Saturday, November 20, 2010

Cranberry Diaries

Moving swiftly away from quasi-religious and unfathomable ideas and their observation we return once again to the thrust and drive provided by the moon and seasons and numerous pagan marks upon the calender. This leads us into various activities designed to keep out the cold and remove the shuffling unknown creatures currently living in the roof space. Thus the mincemeat making begins and strong drink, honey and the fruits of many strange lands come together in cooking pots and eventually in pastry cases.

Honey is light and Marmite is dark, opposites from nature and jars. The two strike a breakfast balance when applied to golden toasted bread and scoffed. Both products can trace their history back into the Garden of Eden where early man and a few friends toiled under the yoke of pre-Tesco ignorance to produce the malt and without any decent protective clothing robbed the bees of their precious honey. The boys were badly stung but reckoned it to be worthwhile, the ladies loved that sweet sticky syrup apparently. After a while Marmite and honey were wrapped in leaves and mud, then as industry developed stored in clay jars and cleaned up yogurt pots and exported westwards to the Greater-Mediterranean area, so Bill Bryson or someone says anyway.

No comments:

Post a Comment