Winter Solstice cooking

I don't call them Solstice recipes, but I make things at Christmas and Hogmanay using really old recipes  -  mulled wine or mulled cider (using alcoholic cider) which I serve to local carol singers who come round the doors in the next couple of weeks.  I give them hot mulled wine or cider and the children in the choirs get spiced apple juice - I also make mince-pies to go  with the drinks. 

I make my own Christmas puds and christmas cakes, Black bun and one or two bouche de noel for those who don't like fruity recipes!

How about Swedish santa lucia rolls?  they date back, at least in shape, to fertility and sun symbols of the vikings i think.  They're very nice, too, sweetish roles (sweetish swedish rolls) with raisins, saffron to make them yellow, and brushed with egg yolk.  I can dig up my recipe if you want. 

Check out this book, KK: http://www.llewellyn.com/product.php?ean=9781567180442 for ideas.

And keep in mind that, while much of Christmas did grow out of the Pagan Winter Solstice celebration (primarily Celtic and German-pagan), WS is not Christmas. The foods and purpose are rather different.

Virtually every society that worshipped earth gods rather than sky gods, or which gave the earth gods dominance, celebrated the Winter Solstice. So there's all sorts of culinary room for such a celebration. This would, btw, have include pre-Christian Krete until Theaseus (sp?) changed many of the rituals. So, with a little research, you could combine the solstice celebration with a taste of home.

A Danish friend of mine whom I met when he came over on exchange 4 years ago or so taught me how to make risalamande (Danish Rice Pudding), it's awfully simple and totally delightful! I can post a recipe of it if anyone is interested! In my family a few classics too are apfelstrudel, some bastardization of a German nut-cake that my non-German mum came up with while trying to decipher my paternal grandmother's cookbooks and fruit cake soaked in rum which never fails to set off all the carbon monoxide alarms while baking (we don't quite know why).

Btw that is an interesting spelling of buche de Noel, as bouche is 'mouth/maw/opening of some sort' in French. I was wondering have you always spelled it like that where you are? I'd be interested in seeing what happened historically to alter the traditional spelling. (We are talking about Yule Logs right?)

I'll PM you my mulled wine recipe in the next day or so,KK.

Ishbel, I thought wassail was different from mulled wine.  I have a recipe, i think it's in joy of cooking, that calls for beer and wine, spices, sugar, baked apples and if i'm not mistaken egg (i remember making it once and it was cloudy, but not sure it's egg - i'd imagine the egg would curdle in the hot liquid).  I do think the beer and the baked apples are traditional.  I wouldn't use joy of cooking as the last word in british traditions, but i'm assuming it came from somewhere. 

Basically i think from what i understand, the solstice is the time for urging the sun to come back, and the lucia rolls are yellow and have shapes some of which seem like suns.  (others are more like fertility symbols).  Yule is full of fire and sun symbols and things coming back to life - yay, the sun didn;t go away, and yet again the days have become longer, thank the gods.  Let's celebrate.  Yule log burning for 12 days, candles, trees that burst into bloom with colored things on them. 

By the way, do they still put a tree on top of a house or building in construction in the states (or elsewhere?)  I read that that was a holdover from a pagan usage whereby the builders of a house, traditionally made of wood, is making some homage to the tree and asking for protection for the people building it.  I remember seeing a christmas tree on the top of skyscrapers that were being built, back when i still lived in the states.  I love these kinds of remnants of history. 

Siduri

The mulled wine is an echo of the Wassailling that was common all over the British isles in history!  I remember attending a wassail in an apple orchard near Leominster when I lived in the West Country....   it was a freezing cold night and we all carried flaming torches into the orchards where the trees were 'fed' with toasted bread and some of the wassail cup in order to ensure plentiful supplies of apples for the next year's cider harvest.

I did a search and found this:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/jan/21/wassailing-cider-apple-orchard

According to the American Heritage Illustrated History of Eating and Drinking Through The Ages, "wassail" simply meant "be well," when Anglo-Saxons drank to each other's health. Later it became associated with the Christmas season, and cam to connote caroling and revelry. Here's their recipe. Although it makes a lot, keep in mind wassail is drunk on all 12 days of Christmas:

Wassail Bowl

18 crab apples, cored

2 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 quarts ale

1 bottle sweet sherry

5 slices fresh ginger root or 1 teaspoon powdered ginger

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp powdered cloves

6 eggs, separated

1 cup cognac, heated

10 slices butterd toast, cut in quarters

Sprinkle apples with one half cup brown sugar; bake in a preheated 400F oven for about 30 minutes. Heat ale, sherry, and spices in a large saucpan. Beat egg yolks until thick. Beat egg whites until very stiff and fold thououghly into the yolks. Pour the ale mixture into the eggs in a thin stream, beating hard. Put the hot apples in a heated bowl, add ale-egg mixture and cognac. Serve3 immediately in mugs. Pass toast to dip or float in mugs. Makes 18 drinks.

Ulla Pool ( Scottish Highlands ) Fresh Salmon could be considered as well as the Smoked variety.   

*** See www.ullapool.com.uk

Another source of recipes, could be New England, especially Salem, Massachusetts.  

Margcata.

while not traditional solstice food or even food, i think that good drinks play such a very special role in a party.....

we are a boozy lot that like our cocktails and i think that cocktails  have once again become a sign of the good life....so i'm thinking retro classics....

~ manhattans, (stirred please) since you live in the big apple

~ negronis....great  festive color

~ moscow mule, cuz i like vodka...

whatever you serve, make sure it's great!!!!

have a great party...what you got so far?

joey

I would think Mead and Metheglin more appropiate to the Solstice, Joey.

Ok, KY, what is metheglin?  Mead is a fermented honey drink but i never heard of the other. 

There were several fermented honey drinks, Siduri. Mead is only the best known of them. Near as I can tell there are only subtle differences between these two, having to do with how much lemon and ginger are added to the honey/water mix. Sometimes metheglin was flavored with herbs and spices as well.

For instance, compare these two:

To Make Metheglin

Take a quart of honey and 6 quarts of water, let it boyle ye third part away, and boyle with it 3 races of ginger. when it is cold, put it in a pot which hath a spicket, & put yeast into it & let it stand 3 days, then bottle it up and put into ye bottles a little leamon & a stick of cinnamon & a few raysons of ye sun. Let it be a fortnight before you drink it.

That's from the so-called Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, actually a Custis-Lee family heirloom dating from about 1645.

On the other hand, from the 1796 edition of Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy:

How To Make Mead

Take ten gallons of water, and two gallons of honey, a handful of raced ginger; then take two lemons, cut them in pieces, and put them in it, boil it veyr well, keep it skimming; let it stand all night in the same vessel ou boil it in, the next morning barrel it up, with two or three spoonfuls of good yeast. About three weeks or a month after, you may bottle it.

Yet another version, called Cider Royal, combines cider with honey and water.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYHeirloomer 

I would think Mead and Metheglin more appropiate to the Solstice, Joey.

yeah i know ky, i just don't like mead all that much and never heard of metheglin.....oh, not appropriate behavior huh? well, as you know i'm not one to color inside the lines..but cheers with whatever we bend elbows with!

joey

A squat, heavy glass with two inches of Woodford Reserve will do me just fine, m'darlin'.

That other stuff: mead, and Manhattens, and Moscow Mules (whatever they may be). That's for folk who need an excuse to tip a toddy---which never described thee and me.

just a guess that 'woodford reserve' would be a kentucky gentlemen's bourbon, right? of course!    fyi... a 'moscow mule' is very chilled good vodka, a healthy squeeze of fresh lime juice and ginger beer...all over ice... ginger beer is  kinda solsticey doncha think?

joey

Woodford Reserve is a very good bourbon with a sweet finish reminiscent of brown sugar.  Some people say it's too sweet, but I like it.  Woodford is my "usual" bourbon, and one of my favorite whiskeys.   

BDL

It's also, just for general info, distilled in what is physically the oldest distillery in Kentucky (and an absolutely beautiful location). One of the things marking it as special is that its made in open pot stills, the way they make single-malt Scotch  whiskey.

ginger beer is  kinda solsticey doncha think?

Sure; why not?

hey bdl, ky

by jove i've got it! how about a hanukkah winter solstice party? it must be more than coincidence that they both occur at the same time. somewhere(over the rainbow, down the line, back of the line, in the brine, over the rhine), some elder or some forum or some village decided when the hanukkah celebration was to be, right?...so i think it's fitting...soooo, break out the good stuff, and pour the wine. set the table with latkes and smoked salmon and caviar and applesauce and roasted lamb and chicken and brisket and pickles and pickled beets and sweet red cabbage and pretzels and chicken liver pate and desserts and cookies and those little chocolate coins! and then there's the music!........oh, what fun!!

joey

kk, 

sorry about the small hijack...i was just having some fun...your menu and party sounds wonderful...good eggnog is a beautiful thing! maybe an assortment of little cookies for dessert if you're thinking about having 'a little something else'.......almond crescents, pignoli, butter, rugelach...you've got such great bakeries there......

No.  It's a commemoration of an an historical event, given some religio/mythic/miraculous overtones.  Hanukkah has been something of a sore point in Jewish dogma because, in addition to celebrating a brief independence from the Antiochene Greek empire, it was the last gasp of "priestly" as opposite do rabbinic Judaism.  Indeed, the Book of Maccabee which "describes" the events isn't "doctrine," but "apocrypha." 

The story of how it got to be the Winter Solistice / gift-giving holiday of modern, western Jews is complicated -- a mix of "in spite of instead of because" and keeping up with the non-Jewish Joneses who populated the countries of diaspora.   

The idea is that when the Greeks were driven out of Jerusalem and the Temple liberated, there wasn't enough oil to keep the "eternal flame" burning; but miraculously the oil lasted eight days.  So, little one, today we celebrate by lighting candles, adding one for each of the eight nights.

That's not important for the purposes of party.  Latkes with sour cream and caviar.  Brisket.  Candles.  Sparkling apple juice for the kids.  Pretty ladies dressed festively.  That is all ye know and all ye need to know. 

BDL 

Very amusing banter, guys, but "all ye need to know" indeed!

There's poor koukouvagia who doesn't know how to make an eggnog and here we are talking about lamps and oil and pretty ladies. 

Here is a wonderful egg nog recipe, nice and thick and very pleasant indeed.  I got it very long ago from something called the Women's Day Encyclopedia of Home Cooking which my mother got volume by volume at the supermarket. It was quite useful actually.  Not all the recipes were wonderful, but it was full of information and was something like 12 volumes, in alphabetical order, and a huge index. 

This is one of the good ones:

3 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

3 cups milk

1 cup heavy cream

tsp vanilla

3 egg whites

1/4 cup sugar

Heat the milk and cream. 

Separately, beat egg yolks gradually adding the 1/2 cup sugar and salt in a large saucepan

gradually add the milk and cream and cook in a double boiler or VERY carefully on direct heat on low.  DON'T BOIL or it will curdle. 

add vanilla and chill

Beat egg whites till stiff, gradually add 1/4 cup sugar, beating till stiff. Fold into cold custard.  Makes 2 quarts. You can, of course, add anything in the way of alcohol you want.  a little nutmeg on top is nice. 

Back when i was 20 i was away at a friend's house with a bunch of other friends for a week of cross country skiing, and on new years eve they wanted to make eggnog.  I, showoff that I am, said "i know a really good one!" and so was designated to make it.  But i let it boil.  It curdled terribly.  I was very young and early into my cooking/baking experiences, but i knew how to beat stuff.  I figured, let me get it cold, and then beat the h**k out of it.   I put the pot out in the snow so it would cool quickly, with pounding heart..  My budding reputation as a cook was at stake here.  I might have, like the groundhog, hid myself another 20 years, for the shame of curdled eggnog.  But no!  Behold!  I beateth it into ploughshares or whatever you beat it into, with mine trusty whisk, and brought it forth, triumphantly with trumpets and cheers. 

So, moral is, if you let it curdle, all MAY not be lost, if you have a very strong arm and some snow.  I just don;t have patience for double boiler cooking.  So now i heat the milk first to boiling.   

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYHeirloomer 

There were several fermented honey drinks, Siduri. Mead is only the best known of them. Near as I can tell there are only subtle differences between these two, having to do with how much lemon and ginger are added to the honey/water mix. Sometimes metheglin was flavored with herbs and spices as well.

 

For instance, compare these two:

 

To Make Metheglin

 

Take a quart of honey and 6 quarts of water, let it boyle ye third part away, and boyle with it 3 races of ginger. when it is cold, put it in a pot which hath a spicket, & put yeast into it & let it stand 3 days, then bottle it up and put into ye bottles a little leamon & a stick of cinnamon & a few raysons of ye sun. Let it be a fortnight before you drink it.

 

That's from the so-called Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, actually a Custis-Lee family heirloom dating from about 1645.

 

On the other hand, from the 1796 edition of Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy:

 

How To Make Mead

 

Take ten gallons of water, and two gallons of honey, a handful of raced ginger; then take two lemons, cut them in pieces, and put them in it, boil it veyr well, keep it skimming; let it stand all night in the same vessel ou boil it in, the next morning barrel it up, with two or three spoonfuls of good yeast. About three weeks or a month after, you may bottle it.

 

Yet another version, called Cider Royal, combines cider with honey and water.

Egad, someone called Siduri had better know what metheglin is!  How can the innkeeper be so ignorant.  Thanks KY for preventing any embarrasment. 

However, the "ye" in your recipe ("boyle ye third part away") is a bit suspicious.  The "Ye" of "Ye Olde" was actually "The", except written with the ? i think called thorn or edth (look them up, you should find the appearance of one that looks sort of like a pointy "p" and actually looks a lot like a y in early gothic and batarde fonts.  Later, people thought it was indeed a y, and that people said "ye" instead of "the".  I doubt the thorn was still used in the 1600s in English, though i think it's used in icelandic, possible also some celtic languages.  .Though, perhaps the author was copying something from an old manuscript?  I kind of doubt it.   

I have no idea when the "ye", meaning "the", went out of style, Siduri. But it does appear that way in many 17th century cookery manuscripts---all of which were, of course, handwritten.

When I present recipes of that nature, the only cleaning up I do (unless in an adapted form) is to print the long eff as an ess. So, you get what they wrote; spelling, grammer, punctuation, the whole nine yards.

It is, indeed possible, that whichever of Martha Washington's great aunts actually wrote the manuscript did copy all or part of it from an earlier work. That's how these things were done.

Every literate women kept one of these hand-written cookbooks. Actually they were two books in one. From one side, working towards the middle, was A Book of Cookery. From the obverse would be A Book of Sweetmeats. These were not hodgepodge collections. The recipes (receipts, in those days) were arranged by category, and the whole thing indexed.

Through the years m'lady would, naturally, add new recipes. When her daughter became a teen she would take mama's manuscript, put the new additions into their proper catergories, re-index everything, and copy it into a new book, which became her Book of Cookery when she started her own household.

So, did Martha's great aunt however do that? We do not know. What we do know is that the manuscript was produced ca 1645, that Martha inherited it a hundred years later, and that it's doubtful Martha ever used it as anything but an heirloom. There is some evidence that the latest it had been used as a cookbook was ca 1700.

Another possibility: Although the "ye" may have gone out of style by the mid-1600s, did great aunt whoever's tutor know that 15 or 20 years earlier? I would have to assume that if that's the style she learned as a child she would continue using it, despite what commercial printers may have been doing in the meantime.