A Feast of Folklore

September 9, 2024
British folklorist Gazur (Strangest Deaths in History) explores in this amusing account “some of the weirder traditions and beliefs about food which make Britain such a fruitful place to study folklore.” Gazur argues that because food is the one universal that is always “at hand,” it is a locus for folkloric belief, ranging from home remedies and superstitions (like the throwing of salt over one’s shoulder) to ceremonial traditions and 20th-century dietary guidance (“Even the idea that we should eat five portions of fruit and veg per day is apocryphal: it was simply the maximum that scientists thought they could effectively convince British people to consume”). In chapters sorted by food type (“Fish Lore,” “Pie Lore,” etc.), Gazur touches on what feels like every conceivable piece of wisdom or weirdness attached to foods in each category, often incorporating charmingly sinister bits of poetry (“A bloom upon the apple-tree when the apples are ripe,/ Is a sure termination to somebody’s life”; “Cuckoo, cherry tree,/ Come down, tell me,/ How many years afore I dee?”) and offering up fascinating insights into how folklore evolves. For instance, he notes that garlic’s modern reputation for warding off vampires likely developed from the earlier belief that its strong smell could fend off disease. Endlessly informative and leaning hard into the British Isles’ reputation for the off-beat, this is a delight.