Moggerhanger Clanger

A couple of years ago, Isla and the girls went to the Bedford River Festival where they encountered a stall selling a sort of lamb stew they called a 'Moggerhanger Clanger'. It turned out that the chefs came from Moggerhanger Park and that Bedfordshire Clangers are a kind of rolled suet dish - a cross between a lamb stew, a cornish pasty and a swiss roll. Apparently the name 'clanger' may come from a Northamptonshire dialect word ‘clang’, meaning ‘to eat voraciously’.

Like pasties, clangers were orriginally designed for working men, providing a complete packed lunch with eddible wrapping. While Cornish pasties were eaten by miners, clangers were 'clanged' (if that's the right grammar) by farmers.

I often find it intriguing that some of the world's favortite dishes began as convenience food for ordinary people. Hence pizzas were created by Roman soldiers with stale bread, and so on...

Anyway... Isla has been raving about Moggerhager clangers ever since, so we decided to go over to Moggerhanger park so I could have a taste...

Moggerhanger Park is a fasinating place. It's only a few miles from Bedford and is well worth a visit. Apparently it was rebuilt by John Soane who also did the bank of England. William Wilberforce was related to the resident Thornton family and there is now an exhibition about slavery on site. It's now a Christian conference centre and has a wonderful restaurant and tea room - where you can buy Moggerhanger clangers...

We had a great day out, some good food, a short walk, and interesting time.