Roll up, Roll up!

You might be forgiven for thinking a roll is just a roll yet, for a seemingly simple bread product, it is subject to much debate…..

The old quote describes England and America as two nations divided by a common language, when it comes to rolls, we are one nation divided. You can imagine the confusion on our southern faces when a Yorkshire lad came in one day and asked for a ham teacake, after all, down here a teacake is a soft, fruit-filled cake you toast and butter.

The  word roll, coming from the act of rolling the dough, is believed to date from 15th Century South-East England so understandably it’s the most popular name in this area. It is the most common name used across the country but there are some great regional variations.

 In addition to teacakes, they also like breadcakes and scufflers in Yorkshire. In Oldham they favour a muffin, which again is a cake down here. In Nottingham your bacon goes in a cob, well you’d have to be pretty hungry to have one of our cobs filled with bacon as that’s what we call a round loaf of bread.

In the North-East you will be filling buns and stotties and in the North-West it will be barms, barmcakes and baps. There are also morning rolls, batches, viennas, bin-lids and oggies scattered around the country.

Whatever you call them, we have them freshly baked every day and we will happily use a combination of charades and pointing to get over the language barrier.