veggie legends

i’m curious about the histories and legends behind vegetables and fruits--especially specific heirlooms, i love looking up their backgrounds and finding out from where their colorful names originate. so i was pretty excited to find this book, “vegetables in the garden and their legends,” by vernon quinn. it's a good mix of legends and quotes from old herbalists and botanists like pliny the elder and john gerard. the book is from 1942, both out-of-date and remarkably dated...the author even makes disturbing comments about “negroes.”

if you’re interested in such a book but don’t want to look past the author’s bullshit, check out william woys weaver, he’s a much more contemporary, non-racist sort of food/plant expert/historian, and he’s very prolific. weaver goes into detail about a lot of cool heirlooms, however i thought some of the legends in quinn’s book were more interesting than weaver’s.

here are a few excerpts (along with scans of the book's illustrations), starting with my favorite one about lettuce:

Even the ancients knew that the best time to gather lettuce is in the early morning, while the leaves are cool from the night air and crisp and fresh with its moisture.

When superstition was so prevalent in the Middle Ages, this early gathering of lettuce acquired an explanation which to this day is believed by the peasants of central Europe. Witches frolic in the lettuce fields the whole night through, they say, and in daytime the plants are in the keeping of a myriad little devils. Only between dawn when the witches depart and sunrise when the devils come can the leaves be gathered with safety. (209)

In Old Japan, in the long, long ago, a prince was walking in his garden. As he stooped to pick a luscious-looking cucumber, he heard a tinkling voice, and there sat a tiny man on one of the green leaves.

“I am the Genie of the Cucumber,” said the little creature, “and I have come to make a bargain with you. Promise never again to eat a cucumber, neither you nor your family; never to break one from the vine; and I will take you and all your descendants under my protection.”

The prince readily agreed; and from that day the cucumber has appeared on the crest of his family, and the vines have been grown for their beauty alone—and as a gesture, perhaps, actuated by a lingering belief in the Genie of the Cucumber. (111)

The odd-looking currant-tomato from Peru is a different species, burdened with the lengthy name Lycopersicum piminellifolium. But it is not grown as a vegetable. While its wee red tomatoes, currant-size and very round, are edible, they are too small to interest the housewife except as an ornament in the flower garden. Yet what a colorful and unique addition they would make to a salad! (88)

(i didn’t realize how tiny currant tomatoes are when i started seeds for white currant. the fruits are downright microscopic, each about the size of a pea. i’ve never laid eyes on a tomato that small and i can’t wait to see them...i’ve also never seen white tomatoes. they’re not going to look like tomatoes at all. i will eat them, though, regardless of how “the housewife” might feel about it.)

In northern Europe peas were grown at least as far back as the Bronze Age, and there was a medieval legend that they came direct from the Thundergod Thor--not as a gift but in punishment.

At some remote time, when Thor was angry with men, he sent dragons flying through the air carrying peas in their talons to fill up all the wells. As the peas rotted, the water would be so fouled with their sulphurous odor that neither man nor beast would drink it. But some of the peas which the dragons dropped fell on land; and men had a new vegetable. To appease Thor’s wrath they dedicated it to him, and as a further gesture they ate peas only on his day, Thursday.

Thereafter when the Thundergod was annoyed he merely sent dwarfs to the pea-fields to strip the vines of their pods. (71)

Parsley was grown by the ancients, but not always for food. It was the accepted strewing herb for the tombs of the dead. And as a symbol of death, it was used to crown victors in the Nemean Games--one of the four national festivals of the ancient Greeks. (224)

So implicitly was parsley looked upon as the death-herb that, according to an ancient tradition, an entire Greek army was once thrown into panic and put to rout when the enemy sent into their midst a donkey completely covered with this herb. (225)

Parsley seeds are very slow to germinate, often requiring three to four weeks. The reason for their slowness, it is said in Devonshire, is because this herb belongs to the devil, and when the seeds are placed in the ground they must go seven times to him and back, before he will permit them to sprout. (227)

god save the tomatoes

it snowed last saturday. SNOWED. on may 22. not just wimpy, couple snowflakes in a rainstorm, nothing sticking kind of snow...snow snow.

it had been pouring rain all day, and at first the snowflakes were nothing to worry about. the temperature stayed above freezing, the ground was wet, so everything was just melting on contact. i stopped paying attention for an hour or so, then i looked outside again and it was white. probably half an inch on the ground in some places. panic-stricken i flew out the back door with towels and newspapers to cover things up, slipping around in my sandals, fumbling with numb fingers to gently remove snow from leaves, seriously pissed off.

i lost three cucumber plants (and one other isn’t looking so good) and a handful of pole beans which chose that fateful day to stick their heads out of the ground. i’m not upset about the cucumbers because i have extras waiting to be planted, and the beans are not a big deal because i didn’t like where i put them in the first place.

most importantly, the tomatoes came out of it just fine. losses wouldn’t have broken my heart because i have another three dozen waiting in the wings, but if the basket tomato died i would never get to solve the mystery, and it would eat at me.

the last time we had snow this late was just two years ago, spring 2008. snow fell on june 10! that was the weirdest, coldest spring ever. i had just started work at a new place, this little old house-converted-to-offices in hyde park, and i can’t remember if there was actually no heat or if we just didn’t turn it on, but it was freezing. plus i was sitting behind this monster of a metal desk, a striking commission piece from a local metal artist that i didn’t fully appreciate for the first month or so because it was ice cold:

coolest desk ever, literally. at my current temp job i use two neat old wooden desks, plus a fold-out card table because i keep doing things that require a multitude of paper piles and i like to spread out. here’s the place where i’m working for the rest of the week:

it’s a log cabin built in 1939 by the civilian conservation corps in honor of idaho’s 50 years of statehood. it’s located downtown next to the library and the ann frank human rights memorial, on the greenbelt with a view of the river. the literary center is a nonprofit that does all kinds of stuff to promote reading, writing and discourse in idaho--they bring in big-name writers for “readings and conversations,” facilitate writing workshop camps for kids during the summer, etc.

working there has been really fun. after that first day when i hardly did anything the workload increased by a ton, i’ve been constantly busy since then, but busy in a very manageable and enjoyable way. this is the first job i’ve had where i feel like i caught on super fast--normally it takes a few weeks to really know what i’m doing/how to do it, and to get that sense of fitting in and becoming part of the operation, but this time it took me just a few days.

i receive embarrassing amounts of enthusiastic praise on a daily basis, not just from my mom...mostly from her coworker j, who’s basically been my supervisor. she’s the sweetest woman. we have extremely similar organization styles, which makes our collaborative work go very smoothly--everything she asks me to do makes total sense to me. also we’re both perfectionists with pathological attention to detail. yesterday we hovered over my computer for about ten minutes staring at an excel spreadsheet because a single row of data was out of place and we couldn’t get it to sort properly.

she’s already fretting about losing me. it will be weird leaving so soon after starting. i think i’m going to volunteer there a bit this summer, maybe as a teacher’s aide for the writing camps. and i want to do more photography for them. my mom asked me to make up a newsletter and she showed me the folder where they keep all their photos, and none of them are usable by my standards.

another great thing about working there is meeting all the awesome people who walk in or call. a lot of the cabin’s patrons are high-profile community members who are obviously interested in the arts, so it’s good for social networking, although i’m not into that. i don’t like the idea of knowing people just so you can say you know them, you know? "in every case as an end, never as a means only," goddamnit.

but i do like meeting interesting folks. the other day i got to meet two of the artists who have pieces in the museum exhibit i’m doing a story about. luckily i remembered their pieces in detail and was able to ask a few questions and give a few compliments, then i took their contact information for an interview. they were so completely thrilled, it was great.

i had the pleasure of speaking with the cutest old man over the phone. he explained that he’s 97 years of age and his third book has just been published--he asked me to check and see if we had it, then he expressed interest in participating in a reading. he said some of it was rather “risqué” and that i’d better watch out for old men like him. we talked for a long time...i think he mostly just wanted someone to listen to him, and i was happy to. i’m totally curious what his book is like.

one more anecdote, because i don’t want to forget this: last week i answered the phone then left my desk to look up paperwork for the guy i put on hold. the second phone line rang, j answered and it was my dad. she accidentally told my mom to pick up line one instead of two.

mom: “hi honey, i was just about to call you!”
random guy: “you were?”

the guy’s reaction was just too fabulous. the three of us laughed our asses off.

heliotropism

gardening this year has made me much more attentive to the sun. i never studied it before, except to notice its intensity/color cast/angle/etc at a given time on a given day...i never watched the way sunlight rolls across the yard, shadows extend and contract, the angle evolves over time, all those patterns and particulars that take more than a few moments to observe. i’ve been aware of the best types of light and the best hours of the day to take pictures, but this new heightened photo-sensitivity will help my photography in a more detailed way, i think.

this weekend i planted my first seven tomato plants: two white currants, two paul robesons and three mysteries. one of the mysteries is what i’ve been calling “basket tomato,” because it sprouted out of a basket of lettuce i grew in march. at the time i hadn’t even opened any of my tomato seed packets, so i don’t think it will be one of the varieties i bought. no clue what it could be but i’m loving the suspense. it’s the biggest plant since it’s been growing the longest, and there are two sets of buds at the top already. most of the other large tomato plants have one set of buds at the top...flowers should pop any day now.

i also planted four cucumber plants, some dill and basil, and four big patches of bush beans: blue lake, yellow wax, royal burgundy, and i even found room for some garbanzos. up are the potatoes, corn, wheat, romanesco broccoli, a second row of carrots, some sunflowers, some beans/peas and cosmos. sugar snap and snow peas are flowering--they’re getting tall so i rigged up a new support system:

eventually they’ll grow above the short lattice fence and i’ll extend strings from the top of the fence to the bottom of the lattice that borders the patio ceiling, so they can just grow like crazy.

i started working for my mom today...a two-week temp position as office assistant, to fill the gap while the new assistant is moving here from another state. she made it sound like the job would be fast-paced and stressful but it’s not, at least so far. all i did today was process a bunch of credit cards, answer phones, greet people who walked in, and a bit of filing. it gave me lots of free time to read a chapbook of poetry written by students at a local high school for pregnant girls. jaw-dropping poetry. incredibly, consistently good, better than any high school student poetry i’ve ever read, better than any of my own poetry, better than a vast majority of the college student poetry i’ve read...and i’ve read a fucking lot. it’s awesome to see these high school kids out-writing adult english majors. we’re all so full of shit comparatively.

i received a summons for jury duty at the end of june. i don’t know what to expect--it’s treated almost universally as an annoyance at best, and i’ve heard it’s utterly boring, but i’m approaching it with the attitude that it’s a fun new experience with plenty of entertainment potential. without even perjuring i could pour out eighty gallons of crazy and get rejected straight off, but i think i’ll actually try to get picked for a jury, because what the hell, you know? maybe i’m deluded by the pauly shore movie. this is probably not going to be as cool as i’m imagining.

the red army

i released 1200 ladybugs into the garden. they’re on aphid patrol. i’m determined to crowd out the bugs whose interests conflict with mine--i won’t call them pests, or “bad bugs”...they can’t help wanting to eat, and i can’t help not wanting to kill them or use chemicals, so i’ve brought in mercenaries to do my dirty work.

i’ve hardly seen any aphids yet this year and i was afraid the ladies might be unable to find food and move on to greener pastures, but it’s been two days now and a lot of them seem to be sticking around.

there was a two-foot-long garter snake hanging out by the creek this afternoon. i was watering and it came out and looked at me for a bit, then returned to the grasses when andy came to investigate. it looked well-fed. i hope it will stick around and eat some slugs and earwigs and other plant-munchers, but stay away from the frogs, worms, spiders, and of course ladybugs...if i see it again i’ll ask it to kindly avoid eating my friends.

c'mon, munchie, let's go see the cygnets.

that’s what i said to andy as we made our way to the river yesterday. (i sometimes call andy “munchie,” or “munchers,” or “munch,” or “münchausen.”) the swans that live near eagle’s perch have six fuzzy little bundles of adorableness this year. last year i think they started with a similar number but lost quite a few to foxes and other predators, ending up with just two.

the parents are highly protective and not to be fucked with. while i was taking photos a few people walked by, and i warned them, and they all got attacked. one particularly amusing episode, with a jogger approaching from the side opposite me, went like this:

she: oh, look at them!
me: caaareful...
she: will they bite?
me: yes they w--
she: AAHHH! (*swan attack sounds*)

another woman came by with her dog, going the same direction. on the first pass she made it through the sphinx gate without being shot to hell by laser swans. then she turned around, pulled out a camera and pushed her luck. the swan went absolutely batshit on both the woman and the poor dog. she dropped the leash and ran for her life, leaving the piteous pup to get wing-flagellated and beak-nommed by a bird of unusual size. fortunately the dog didn’t try to defend itself, it just cowered and slunk away.

it’s kind of a hazardous situation having the swans on the path there. they’re not dangerous, i mean i doubt they could actually hurt anyone beyond delivering a good scare, but they’re constantly on edge having to protect themselves and their babies from dogs and passersby, and passersby have few options for continuing on their way. the path is narrow and there’s water on either side, so you get to choose between turning around, risking attack, or taking a swim. i don’t think many people understand that these birds budge for no one--you can get a duck or a goose to hurry their offspring out of your way, but swans hold their ground until they’re goddamnit ready to move.

i ran past a couple times and it was an adrenaline rush (this was when i came back later in the evening, on my own, without munchie). my strategy was to get a little too close so that the guardian swan would try to muscle me away, but not close enough that it would start flapping its wings and biting. i’d draw it over to the side of the path--amazing how these creatures stomp those huge webbed feet when they’re trying to scare you, it’s an intimidating sound--then dart to the other side of the path and sprint past. i’m sure it looked silly but it worked.