Turning a treacle into a flood of help for the hungry

THE subject of conversation turned to treacle, as it occasionally does.

This tinned delight used to be the staple of the breakfast table, a real treat on winter mornings. It’s not so popular now, maybe because children don’t get taught how to hold a knife.

And why, asked Mrs R, do we call it treacle? Damned if I know, but I’ll find out.

The name is derived from Old French, and in the Middle Ages it was a medicine also called theriac. Incredible as it now sounds, in those days it was used as an antidote to poisons and snakebite.

Had toast and doorsteps of bread not been invented then?

No matter. The syrup also found its way into music hall humour about treacle mines, because the black variety looks a bit like coal. And don’t get me going about hungry Tyke kids sucking coal.

I thought Ken Dodd was the first to crack the joke about Diddy Men down the treacle mines of Knotty Ash, but references go back much earlier.

There is a real “treacle well”, sort of, anyway, at Binsey in Oxfordshire, where St Margaret’s Well is supposed to have curative powers.

It appears in the Dormouse’s tale in

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This is getting out of hand.

Is treacle still on the supermarket shelves? Yes. In my local Co-op, it’s £1.65 for a 454g (whatever that is in old money) Tate & Lyle tin of golden syrup.

On the familiar gold can is a pledge to give 20p for every one sold to The Trussell Trust “to help end the need for foodbanks.” Excellent!

I hope you enjoyed this little story. I admit I was spreading it on a bit thick.