Take A Stand For The Land

Take A Stand For The Land

A Story of Soup

Today I made soup. One of my favourite foods. I grew up on a lot of soup. The Germans have a word for creating soup. EINTOPF, it means one pot. At the end of the week everything leftover goes into one pot and it becomes soup. The origin of the word soup is suppa.  An old word, before Latin even. In German the word for soup is still suppe. It means "to sop".

 

Until bread was invented there was NO soup. Only a thick kind of gruel at best. Made from pounded grains or plants with maybe some meat cooked into it.( It doesn't sound good.) The "sop" part of soup is the thick slice of bread that was placed on the bottom of the bowl and then the soup ladled over it to sop it up.

 

Soups could be very, very nutritious when cooked over a length of time to extract the goodness of the marrow in the bones and stuff. The soup became a staple food in most medieval homes. They could afford to make soup from basically the scraps of leftover food, especially the bones which couldn't be eaten and were until then thrown to the dogs.

 

What is most interesting is that the invention of soup also beget the first restaurant. The word comes from the root "to restore". A Frenchman had the brilliant idea to make a nutritious soup and sell it to the weary travellers who needed something with sustenance to restore their energy.

 

Now you understand my little drawing. No criticism please. Drawing on the tablet isn't the easiest thing to do but I am trying. As good as it gets folks.

 

A little bit of fun - "oui?"

 

Types of Soup

Bouillon -concentrated

brown stock

Consomme -clarified

brown stock

Broths -clear

Jellied -made from

bones and clarified

Vegetable -prepared

with or without meat

Puree -with/without

cream

Bisques -shellfish based

cream soup (my fave)

Chowders -thick, fish

meat and vegie base

Fruit soups - huh???

what ?? (if you are

European you know.

I grew up on this.

Delicious !!! )

Pie in the Sky

Today I was preparing a turkey pie for our supper and my stream of thought took me to thinking about pie crusts and their purpose. Preserving food was a very difficult task before refrigeration, freezers and canning. These are all very recent methods of keeping our foods fresher, longer. Food had to be dealt with quickly and eaten within a very short time. 

Pie crusts became a way of keeping the food within them a few days longer. They were made with lard and usually in a heavy, deep dish. The crust would be thick and heavy as to envelope the food and protect it. It was most often a meat dish. Usually hunted game or pork. It was baked in a wood fired oven and then set to cool. 

Pie cupboards were created to keep the vermin out of the food. They were made mostly of wood with holes (vents) drilled into the sides to allow air to flow through. The vents were tacked with bits of metal grating so no creatures could get in. 

These pie safes, as they were called, are very collectable now and often found as decorative furniture in some homes. 

My mother tells of a story when she was young. The pie safe was full of goodies as Christmas was near. My grandmother had a lock on it. She was out and so my grandfather conspired with the children to enter the cupboard from below and remove some of the tasty morsels. He was positively delighted to be conducting this prank with the children and all anticipated how my grandmother would react once she discovered the theft !

I don't think you have to imagine too hard how my grandmother reacted. At first she just couldn't figure it out but once she did she was angry. Problem was, she couldn't get mad at the children because their father had set them to it. 

Needless to say they didn't try it a second time. Its always interesting to me how food got to be presented the way it is. There is always a story, usually practical and makes perfect sense. 

By the way. Our turkey pie tonight was delicious. 

A Wortcunner - to know plants

I learned a new word recently. "Wortcunner"  A wortcunner, a simpler . Wortcunners were those that lived with and understood plants on another level. These were the folks, the wise women who truly understood all the ways of plants. Not just what they were useful for but the magick of them as well. They learned and knew how to engage the "spirit" of the plant and see beyond what was seen by the naked eye.

I have always loved and been forever enamored with plants. I grew up in the city but we had a lovely garden and our neighbour, Mr. Wilson, had a double lot and grew flowers for the florists in Vancouver. Chrysanthemums by the hundreds of every colour and variety. Our home was always full of flowers. My mother always had spring flowers and lots of roses in the garden. We had a weeping cherry tree in the front yard and I can remember countless hours spent lying under the graceful, bent down branches. It was like a living tent that hid me in the garden and allowed my spirit to roam free.

My mother has often told me what a "vivid" imagination I had. I was always communicating with living things and telling my mother the stories they were telling me. Lucky me that my mother never told me to "stop that nonsense !" My mother has always thought that I would become a writer and I guess in a way I have. I have many stories inside me.

It is interesting that as I become older I am also remembering and retrieving memories of "simpler" times. As an adult I went to school and studied herbal medicine and have taken countless courses to learn as much as I can about plants and how they can help us. But my "true" love has always been the "magick" of them. What they can tell us if we move past the physical reality and see beyond, into the ethers.

Plantago lancelata - Ribwort plantain 

Plants are SO much more "connected" than we are. Of course they are ! They are "rooted" into the earth and grow under the influence of planetary forces and so much more. They are here to help us this much I know. We cannot live without them. 

grows under the influence of Venus. 

I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out what I really want to be when I grow up. "EUREKA" I have found it, in the definition of this very appropriate word, wortcunner. I am an aspiring wortcunner and still have a lot to learn. The plants will teach me and I am doing  my very best to be a worthy student. 

Stay tuned :-)

Spring is Teasing Us

Snowdrops along the creek

The weather has been spectacular and warm and sunny the past three days. We have recorded a high of 12C during the day but it went down to -1C last night with hard frost this morning. It was even colder up in the open fields. The weather in general has been above normal since late January. The propagation greenhouse is bursting with seedlings but they are afforded the warmth and protection of a more controlled environment. We can close the doors and put covers over the heated propagation tables. It is all too tempting to try and plant something out too soon. Our records show that we have received frosts as late as the final week of May. I have a few videos from the last 3 years alone that show all too clearly how quickly a hail storm can wreak havoc here. We always have plastic covers ready to put over plants just in case. More than once we have been found scrambling to get tender, precious seedlings under cover out of the weather. A good guide is to prune your roses when the forsythia bloom. Forsythia are one of our earliest blooming shrubs with their bright yellow flowers. Branches can be cut and brought indoors for a forced bloom. What this tells you is that this plant will only bloom when the temperature is of a reliable warmth. Some plants are genetically predisposed to bloom at a certain time irregardless of temperature and some can gauge when is the right time. Forsythia is of the latter. Roses can still die if they are pruned back too far too early. So as tempting as it is to get started with clearing and cleaning and planting and pruning be wary of what time of year this still is. It is only mid-February folks.Go out, stroll through your gardens and take a peek at all the lovely plants bursting forth to spur on the coming of spring. Turn the compost, clean up the yard, order seeds, plant seeds indoors. There is lots to do. It feels good !

Aconites

Sweet Violets

Folk Lore and Tales of Christmas Past

CELEBRATION OF ST. MARTINSTAG IN ERMLAND, PRUSSIA

My mother, Margarete was born in East Prussia in 1923. Her homeland is located in the north eastern portion of what is now Poland. Historically in recent centuries this is a predominantly catholic part of the world. The traditions and observances are a rich mix of blending Christian systems with ancient pagan customs and ritual. During my mother’s childhood she knew of no one who wasn’t catholic and grew up being told and believing that anyone not of the catholic faith would look like a monster. She was very surprised and happy when she ventured forth in the world that this was not true.

My mother grew up in a very different time, ripe with old, observed customs and traditions that shaped their lives. I am fascinated by the stories she tells me of life back then. It is really quite remarkable how recently this way of life was lived and yet it seems like a life from a century and time much older than my mother.

A few weeks ago I asked her to tell me about some significant memory she might still have about Christmas. Well, well, well, little did I know what a fascinating tale she was about to enter me into.

St. Martinstag, November 11. As a child she remembers living in a kind of excited anticipation and fear of this day. A man on a white horse carrying a switch brought children apples, nuts and sweets. So why the fear? I will tell you all later as the history of this day unfolds.

My Tante Trudi, mother’s sister in Germany has privileged me with quite detailed memories which she and my uncle have written down for me and sent me by email. They gave me an incredible insight to some of the customs and traditions that were observed during the Christmas time. With the help of friends and internet to assist with some of the more difficult translations I have been able to piece together some insights and understanding to the unbelievably rich and colourful practices that were part of life back in the days. Life may not have been easy but it was deep with traditions and rituals that guided how the year was lived.

St. Martin was a saint who existed from c.317 – 397. A roman soldier who legend has it became significant for his kindness to a beggar. Story told that he took his red cloak and cut it in half to share with the beggar who was freezing in a snowstorm. Feeling unworthy of becoming a bishop Martin hid in a stable full of geese that made such a cackle that the people of Tours found him and consecrated him as a bishop. This is why the eating of goose became tradition in Germany and other European countries at Christmas time. My aunt wrote that the slaughtering of the geese on St.Martinstag was a significant event in each village and household on this day. Every part of the goose was made into something delectable. A favourite was “Blutflinsen” (pickled web feet) of the goose. Some of the geese were hung in the frost to cure in time for Christmas dinners. Geese were also used to pay taxes and wages and leases and more. What?? Please explain.

St. Martinstag marked the end and beginning of the “natural” year. It indicated the end of harvest, the completion of the farming cycle. It clearly became the “natural” day on which to pay taxes, sign and renew leases, begin and end employment contracts. Not many people actually had money so much was paid in what was called “Naturalien”, goods that were naturally produced. It was also the one day a year you could leave your employment and you would be given a goose as a bonus. New maids, helpers, farm workers were hired on this day as well. Young women were always accompanied by their fathers or head of household to the new employ and were given coffee and bread and the father even a Schnapps! Once business was taken care of the slaughtering of the geese began and was the “high point” of this festive day! Delving into some of the mysteries behind these customs reveals connections to pagan rituals of animal sacrifices from long, long ago. There were also sacrifices to the wine.  This was the day on which the Martinsminne was drunk. The first wine drunk from the vintage year. It was believed that this wine taken at Martinmas would bring beauty and strength to all who took it. Needless to say the young men and women imbibed! The traditional toast was “ Raise the glass at Martinmas, Drink wine all through the year. “It was a time to drink, eat and celebrate before the strict observance of the 40 days of Lent and fasting before Christmas.

November 11, Martinmas made it officially winter and lamps and candles could now be lit so the spinning and weaving and knitting could begin. The women and girls would work feverishly until Christmas to complete pullovers, socks, gloves and scarves in time for gift giving. All gifts had to be practical and needed. The men set about making spoons and bowls and other useful items. Spinning and weaving traditionally carried on until February 2 and then stopped.  Candlemas, the end of winter and a new season of cultivation and harvest would begin.

So now we are getting to the story of my mother being frightened on St. Martinstag. When it snows on St.Martinstag (which it usually did), the saint would ride in on a white horse. The Schimmel reiter would appear. The ghost horse rider. In my mother’s region he was more ominous than other parts of Europe. He was called the Peltzmartin, the Skin Martin. He would have a blackened face and wore a cow bell on him and he would run around wildly along with the symbolic bear and stork and they would nip at the heels of the children and snap the beak at the children’s faces and rap their feet with the birch tree sticks. The symbolic chimney sweep would have his hands in the kachel ofen and with his smeared hands blacken the faces of the hausfrauen, wives and women. Use your imagination, how frightening this would be. They would finish by leaving the children apples, nuts and Pfefferkuchen, a traditional sweet.

This annual visit and custom is more reminiscent of ancient pagan rituals than a visit from a Christian bishop. The folk ritual of using boughs and branches from sacred trees to hit the children with were not forms of punishment but a way of driving away evil influences.  The birch endowed the qualities of purity, light and new beginnings. Farmers traditionally flogged, slapped and beat everything with young birch branches in the spring that was to flourish. So in a cultural sense children were being blessed with these qualities. These “loving” floggings were a symbolic form of making a physical connection with the life-giving virtues of the tree. In this way the treats the children were given in the form of apples and nuts were a way “ingesting” and “internalizing” the nature spirit and virtues of the sacred tree.

So today, in modern times St. Martinstag is observed as a children’s affair throughout Germany, Austria and a few other countries. The children wear costumes and make lanterns to light the way. This evening procession is often led by the red cloaked rider on a white horse. These processions usually culminate with a Martinsfeuer, a huge bonfire at the end of the parade. Everyone is merry with food, singing and dancing. Christmas is coming soon and not far off.

Little thought is given to what we do and how we do it. It seems like it has always just been done that way but everything had a “first time.” Those first times are steeped in culture and ancient knowledge of why a thing must be done. For myself the unearthing and discoveries of these exquisite morsels of experiences connect me to myself, my family and my ancestors. I am those people, those traditions, those experiences. They are passed on to each and every one of us in vitro and flow through us and our spirit each and every day. What is so astonishing is when we find the stories that reveal us to our past.

“Thank you Mom for sharing your fears.”

Time To Order Seeds

Well today was a big day. It was a wet, cold, grey, west coast day so perfect for getting the seed order done. We sat ourselves down at the kitchen table with coffee cups in hand, pencils sharpened and ready and an array of our favourite seed magazines.

We try to get at least two of each one so we can look through them at the same time, discuss the variety of seed, the amount of seed, whether it has organic availability and price. It probably takes up to half an hour sometimes just to agree that we have found the best source at the best price and the right quantity. Even though we do this year after year it still takes time.

You are always looking at whats new and has potential to try as well as the surprise when you can't find or get seed that you have gotten all the other years. It makes you realize how even the experts have crop failures for varying reasons. Seed saving is a very tricky business and many varieties of seeds require some very precise conditions in order to succeed.

As growers we sure notice how sophisticated seed catalogues have become. They are really a wealth of good information and we keep a few copies of some of the best up in the seeding greenhouse handy so we can refer to them. We are always learning a new tidbit of information which will be helpful or make something easier.

Today in the Johnny's catalogue we figured out that if you want to harvest some of the winter greens as late into the season as possible the plants need to be well established by the time we are down to 10 hours of daylight per day. We figured out that the date here would be approx. November 5. This means that your plants should be seeded or transplanted no later than September 21. So for transplants you need to add about 3-4 weeks making a seeding date of beginning of September. Growth after the 10 hours of daylight mark slows down substantially. We have marked these dates on our calendar and are going to try to adhere to this schedule and make it an experiment.

I like to think that I can always try something in a different way and get better results. Its worth a try.

So after eight hours, YES 8 ! we were finally satisfied with what we wanted to order for this year. A few cups of coffee, streusel cake curtisy of my mom, a warm kitchen and spending some good hours with my better half it was done. Now the exciting part comes of getting those first parcels in the mail!! It feels like Christmas opening those boxes and looking at ALL the potential of those seed packages. Nature provides such abundance from such little packages.

A happy day indeed...........