Tucking into sparrow pie
QUESTION Exactly how popular was sparrow pie in Britain during World War II?
THE common sparrow Passer domesticus is a very familiar garden bird. For centuries it was eaten in great quantities, often with more than 100 to a pie.
Take this recipe from Charles Carter’s 1736 book The Compleat City And Country Cook for lark or sparrow pye: ‘You must have five dozen at least; lay betwixt every one a bit of bacon as you do when you roast them, and a leaf of sage and a little forcemeat at the bottom of your crust; put on some butter a top and lid it; when bak’d for one hour, which will be sufficient, make a little thicken’d gravy, put in the juice of a lemon; season with pepper and salt, so serve it hot and quick.’
In 1769, Elizabeth Raffald’s The Experienced English Housekeeper had a recipe for sparrow dumplings: ‘Mix half a pint of good milk with three eggs, a little salt, and as much flour as will make a thick batter. Put a lump of butter rolled in pepper and salt in every sparrow, mix them in the batter and tie them in a cloth, boil them one hour and a half. Pour melted butter over them and serve it up.’
Sparrow was a common dish in Britain during the privations of World War I, but less so in World War II, though it was not unknown. The Rose Inn at Peldon, near Colchester, Essex, was famous for its 100sparrow pie until the late Sixties.
A 1917 report by the UK Department of Agriculture suggested sparrows were damaging the corn harvest and encouraged children to kill as many as they could.
In a House of Commons debate, chancellor of the exchequer Andrew Bonar Law challenged Robert Winfrey, parliamentary secretary to the Board of Agriculture, on this practice: ‘Whether they consider that the difference between the destruction of crops by sparrows and by the insects on which they feed is commensurate with the demoralisation which the habit and practice of cruelty which the killing of birds will develop and strengthen; and whether this recommendation will be withdrawn?’
Winfrey replied: ‘The loss of food owing to the depredations of sparrows is so serious that the board have urged the formation of Sparrow Clubs throughout the country; but they have advised that school children should not be employed on the destruction of sparrows, except under the supervision of their teachers.’
Sparrow Clubs saw the destruction of millions of birds, resulting in a new threat from caterpillars. According to one report from Hampshire: ‘They were so dense crossing the roads that horses and carts were slipping and skidding on their bodies, and day and night one could stand and listen to the ominous rustling and crawling of caterpillars.’
In an about-turn, the 1954 Protection of Birds Act safeguarded sparrows in the UK against persecution by farmers. Katherine Nelson, Thetford, Suffolk.
QUESTION What pun ends ‘where the sons raise meat’?
SCI-FI author Isaac Asimov was a great punster. Fans of his novels will recall some pretty dreadful puns, such as: ‘There’s going to be trouble with that robot, he’s pure nuts!’
In 1971, Asimov published Treasury Of Humour: A Lifetime Collection Of Favourite Jokes, Anecdotes And Limericks With Copious Notes On How To Tell Them And Why, in which he described the perfect triple pun: ‘Three brothers went out West to establish a cattle ranch, but couldn’t think of an appropriate name for it. So they wrote to their father. He replied that they should name the ranch “Focus” because that’s where the sons raise meat’ (or Sun’s rays meet).
Bill Llewellyn, Monmouth.
QUESTION Why do blood tests have to be taken from a vein in the arm and not the back of the hand?
WHEN I was a junior doctor, I took thousands of blood samples, and when I had a heart attack in 2015, I had hundreds of blood tests taken from various parts of my body. Blood samples are usually taken from the front of the elbow where the veins are large and easily accessible. Another advantage is it’s not too painful. The veins on the back of the hand can be used if there has been damage to the elbow veins or bruising caused by previous venepunctures. This can be more difficult as the veins are smaller and the pain can be greater due to the number of nerve endings. It is also possible to take blood from the large veins on the front of the foot, but this causes great pain. I had to have this done in 2015 because all my other veins were unusable due to previous venepunctures. My screams could be heard at the other end of the ward!
Dr Colin M. Barron, Dunblane, Scotland.
QUESTION Where did the Hammam Buildings on O’Connell Street get their name? What are the buildings used for now?
THE Hammam Buildings on Dublin’s O’Connell Street owe their name to the late-19thcentury craze in Ireland for Turkish baths.
Hamman is an Arabic word used in Islamic countries for community bathhouses, usually with separate baths for men and women. It was adopted into Turkish as haman, and in the 19th century the idea of Turkish baths became very popular for hydrotherapy treatment, as an alternative to conventional medicine.
A Co. Cork medical doctor, Dr Richard Barter, built the first Turkish baths in Ireland at Blarney, Co. Cork, in 1856. Then he went on to set up a similar establishment at Lincoln Place, behind Trinity College Dublin, in 1860.
Then Dr Barter got involved in building another Turkish baths, as an extension to Reynolds Hotel at numbers 11 and 12 Upper Sackville Street, now Upper O’Connell Street. Soon after, the whole hotel was refurbished, and in 1869 it was renamed the Hammam Family Hotel & Turkish Baths. Dr Barter died the following year.
In the early days of the Civil War, on July 5, 1922, republican antiTreaty forces attacked the hotel and destroyed it.
Although the owner claimed £100,000 in compensation from Dublin Corporation, the building never reopened as an hotel. Instead, when the replacement building was completed in 1926, it became an office block. These days, the Hammam Buildings are owned by the State and are occupied by the Revenue Commissioners, among others.