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Monday Collop

Classic Meals

Collop Monday is Shrove Monday, the day before Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, on which fried bacon slices ('collops') and eggs form the appropriate dish. See: Collops


Collops of, in this case, streaky bacon
Image: http://www.grasmere-farm.co.uk


Daniel Defoe's 'Tour of Great Britain' of 1726 has "The Monday preceding Fastens Even, called everywhere in the North Collop Monday, from an immemorial Custom there of dining that Day on Eggs and Collops." (OED)

The Nottingham Evening Post for Saturday 1 March 1924 has; "Collop Monday. Collop Monday, the day before Shrove Tuesday, is so-called because our ancestors cut their fresh meat into collops or steaks for salting or hanging up till Lent was over. Yorkshire and many other places it is still a custom to have eggs and collops or slices of bacon at dinner this day."

The York Herald for Saturday 29 February 1896 has; "Collop Monday is the day before Shrove Tuesday. It has little or no significance now. It is, however, still remembered mostly by school children, into whose keeping not a few of the once famous days of our ancestors seem to have fallen. Just as on Shrove Tuesday there is a dish of pancakes in not a few northern homes, so on Collop Monday it was customary a generation ago to have a dish of collops of bacon, with eggs, on this day. That was especially the case a generation or so ago in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Durham. At one time, too, long prior to the advent of School Boards, the children in these counties used to go fom door to door singing,
To-day is Collop Monday,
Gie's a collop, an' let's away.

The origin of the day, however, lies in the fact that at this time our ancestors were in the habit of cutting their meat into strips or collops, so that it might be salted and hung up, and so preserved during Lent."

For other Shrove Tuesday traditions, see:
Doughnuts - Ring form
Grey Peas (and Bacon)
Pancakes for Shrove Tuesday
Monday Collop


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