Panackarty, Pan Haggerty ...

"If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers." Doug Larson

I have just presented 'my' book to my book group. It was called Cuddy and written by Benjamin Myers. I admit it was not an easy read, being written in a number of different styles, telling 6 different stories in different periods of time. I loved it and so did one other in the group. The rest didn't like it much at all.

So why am I commenting on it? Well it was set around Durham Cathedral, which was built to house the remains of St. Cuthbert (Cuddy) in the far north-east of England, and in the course of the book some of the characters were served Panackarty - a wonderful name that trips off the tongue. I was intrigued.

The picture above is of Panackarty as made by the writer of Lavender and Lovage, who hails from the north-east and who calls it Panackelty or Store cupboard hot-pot - a humble dish of potatoes, onions and tinned corned beef, which sounds somewhat unappetising but by all accounts is not. You will note the different spelling. More on that to come.

I did not recognise the name Panackarty but it did remind me of Pan Haggerty which I had heard of and which I had a vague feeling had something to do with potatoes too. And indeed it does. This is the Sainsbury's version from Tamsin Burnett-Hall. Pan haggerty, however, is even simpler than Panackarty, being just sliced potatoes layered with onions and cheese in a frying pan and cooked. Which I have to say sounds marginally fraught with disaster but very tempting to try some day and which Jane Grigson describes thus:

"An appetising north-eastern dish of potatoes and onion, which should be better known all over the country - and might be if it weren't for the insistently homely nature of north-easterners. The cheese and the pan-frying in beef dripping make it taste quite different from the Welsh Tiesen Nionod, or a French gratin, though in idea and construction it much resembles them."

And how can you resist not looking up what Tiesen Nionod was? Well it's even more basic - just potatoes and onions - no cheese even, and this is the Lavender and Lovage version, called Welsh Onion Cake with the lovely Welsh name Tiesen Nionod in brackets. And I guess you can tell from the quite different name that Welsh is a different language altogether.

But I digress - other than to mention, that indeed it's not the same thing as a French gratin which has lashings of cream and is therefore somewhat more luxurious. Butter too and our humble North-eastern dishes really should be made with dripping or lard.

Back to our two different north-eastern potato dishes with the same name. Well like the dishes the names are also subtly different and demonstrate a wonderful amount of invention on the part of the northerners who made them up. Panackarty is variously known as Panacalty, Panackelty, Panaculty, Panackerty and Panack. That's six different spellings of the same word, there are probably more, and who's to know which one is correct? Well:

"The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself." Derek Walcott

Pan Haggerty - the better known dish of the two, seems to have fewer variations - I found just Pan Aggie and Panaggerty. And where does the name come from anyway? 'Pan' is obvious as both dishes are cooked in a pan. The only theory found for the 'haggerty' was that it was derived from the French 'hachis' which means chopped or sliced. Maybe it is actually named after Aggie - whoever she was. Who knows. As for all the variants of Panackerty nobody seems to have any idea. I suppose if you go the 'Panackelty' route you perhaps could make a jump to Celtic? I don't think so. Or if you go the Panaockarty route it might just be a different pronunciation of haggerty and therefore from the same root. The north-eastern dialect for potatoes would be 'taties' so there's obviously no connection there. A mystery.

So back to what these two dishes are. Well the first one - Panackarty, etc. seems to be extremely varied but:

"within the different recipes, there are elements that remain consistent throughout and that’s what we’re working with. Potatoes, onions, corned beef, and bacon. ... This recipe is super easy and involved layering thinly sliced potatoes and whatever other ingredients you want to include. This is a traditional North East dish and the reason recipes vary so much is it was traditionally made with whatever was in the cupboard!" North-East Food

The writer of North-East Food whose version is shown above calls it Panacalty and I think added carrots to hers, as did others. James McConnell of The Easy Way to Cook, whose version is shown here calls his Panackelty. You can't really see what is in the mix, but it's definitely more of a hot pot, casserole kind of a dish than Pan Haggerty.

I noted that Wikipedia is not really on top of what this dish is as they say on one line that it's a casserole of lamb or beef, and then on a subsequent line say it's made with corned beef.

Pan Haggerty is much more well-known, but then Pan haggerty comes from Newcastle-on-Tyne - Geordie land, and not the lesser known and smaller Sunderland/Durham area. No well-known names have recipes for Panackarty but lots of them have had a go at Pan haggerty, and with a fair degree of similarity other than in the fat that they use. A few tart it up with a bit of bacon and someone added a fried egg on top, but mostly it was just potatoes, onions and cheese.

Neil Buttery of Neil Cooks Grigson made Jane Grigson's Pan haggarty and served it to his friends, of which one of them - Josh - said (the bad spelling is his not mine):

Basically it's 'I'm getting a divorce and I've lost my job' style food. Comforting in the extreme. The stronger the cheddar the better I'd say and fanzy pickles/relishes are de rigour"

Neil himself commented that:

"Tyneside, Wales and Yorkshire all have their variation on essentially the same recipe – and each time I cook them I’m always surprised how tasty they are."

So who else had a go? Well - Pan haggarty/delicious.uk; Easy Northumberland Pan haggarty - Elaine Lemm/The Spruce Eats - American, so this recipe has travelled far; Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has also had a go, and Lavender and Lovage has a go at this too calling it Nanny's Pan Haggerty - but not Jamie, Delia or Nigel or though he does reference the dish with another recipe of his.

Finally, and curiously The Hairy Bikers who actually hail from the North-East have a bet both ways with their Pan haggerty which includes bacon, carrots and chicken stock but the cheese is just the topping and not layered with the potatoes and onions. Chicken stock? There is no liquid in Pan Haggerty. Not really Pan haggerty is it?

If anyone knows where the 'ackarty' Panackarty part of the word comes from I would love to know.