Fadgies. There’s a word. A word that has always been in my life, always been part of my families’ life. Yet say it to anyone outside of Middlesbrough and they often just blink and say “what?”, or as a colleague from Hartlepool once said to me; “Liz, I can’t say it, it means something else entirely”. I will leave that nugget there as this is a family show.After some digging about, reading blogs and asking the world of social media, it seems a fadgie is very much a boro thing. It has certainly travelled, but fadgies seem to have found their place in our local folklore with everyone’s Nana or Grandma always been able to make the best. Soft, white, yeast intoxicating bread buns, with a tea towel draped over them in the boiler cupboard to prove. Fadgies should be Middlesbrough’s food of choice, not the lauded parmo. I used to watch my Grandma make them, clicking her long, lovely nails off the kitchen table while she kneaded the dough, pinny on, rollers in her hair, deftly cutting the dough into triangles and leaving them to prove before picking the flour out of her nails with a butter knife. Boxing day was the day I loved them best, eaten warm with slivers of leftover festive meat, crinkle cut chips and pickled beetroot. Fadgies are a simple, single prove bread and are great if you are beginning to bake with no fancy ingredients. The use of lard seems to be important, I’ve used veg replacements in the past, but lard just seems to sit better with the fadgie alongside the memories of housecoats, curlers and sitting at the kids table. Best served warm with proper butter and a pot of tea. They don’t keep well, but I’ve rarely known them last until they are cold. I make them small enough to make them quite dainty and they are certainly more appealing on an afternoon tea platter than sliced bread