Fun Fact Friday - More Than a Mouthful

There are Halloween facts all over the place, dear reader. But I want something special for you. Something fun. That doesn't involve the percentage of people who plan to hand out candy. Because people no longer give me candy. So those facts are no longer fun. But, of course, it turned out that what I thought was just going to be a delightful little fun fact has its own kind of macabre twist.

Fun fact: Barmbrack is a traditional Halloween fortune-telling bread.

Barmbrack trying wicked hard to tell your fortune.

I know, at first take, this fact doesn't seem that fun. I mean, last year I told you about turnips for fuck's sake! How could Barmbrack ever be as fun? Because it had choking hazards baked right into it!

Barmbrack, a semi-sweet bread with raisins and sultanas, was baked to be eaten as part of a Halloween feast and had trinkets inside it. Whatever bric-a-brac came in your slice of Barmbrack was meant to indicate your year ahead. The objects generally included a pea, a bit of cloth, a coin, a stick, and a ring. And don't worry there was something for everyone: riches, spinsterhood, or even a year of wife beating! Oh, tradition!

But the ring? Oh, the ring!

Damn, reader! You look nice today. So, what do you think?

As you might have imagined, the ring in your slice meant you'd be wed within the year. Please enjoy this sample sentence that illustrates what a fucked up Halloween tradition this is a part of:

"Everyone longed for the ring which meant certain marriage before the year ended even if you were only five!" - CatholicCulture.org

So there's that.

But beyond the obvious problems with serving up slices of spousal abuse and child marriage, I wonder what happened if you got conflicting symbols in the same slice of bread. What if you got the rags and the coin? Or the pea of spinsterhood and the ring? I mean, when I bake bread I stir everything up very well. Baking and shit! Also, I don't like sticks in my bread.

I feel obligated to point out that at some point there was also a saintly symbol stirred into the mix, which was supposed to indicate that the winner of that slice would go on to religious life. That particular symbol has apparently been rejected in the modern version of the tradition. But the wife-beating stick? Nah, let's leave that in the fucking cake.