did not have the same tune as "The Farmer in the Dell". It went, in solfa (scale is drmfsltDRMFSLT):

s.msl...
s.msD...
D.DRMRD.
R.M.R...
s.msl...
s.msD...
D.DRMRD.
R.M.D...

E. E. Cummings made up a nasty version, but I forbear.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: GUEST,999
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 06:49 PM

Roud Folk Song Index number of 19631

Notation here for melody.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 07:06 PM

How far back does this jingle date?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 07:30 PM

Pease pudding hot,
Pease pudding cold,
Pease pudding in the pot
Nine days old.

Some like it hot,
Some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot
Nine days old.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 09:21 PM

Originally, I think, peas potage (i.e. soup). There's a little village called Peas Pottage just south of Crawley (Sussex) nr Gatwick.

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: GUEST,999
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 09:42 PM

Some history here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 02:15 PM

Thank you 999. I should have guessed from the "e" at the end, that this rhyme originated in the UK.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: Dead Horse
Date: 25 Dec 09 - 09:48 AM

It is in a couple of mummers plays, so therefore topical.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 26 Dec 09 - 04:57 PM

Don't forget the same comestible appears in another nursery rhyme —

The Man in the Moon came down too soon
And asked the way to Norwich.
They sent him south where he burned his mouth
By eating cold pease porridge.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: open mike
Date: 26 Dec 09 - 09:30 PM

is this like split pea soup?

what are mushy peas?

similar?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 26 Dec 09 - 09:54 PM

Unable to HTML scan at the moment - does THIS help you Rabi - it might be gibberish?

Opie, Iona and Peter (editors) The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1955, #400-401, p 345. (Not Indexed)

#400
PEASE PORRIDGE (the type letter broke so the imprint looks like PHASE)

Two Verses - CONTENT AS NOTED ABOVE – ending with Greenhouse

Note UK not US punctuation on "quote marks."

Infant amusement, also employed by school-children on cold days for had-warming. Two players, standing opposite each other, clap their own hands together on the first word, their tight hands with each other on the second, their own hands together again on the third, and with succeeding words their left hands with each other, their own hands together, and both hands with each other. They immediately restart the sequence, saying the rhyme faster and faster until one of the players breaks the sequence through addlehandedness or exhaustion. Another such formula is 'Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake" (q.v.).

Newest Christmas Box, c. 1797 / (James Orchard Haliwell, The Nursery Rhymes of England 1844, Newell, 1883, Oral collection 1945.

(still quoted)
****The query may be raised whether there is significance in the unvarying and re occurring 'nine days old'. Compare the street cry 'Mince pies hot, mice pies cold, mince pies in addition nine days old', and the parodies of it in the folk plays:

Mince pies hot, mice pies cold,
I'll send you to the devil till he's nine days old.

#401
Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot,
Spell me that without a P,
And a clever scholar you will be.

"'I will, THAT', said the editor of Mother Goose's Melody. This is a riddle and a clapping-game in one.

Mother Goose's Melody c. 1765, 'Spell me that in four letters' instead of the last couplet / NR (T. Richardson), c 1830, similar to previous / Chambers 1842 / JOH, 1842 / Rymor Club, 1906, ' Cauld kail cauld, Nine days auld, Boild in a pat and sottert in a pan; Spell "that" wi' four letters if you can' / Street Games of N. Shields Children, M. and R. King 1926.

OP CIT p 341.
RE: "Pat-a-cake:

This was portrayed as an infants' ditty as early as 1698….The Campaigners, Tom D-Urfey, 1698.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 26 Dec 09 - 10:10 PM

Thank you Gargoyle. Good scholarly research is what I appreciate.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Nursery Rhyme 'Peas Porridge'
From: GUEST,Dave Hunt
Date: 27 Dec 09 - 08:21 AM

From: open mike [above]

what are mushy peas?

similar?
*************************************

Not really -   In the U.K, dried, rehydrated and mashed marrowfat peas, known by the public as mushy peas, are popular, originally in the north of England but now ubiquitously, and especially as an accompaniment to fish and chips or meat pies, particular in chippies (fish and chip shops). Sodium bicarbonate is sometimes added to soften the peas. Can also be made into mushy pea fritters.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pease Porridge Hot (nursery rhyme)
From: GUEST,franc 91
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 06:48 PM

I remember being told or reading somewhere that Peas Pottage (the village south of Crawley) was called that because that what was given to prisoners being taken to - I can't remember which - Lewes Gaol or perhaps Horsham. Pois cassés is still a dish eaten in France today - it's a thick broth of mashed peas.
There used to be a nice pub there, but I hear they've closed down the brewery, but I'm guessing that it might have been the building where they fed the prisoners. Whether the rhyme has anything to do with the place, I have no idea.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pease Porridge Hot (nursery rhyme)
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 08:14 PM

Also known as Pease Pudding, still available in tins (in the Co-op and Tesco!). But I know from bitter experience that after nine days it (or at least the home-made version - the tinned one probably contains preservatives) will be happily bubbling in the pot all on its own, emitting an unpleasant odour!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pease Porridge Hot (nursery rhyme)
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 04:43 AM

Obviously Rabbi-Sol's family were dead posh, if their pease porridge was only old at seven days, not nine!

Before modern cooking, it was the norm to have a pot of this and that ready, which was added to and boiled up every day, preserving it. Some people had years-old stock - though of course they knew how to do this without it souring.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pease Porridge Hot (nursery rhyme)
From: GUEST,franc 91
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 09:43 AM

When I mentioned the French equivalent - pois cassés - I obviously had in mind what you would prepare at home, though nowadays often it's bought as a bag of dried and powdered peas (with no additives). The word 'pottage' comes from the French word 'potage', which unsurprisingly meant a big pot and subsequently its contents - this was put on a sort of kitchen range called un potager built of stone or brick to cook slowly. The traditional ingredients were the vegetables and plants that were grown in a kitchen garden - which also came to be known as un potager.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Pease Porridge Hot (nursery rhyme)
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 01:03 PM

Thanks, franc, that's brilliant information and connections!