Sippets

My mother-in-law introduced me to the word ‘sippets’; up till then I had called small pieces of toasted or fried bread that you added to soup, croutons. When I was young we had soup with bread on the side, we didn’t put our bread toasted or otherwise into our soup; we came from Cambridgeshire, my mother-in-law was born and lived nearly all her life in Surrey.

I don’t think, however that sippets is a Surrey word, as I’ve come across it many times since I first heard it. It’s an old word, it’s been  used for at least five hundred years and no doubt longer than that and it comes from ‘sop’ meaning bread soaked in liquid. I had some old nursery rhyme books when I was little, probably belonging to my mum or even my grandma and it  used the word ‘sops’ meaning bread and milk which was apparently a treat, especially with a sprinkle of sugar. It sounded so entrancing when I was little that I asked my mum for some, and she made me a dish of sops… which was actually not very nice, soggy bread and milk… I didn’t like it at all and was so disappointed. Sop is an old English word and a similar word also probably arrived with the Vikings.

Another connected word is milksop, meaning a weak or feeble person… I guess what I tried to eat as a child was milksops!

PS I’m sorry my featured soup picture shows no sippets… next time I make soup I promise I will make sippets to go with it!