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"MIKE's MUSES...

A little of this, laced with a little of that, from around and about..."

The items that follow in this collection of bits and pieces are not necessarily of local origin..

Please feel free to respond to any points which may be raised in this column.

Coal House

On the first, rather wet, weekend of “Beacons Bus”operation this year I took the opportunity to explore Blaenavon.

Some of the terraced iron-workers’ cottages on the Ironworks site, which were used in the filming of the “Coal House” TV series are open for the public to view.

With their uniform, wood-framed windows the row facing the site entrance look very smart.

No ugly, blind-eyed, double-glazed windows to be seen.

The living room/kitchens are fitted with ranges, which would have provided not only the sole source of heat for the house, but also the only source of hot water.

The ranges originally installed would presumably have been made in the local ironworks, and this did make me wonder just how many different models would have been available across the country in those days.

There were several different ones installed in the site “show” houses alone.

How many types could have been found in the real Coal Houses of the Rhondda I wonder?

As a child I lived in a large Victorian house in Surrey which had been converted into three “flats”.

The part I was in contained the old kitchen area, and this still had its original range.

This was enormous compared with the domestic range (Photograph right), as it would have been used by “cook” to produce all the food for those living in the main house above.

I can still remember my grandfather making “coalbricks” in one of the ovens in those immediate post war years.

No worries about carbon emissions then!

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Still in Blaenavon, I noticed a recent press report to the effect that the old school had received an award for the conversion into a heritage centre.

It does look quite good, and certainly demonstrates the wisdom of restoring and converting old buildings, rather than demolishing and replacing them with the glass and drainpipe monstrosities so beloved by architects today.

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Back to the Kitchen ……

I am indebted to the ladies of the Tŷ Ddewi “Conversational Welsh” classes for the following recipe for Pice ar y maen (Bakestone or Welsh Cakes).

Every housewife would have had her own variation, passed down through the family, and I hope as a matter of historic interest to gather as many of these together as I can.

So if you can remember an old family recipe for Welsh Cakes, or anything else which might have been cooked on a “bakestone”, please write it down and pass it on via Treorchy.net.

Anything published will be acknowledged, so please add your name and its original source (for example – great grandmothers recipe).

WELSH CAKES

6ozs margarine or 3ozs marg and 3ozs cooking fat.

1lb flour

3ozs caster sugar

4ozs currants

pinch of spice

milk

Rub marg/fat into flour and add sugar, spice and currants. Mix with enough milk to make a soft dough. Roll out and cut into rounds. Cook on bakestone, turning once.

LAP

Since moving to Wales I’ve developed a taste for teisen lap, but I am curious as to what “lap” actually means. It is not defined in any of the welsh dictionaries that I have. Various recipes that I’ve looked at give the moist cake alternative names such as teisen plat and teisen planc. This suggests to me bakestone origins. Can anyone help with the definition?

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