Halloween Cooking

Last week in our Japanese class our teacher, Yoshihara-sensei, brought in some sweets from Kyoto and green tea. This week, as it's Halloween, I thought I'd bring in a barm brack. I've just taken it out of the oven and it smells yummy. I had never had this before I went to Dublin, but it's the thing to have at Halloween in Ireland. It's basically a fruit tea cake not unlike the one I usually make. It's a bit bigger and you bake it for longer. It's nice with a strong pot of tea. One thing mine is missing is a hidden ring and other charms. Traditionally in Ireland at Halloween or Samhain (pronounced sow-an David tells me - Irish for November) a ring is hidden in the cake and the person who gets the ring in their slice will get married that year. The word brack comes from an old Irish word, 'breac', and means speckled (i.e. with fruit) and barm probably comes from 'aran', which means bread. Here is an easy to follow recipe fairly similar to mine http://www.dochara.com/eat/traditional/barm-brack.php












I'm going to have to work out how to say all this in Japanese before tomorrow so I can tell Yoshihara-sensei.