Annotation:Kail Pot (The)

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KAIL POT, THE. Scottish, Strathspey. D Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Kail = cabbage. The Kail-pot was a common metal cooking utensil used for a variety of purposes, and was often found hanging over a hearth in the family home. It was often filled with whatever was growing in the kail-yard, from kail to carrots, onions, leeks and cabbage. Sometimes, depending on season and the state of family finances, a lamb shank or cow heel added for flavour, or (in Shetland), a piece of reested (cured, salted) mutton. It was versatile article, however, and in fact kail was a term used in 19th century Scotland as a generic term for dinner. Thus, nearly anything could emerge from a kail-pot. This from around 1870: "(The Kail-pot) was formerly in common use...a round iron pan, about ten inches deep and eighteen inches across, with a tight-fitting, convex lid. It was provided with three legs. The Kail-pot, as it was called, was used for cooking pies, and was buried bodily in burning peat...As the lower peats became red-hot, they drew them from underneath and placed them on the top. The Kail-pot may still be seen on a few farms." Sometimes stirring ministers or clergymen were known as "kail-pot preachers" because they kept the audience in thrall until nightfall, so that the kail was left simmering to the point of burnt in the pot at home.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Kerr (Merry Melodies), vol. 3; No. 169, p. 20.

Recorded sources:

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