Talk:Sally Lunn bun

Photo of one of the buns needed

I found and posted a Flickr photo of the exterior of Sally Lunn's bakery in Bath. Alas, the Flickr poster didn't add a photo of one of the buns to the nice photos posted of the bakery. Someone in Bath feel like going by, having a bun and posting a picture before you eat it? Geoff ^{Who, me?} 01:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Rename?

Since the article is as much about the building as the bun (and is categorised as such), perhaps it would be better renamed simply "Sally Lunn" to allow it to better reflect the two parts of the article? Even if she is probably a mythical figure that's derived from the mid-19th century anglicisation of solimemmes of Eastern France or "sol et lune" rather than a Huguenot called "Solange Luyen". This article covers the options pretty well, earliest reference is an advert of 1819 which would suggest they came back with soldiers on the Waterloo campaign.Le Deluge (talk) 12:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

If you have a look at the history (particularly my edits in Oct 2012 & that by User:Glynhughes in Feb 13) you will see there used to be lots more "information" about the buns - however most of this was unencyclopedic, folksy, promotional and speculative, hence it now as much about the listed building as the buns. If you wanted to expand this with an appropriate tone and citations that would be great.— Rod ^talk 16:43, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm really not that interested in the buns :-), I only came here to knock down the UK coord missing to Somerset! But I've had a quick go at improving the history - at least now the miracle of Google Books allows direct links to Georgian sources.Le Deluge (talk) 13:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm very confident from my own research (http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/sallylunn.htm) that the 'Sally Lunn House' in Bath is entirely spurious, a silly attempt to cash in on a fake history from a time (can you imagine it!) before people could look things up on Wikipedia. The buns though, are interesting, so I'd be tempted to keep the title, expand the bun history and give a mere passing reference to the Bath House. I wonder what Rod thinks? Glynhughes (talk) 19:57, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the buns seem to be called simply "Sally Lunns" at least as often - if not more often - as "Sally Lunn buns" - and that's before you get into the debate about whether they're buns, cakes, or something else. So there's probably a WP:COMMONNAME argument for taking bun off the end, let alone the fact that it allows the article to more naturally discuss the person and the house. There seems to be a trend that any building that's II* listed or above gets its own article, and despite the lack of historical evidence for a connection, an article about the house would largely duplicate the bun article and vice versa, so it makes sense to keep them together. Arguably the building categories should be on a redirect from SL House rather than on a bun article.

It's interesting that the first mention is the Irish poem, implying that either they have an Irish origin or (more likely?) they were already so well known by 1776 that they had spread out from Bath, carried by the geographically-mobile aristocracy. That pushes the origin back into the 1760s. It's just about possible that there was an original Sally Lunn back then who sold out (on retirement?) to Dalmer in the late 1790s, but personally I suspect Dalmer represents another fairytale. "Thirty years ago" and just before the greatest war of all time (to date) is conveniently old enough for people not to check too closely whilst appearing to be within living memory. It's strange that there's no other mention of Dalmer until the 1820s, given how much we know about Regency Bath. As an aside Glyn, I think you can remove the Alsace connection from your site, the Oxford Companion to Food seems pretty convinced that there's no evidence of solilemmes before Careme in 1815 and he's got form for being "creative" with his history. Given that we were at war with France at the time, he had extra reason to adapt the origin. Personally I'd tend towards the sun and moon origin, you can imagine that's how they'd look if sliced in half and cut-side down on a grill for toasting, perhaps the French influence came from prisoners of the Seven Years' War.Le Deluge (talk) 13:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, there's only one thing for it here, a trip to Alsace is called for I think!Glynhughes (talk) 12:05, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I've recently got access (through wikipedia) to the British Newspaper Archive and have run a search for "sally lunn" which found the earliest mention being an advert for a public breakfast (in Sydney Gardens) from 1809. In 1824 a Pastry Cakes and Confectioners was set up in Salisbury offering Sally Lunns. By 1826 they had reached Westmoreland and in 1830 Newscastle.— Rod ^talk 12:25, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

In South Yorkshire Sally Lunn looks nothing like the cakes in the picture. It resembles a loaf-sized swiss bun, sometimes with currants or raisins. We eat it sliced with butter. Looks like

http://www.wholesalebakerssouthyorkshire.co.uk/itemimages/sally-lunn.jpg

86.157.226.153 (talk) 20:29, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

French?

"Sun" in French is soleil, not sol which means "ground". It could conceivably be from Spanish (sol y luna) but I can't see why they would be connected with the sun or moon to be honest. The personal name theory seems more plausible? Walshie79 (talk) 23:46, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

It's only soleil in modern French - remember that originally Spanish and French are just dialects of Latin, where sun is "sol". You can't let your personal disbelief sway you, you have to go with the sources, and there's precious little evidence for "Sally" other than hearsay. As the article says, the suggestion is that the name was inspired by the contrast between the golden top and white underneath. Short of a time machine, we'll never know for certain, so all we can do is relay what the sources say.Le Deluge (talk) 14:36, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Sally Nunn.

I agree, Julideltimila, with you. But you see the precedent has been sent. Triviality is exactly what you have now. And of the inconsistent kind now, too.

I'm content that having now exposed this, what remains is that some uncited, unreferenced Popular Culture references are retained, (arbitrarily described here as more Substantive ), and some now are disallowed. When a future Editor disagrees with you, then it'll change again.

There's nothing Substantive necessarily about anything unreferenced and uncited.

I think I'm more content to have exposed this indefensible contradiction than replacing the Edit, even though it's akin with the others. Heath St John (talk) 18:26, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

In popular culture

This seems like a list of trivial mentions. I propose removing the section. Valereee (talk) 15:25, 19 June 2024 (UTC)