Bubble and squeak
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Bubble and squeak is an English dish made from cooked potatoes and cabbage, mixed together and fried. The food writer Howard Hillman classes it as one of the "great peasant dishes of the world".Hillman, pp. 62–63 The dish has been known since at least the 18th century, and in its early versions it contained cooked beef; by the mid-20th century the two vegetables had become the principal ingredients.


History

The name of the dish, according to the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' (OED), alludes to the sounds made by the ingredients when being fried. The first recorded use of the name listed in the OED dates from 1762; ''The St James's Chronicle'', recording the dishes served at a banquet, included "Bubble and Squeak, garnish'd with Eddowes Cow Bumbo, and Tongue". A correspondent in ''The Public Advertiser'' two years later reported making "a very hearty Meal on fryed Beef and Cabbage; though I could not have touched it had my Wife recommended it to me under the fashionable Appellation of ''Bubble and Squeak''". In 1791 another London paper recorded the quarterly meeting of the Bubble and Squeak Society at Smithfield. The dish as it is made in modern times differs considerably from its first recorded versions, in which cooked beef was the main ingredient and potatoes did not feature. The earliest-known recipe is in Maria Rundell's '' A New System of Domestic Cookery'', published in 1806. It consists wholly of cabbage and rare roast beef, seasoned and fried.Rundell, p. 42 This method is followed by William Kitchiner in his book ''Apicius Redivivus, or The Cook's Oracle'' (1817); in later editions he adds a couplet at the top of his recipe: When 'midst the frying Pan in accents savage, The Beef, so surly, quarrels with the Cabbage. Mrs Beeton's recipe in her '' Book of Household Management'' (1861) similarly combines cooked beef with cabbage (and, in her recipe, onions) but no potato.Beeton, p. 287 An 1848 recipe from the US is similar, but adds chopped carrots.Kalman, p. 37 In all of these, the meat and vegetables are served next to each other, and not mixed together. In 1872 a
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
newspaper offered a recipe for "delicious bubble and squeak", consisting of thinly-sliced beef fried with cabbage and carrot, but not potatoes, although by then they had been a major crop in Lancashire for decades. In the 1880s potatoes began to appear in recipes. In 1882 the "Household" column of ''The Manchester Times'' suggested: Potatoes featured in a recipe printed in a
Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
paper in 1892 but, as in earlier versions, the main ingredients were beef and cabbage.


Modern versions

Possibly because of the scarcity of beef during food rationing in and after the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, by the latter half of the 20th century the basic ingredients were widely considered to be cooked and mashed (or coarsely crushed) potato and chopped cooked cabbage. Those are the only two ingredients in Delia Smith's 1987 recipe. Clarissa Dickson Wright's 1996 version consists of crushed cooked potatoes, finely chopped raw onion, and cooked cabbage (or
brussels sprouts The Brussels sprout is a member of the Gemmifera cultivar group of cabbages (''Brassica oleracea''), grown for its edible buds. Etymology Though native to the Mediterranean region with other cabbage species, Brussels sprouts first appeared i ...
), seasoned with salt and pepper, mixed together and shallow-fried until browned on the exterior.Paterson and Dickson Wright, p. 97. Like Smith, Dickson Wright specifies dripping (or
lard Lard is a Quasi-solid, semi-solid white fat product obtained by rendering (animal products), rendering the adipose tissue, fatty tissue of a domestic pig, pig.
) for frying, finding vegetable oil unsuitable for frying bubble and squeak, because the mixture will not brown adequately. Several other cooks find oil or butter satisfactory. Fiona Beckett (2008), like Smith and Dickson Wright, stipulates no ingredients other than potato and cabbage, but there are many published variants of the basic recipe. Gary Rhodes favours sliced brussels sprouts, rather than cabbage, with gently cooked sliced onions and mashed potato, fried in butter. He comments that although the basic ingredients of bubble and squeak and colcannon are similar, the two are very different dishes, the former being traditionally made from left-overs and fried to give a brown crust, and the latter "a completely separate dish of potato, spring onion and cabbage, served almost as creamed potatoes".Rhodes, pp. 139 and 147 Jeff Smith (1987) adds grated courgettes and chopped ham and bacon. Mark Hix (2005) adds cooked and chopped leeks and swede to the mix. Jamie Oliver (2007) adds chestnuts and "whatever veg you like – carrots, Brussels,
swedes Swedes (), or Swedish people, are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, Culture of Sweden, culture, History of Sweden, history, and Swedish language, language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, ...
, turnips, onions, leeks or Savoy cabbage". Nigel Slater, in a 2013 recipe using Christmas leftovers, adds chopped goose, ham and pumpkin to the mixture.Slater, Nigel
"Christmas bubble and squeak"
, BBC. Retrieved 27 October 2020
The mixture is then shallow fried, either shaped into round cakes or as a single panful and then sliced. The first method is suggested by Delia Smith, Hix and Slater; Rhodes finds both methods satisfactory; Dickson Wright, Oliver and Jeff Smith favour the whole-pan method.


Outside Britain

Bubble and squeak is familiar in Australia; a 1969 recipe adds peas and pumpkin to the basic mix. The dish is not common in the US but is not unknown; an American recipe from 1913 resembles Rundell's version, with the addition of a border of mashed potato."Hearty Luncheon and Supper Dishes"
''The Reading Eagle'', 20 July 1913. p. 18
In 1983 the American food writer Howard Hillman included bubble and squeak in his survey ''Great Peasant Dishes of the World''. More recently ''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
'' magazine ran an article about the dish in 2004. A Canadian newspaper in 1959 reported a minor controversy about the origins of the dish, with readers variously claiming it as Australian, English, Irish and Scottish. In 1995, another Canadian paper called the dish "universally beloved".


Similar dishes

* Panackelty, from north-east England * Rumbledethumps, stovies and clapshot from
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
* Colcannon and champ, from
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
* Stoemp from Belgium * Calentao, from Colombia * Biksemad, from Denmark * Bauernfrühstück and Stemmelkort, from Germany * Aloo tikki, from India * Stamppot, from the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
* Trinxat, from the La Cerdanya region of
Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...
, northeast Spain and
Andorra Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a Sovereignty, sovereign landlocked country on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees in Southwestern Europe, Andorra–France border, bordered by France to the north and Spain to A ...
* Matevž, from
Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...
* Pyttipanna, Pyttipanne and Pyttipannu from Sweden, Norway and Finland * Hash, from the United States


Other uses of term

The OED gives a secondary definition of "bubble and squeak": "figurative and in figurative contexts. Something resembling or suggestive of bubble and squeak, especially in consisting of a variety of elements". In 1825 a reviewer in ''
The Morning Post ''The Morning Post'' was a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937, when it was acquired by ''The Daily Telegraph''. History The paper was founded by John Bell. According to historian Robert Darnton, ''The Morning ...
'' dismissed a new opera at
Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...
as "a sort of bubble and squeak mixture of English and Italian". The OED gives examples from the 18th to the 21st centuries, including, from Coleridge, "... the restless Bubble and Squeak of his Vanity and Discontent", and from D. H. Lawrence, "I can make the most lovely bubble and squeak of a life for myself". In cockney rhyming slang the phrase was formerly used for "beak" (magistrate) and more recently "Bubble" has been used for "Greek". The term has been borrowed by authors of children's books as names for a pair of puppies and (by two different authors) pairs of mice."Bubble and Squeak"
Internet Archive. Retrieved 27 October 2020
In the late 1940s, George Moreno Jr., an American animator living and working in England, borrowed the term, re-spelling it "Bubble and Squeek," for a series of cartoon shorts released by Associated British-Pathe. The star characters of Moreno's cartoons were a humanized taxi (Squeek) and its driver (Bubble).


References and sources


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bubble And Squeak English cuisine Potato dishes Cabbage dishes Brassica oleracea dishes Food combinations Breakfast dishes Dishes based on leftover ingredients Peasant food