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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

All Hallows' Eve




Today is the feast of Saints Simon and Jude but few if any will be celebrating such an apostolic day, and there are no physical signs in the community that, yes, today is a true Red Letter Day.  For all eyes are turned to Friday night, the eve of All Saints’ Day. All Hallows Eve.  Halloween.  And from that extravaganza there is no escape.

My boyhood memories of Halloween are more than sparse, and I think it fair to say that we did little if anything to mark the day.  I do recall bobbing for apples in an enormous half-barrel, towel tied around my neck.  And also visiting the manor house where apples were suspended on strings from a frame of bean poles.  But that is about it.  There were no pumpkins, carved or otherwise (it was a rare vegetable in the garden of England) and absolutely no costumery.  All in all it was a non-event.

There is some valid research about the roots of Halloween, and a lot more dreadful scholarship.  A pan-European, Celtic, pagan, Christian, voodoo, African, medieval and modern festivalOne can believe what one chooses about where the popular event is grounded.  But the unavoidable truth is that what we call Halloween in 2014 is unmistakably and unashamedly American in manufacture.  Its provenance draws on a broad variety of immigrant traditions, often reinvented, which have been harnessed to an aggressive marketing culture – and can be dated to no earlier than the 1920s.

I mean no harsh negative criticism.  It’s all a bit of fun, although the retailing of what is essentially a “nothing-fest” gives rise to some concern.  For Halloween is essentially meaningless and empty.  And to me it is ever-so-slightly alien.  And why is bright orange the adopted Halloween color?

Decades ago in a Worcestershire village we didn’t have illuminated witches, skulls, spiders or ghouls in our gardens.  In October we had celebrated other things closer to home as the harvest drew the farming year to a close.  And then we looked forward to a party that was very real.  Wood was piled up in fields, and old clothes, tied up with sisal, were stuffed with newspaper to shape the effigy of the Guy.  Forget Halloween.  We were anticipating November the Fifth!

Monday, October 27, 2014

Coots in the North and Other Stories






Roger, aged seven, and no longer the youngest of the family, ran in wide zigzags, to and fro, across the steep field that sloped up from the lake to Holly Howe, the farm where they were staying for part of the summer holidays.

As a young boy growing up in a part of England that could not have been further from the sea, and which contained no lakes of any description, those were the first words that I read by the author Arthur Ransome. I cannot remember the year but it was so far back in time that I prefer not to try. Swallows and Amazons and its sequel Swallowdale were a formative part of my pre-teenage years. A large vicarage lawn was my Windermere (or was it Coniston?) and a variety of wheels, that included a home made go-cart, an old tricycle and an ancient iron funeral bier, were my boats (or were they ships?) From the sloping grass bank outside my father's study window to the far corner where a gap in the tall hedge allowed passage to the orchards a long sea voyage could be imagined. And it was, with storms and pirates and the occasional shipwreck, survivable only by my mother appearing with corned beef sandwiches and pop. How she walked on water remains a mystery, but that is what mothers surely do.

Those two books, Puffin editions from 1962, are long lost copies, but many years later (again, more than I care to count) I found their titles again in a second-hand bookshop in Chichester, England. And so, as a grown man (debatable) I sailed to Wild Cat Island once more.

I think my passion for “All Things Ransome” was ignited when, on moving to the United States, I unpacked those two paperback volumes and placed them on a shelf. It has not been so much an obsession but rather a gentle desire – not only to read all that he has written but also find out more about the man and experience the places that inspired him. Thanks to the internet and e-libraries I have read most of his works written in and around the 1917 Russian Revolution; almost all of his fishing essays; and possess all of his twelve books in the Swallows and Amazons series. Yet I have ever been aware of his “unfinished” book in that run of adventures, but until now have not seen it.

Hugh Brogan is Arthur Ransome's most accomplished and masterful biographer, and in going through the author's papers after Ransome's death in 1967 he came across what he described as “buried treasure.” The first five chapters of the thirteenth, last and never completed (or entitled) Swallows and Amazons adventure. Brogan threaded the papers together (“tidied them up”) and he gave the work the title, “Coots in the North.

Three days ago I received my copy, long overdue because the cost of this volume has been prohibitive. But I knew that a paperback copy was published by Random House Books in 1993. Difficult to find as collectors pounce on such editions, but I ran one to ground.

Joe, Bill and Pete were sitting on the cabin top of the Death and Glory.

And so am I!

Friday, October 24, 2014

It's a Wrap


There is always a certain excitement when a yellow card is found in Box 264 at the little Wainscott Post Office. It is a sign that a package awaits behind the counter. And such a card was there late this afternoon. I handed it to the Postmistress and in return she handed me a Priority Mail envelope. What could it be? I had ordered a few things of late. Rushing home I was distracted by dogs and telephone and other mundane tasks. The package lay unopened until it was time to open it and a bottle of wine. It was a book. An inexpensive paperback. But a volume that spoke of ending or completion. 

I will share it with you shortly.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Of Fungus and France...




Having left the month of September far behind (and not written in these columns for six weeks) I have just looked up from many tasks to realize that the autumn is about to fall.  Leaves on more vulnerable trees are already turning various shades of yellow and gingery-brown and those of the sturdier woods are about to do the same.  No surprises there, even if the recent lack of rain and strong winds will probably mean that the fall of the leaves will be more sudden when it happens.  No, what intrigues me in this passing season is the measurable increase in the amount and frequency of wild fungi that are growing everywhere.  On my own poorly maintained lawn, for example, huge clusters of mushrooms (or toadstools?  I have been informed that the terms are generally interchangeable) spring up overnight.  And that started me thinking:  How many of these are edible?

Cursory research has told me that most of them are fit to eat and quite delicious at that.  But will I grab the next overnight bunch and throw them into a pan with herbs and garlic?  No, because I do not have the knowledge or the confidence to do so.  With the best identification guide in the world I would still draw back – just in case.

Which begs the second question:  Why and how have we, in certain countries, broken the inheritance of knowledge that in times past would have enabled us to harvest these foods with grateful assurance?  The French still do so.

These are the cépes du foret (even if they grow on a lawn.)  They are wild and unpredictable in their growing patters but are an integral part of rural French cuisine. It was in the Lot Valley in southwest France that I came to love and appreciate this culture of fungi.  On market day town and village squares were filled with stalls selling local produce and wild mushrooms, dozens of shapes and sizes) were everywhere.  When markets opened early in the morning people would elbow each other out of the way to get the first pick – although I suspect that the culinary rivalry had more to do with the pre-breakfast Pernod or wine than genuine antagonism.  Some towns even dedicate certain days of the year to the cépes and priests bless barrow-loads as they are paraded through the streets.  Again, pastis and wine contribute to this liturgy.

But that is an ocean away.  I still hold back.  I attempt to create pommes forestieres with rehydrated wild mushrooms, expensive and thoroughly tasteless, or even the better class of supermarket ‘shrooms such as portabella.  But it simply ain’t the same. 

In many parts of rural France it is the custom to pick a wild fungus and, if unsure of its edibleness, take it to the local pharmacist who would be skilled in its identification.  Can you imagine doing that in my part of the world?  Imagine taking my overnight harvest into CVS or Walgreens?  I think not.