Pain in the rum
I am not sure how many days are left until Christmas but the good news from my household is that the rum butter is already made.
Making rum butter is a tradition in my family.
My father, who came to Australia from Workington, Cumberland, in northern England, used to make it for our family each year.
He was proud of his rum butter.
I am pretty certain that Christmas guests, even teetotallers, weren’t allowed to leave our house unless they tried some on a cracker biscuit. And they certainly weren’t invited back unless they consumed two or three.
It seemed to be a ritual passed down from generation to generation.
Since dad’s forebears came from Ireland, it might have come from there. I know the Irish are big on their top shelf drinks. Finding a way to actually eat top-shelf drinks probably came with a great deal of attraction.
But I really thought this tradition revolved around Christmas.
Wrong, according to a web site called Britannia, America’s gateway to the British Isles.
"In Cumberland, rum butter and oatcakes were given to friends who called at the house to see a new baby," the web site says.
“In turn they would leave ‘a silver coin, and on the day of the christening, when the butter bowl was empty, the coins were placed in it. A sticky bowl, with plenty of coins sticking to it, meant that the child would never be wanting."
Hmmm.
As I said, I thought I was early with my rum butter this year.
If I am to believe the web site, though, I am actually more than nine years late.
Now I am all in favour of visitors who partake of my rum butter leaving a silver coins in the bowl, but the truth is my son Jack was christened in 1996.
All I have are two untouched bowls of rum butter.
I made them way back in January (OK, I admit it: they were late ones from last Christmas and none of our guests wanted to come back anyway) and they have been in the back of the fridge since.
Do you think if I don’t actually tell anyone, they’ll leave me some loot?
NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it
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