Common Ground

J A N U A R Y

This page will change from month to month - perhaps you can help us with information on seasonal fruit and vegetables, seasonal dishes, observations of customs and the natural world. Contact us - e-mail info [at] commonground.org.uk.

The Two Faces of January

January takes its name from the Roman god Janus, who was god of gates and doors, and kept the gates of Heaven. Ianua is the Latin for door. Janus is always represented as having two faces back-to-back, as a door can both let you in and out. This double-nature meant he also became associated with beginnings and endings, looking backwards and forwards, hence his attachment to a month at the end of one year and the beginning of the next.

What's happening in January?
What's in Season?

What's happening in January?

- indicates an extract from England In Particular

1st January

New Year’s Day / Hogmanay
New Year Gifts were once given to family and friends. Apples were considered lucky presents, based on a tripod of holly or rowan sticks and covered with wheat, nuts and rosemary. In some places, mistletoe is hung in the house all year long only to be replaced on New Year’s morning.

Scotland traditionally celebrates New Year with more zeal than Christmas, which was barely marked at all between the Protestant reformation in the 1600s and the mid 20th century, though the origins of the name Hogmanay remain obscure.

 

5th - 6th January

Twelfth Night
Old Christmas Day. Since the calendar change in 1752 when 12 days were ‘stolen’ to resynchronize with the celestial round, Twelfth Night has instead marked the end of Christmas festivities. Christmas decorations should be taken down and disposed of wisely. It is considered unlucky to throw them out with the rubbish, as well as being irresponsible when trees can be replanted or recycled (some nurseries actually offer a replanting service); Some stores will recycle Christmas Cards and raise money for the Woodland Trust, and wrapping paper can be re-used.

Wassailing also takes place on January 6th

Plough Monday, the Monday after Twelfth Night was the first day of labour after Christmas if there was any work in the fields. The plough was blessed. A precursory custom, possibly very ancient, prevailed in the east of England Plough Stots, Plough Jags or Plough Plays were enacted, much like mumming plays, for money. Look out for the recently revived Molly Dancers performing in the East Midlands and East Anglia, with their painted or blackened faces and colourful costumes. One of the traditional dancers was the Molly or Betty, a man-woman.

Read about some Norfolk Plough Monday celebrations:
www.ploughmonday.co.uk

Straw Bear Festival Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire

"On Straw Bear Tuesday, the day after Plough Monday in the Fenland villages and towns on the borders of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, and around Grimsby in Lincolnshire, a man decked from head to toe in straw was led from house to house in the evening, dancing to music. This was banned in Whittlesey in 1909, and in other places, as a form of begging.

In 1980 folklore enthusiast Brian Kell revived the custom with the help of the Whittlesey Society. Now it takes place on the Saturday before Plough Monday. The focus of the day is the parade of the straw bear, whose role is divided between two men because the straw costume is so cumbersome, weighing five stones. Visiting and dancing outside local pubs, he is accompanied by dancers, musicians, performers and a straw bear from Walldürn, near Frankfurt in Germany, which has its own festival. the following day the costume is ceremonially burnt."
From 'Straw Bear Day', p. 391

Whittlesey now holds a weekend-long festival each year, with the straw bear at its heart. Molly dancing also takes place. For further information see www.strawbear.org.uk

17th January

Old Twelfth Night - Wassailing the apple trees
"It is said that most villages had their own wassailing song. With the revival of interest in traditional orchards and the growth of community orchards, wassailing has become a part of the calendar once again.

'Wassail' comes from the Anglo-Saxon waes haeil - to be healthy, so wassailing apple trees was a way of encouraging a good crop in the following season. It usually took place after dark on Old Twelfth Night, 17 January, but could also occur on other days around Christmas and the New Year.

Often farm workers and villagers carrying lanterns, a pail and pitcher full of cider, shotguns and horns, walk to their local orchard, which is sometimes lit by bonfires, and gather round the largest or most prolific tree. This tree is known as the Apple Tree Man and is feted as the guardian of the orchard. Cider or beer is poured on its roots and pieces of soaked toast or cake put in the branches for the robins - guardian spirits of the trees. Often the tips of the lowest branches are drawn down and dipped into the pail of cider.

The wassailers fill their earthenware cups with cider and toss it into the branches. They then refill their cups and drink and sing a toast to the tree ... To drive away evil spirits and wake up the sleeping trees, cow horns are blown, trays and buckets beaten and shotguns fired into the upper branches - as much noise as possible is made ... The wassail bowl went round from house to house in the evenings during the Twelve Days of Christmas and often in the last weeks of Advent. A mixture of hot ale, spices, sugar and roasted apples, sometimes with eggs and thick cream floating on it, was known as Lamb's Wool in Gloucestershire."
From 'Wassailing', p.430.

Tu B'shevat
Jewish New Year for Trees, on the fifteenth of Shevat. A way of marking the age of trees which was once linked to tithing of fruits and a commandment that fruit from trees should not be eaten until the fifth year. The day is now often marked with the planting of trees.

What's in SEASON?

Vegetables: Jerusalem Artichokes ... beetroot ... purple sprouting broccoli ... Brussels sprouts ... cabbage ... Savoy cabbage ... winter cauliflower ... carrots ... celeriac ... celery ... chard ... chicory ... kale ... leeks ... parsnips ... salsify ... seakale ... spring greens ... turnips ... Onions and potatoes in store ...

Fruit: Seville and Blood oranges ... make sure they are organic or they will contain pesticides.

Apple varieties ready for eating (d = dessert) and cooking (c = culinary) include: Barnack Beauty (d), Cornish Aromatic (d), Brownlees Russet (d), Crawley Beauty (d), Kings Acre Pippin (d), Lanes Prince Albert (c), Beauty of Kent (c), Bedfordshire Foundling(c), Cockle Pippin (d), Upton Pyne(d/c), Woolbrook Russet (c), Beauty of Stoke (c), Camelot (c). Their colour should be rich and variegated, not bright green which generally denotes they have been starved of oxygen and are effectively near death instead of aromatic and living luring us to partake of their goodness and deposit their pips in another part of the forest. The birds will thank you for apples a little beyond use - blackbirds in particular thrive on them. Let them lie beneath the trees or store some for the birds too. A tithe for nature.

Seasonal eats ...

At Bolton New Year Fair, hot black peas, a traditional delicacy of the Lancashire mill towns, used to be sold. Are there any other foods associated with New Year?

Chinese New Year brings the consumption of much dim sum, the Lion outside ceremonially eats lettuce offered with paper money from upstairs windows to bring fortune upon the givers.

Twelfth Cake may be worth reviving at Twelfth Night - a huge cake extravagantly iced and containing a bean or coin, the finder of which became King of the Bean or Lord of Misrule for the celebration which might include all manner of games and plays. Reclamation of these elements which have gravitated to Christmas might be a relief for the waistband.

Common Ground’s Apple Punch for an aromatic and tasty, hot, alcohol-free drink for cold dark days

To one litre of (preferably) organic, single variety apple juice
add:
1 cinnamon stick
half teaspoon ground nutmeg
heaped teaspoon or more fresh grated ginger
ten cardamom
a few curls of orange or lemon zest
a small apple stuck with about 20 cloves

Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 15 minutes, leave to stand for 2 hours. Really mull before rewarming to whatever temperature below boiling you wish.

For bigger quantities experiment - add larger amounts but do not multiply, try leaving to steep for longer.

Trees

Trees, our mute companions,
looming through the winter mist
from the side of the road,
lit for a moment in passing
by the car's headlamps:
ash and oak, chestnut and yew;
witnesses, huge mild beings
who suffer the consequence
of sharing our planet and cannot
move away from any evil
we subject them to,
whose silent absolution hides
the scars of our sins, who always
forgive - yet still assume
the attributes of judges, not victims.

Ruth Fainlight

From "Trees Be Company – an anthology of poetry"

Edited by Angela King & Susan Clifford for Common Ground.

Green Books, 2001.

Buy a copy from our MARKET PLACE

Bulletin from the Ministry of Frost ...

… the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet moon.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Frost at Midnight.

Coleridge effortlessly dissects the conditions needed - dry, windless, cloudless nights.

During the intense frost of December 1784 Gilbert White and his friends were struggling to make sense of their thermometer readings. What worried White was that the high ground largely escaped the freezing temperatures he experienced near his house in Selborne, Hampshire. He assumed that his thermometer must be faulty. The explanation came in 1814, when Dr William Wells demonstrated that in the absence of wind, cold air, being heavier, sinks and collects in the hollows. On many a calm, clear night, an English valley is chillier than a hilltop up to as high as 2,600 feet. Sandy regions are particularly prone to frost.

Despite odd cold snaps we are unlikely to see another Frost Fair on the River Thames because the old London Bridge with its 19 arches helped to impede ice flows and aid the freezing process. The new bridge of 1831 with only five arches allows the water to flow too quickly for it to freeze, and along with the heat island effect from the city, and warmer winters generally, it makes al fresco river skating unlikely in the capital, lots of small outdoor rinks offer a taste. However in East Anglia, Fen skating enthusiasts long to be able to take part in the speed skating championships again, last held in 1996-7. The championships can only take place when ‘entire fens at Welney, Bury, and Whittlesey in Cambs freeze safely enough to carry racers’.

Starling Spectacles

Reedbeds are one of the starling’s favourite winter roosting places. Although starling populations have halved in the last 20 years, thousands of them, including migrants from the continent, can be seen in winter gatherings at a roost, forming magnificent twists and turns like aerial shoals of fish that divide and re-unite in huge liquid shape shiftings. Are they still clinging to the remains of Brighton West Pier? A great place to see them is at Shapwick Heath on the Somerset Levels. Come well before dusk to see them arrive. Contact your County Wildlife Trust / RSPB Group for good starling roosts local to you.

Other winter migrants to look out for are the big thrushes - redwing and fieldfare - that arrive from Scandinavia, northern and eastern Europe from October, and can be seen spread out in fields listening and probing for insects, or feasting below trees in an orchard or on hedgerow fruit.

Don’t forget to feed the birds in your garden – they desperately need your help over the winter months. Bird feeders with different kinds of seeds will attract a wide range of species. Goldfinches cannot resist sunflower seeds and nyjer seeds; sunflower seeds are popular with house sparrows, bullfinches, greenfinches, great, blue and coal tits too – as well as other mixed seeds. Depending on where you are you may find that greater spotted woodpeckers and nuthatches feed on peanuts, and if you hang them in orange net bags, siskins may be attracted to them as well. Scatter them on the ground and the jays may fill up their crops with them or take them off to stach them for later. Blackbirds love ripe apples and currants – as do the robins the latter. The starlings and pied wagtails go for the grated cheese first and the soaked bread second. Fat balls provide energy.

Fresh water for drinking and bathing is vital for birds as well as food, and ideally it needs to be replenished daily.

RSPB advice for feeding birds: www.rspb.org.uk

Common Ground project news

LAST MONTH

NEXT MONTH

Back to
ENGLAND-IN-PARTICULAR.INFO
or COMMONGROUND.ORG.UK