Great Grandmother's Kitchen

More beautiful vintage cards can be seen at the Greencastle Museum website.

Art by Thalia Took

Easter time is a unique blend of  Catholic and Pre-Christian traditions all over Europe.  The name of the holiday itself comes from a Germanic goddess, and variations on the name range from Eostre to Ostara. Linguists theorize a Proto-Indo-European word awes, meaning "to shine", which would explain similarities to Greek and Roman dawn goddesses(Eos and Aurora) as well as the minor Indian goddess Ushas.  Whatever the case, at least in Northern Europe, common themes are flowers, hares (the predecessor of the Easter Bunny), and eggs. This linguistic link does not carry over into cultures that speak Latin-based languages, however, where Easter is called La Pasquette, Paques, or Pascua. 

The date of Easter changes each year(unlike stationary holidays, like Christmas) because it falls on the Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring Equinox.  Why this reliance on the lunar calendar?  Because the Council of Nicaea reasoned that Passover, which falls on that new moon, would have come directly before the death of Christ. 

 So what did our great grandmothers do for Easter?  It depends...while many traditions translate easily to similar American customs, others are very unique. 

There are eggs a-plenty:

Spectacular Swiss Eggs from You Craft Me Up

Romanian Eggs

From Poland

As well as bread and cakes:

Greek Easter Bread, recipe here.

Swiss Easter Cake

Hot Cross Buns, a favorite at our house.

In Sweden, little children also dress up as Easter Witches, complete with painted red cheeks and freckles, and go door-to-door for treats, based on a tradition that all the local witches fly over the water to a mountain in Northern Germany the Thursday before Easter for a meeting with the devil (another one of those "huh" moments...some suggest the tradition dates to a rather ugly witch hunt in the 1600's). 

A lovely Victorian Easter Witch

Interested in other strange Easter traditions?  Here's a collection! 

Whether Christian, Pagan, or purely secular, this time of spring is a wonderful time to celebrate new life, and the return of light over darkness.  Happy Easter!

Art by Jaicca on DeviantArt.  Go here to see her breathtaking gallery.

From Fancyflours

Welcome to 2012! I'm going to be trying some new things for the new year, including an idea I've been bouncing around for a while: teatime posts. Once a month or so, I'm going to put up menu ideas, as well as pictures and links for a themed tea. If you use them, all that I ask is that you post and tell us how it went, mmmk?

This month,of course, is the peak of winter in all it's frosty glory. This brings some interesting challenges, as many of the tea party staples(cucumber sandwiches) are spring/early summer foods. Sure, you can go to the store and buy them out of season these days, but chances are they won't taste very good.

Book page snowflake garland from the blog Hipster's Tea Party

Suggested Menu

Savories:

Ham and Jarlsburg on rosemary parmesan bread.

Sharp cheddar and chutney.

Cheese fondue, or a warm soup. Either of these are best for a small party. While a creamy soup might be by nice, the curried carrot soup below is a bit lighter(and tastes very good with small cheddar and chutney sandwiches).

For great fondue how-to, go here, or here

Sweets:

Home-made lemon or orange curd(like I made last winter), or homemade marmalade. Curds are great spread on bread, with cake, or as a tart.

Individually sized versions of this Bananas Foster bread pudding, perhaps with a rum custard sauce.

Cupcakes or cookies!


To drink:
Earl Gray, possibly a specifically winter blend like one of these here.
Hot spiced cider or cocoa. My Mother in Law likes to rub the rim of the cocoa cups in crushed peppermints and add a candy cane straw to the cocoa!

Cookies at What's Cooking America

GGKitchen Curried Carrot Soup

4 large carrots
2 T olive oil
Salt and white pepper

1/4 cup flour
3-4 cups good stock
1 T finely grated ginger
2-3 t curry powder, such as Madras (the distinctive metal tin)

1 cup heavy cream
Pinch sugar
Pinch salt
1/2 cup yellow raisins

Heat oven to 400F. Roughly chop carrots and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast on a cookie sheet for 20-30 minutes, or until nicely caramelized. Stir at least twice.

More cookies from the blog KUIDAORE

Scrape contents of Cookie sheet into medium saucepan. Heat to med-high, adding spices. Slowly add flour, mixing carefully, and cooking for a few minutes. Add stock, a little at a time, stirring after each introduction.

Let simmer for 15 minutes, or until carrots are soft all the way through. Let cool slightly, then blend (carefully!).

Return to saucepan, and keep warm. Taste and adjust season if needed.

In a small mixing bowl, whip cream, with pinch of salt and sugar, to soft peaks. Store in fridge if not ready to serve yet.

When ready, pour soup into small bowls, and add small spoonful of cream, sprinkle with raisins. Very good with salty, cheesy sandwiches like those above.

By Wilton

Locutus v3.0 is no more.  A year ago I detailed the defeat of the original Locutus...it's multicellular colony devastated by bad planning, early morning, and the hint of chlorine in our tap water.

Locutus 2.0 and 2.5 were both dispatched by negligence rather then wonton cruelty.  Yes...two in a row.  The first molded, the second I dried out while trying to prevent my previous mistake.  This is one way keeping a sourdough start was much, much easier in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The air was always slightly humid, even inland.

Now, 3.0 proved a very interesting mistake.  Why, you ask?  Because I discovered that adding honey instead of sugar to a starter is a fatal error.  At first, it seemed like a great idea:  I've been trying to cut down on processed sugar, so honey was what was readily available.  It's concentrated, so I thought that only a half cup or so in addition to more flour and water would help add some zip to the yeast that was getting bogged down in my whole wheat flour. 

Not so....oh...so very not so.

Turns out honey is antibacterial, so much so that some doctors have been studying using it to treat antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.  How?  They're not entirely sure, but it seems that at least one aspect of this ability is that one of the natural enzymes from the bees is similar to hydrogen peroxide. In fact, honey was a common remedy up until the invention of penicillin.  

From InfoBarrel

Wow...ok, then.  That would explain why my bread didn't rise very well, and tasted like alcoholic dirt with a side of vinegar.  Never making that mistake again.  While there are many recipes that call for a little honey, I've noticed now it's usually mixed in at the end.  Lesson learned.

As for honey, it turns out there are places selling very expensive antibacterial honey online, but why do that unless you're treating something you should be seeing a doctor for?  Unless treating a child under the age of one (due to a slight risk of botulin toxin in improperly stored honey), raw local honey seems to be a safe and effective way to prevent infection on topical applications, especially bacterial or fungal infestations, or issues like acne. 

Learn something new every day.

For more advice on resuscitating your own sourdough starter, look here, and at this very helpful blog post entitled The Day the Starter Died. 

On that note:

From CarveWright.com

There are all sorts of good environmental reasons to cut back on plastic:  The fact that it's made from petroleum (and all ensuing complications) are the biggest ones.  Cut down on plastic consumption, and you cut down on the amount of oil you use.  There are also some scary health reasons (phthalates, DEHA, and BPA, I'm looking at YOU).  Sadly none of these have led to me cutting back on plastic touching my food.  I think I know have a reason that might, although it pains me to admit it:  aesthetics.

Yes, you read that right.  Plastic keeps my kitchen from looking suitably retro-Victorian for my taste, and so it has to go. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what that says about me as a human being.

But what should be used instead?  I honestly started out having no clue...my entire life disposable plastic has been a standby in the kitchen.  Many switches though are simple and easy...and are part of a scheduled overhaul in my kitchen.


Instead of plastic shopping bags:

Buy some reusable bags or baskets.  I got some three years ago and while they've lost the flat bit for the bottom, otherwise they're still going strong.  Because they're sturdier, the ones that are about the same size as plastic bags actually hold three plastic bags worth of groceries.  The only real difficulty is making sure they make it to the store.

Or, better yet, sew your own bags.  If you have old denim or odds and ends of fabric you love, this is a simple way to use them, even if you don't have the most sewing experience.  I've even seen totes made out of items that would otherwise be thrown away, like crocheted grocery bags or sewn together juice pouches. 


Instead of plastic containers for leftovers:

They even come in smoothie size.

Use glass!  A big part of what got me thinking about all of this recently was a post over at Months of Edible Celebrations where the author mentioned that blenders were designed to also fit mason jars, so that cold or room temperature items could be stored in the same container they were blended in!  This blew my mind...apparently it was a common practice 40 years ago, and here I was MOURNING the loss of my Magic Bullet in our last move--a very expensive bit of machinery to do the exact same thing I could be doing with my regular blender and some glass canning jars.  

If you have small children like I do, camp plates are also your friend.  They've been a staple in European nurseries for ages for a reason.


Instead of Sandwich Bags:

When packing lunches, there are a number of nice reusable lunch containers on the market.  I confess, I like brown paper bags best.  They can be recycled, I won't cry if they're lost or tossed instead, and they make great craft projects and incubators for pies.  As for what goes in the bag, our great grandparents would have wrapped their sandwich in wax paper.  That applies to other kitchen items, too...Alton Brown swears by storing cheese in waxed paper in the fridge.  That way the live bacteria can still breathe.

Storage: 

Glass or metal kitchen canisters have a great vintage look, and make it easier to buy in bulk.  If you can't find a good set, you can get a plain glass or ceramic set and add pretty decals.  I'm looking forward to an eventual new set, since mine are pretty hand me downs, but have seen better days.

Labels at The Project Girl

Another common staple until recently has been the breadbox.  Before plastic bags and additives kept bread fresh for days, even weeks, after it was baked, it had a fairly limited shelf life.  Breadboxes were designed to keep it as fresh as possible while keeping vermin (and/or small children) out.

There are also some ideas that can cut back on messy things headed for the trash(making it less likely you'll need plastic liners to stay sane).  For example, it is simple and easy to build a compost heap if you're lucky enough to have land.  By putting your biodegradable kitchen refuse (but not animal parts like bones) in a crock that gets dumped on the compost pile, you cut down on your trash, and add a lot of nutrition to the heap.  Even better if it's vegetables that were used for stock, since those are already partially broken-down!  Victorian kitchens also often had specialized crocks for things like a sourdough start, pickles, and sauerkraut...all of which do best at cool, but non refrigerated conditions due to their live cultures. 

One other potential problem area is plastic wrap, which I personally use everywhere.  Julie, at Towards Sustainability has written a great article on that issue, pointing to baking paper, foil, and cellophane as alternatives. 

Anyone else have other ideas to throw my way?

Image from DruidNetwork.org

In Northern Europe, the summer months were often difficult.  While stores from the previous year were dwindling away, fresh food was still growing.  The beginning of August marked the start of harvest from gardens and fields, the fertility of a successful crop and hope for a bounteous year.  Because of this, our ancestors from the UK, France, Germany, and Scandinavia all celebrated this time of year in various ways. 

In the UK, Lammas(Loaf Mass) was one of the important feasts of the middle ages, where the first loaves made from the new harvest were brought to the church to be blessed.  In Ireland and Scotland(and most likely also in Gaul up until the First Century), it was Lughnasadh to the Celts; a time devoted to the hero-god Lugh.  There are many local folk traditions still remaining in various place, often strongly tied to fertility.  The "Harvest Mare" in Wales, or corn dollies are another theme, where the last grain gathered is fashioned into a braid or figure, which is then kept until the following spring. 

Many modern Heathens have Freyfaxi on this day, the name a reference to evidence of the ancient sacrifice of horses to the god Freyr, the Norse god of crops and fertility. Others tie this time of year to his mother, Nerthus, or link it to the interplay between Thor, the god of lighting and summer rain, and his bride Sif's magical golden hair.



In Slavic nations, there is some evidence that the worship of Perun, a god of thunder and lightening similar to Thor, was for the most part passed on to "Elijah the Thunderer"  after Christianity became common, and August second is still his Saint's Day in some areas. 

Whatever the belief system, it seems to me as though for many of the traditions that exist, an ongoing theme is the interplay of two concepts:  Bounty and Sacrifice. 

My friend Thalassa over at Musings of a Kitchen Witch took a modern approach to both in her recent Lammas post.  She points out the extremes of the current relationship with food, particularly that, while many go hungry in the world, Americans in particular have developed serious problems with an overabundance of empty calories, with our strange malnourished obesity rapidly becoming a cultural epidemic.Her advice?  To take this season and become involved.  I would like to add to her recommendations the idea that many food pantries in America run low in the summer, since most people donate during the winter holiday season. 

Happy Lammas, and wishing you all a rich and plentiful coming year!

"Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed. Do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us."--Saint David

If you're American, chances are that March equals St. Patrick's Day.  Did you know, though, that each of the portions of the United Kingdom have a patron saint, and a local celebration of their unique culture and roots?

It's time for me to get a new sourdough starter going. With my previous experiment, I've been shocked at how easy it is, given the right conditions. My MIL gave me a starter for Amish Friendship Bread that someone at church had given her.