One longstanding and unique food-related event takes place in July every four years in the town of Great Dunmow, Essex.
The Dunmow Flitch Trials invite applications from couples the world over who have been married for at least a year, to satisfy a judging panel of six maidens and six bachelors that in ‘twelvemonth and a day’ they have ‘not wisht themselves unmarried again’. If they can convince the jury that their claim is true they are awarded a side, or flitch, of bacon.
It’s said that the original trials date back to 1104, when the lord and lady of the manor dressed as poor villagers and sought the blessing of the local prior a year and a day after their marriage. The prior was impressed by their devotion to each other and gave them a flitch of bacon. When they revealed their true identity the lord agreed to gift land to the priory on the condition that anyone else who could prove the same claim would be similarly rewarded.
The Dunmow Flitch Trials were well renowned and are even mentioned briefly in one of Chaucer’s fourteenth-century Canterbury Tales, ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’. Formal records of claimants date back to the 1400s and although the custom lapsed for some time, it was revived in the Victorian period. Since the Second World War the trials have been held every four years in a marquee erected specially for the purpose. Successful couples are carried in the Flitch Chair to the market place, where they swear an oath kneeling on pointed stones to prove their devotion.
The trials are said to be the origin of the phrase ‘bring home the bacon’.
Try: Braised bacon with butter beans and new season’s carrots (p. 167)