We have a family birthday on Christmas Eve and I always cook a meal at home rather than going out to a restaurant because they’re always busy with works’ nights out at the moment, so I spend a lot of time in the kitchen around now. There really ought to be a law against people giving birth around Christmas time!
So I’ve been thinking about what to have for the birthday meal and as we’re all keen soup people I’ve decided to give Kinloch Castle Tomato Soup a go after seeing the recipe over at Peggy Ann’s Post. Have a look at her recipes here. It sounds tasty and should look nice and festive.
If you look at the Newfoundland Soup recipe above that one you’ll see a recipe for soup which I’m fairly certain originated from a Scottish soup because that’s the sort of soup that I make all the time – winter and summer. (What summer?! I hear you say.)
Mind you I don’t often put dough balls/dumplings in my soup, I tend to keep those for winter warmer stews. But you’ll see that the dough balls in Newfoundland have the name ‘dough boys’. That’s quaint and interesting I thought, and then a couple of days later I found myself having a bit of a smile to myself because it had come into my head that it’s one of those wonderful transatlantic mistranslations that happen over the years.
Obviously it was originally dough buoys! I think that in America those floating markers in the sea are pronounced boo-ies or something like that. But in English – bouy is pronounced boy and obviously dough balls/dumplings do behave like buoys in the sea as they bob about and float on the surface of the stew or soup. I think it was Winston Churchill who said: Two nations divided by a common language. Well I was always told that he said it anyway. Whatever, I’ll be thinking of them as dough boys now!
My husband tells me doughboys was a nickname given to US soldiers in World War 1. (He’s interested in that sort of thing.) Apparently it dates from an even earlier US war. Who knows what the origin was? But I like to think of them as markers in a sea of stew or soup.
If you watch the film of Annie Proulx’s novel The Shipping Forecast you can see that there still is Scottish influence in Newfoundland where they are keen consumers of Tunnock’s Tea Cakes and Snowballs. It shows up in the book too, lots of Scots seem to have gone there at some point and stayed, probably coming from Scotland helps you withstand the terrible weather they have there.
Anyway, if you haven’t already visited Peggy Ann’s Post why not hop over now! Her most recent recipe is for pizzelles, which I’ve never even heard of!
I’ve heard “doughboys” being used here in Scotland, but I love your dough buoys idea! It’s so “right”. Yes, the Canadians say boo-ie, I know that much! Interesting!
Evee,
Oh, it was completely new to me and there’s nobody in my family left to ask about it now as the older ones are all gone. My mum always said doughballs though. Yes dough buoys just seems logical if you think about it!
Katrina I love your thoughts on the dough buoys and I think you have to be right! And I was going to say that there is a heavy Scottish influence in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia but you got to it. My mom is a country girl with roots from the Appalachian area and they call them dumplings but I like doughboys and now I will always think of buoys floating too! I hope your family loves the tomato soup. I sure enjoy it and it is so full of good things. I loved ‘The Shipping News’. Another wonderful film set in Newfoundland is ‘Random Passage’ taken from the book Cape Random by Bernice Morgan. I read the book too. Excellent. Thanks for the mention in your post! Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday to the birthday person! Oh, pizzelles are a very thin crispy Italian cookie.
click on Cape Random to go to amazon to see the book!
Peggy Ann,
I’m sure they’ll all love the soup and it isn’t always easy cooking things that everyone likes but they’ll all eat tomatoes and zucchini/courgettes. I loved The Shipping News – book and film but I haven’t seen Random Passage or read Cape Random, I’ll have to seek them out. The pizzelles look yummy but we don’t have the ‘irons’ here so it wouldn’t be possible to make them. They do have a lot of eggs in them, unusual in a crisp biscuit type of thing. It’s lovely to get a wee view of your life. Merry Christmas to you all too!
Hi Katrina,
I was doing a Google search for dough buoys for a recipe and came across your article. As a boy growing up on the Channel Island of Sark my grandmother always referred to dumplings as dough buoys, an apropriate term for a fishing community. I have never come across the name anywhere else until now. Centuries ago a lot of fishermen settled in Newfoundland from Sark and the other Channel Islands, which may explain the connection. I seem to remember from the Shipping News (indeed, a great book) that the fishermen in Newfoundland wear ‘Ganseys’, which must originate from our neighbouring island of Guernsey. Food for thought?
Martin,
Thanks for your interesting comment and for confirming that it should be ‘buoys’ and not ‘boys’. There seems to have been a lot of travelling between islands in far flung bits of the world. I do knit but I’ve never done a ‘Gansey’ which do come from Guernsey originally. They are knitted on one big circular needle and that puts me off as I prefer using two needles. The most complicated knitting seems to have been developed on small islands like Aran and Fair Isle, I suppose it was a good way of earning some extra money, especially if the weather was so bad that there were no fish to gut. It was a hard life for all islanders. Growing up on Sark must have been great but I suppose you always hankered after a bit more excitement as a lad.
Katrina
Hello.
I also came across your page while hunting for ‘dough buoys’ on the internet – I never realised it was such a unusual moniker for dumplings as all my family and their friends use it quite regularly.
To throw in my sixpenneth, my family all come from the port city of Liverpool in England, which is a place well known for its slightly erm… eccentric (shall we say) slang. Our traditional dish, after which the residents of the city are named, is called ‘Scouse’ – in my experience it’s a runny version of Lancashire hotpot (veg, water and a tough left-over lump of meat, all boiled for a couple of hours). In our family the Scouse always has a handful of dough buoys floating on top – basically flour and water: I’ve never seen anyone I know using suet or similar.
I’m not claiming that Liverpool is the origin of the name ‘dough buoy’, as the city has been a melting pot of other cultures for hundreds of years, but I thought I’d share my opinion.
Thanks, and enjoyed visiting your site.
Rob
Hi Rob,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. It’s all very interesting. I still make ‘dough balls’ as we call them in Scotland, usually floating in a lamb stew, a real winter warmer. I just use flour and margarine with a dash of mustard to pep them up a bit, using a small amount of water to bind it all together.
I like the sound of the dash of mustard, Katrina.
I’ll give it a try, and see if we can’t evolve the ‘dough buoy’ recipe just a little!
Hi Rob,
I hope you enjoy it!
My Welsh mother always called them doughbuoys.
Casa,
That’s interesting, I must ask the Welsh folks in our extended family what they call them. Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment.
Katrina