From The Winter Solstice to Dipping Sauces

via The Magic of Trees, Dumplings, Lucrezia Borgia's Belly Button, Fertility & Fortune-Telling

Dec 21, 2023

Dearest Gentle Reader,

I promised to write again before Christmas and as today (or more accurately 3.27am tomorrow morning), is the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere if you celebrate the longest night rather than the shortest day, this date seemed auspicious. Do you celebrate the Solstice at all, or just feel relief that the nights will be growing shorter and the days longer? I have a close family member and a friend who suffers really badly with seasonal affective disorder and both long for Spring.

I’m the opposite and love the long nights and only start to consider Spring as a good thing when I grow tired of the end of winter vegetables. I do celebrate the solstice though, I love the long warm outdoor evening of its opposite number in June and I believe you must celebrate both to achieve some balance. I also adore the idea that the Winter Solstice is the start of the waking up of the earth, leading to all that new growth bursting through just when we feel that the cold will never leave.

Did you know that trees make a massive head start on that new Spring growth before the old leaves fall in Autumn? They use the warmth and energy of summer to grow small buds which then lay dormant through the cold Winter months before growing bigger, triggered by the warmth of Spring and hormones then start the process of growing new leaves. I did not know this, even though I understand the principle of photosynthesis due to having it drilled into me long ago at school. I can probably still draw a diagram. Isn’t that magical? The trees and buds I mean, obviously not my ability to draw a diagram.

Bare dripping tree branch with buds on display — Photo by Nikola Jovanovic on Unsplash

When I celebrate, I mean in a very small way, mostly through a walk in the closest thing to nature that there is in the city, honouring those trees that keep the earth, a living, breathing planet that supports us. I also visit my tree. I met my tree during Covid lockdowns, it became the focus of a slightly inexpert photo project to record how long it took to lose it’s leaves from the first tiny brown leaf in August to the gorgeous bones of the tree left standing in November. I say my tree, it is considerably older than me, a London Plane Tree that stands as tall as a four storey building and is at least 150 years old but probably more like 175. It has a Tree Protection Order but I’ve been keeping a wary eye on the builders on the site very close to it just in case.

The second is, as I’m sure it isn’t hard to guess, is through food. If you have read other recent letters, you will know I enjoy the lack of traditional dishes attached to this date so I can go along with how I feel. Last year I made what I can only describe as feast with three courses. I put all I had learnt to date about the symbolism and folkloric values ascribed to different foods to create a meal that was, most importantly very delicious, but also brought with it the possibility of many lovely things for the year ahead.

If you want to do something similar, but have realised that considering the date you have very little time; my suggested shortcuts would be round foods (to encourage the sun back to the earth), orange, red and yellow foods for the same reason but to additionally bring warmth to your festivities, stuffed foods for abundance and fertility, warm sweet spices, particularly cinnamon for blessings on the home and finally if you eat it, butter to smooth relationships. Its all very flexible and essentially you can make that fit to a dinner of store cupboard stuffed pasta with a butter and tomato pasta sauce or even just some buttery cinnamon toast followed by a tangerine.

This year we are having a celebration of dumplings of three lands - pumpkin & pine nut stuffed girasoli, pierogi with potato & cheese filling and vegetable gyoza all with their own dipping sauce. I sincerely love dumplings of all kinds, one of my varied imaginative ways of earning a living is an all dumpling restaurant. You would be amazed at the variation that is achievable. The more astute of you will note that I have included stuffed pasta in my definition of dumplings and may be doubtful but take it from me, I did weeks of research around this topic and learned from people who have researched for years and they definitely count. There are lots of historical reasons and Marco Polo is not one them, let’s just leave it at that.

I will now attempt to distract any of you who have not been won over by my dictatorial argument with some dumpling based folklore:

Did you know that there are at least two origin stories to explain the shape of tortellini? One suggests that a an attempted peeping tom of an innkeeper in looked in on Lucrezia Borgia (the alleged femme fatale, illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI amongst many other things) through a keyhole when she was getting changed but all he could see was her belly button. He was so inspired by her gorgeous belly button that he invented tortellini in her honour. That must have been some belly button. The second story is supposedly more ancient, involves Venus and Jupiter and another voyeur innkeeper but as it contradicts the current theory of the history of filled pasta I’ll let you track it down yourself.

Portrait of Lucretia Borgia by Bernardino di Betto Pinturicchio, in oils of her with long loose blonde hair and richly dressed — Portrait of Lucretia Borgia by Bernardino di Betto Pinturicchio

Ukrainian varyenyky are known for their flavour but are apparently connected to fertility, as I read the in The Magic of Dumplings: Bringing Pierogi into the (New) World – Naomi Guttman and Franklin Sciacca, part of Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2012 – Wrapped & Stuffed Foods:

‘The magical function ascribed to varenyky is further evident from ritual behaviour observed in the Podillia region: ‘The head of the household would clasp a loaf of bread under his arm, sprinkle the courtyard and cattle with water blessed during the Feast of the Baptism of Christ, and then inscribe a small cross on all the doors with chalk, while the children followed him carrying a bowl filled with pear varenyky – “to insure that the cattle would be as full as these varenyky”.’ The plump dumplings function as sympathetic magic, imitating the hoped for pregnancy of domestic animals and women of the household. The pregnant or full-hipped shape of pears would seem to explain the specific use of this filling in this context.’

I learned also learned the following from ‘Siberian Stuffed:A Profusion of Pel’meni ‘ by Sharon Hudgins from the proceedings of the same symposium:

“In the region of Perm, young maidens would get together to make pel’meni with a variety of different fillings, which were all then cooked together in the same pot. Each pel’men’ filling carried its own prediction about the future: a pel’men’ filled with flour foretold marriage to a rich husband; a meat filling meant an easy life, whereas a black pepper filling meant a hard one; and a pel’men’ stuffed with wool predicted as happy life sometime much later in the future.
Pel’meni dreams have their own meanings, too. Before going to sleep, Tatar girls in the Perm region would eat pel’meni filled with salt; whoever appeared in their dreams to drink water would become that girl’s fiancé. If someone dreams that he is sitting at a table set with a large portion of pel’meni, then he’ll soon meet old friends. If a person dreams of making pel’meni himself, it means that he is alone in life or lacking the comfort of a family. When a young woman dreams that she has made bad dumplings that stick together or fall apart, it means that her boyfriend has picky eating habits and will criticize her cooking.”

There is significantly more information available from the further reading of my dumpling episode plus a varenyky recipe which might be a perfect family project over Christmas, a good excuse to escape your relatives by hiding in the kitchen for hours, or a lovely reason to settle in on your own with a brand new audiobook. This is obviously dependent upon the current state of your family relationships. I will add now that my dumplings have variously been sourced from the frozen section at Waitrose, the Polish deli and the Aldi specially selected range.

I feel absolutely no guilt about this and only provide the information in the interests of transparency. I have bought darling little dishes for their very own dipping sauces which I will make myself whilst giving thanks to any divinities that might be listening, that I was nicely brought up to have a very good stock of condiments at all times and then enjoy.

Before I forget here are the Festive Food Folklore posts to date in case you don’t hang out there and have missed them:

Festive Food Folklore - Day 9 During Jul in Norway and Sweden, a tradition is to eat a rice porridge known as risgrøt (risgrynsgröt in Swedish); a single almond is hidden in the porridge. Whoever finds the almond receives a marzipan pig as a prize. The marzipan pig symbolizes good luck and fortune for the upcoming year. The pigs sometimes have four-leaf clovers, coins or other symbols of good luck in their mouths. Festive Food Folklore - Day 10 Have you seen a pickle ornament hanging on a Christmas tree? It has amazing circular folklore, originally believed by Americans to be a German tradition to hang the pickle as the last ornament & hidden in the branches. The first child to spot it would have good luck. Apparently few German’s have ever heard this and these are now sold in Germany with the suggestion that this is an American tradition! Festive Food Folklore - Day 11 In some European Christmas traditions the spirits of ancestors are remembered during the Christmas Eve meal, vacant places are set, a candle/light is kept burning all night, and the leftover food remains on the table overnight for visiting spirits. In the 8thC St Bede also wrote that the early Medieval English left food on tables overnight during the Christmas season so that visiting spirits could partake of the feast. Festive Food Folklore - Day 12 Lutzelfrau, a German folkloric figure who could appear at your door and check your household for cleanliness on 13 December. If your house met inspection and the children appeared to be well behaved she would not abduct any children but instead before she went, gave her skirts a shake, letting fall sweets, fruits, and nuts interspersed with turnips and potatoes which may or may not contain coins inside. Festive Food Folklore - Day 13 This is the day to make or indulge in saffron buns for St Lucia Day as enjoyed in several Scandinavian countries. These buns - (Lussekatter) are supposed to resemble cats tails wrapped around each other. St Lucia is celebrated as a symbol of light in the dark of the year, with processions of girls in white dresses, the leader with a candle headdress. Festive Food Folklore - Day 14 At the winter solstice, the Yule bannock was made between noon and six o’clock before being baked over the Cailleach Nollaig (the Scottish Yule log). Its edges were indented to depict the rays of the sun, and each person in the house was expected to turn the bannock sunwise as it cooked to ensure that bad luck would not befall the family. It was also common for divination charms to be dropped into the batter. Festive Food Folklore - Day 15 The kallikantzaros were either a type of vampire or werewolf. These creatures were red-eyed, covered in black hair, with an overlong tongue & club-feet and were said to sneak down the chimney to devour festive foods between 25 December & 6 January. Solutions ranged from hanging pork based snacks & sweets in the chimney to stop them coming further into the home, to throwing a honey-soaked doughnut onto the roof to distract them. The most effective was to throw salt onto the fire to discourage them. — Festive Food Folklore Days 9-15

Festive Food Folklore - Day 16 Christmas Eve is another one of those big marriage divination dates. If interested you can make a dough-cake in silence, place it on the hearth, & prick your initials on the surface. At midnight, your future spouse will enter the room, go to the hearth, and prick their initials beside yours. You can also conjure the image of your future spouse by picking twelve sage leaves in the garden at midnight of Christmas Eve. Presumably also useful for the stuffing later in the day. Cream text against a background of baubles and lights on Christmas tree branches Festive Food Folklore - Day 17 It was believed that the weather for the 21st December to 21st March, could be foretold from the breast-bone of a Christmas goose. The more discolouration present when the bone has been revealed after cooking indicates an in increase in storms & bad weather in those months. Cream text against a background of lights on Christmas tree branches Festive Food Folklore - Day 18 Some believe that celebrating with a boar’s head is a holdover from a pagan tradition to honour Freyr, a Norse god of the harvest and fertility who was associated with boars. The Victorians used to make them out of cake which wasn’t quite the same. The long and complicated recipe can be found in Charles Elmé Francatelli's The Royal English and Foreign Confectionery Book. (London: 1862), together with a fabulous picture of the finished result Cream text against a background of baubles and lights on Christmas tree branches Festive Food Folklore - Day 19 In previous times in the Tyrol, on St. Thomas's Day, an elaborate pie was baked & marked with the sign of the cross & sprinkled with holy water before it was baked. It was not eaten until St. Stephen's Day, when it was cut by the head of the household with considerable ceremony. Each maidservant was also given a pie, to take home to her family. If a lover offered to carry her pie, that was considered a marriage proposal. Cream text against a background of lights on Christmas tree branches Festive Food Folklore - Day 20 On St Thomas’s Eve in Austria, unmarried ladies would slice an apple in two to foresee their wedding. If there was an even number of pips, she would marry soon, an odd number meant a wait, if she’d cut through one of the pips she would have a more troubled life and end up a widow. Cream text against a background of baubles and lights on Christmas tree branches 21 December Festive Food Folklore - Day 21 The Winter Solstice used to share the day with St Thomas. He was known as Thomas the Brewer in Northern Europe as no beer could be brewed after this date until Epiphany. Norse myth also tells us that Odin taught humans how to brew beer, so at Yule in what is now Scandinavia, festive beers were drunk & Odin was toasted. In Germany, some sources also mention the “Rittburgische Hochzeit” - an opulent meal served in the belief that if you ate well on this day you would eat well all year. Cream text against a background of lights on Christmas tree branches — Festive Food Folklore - Days 16-21

I must leave you now to sort through cupboards for the black rice vinegar that I know is in there somewhere! but I’ll be back briefly on Christmas Eve with the remaining Festive Food Folklore and a written version of a lovely festive tale from Norway.

Please feel free to share your Solstice stories or thoughts in the comments or via any of my social media profiles/my website . If you have enjoyed this and would like to read further such nonsense and have not yet subscribed, please don’t hesitate to subscribe for free at the button below. You’d be very welcome and it would be a joy to write to you.

Folklore, Food and Fairytales

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