Saturday, November 16, 2024

November Food Lore

  

The Lore 

of Cranberries


Cranberries date back to medieval Europe, where they were known as marsh-worts, fen-worts, and moss-berries. Across the Atlantic Ocean, Native Americans living in the America’s were also eating and using cranberries for centuries before settlers even came to the America’s and eventually incorporated them into their Thanksgiving dinner. 

Traditionally found in bog or swamp environments, cranberries grow on a vine that can be found mostly submerged in water, which perpetuates the common misconception that they grow under water. The settler’s term “cranberry” was derived from the fact that the appearance of the berry was similar to that of the beak and head of a crane. Native Americans, who used the fruit in its raw form as well as dried out to preserve meats, preferred their original term, sassamensesh.

Due to the bitter, sour taste of the cranberry it was and still is most commonly sweetened and used as a condiment or side dish. There is no proof that cranberries were incorporated into the first Thanksgiving dinner between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, which took place in October 1621, but it is believed that the Native Americans may have brought it as a generous contribution. The prime harvesting time for cranberries takes place between September to December, which would allow for the perfect ripe cranberries for the Native Americans to share with their newfound kin.

Overtime, cranberries continued to have a significant impact on the New England food scene, quickly becoming a staple for the holiday season. The Cape Cod Cranberry Company, who marketed the product as, “Ocean Spray Cape Cod Cranberry Sauce”, first canned cranberries in 1912. 

Cranberries are most often prepared during Thanksgiving dinner in the United States and Canada and during Christmas in the United Kingdom. 

The preparation and taste of cranberry sauce varies depending on the area it was harvested and the ingredients added. Almonds, orange juice, zest, maple syrup, port, and cinnamon are all common flavors added for sweetness. The versatile fruit can be transformed into a variety of delectable treats such as cranberry bread, cranberry pistachio biscotti, and cranberry chocolate devil’s food cake.

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Tuesday, October 22, 2024

A Halloween Legend

                                                 

Sleepy Hallow's Headless Horseman


There are some legends that live on forever and none are more embedded into  American culture at this time of year than the Legend of Sleepy Hallow. This folktale grew in popularity during the Middle Ages in Europe. The mysterious horseman who either has no head or holds his head in his arm inspired a contemporary telling that involves a school teacher's quest to win the heart of local beauty has found a home here, becoming one of the most popular stories of all time.

This version of the story takes place in the town of Sleepy Hallow, New York.  After Ichabod Crane relocated to this region, he quickly learned about the ghost of a headless horsemen, a Hessian soldier who searches for the head he lost during battle in the Revolutionary war.

Ichabod, infatuated with Sleepy Hollow’s Katrina Van Tassel, made it his mission to win her hand in marriage. However, wooing her was not as easy as it seems, because she had captured the attention of many men, including Brom, the village muscle man who scared off many of her suitors with his strength and boisterous pranks.

According to the legend that became a short story written by Washington Carver in 1820, one night Ichabod, despondent, rode away from Katrina’s home. When he passed a haunted tree he spotted a figure behind him on horseback. He did not see the rider’s head, so he grew afraid. It was rumored that the rider hurled his detached head at the school teacher. The next day Ichabod’s horse returned to the farm owner where Ichabod had been staying, but Ichabod was nowhere in sight. In fact, Ichabod was never seen or heard from again after that fateful night.

Some say the Headless Horseman chased Ichabod away. Others say it was the strong man who wanted Katrina all to himself. What do you think?  


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Sunday, September 1, 2024

Ekphrastic Folk Art: #1, Season 2

 
 What Happens When Folk Art Gets Ekphrastic?

To find out, I invited several writers to mix it up; to play with this folkloric image. Using their literary talents, they did just that. Jumping right into
 the challenge, they created inspiring storylines and conversations.
                                                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                                 
But before I show you the results for this issue, which begins Season 2, here are brief explanations of what folk art and ekphrastic are. 

What is Folk Art? 

Folk art, in general - art made by folk - is 'decorative' art applied to functional (everyday) items. Popular examples include weather vanes, furniture, quilts, and hand painted plates.

What is Ekphrastic?

Ekphrastic is a term that describes the practice of using words in poetry and prose to comment on or about a piece of visual art (i.e., painting, photograph, sculpture) and has been around since ancient times. For example, in The Iliad Homer provides lengthy discursive accounts of elaborate scenes on Achilles' shield (an every day, functional item).

The word ekphrasis is a combination of two Greek words: ex (out) and phrazein (to point out, explain). 

Be sure to check out Season 1, a digital book,  in our flipbook library. 

Now, onto the excellent and innovative poetry and prose of Susan Richardson, Matt Guntrip, Tommi Avicolli Mecca, Jenevieve Carlyn Hughes



Aviary

Mathilda welcomed the morning as she did each day, opening her second-floor bedroom window to gather in the birds perched and waiting on the painted white sill. She couldn’t remember how she came to be in this house, only that she was mostly happy, sharing seeds with her feathered family, nestling beneath wings for afternoon naps. She couldn’t remember a time when she spoke rather than sang, when birdsong wasn’t the only language to ease gently from her throat, notes settling on her tongue like pearls. After breakfast, she stood at the open window, eager for another breath of fresh air, peering out at the gargantuan leaves shading her tiny swaying aviary from the intrusive rays of the sun. Glancing down at the ground far beneath her, she wondered, for a fleeting moment, what it might feel like to open the front door, what it might feel like to fly.

  
Susan Richardson, author of two poetry collections, Things my Mother Left Behind (Baxter House Editions) and Tiger Lily, an Ekphrastic Collaboration with Jane Cornwell is also host of the podcast, A Thousand Shades of Green
https://athousandshadesofgreen.com  Tw/X: @floweringink 
 
 
==
 
 
birds

 
we live among you
the sky our home
the air
the trees
we share them with
insects
bats
even the flying squirrels
and the monkeys that
acrobat between the 
branches
you share nothing
respect no one
your hunters
your skyscrapers
kill us
you put us in cages
clip our wings
eat us
all we want is to fly
you breathe with lungs
we breathe with wings

 
Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a queer southern Italian/American poet and writer who is currently working on a novel and a collection of short stories.

 
=

  

T
he Gift
 
The craftswoman who made it
had an eye for what sells
and made the box homely
Her vision of some possibility
she might embrace
if circumstances granted

The business owner,
was mean, a bit surly
a trait his mother had done her best to temper
such are the pressures of commerce on behaviour

The delivery man had a sick daughter
he was worried about bills
when he delivered the package with care

The mother, opened the gift
feigning surprise for the children
having chosen it herself
The son, fixed the bird box to a tree
in the ideal position, 
because he was the practical one

The grandmother, on her knees
tending the herbs, paused to admire
reflecting, what the seasons might bring
before spring encouraged new hope into the box

The beauty, the power, the grace of nature
almost beyond the grasp
of the finest poets, musicians or artists,
perhaps best lived, in pure wonder,
a bit like love itself
 
 

Matt Guntrip, nominated for “Male Solo” for 2024  on the New Music Generator Scene is also part of Matt Guntrip and the Roadsters UK band. His poetry appears in several publications and his poetry/music videos have been included in  several GAS: Poetry, Art, Music video collections.
https://linktr.ee/matt_guntrip_music In: @matt_guntrip_music
 

 ==


Unraveling
 

This is your life: here is where you lived
and where you almost died. The roadblocks,
the knots you tied yourself up in, the tangled
mess you made. Here are your lost loves,
the waylaid plans, the dreams deferred—
you couldn’t untangle them even if you wanted to.
We enter this world ready to be made and unmade
like the beginning of a thread, frayed at the end,
a gathering of past lives. Somehow, we become
a friendship bracelet, braided over the long hours—
reminders of childhood, heirloom embroidery thread,
yarn from a neighbor’s prayer shawl, grandmother’s
knotted rosary, gifts that might one day become
a bluebird’s nest. Ghost light, seaweed, stardust:
We weave our lives each day from the found things.
So take what you’ve gathered, what you’ve learned
along the way. Claim it as your own. If you let it,
life will strip away at your hard exterior like salt
water on a clam’s shell. Let it. You didn’t need
that varnish anyway. Now the new life begins.


 
Jenevieve Carlyn Hughes lives near the rocky coastline of Long Island Sound, where she often writes about the sea as a source of sustenance, livelihood, and mystical inspiration. Her poems have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, and scribbled in sand.
https://jenevievecarlyn.com Tw/X: coastal_poet


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Monday, July 15, 2024

Love Folklore: Triumphs & Sorrows

 The Mix & Match of Love

Folklore is layered with folk wisdom about the many facets of love: how to love, whom to love, when to love, what to love. Think about it. LOVE in one way or another is at the heart of our relationships to ourselves, one another, our environments, our spiritual beliefs, and our societies.

A quick look at the landscape of folklore reveals the countless ways folk lessons foretell, advise, predict, and soothe the rollercoaster of love, tamed or untamed. Such knowledge is embedded in an array of forms, such as ballads,  limericks, food lore and folk art. 

Here are a few specific examples:

  • Celtic legend about love lost: Tristan and Isolde
  • Egyptian herbal remedy to attract lovers: Cinnamon
  • French fairytale about transformative love: Beauty and the Beast
  • Greek fable about deceit: Mercury and the Tradesman  
  • Swedish proverb about love’s danger: Love has produced some heroes but even more idiots.
Poems about love can be found in the newly released Untamed Love, a Whiskey Tree Wave 1 edition published by Broken Spine, an artist collective based in the United Kingdom.
But more about that a bit later in this blog. Let's get back to the folklore of love.

A look at the word
 
Britannica.com registers LOVE  as having been  “derived from the hypothetical term leubh, a root in Proto-Indo-European (reconstructed parent of Indo-European languages) meaning care or desire. Leubh eventually developed into Latin libet and Old English lufu, which was both a noun and a verb describing deep affection or being very fond of something.   
 
While the word “love” has retained its fundamental meaning of affection and deep attachment, as described in Neuralworld.com’s Etymological Origins of Love, it has evolved over time. For example, in ancient Greek, the word was classified into various categories, including eros (romantic love), philia (friendship), and agape (unconditional love).
 
Per the Oxford English Dictionary (one of my most favorite books, next to Roget’s Thesaurus). the first known English uses of the word love as noun and verb date back to Middle English:
“… from Old English lufu; akin to Old High German luba love, Old English lÄ“of dear, Latin lubÄ“re, libÄ“re to please …”
 
It’s Time to Guess
 
With all of this in mind, have some fun; test your love wits. See if you can determine what type of love is written about in the following select lines from Untamed Love, the second of three Whiskey Tree Wave 1 anthologies, each composed of 14 poems by the same 14 poets.
 
Clue: As the title suggests, untamed love is wild, raw, and unpredictable. If you want to check your guesses, visit The Whiskey Shot mini conversations with the poets about their work.

Ready, Set, Go!
 
When you lay your head
 on my heart I dare not die.
            Love Poem, Alan Parry
 
& you a molten roar
for the joy of it
Embers, Cait O’Neill McCullagh
 
i’m a slave to you
 used and abused
            I am a Gun, Paul Brookes
 
Your heart can hold all of this, she said.
            Holding the Humming of Bees, Sue Finch
 
drowned pulling his dog from the water.
              Love! His affections do not that way tend… , David Butler
 
I swoon at the furious beauty concealed
in the wasteland of this wildflower wound.
             Falling for Bone, Morag Anderson
 
This pillow is a poor
stand in for your form
            Insomniac Research, Jay Rafferty
 
Heated by the rub of our bodies,
you shed skin on my pillow, wet silk threads
            Feathered Serpent: Quetzalcoatl, Karen Pierce Gonzalez
 
Sand cascades over your brow,
we're so tired now,
            Untitled (Aqua Aprilis Symphony)  James Jackson
 
I wash my hair in a slow current as if none are watching.
Nor preying. It is safe, it seems. Language is soft-mouthed
            Enduring The Artist's Mirror, Vikki C
 
And so I lost my honeymoon. The sandy beach. The fifty guests. My black pearl watered silk.
            Lost and Found, Mary Earnshaw
 
it’s hot
you say, rousing me
tea & biscuits after sex   Paul Robert Mullen
 
untether me
let me pound the earth like Bison
            Unboundaried  Anne Walsh Donnell
 
as faint images
shrivel about you.
            The Darkroom, Matthew M. C. Smith
 
More
The curious among you can also check out what Broken Spine Editor-in-Chief Alan Parry has to say about the entire Whiskey Tree Wave I edition.  
 
For those who want to own of Untamed Love or gift it to a loved one, please visit  https://amzn.to/3W0gMB1