I had a fantastic day bringing the ‘Pan Hag’ project to the Peterlee Festival on Saturday 5th September. The turnout was great and we collected a huge range of recipes of traditional panhaggerty/panackerty/panculty. The difference in ingredients and techniques were fascinating – some included corned beef and dumplings, others black pudding and bacon, or meat from the Sunday Roast, cheese and potatoes. ‘The Pan Hag’ is a walking, cooking and eating project I am developing throughout this year and next, in which I am exploring villages and towns in East Durham and their similarities and distinct identities through food, memories and place. We also collected worlds and meanings for ‘The Pan Hag Dictionary’ and got some fantastic contributions, including goke = applecore, plodge = paddling in the sea, fadge = large bread bun, stottie cake = large round flat bread, smek = door latch, nettie = toilet, kett = sweets, cree = garden shed, mass = brew the tea. We also collected some great suggestions for locations for unusual outdoor places in East Durham to host special meal events as part of the project. ‘The Pan Hag’ develops out of research I have been doing in the area, a ‘Myths and Monsters’event I ran at Low Tide Day in Peterlee in summer 2014, and two walks in autumn 2014, which I developed with local specialists, featuring a range of sensory and memory activities related to the area.

I would love you to contribute to ‘The Pan Hag’project, you can find out how to get involved here.

Feedback about the project has been great:

Memorable experience of today, walking along the beach looking for treasures, pebbles, shells, or any other objects washed up by the sea. The soup was delicious, atmosphere great!

Most memorable from the walk today – putting on a blindfold and walking, relating to how the other senses kicked into overdrive trying to make sense of the new experience. It was a strange feeling, I’m pleased we tried that one. Searching for stones and fossils is always good, I never get tired of that.

Panculty Easington. A recipe that mam used to make, its not so commonly made these days, I think this is due to the abundance of ingredients from supermarkets. Made with sliced potatoes, corned beef, onions, carrots, in a thin watery gravy. It was flavoured with fancy herbs which were not readily available. I think traditionally it was made on Monday from the leftovers of Sunday dinner. Nowadays if we have any leftover tattie from Sunday dinner and fry it up with left over vegetables in a frying pan until the tat tie has a slightly burnt crust on it, with a fried egg, lovely.

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