The word 'tracklements'

I heard of the word 'tracklements' in a Terry Pratchett Discworld book some years ago, and was quite taken with it (2007, 2009, 2014). According to the great Michael Quinion of World Wide Words (2001) the term first appeared in print relatively recently, in Dorothy Hartley's 1954 tome, "Food in England". The implication is that tracklements are accompaniments for meat; specifically - in Ms Hartley's writing - as support flavours fitting with mutton. She explains that rosemary 'works' with sheep meat as it is akin to bay leaves, before continuing with an exposition on red currant jelly:

"Since the earliest times red-currant jelly has been served with mutton. There is the same dual flavour in an orange. The orange essential oil aroma is in the yellow rind; the flavour in the juice. So you rub off the rind as well as the juice to get the aroma as well as the flavour" (Hartley, 1954, p. 161). Over the page, the explanation continues: "...and for most of the valley breeds of mutton it [red currant jelly] is still the best. Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Leicestershire, Shropshire, and all such breeds take red-currant jelly. To the east—Leicester and Norfolk and the uplands— an excellent jelly can be made from the barberry. It is slightly more acid and tart than the red currant, and seems to suit the meat better. The jelly for Welsh and mountain mutton should be the rowan or mountain ash" (p. 162). On the final page, we get "(The very delicately flavoured mountain mutton is lost under the stronger tart red currant.) The subtle, slightly smoky flavour of the rowan suits its own climate and locality very much better. Rowan jelly is more golden than red-currant but is equally clear. The berries are ripe from October onwards, as soon as they hang down. With the rather dull winter mutton of the garden lands, hot onion sauce is very comforting. The salt-marsh mutton, or saltings mutton, should be served with hot laver sauce. This is gathered on the sea-coast between tides (see Laver). It is sold ready-prepared in many places: Mother Yeo’s shop in Bideford, in shops in Exeter, markets in Devon, Cornwall and South Wales. Samphire grows on the cliffs (though why Shakespeare referred to gathering samphire as a 'dread calling' only a Warwickshire man knows). It grows on the golf-course at Westward Ho! It is pungent, strongly aromatic, and brings out the flavour of the saltings perfectly. Caper sauce is served with any of the sturdier types of garden mutton. In default of the imported caper, pickled nasturtium seeds are good" (p. 163)

Commenting on Ms Hartley's book, Terry Pratchett is quoted as saying that "This is not [simply] a book of recipes but [one that] celebrates food, the history of food and almost, you might say, the philosophy of food. It changes the way you think; the article about tracklements is particularly wonderful. You don't know what a tracklement is? The answer is" in Food in England (Hachette UK, 2024). Terry Pratchett himself used 'tracklements', first as a name for dog biscuits in Making Money (2007, p. 125), then in Unseen Academicals (2009, p. 22-23), detailing the fixation of hungry senior academics in the common room at Unseen University (UU) listening anticipatedly for the tea trolley:

"‘What? Oh, that. Well, yes. Indeed. Well done, that man,’ said Ridcully, and the wizards commenced that slow handclapping and table-thumping which is the mark of appreciation amongst men of a certain age, class and girth, accompanied by cries of ‘Ver’, ver’ well done, that man!’ and ‘Jolly good!’ But eyes stayed firmly fixed on the doorway, and ears strained for the rattle of the trolley, which would herald the arrival of the new girl and, of course, one hundred and seven types of cheese, and more than seventy different varieties of pickles, chutneys and other tracklements. The new girl might be the very paradigm of beauty, but UU was not the place for a man who could forget his cheeses".

And later, in Mrs. Bradshaw's Guide, with the narrator relating the following: 

"On a recent journey [...] I was seated next to an elderly gentleman who unpacked from his case several bottles of different patent medicines for digestive disorders. Having dosed himself he tucked a brightly coloured napkin into his collar and proceeded to balance on his knee a fine china tureen in which were assembled a brace of pig’s trotters, half a dozen pickled eggs, pickled onions, pickled plums, a small mountain of pickled red cabbage, a selection of chutneys and several types of mustard. The gentleman who offered this vinegary selection to his neighbours revealed that his lady wife ran her own pickling business and he was a martyr to her stock control system. It seems that any preserve approaching the end of its edible life was put in his packed lunch that he might share it among fellow travellers and thus introduce potential customers to the delights of Mrs Staines’s Tracklements" (2013, p. 29).

Tracklements. What a gorgeously evocative term.

Sam

References:

Hartley, D. (1954). Food in England. Macdonald General Books.

Hachette UK. (2024). Food in England. https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/dorothy-hartley/food-in-england/9780349430096/

Pratchett, T. (2007). Making Money. Doubleday/Transworld. 

Pratchett, T. (2009). Unseen Academicals. Doubleday/Transworld. 

Pratchett, T. (2013). Mrs Bradshaw's Guide. Doubleday/Transworld. 

Quinion, M. (2001, March 10). Tracklements. World Wide Words. https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-tra1.htm