From hearty stews to spiced bakes, the red rose county offers a menu of delicacies that are steeped in its history.
Stretching from the coast of Blackpool to the countryside of Pendle, Lancashire has a fine food heritage that is based on making the most of its native ingredients while embracing the flavours that have arrived at its ports from across the world.
The county is both the home of the hotpot and the location of Britain’s first KFC, and you’ll find dishes on its menu that are thanks to the need for slow-cooked family meals and fast food for its workers that are incredibly tasty too. Here are 10 of the best…
1. Lancashire hotpot
Coronation Street’s Betty Driver lovingly served this ultimate comfort food to the TV show’s residents for 50 years – a hearty stew of lamb or mutton and onion, topped with sliced potatoes, and baked on a low heat in a heavy, covered pot. Traditionally, oysters were included or lamb kidneys, with pickled red cabbage or beetroot on the side.
The hotpot has its roots in the days when Lancashire families would spin thread at home and cook scrags slowly over the fire. Then when urbanisation arrived, women often lacked their own kitchen and would carry their stew to the baker’s oven and leave it there to cook. Some think the name is a tribute to the pottery vessel used for this, but it could also be a derivative of a stew of scraps known as a 'hodge podge' or 'hotch potch'.
2. Parched peas
Forget pallid peas with your pie – Lancashire’s parched version are packed with flavour. They’re made with carlin peas, also known as black badger or maple peas, a British pulse eaten since at least Elizabethan times, but rarely found on modern menus. These medieval mushies are super healthy – low in fat but high in protein and fibre, along with manganese and B vitamins.
The recipe is simple – the legumes are soaked overnight and slowly simmered with salt, with this long slow boil traditionally known as ‘parching’. Serve warm on Bonfire Night and Passion Sunday (sometimes named Carlin Sunday), doused in malt vinegar. If you haven’t got the time to make them, pick up a pot at Bury Market instead.
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3. Fisherman’s Friend
These little lozenges have made a big impact since they were invented by Fleetwood pharmacist James Lofthouse in 1865. After hearing local trawlermen complain about respiratory problems suffered at sea, he developed an easy-to-transport remedy containing liquorice, menthol and eucalyptus oil.
This sucked sweet was a local phenomenon until the 1960s, when Doreen Lofthouse, wife of the inventor’s grandson Tony, spotted an opportunity to market them more widely as a confectionary. Fisherman’s Friend landed in Norway in 1974 and now sells in 70 countries in dozens of flavours, with Germany and Singapore as its biggest markets.
French President Emmanuel Macron is just one famous fan, but for all its success, Fisherman’s Friend remains family-owned, with five billion lozenges a year produced in its hometown.
4. Morecambe Bay potted shrimps
Mrs Beeton loved a portion of potted shrimp and the shellfish hauled from the waters of Morecambe Bay are particularly prized, with a heritage going back centuries. The town’s Edmondson’s Fresh Fish is one of the best producers, who catch, pick and pot daily, weather-permitting.
Once caught, the shrimp are cleaned and cooked in seawater, then boiled in butter with a mix of spices such as mace, ground ginger, ground nutmeg and paprika. The final stage is potting, before they are sealed with butter. Potted shrimp are highly versatile - they can be eaten any time of day, paired with toast, salad or scrambled eggs, and enjoyed hot or cold.
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5. Lancashire sauce
This slightly spiced, oil-free condiment has a sweet and mild curry undertone, and can be used as a marinade, cooking ingredient or seasoning. It is currently commercially produced by the Entwistle family, using a recipe favoured by grandma Mary Elizabeth Entwistle in her Accrington kitchen before she passed away in 1977. Thanks to the efforts of her grandson, David, even local crisp brand Fiddler’s make Lancashire Sauce-flavour snacks.
This isn’t the first piquant sauce to take the county’s name however. Food historian Emma Kay, author of Foots, Lonks & Wet Nellies: Lancashire’s Food & Drink (£15.99, Amberley), says: “The earliest record I can find for it is 1851, when it was manufactured by Broome’s, who appear to be the most prolific early makers of this local ambrosia, together with Mackrell’s and Picton & Hatton.”
6. Eccles cakes and Chorley cakes
Eccles cakes and their less famous but equally delicious cousin are actually currant-filled sweet pies. While the Eccles version is made with flaky pastry topped with sugar and often paired with cheese, the Chorley take is thinner and uses unsweetened shortcrust, sometimes eaten with a spread of butter.
“Both are undoubtedly related to early ‘fairings’, which were small cakes often spiced or highly flavoured and bought at fairs and festivals to take home as gifts,” says Emma Kay. “It is difficult to establish which was first, although the Eccles cake has an older recorded provenance in literature to the Chorley.”
It’s thought that Eccles cakes were originally baked for a religious festival to celebrate St Mary of Eccles, long before James Birch was the first to sell them at his shop in the town in 1793. Neither bake has protected status, so recipes vary, with some chefs including sultanas or spices to their Eccles and Chorley cakes.
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7. Butter pie
This comforting vegetarian treat is also known as Catholic pie or Friday pie, designed to be served at the end of the week when believers were fasting. It consists of slices of potato and onion, seasoned and layered with butter flakes, and baked in a shortcrust pastry case.
Butter pie is especially popular in Preston, which has an Irish Catholic heritage, and it is served at Preston North End’s home matches. When a new supplier took it off the menu at Deepdale Stadium in 2007, fans launched a successful Facebook campaign to reinstate it. The pie is also the meat-free option at the World Pie Eating Championships, held at Harry’s Bar in Wigan, and appears in the lyrics of the song "Under Albert / Admiral Halsey" by those famous veggies, Paul and Linda McCartney.
8. Black pudding
Many places lay claim to this fried breakfast staple, but few have taken black pudding to their hearts like the Lancastrians. It’s even said that when troops ran out of ammunition during the War of the Roses in 1455, they began lobbing black puddings at their Yorkshire opposition – a battle re-enacted at the annual World Black Pudding Throwing Championship in Ramsbottom.
While blood sausages are made all over the world, black pudding is distinct for its high proportion of cereal – usually oatmeal, oat groats or barley groats – and herbs like pennyroyal, which is part of the min family. “One of the oldest recipes linked to Lancashire is black pudding, which was undoubtedly a dish gifted to Britain by the Romans,” says Emma Kay. “This practice became very popular in the Middle Ages and somehow, somewhere along the line, got tagged with the county – possibly because Lancashire just got very good at making it!”
Bury claims to being the English home of the delicacy, but while its black puds are highly prized, the town has been unable to gain PGI status for its recipe, unlike rival producers in Scotland’s Stornoway.
9. Lancashire cheese
There are three variations on the county’s cows'-milk cheese – creamy, tasty and crumbly. The original creamy variety gained its distinct tang due to frugal farmers’ wives saving up curds over a number of days to get enough to press a batch, after industrialisation increased demand for milk and cheese and leftovers were scarce.
This method was standardised in the 1892 by farmer and county council cheese instructor Joseph Gornall in a bid to improve quality and his recipe is still used today, with Beacon Fell Traditional Lancashire Cheese securing PDO status for fromage made the Gornall way in the county’s Flyde area.
Creamy Lancashire is matured for four to 12 weeks and is perfect for toasting, while tasty is left for 12 to 24 weeks, producing a nuttier taste. Crumbly only appeared in the 1950s and is made from a single day’s milk to produce a cheese more like Cheshire and Wensleydale.
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10. Goosnargh cakes
The village of Goosnargh, just north of Preston, punches above its weight when it comes to cuisine. It’s famed for its corn-fed chickens and ducks, along with Mrs Kirkham’s Lancashire cheese, Goosnargh gin and its namesake Goosnargh cakes. These sweet treats are actually a type of thick round biscuit known as a ‘shortcake’, similar to a shortbread, and are made from butter, flour, sugar and caraway seeds.
Their origins are mysterious but Slow Food in the UK believes shortcakes were common in the 16th and 17th centuries, when whole caraway seeds were a popular baking ingredient. In the mid-19th century, Goosnarghs sold like hot cakes at Easter and Whitsun fairs but when wartime rationing arrived, the butter and sugar content meant they fell out of favour. Thankfully, they are making a quiet comeback, with Williams Handbaked, a family bakery in Preston, stocking the fragrant biccies.
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