Chopping your Own

Prediction for 2019:

 

A Different Kind of Production: Cooking at Home

 

I've not put up any poems this week because I've been into another form of creativity; producing Christmas meals and goodies. 

Having a mother who was a chef and an excellent home cook (the two aren't necessarily synonymous), I was brought up on good food, learning how to shop and budget carefully from a young age. I wasn't allowed to cook after one of my brothers praised my chips for being crisper than my mother's - and told her so. She brooked no rivals in her kitchen, but I was made to skivvy, prepping the meat and vegetables, pot and oven-watching, deeming the meal ready for serving. It was useful; I learned to cook by what I later found out was the Japanese form of apprenticeship for all types of crafts and arts, "stealing with the eyes."

Once I got to college and left home, I explored as many cuisines as I could, here and abroad, mostly helped by buying Penguin and other paperback cookery books, while using my ma's cooking techniques and ranging London for the best, often the cheapest, restaurants I (and friends) could find. I was much into replicating, experimenting with and adapting recipes, as well as producing the old favourites. 

That period also saw the start of my now enormous collection of cookery books; I read them like novels. The advent of the internet had me scouring websites for good recipes. I inherited my mother's cook books, some dating back to the turn of the C20th and mostly French or country house cookery, with the odd Italian one. I still use them. I also have her own recipes and cookery notes, also still much used.

My  interest continued for decades, though there's one area where I could never better my mother - baking. She was a trained pâtissière. I hadn't much interest in sweets or desserts and still don't, though I will churn out the occasional Chistmas cake or complex dessert, if pressed. My ma could produce all the sweet fancies, but it got less as we grew older because we were all into savoury flavours. Sour, bitter and sharp were our preferred tastes. She made all our pickles, sauces and chutneys, as well as bottled fruit and veg., jams, marmalades, fruit cheeses and fruit leathers, something I still do to a limited extent.

Now, in old age, I really can't be bothered. Yes, I cook daily, but the old interest is mostly gone. What I tend to cook are favourite recipes from childhood - casseroles (oxtail being a favourite), soups, pork or lamb chops, roasts, steamed fish, mushrooms in cream on toast, moules marinière and the like. There's nearly always a weekly curry or pasta of some kind. If anyone wants a dessert, they're more likely to get a bowl of fresh fruit and cheese and biscuits. And I'm way over the dinner party scene, a feature of my twenties and thirties.

The reason for the decline in interest? Cooking now bores me. It takes me away from more interesting things I want to explore. Still, my husband doesn't complain, so that's some kind of plus, I suppose.

Carols are poems - of a sort

In early Christian centuries, there weren't any, only plainchant, of which 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' is a remnant, though it's most often sung at a faster pace and the long notes are cut short.

Later, the church relaxed its grip a little and allowed adapted folksongs and specially written carols into the canon in the Cs.15-16th - and in churches; 'Personent Hodie,' 'Balulalow' and 'Tomorrow shall be my Dancing Day' show something of the differing traditions. It was around that time that the verses in carols became metred and rhymed, probably because they were easier to fit into a particular and much liked tune and harmony. Carols proper were for dancing, too, or for at least processing around houses, fields and orchards; a few were lullabys, 'The Coventry Carol' being one. Some of them had pagan origins; the Wassail carols and 'The Holly and the Ivy' are examples. 

Not all carols were for Christmas; New Year, Easter, Mayday, Harvest Festival and more Church festivals were celebrated. The Welsh carol 'Nos Falan/Deck the Halls' is a New Year, not a Christmas carol. Then there were carols based on folk legends or extension of scripture; 'As it Fell out on a Bright Summer's Day' is one of those, though it's not very well known except among folk singers.

After the Puritan purges and Cromwell's time and up to the C.19th, new ones were written, often by well-known poets and then contemporary composers. 'In the Bleak Midwinter' and ' Once in Royal David's City' indicate a move away from the 'dancing' Medieval and Tudor carols; they mostly tend to be in slower tempi and no longer have the 'folk' or jolly quality about them. In the main, that tradition extended into the Cs. 20-21st, Britten's 'Ceremony of Carols' being one of the few exceptions.

Personally, I dislike most of the Georgian/Victorian offerings, rhymed though they may be, and prefer the earlier ones. Christmas isn't about singing dirges, but about celebrating new life. Given the time of year, the dark days and the cold, who wants to be reminded of 'The Lyke-Wake Dirge?'

Too, I have a thing against choirmasters, mostly musicologists leading Cathedral choirs, who train them to sing nearly all carols far too slowly - even the originally lively carols. A case in point was this year's Carols at Kings. I know Stephen Cleobury's retiring this year and that he was bound to choose his favourites, but the pace at which he chose to conduct was funereal rather than lively, even for the newly written one or two. I've always thought he's more of a traditionalist than is usually reported, so look forward to the new choirmaster's offering with interest. I hope he may turn out to be a new Barry Rose (of Guildford Cathedral choir fame in the 60s); he knew what he was doing as far as pace goes.

For myself, rhymed, metered and up-tempi 'dancing' carols are what I'd like to see among contemporary works - and choirs.

Happy Brexmas!

When you’re queuing up for sprouts
and find your flour’s very low,
there’ll be little time for doubts
though you won’t be making dough. 

                   refrain        So have a very Happy Brexmas!

                                    We’ll all be getting thinner by the day

                                    for the Xmas pud won’t last

                                    until the vote is passed 
                                    and we’ve sent the EU on its merry way.

As you dine on roasted rat

if you’ve money for the meter

and the roof’s not fallen flat,

you’ll decide that life’s got sweeter.

                   refrain     So have a very Happy Brexmas! etc.

While the NHS will wither

and your schooling shrivel more,

stand your ground. Don’t dither

as you shiver with the poor.

                    refrain     So have a very Happy Brexmas! etc.

When finances flee abroad

while our industries decline

you’ll not see government as flawed

though you’ve reached the bottom line.

                   refrain     So have a very Happy Brexmas! etc.

You’ve been toughened by the Tories,

waving the flag as your prize.

The flag was part of their stories,

now proven full of lies.

                   refrain        So have a very Happy Brexmas

                                    while most of us get thinner by the day.

                                    The rest of us won’t last

                                    until the vote is past,

                                    but we’ll send the EU on its merry way.

Below Every Board

Down to foundations:

floors’  rot dry

years after settling

crumbles into morning.

Hacking our way,

there are voids under joists.

Mortar shifts between bricks.

We review footings,  clumps

strong to tamped earth

by bundled paper,

mourning print clear

through dust,

two unstrung puppets.

Pomegranate

I buy one every year,

a ritual since childhood.

This time I left it

until it browned and cracked,

skin thin, hard,

all moisture out.

Last night I split it.

The seeds lay dark and packed,

flesh gone,

under a slow irregular cramp.

It might be what you said it was,

Persephone’s child up in the light

some way down the future,

but not for me.

For three years now the

heat that drew red from the seed

has continued to fade;

I pulse colder when each moon shows.

At the end

it will be the decay of fruit,

the rot of my own lie

that stops the tide in my blood.