Mothering Sunday 

In England, by the 17th century it became customary to visit a female relative on the fourth Sunday of Lent, especially one's mother. It was common for grown children to work as servants, often a good distance from home. On this day they would be given leave so they could visit their mothers.

Just as offerings were made to the church for Mother Mary, small gifts were brought to mothers, including bouquets of hand picked violets and other wild flowers gathered in the hedgerows on the walk home. Sometimes it was said that a person who was walking home with posies and trinkets for mom was going amothering.

There was also a special cake, known as a mothering cake. The name Mothering Sunday, still used in England, is said to come from that cake.

The mothering cake was most often a simnel, whose name comes from the Latin word for a kind of high-grade flour. It was a fruitcake that would be kept until after the Lenten fast was over, so the richer the better! It was sometimes topped with marzipan. Other times there was a crust made with flour coloured red with saffron instead.

The custom of celebrating Mothering Sunday as a family feast was begun in the 17th century, and continued through the 19th century before it began to decline. The whole family attended church together and then ate a dinner of roast lamb or veal. Mother was Queen of the Feast. The prominent dish of the day was furmety, a dish of wheat grains boiled in milk, to which sugar and spice had been added. This dish a mother prepared for her family, as a sort of reciprocal gesture for them bringing the mothering cake.

In Northumbria, it was customary to prepare a special pancake, called a carling, from fried pease seasoned with salt and pepper. Carling Sunday is another name for Mother's Day in England.

  

  

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