Olive - Peace Offering

The olive plant, a small, attractive tree cultivated in Mediterranean countries for the fruit and the manufacture of olive oil which is a core ingredient of Mediterranean cuisine. Species of the plant are also grown in South Africa, South America and southern states of USA, Australia and New Zealand. Olives are a popular food and the versatile properties of olive oil make it useful medically and essential in cooking.

I can’t remember the exact circumstances in which I first tried an olive, but I know I was no more than thirteen. The taste was unbearable and I couldn’t remove it from my mouth quick enough. Many years later, I thought they might be more appealing to my mature palate. Nothing had changed.

My husband likes olives. I nearly poisoned him once. I bought one of those prepared chicken and chopped vegetable packs designed for busy people or lazy ones like me. They are ready to drop into a slow cooker with some water and a stock cube and hours later, dinner is ready, voila. This one included olives which I took out straight away before cooking. I didn’t want my chicken casserole tainted. My husband enjoyed the snack. For someone, me, who is meticulous about food safety and food hygiene, this was a really stupid thing to do which went right over my head until it was too late. The olives were with raw chicken. I was horrified at my own carelessness, though, to be fair, he didn’t bat an eyelid either at the time. Fortunately, he was fine, perfectly alright and after a few days I stopped revising symptoms of salmonella et al and beating myself up. I should have offered him an olive branch.

In the Bible, an olive branch, symbol of reconciliation and peace offering was carried to Noah by a dove to show that the flood was over.

A sign of peace it might be, but I don’t have to like the taste of its fruit. Even if the nutrition value was full of everything I need, it would be a no.

With acknowledgement and apologies to Theodor Seuss Geisel, Dr Seuss, for inspiration and whose books and rhymes I have enjoyed to share with lots of children,

I am Pam, Pam I am.
I think I’d like green eggs and ham.
I will not eat an olive.

I will not take it from the jar
I will not taste it from afar,
I will not eat an olive.

Not even on a cocktail stick
I will not try a tiny lick,
I will not eat an olive.

Do not hide it on my pizza
Or tuck it in my fajita,
I will not eat an olive.

I will not choose one from a dish,
I will not have it in a quiche,
I will not eat an olive.

I am Pam, Pam I am,
I would like some salad and spam.
Do not bring me an olive.


PMW 2021

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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A Fine Pear

It falls to the Saturday Blogger to round out a week of fruit-themed posts and I'm feeling particularly autumnal tonight, so figured I would 'big up' the oft-overlooked pear. It's ripe for reappraisal...

Although it is habitually relegated to second place behind the apple (lower on the stairs, so to speak), there is a good case for arguing that 'a pear a day' will do you more good than its more famous cousin; (not that they are closely related, but they are both members of the plant family Rosaceae - yep,  roses believe it or not).

Here's what is so good about pears. Firstly they are hypoallergenic. Fewer people have an adverse reaction to pears than to just about any other fruit, which is why pear is commonly found in baby-foods and why it is often the first fruit that infants are exposed to. Pears are also high in dietary fibre (especially the skin) and one pear a day will provide all the fibre a person needs to maintain a healthy digestive system and to lower bad cholesterol levels. Next they are low in both calories and carbohydrates and low on the glycemic index, so are great for diabetics or anyone needing to keep their blood sugar levels low. In addition they are full of anti-oxidants like vitamin C and copper; also vitamin B complex, E and K all of which boost the immune system, boron which helps the body retain calcium and counter osteoporosis and phytonutrients like beta-carotene and lutein which have anti-inflammatory properties.

Given all of those health benefits, it's not hard to understand why the miraculous pear came to symbolise immortality in ancient China.

What is more difficult to account for is the marked ascendancy of the apple over the sumptuous pear.

Is it simply because apples are hardier and longer-lasting, (not given to bruising and rotting so quickly)? Is it because pears are messier to eat? I suspect both to be major factors. In my opinion, however, there is nothing finer than a just-ripe pear sliced and accompanied by a little cheese. Mouth-watering (and healthy).

Nowadays, like so much else, the vast majority of the world's pear production is centred on China - a quite staggering 80% (that's over 20 million tons of pears annually), with Argentina (at slightly under 1 million tons) a distant second. Of course, most of the pears consumed in Europe are grown within the EU (Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and France in descending order of tonnage - and the UK doesn't even feature on the list).

Given the predominance of China as a pear producer and given the rapidly rising levels of pollution in that country as it heaves itself to the top of the world's table of industrialised nations, I began to speculate about what might happen to its vast orchards as the problem of climate change escalates - widespread air pollution, a ravaged bee population (with a nod to last week's blog), smog-filled skies through which the sun rarely penetrates and frequent dousing of acid rain - not a great environment for growing fruit!

In keeping with the conceptual pun of the blog's title, I offer you two poems this week. The first is posted as confirmation (for those who doubted it after my somewhat tongue-in-cheek blog about the Romantics a few weeks ago) that I really do like the poetry of John Keats, (Keatsy to his mates). It paints a rich picture of a harmonious and untainted natural world. The second, per my dystopian musings above, is the latest bitter fruit of my own tree. I hope you will enjoy both and maybe muse about the changes that 200 years of messing with the planet have wrought (progress at what price?)

To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, late flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
    For summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor.
  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep
  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
  And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wilful choir the small gnats mourn
  Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
  And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden croft;
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
                                                  
                                                         John Keats (1819)

Perry Groves
Before this latest revolution
turned the natural order
upside down, these orchards,
framed since ancient Cathay days,
would fill the fruit bowl of the world
with golden pears to spare,
ripe with the juice of immortality.

Now sunshine rarely penetrates
vast layerings of toxic smog,
so serried rows of stunted trees
struggle perennially to put forth
their show of snow in spring,
and decimated colonies of bees
are labouring against the odds
on ravaged wing to do their thing,
while caustic rains
have blighted leaf and limb
in every fast-declining perry grove.

Witness
the harvest of man's immorality,
for paradoxically
nothing is pear-shaped anymore
and suddenly everything is.

As a bonus, here's a hyper-linked musical mood-piece redolent of the time of the season, courtesy of Pink Floyd:  Fat Old Sun

Thanks for reading - this blog counts as one of your five-a-day, S ;-)

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Harvest - The Pumpkin

I wanted to carry a neat arrangement of fresh fruit or vegetables placed in a shallow box on a green bed of scrunched tissue paper. It didn’t happen. Instead, with an air of apology, I would hand over some tinned produce my mother had sacrificed from our kitchen minutes earlier.  The gift was received with kindness, always, and stacked up with the others.  This was the pattern of many Harvest Festivals from my childhood, school and Sunday School alike.  I would forget to say anything at home until the last minute, leaving no time to prepare.

Years later, getting Harvest gifts ready with my children, we shredded green crepe paper, stuffed it into shoe boxes and added apples and pears to one box and root vegetables to another. It was lovely to watch them carefully take their gifts forward to be added to the display, which always looked wonderful in church or school hall.

Times change and we found ourselves preparing Harvest gifts to be passed on to the homeless, the Women’s Refuge, Shelter and many other charities.  Fresh produce wasn’t practical.  Toiletries, packaged food with a long shelf-life, socks, gloves, scarves and other small items of clothing would be more welcome.

Harvest isn’t just about thanks-giving, it’s about sharing and caring, and that is much more important than the careful presentation of the gift.

This autumn, I have had the delight of trying out new recipes for pumpkin.  A work colleague has grown far more then he could use and I was happy to help. Pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup are popular dishes, but I found a recipe for pumpkin bread and discovered it to be very more-ish.  The recipe is American which I did my best to convert and it worked out well.  It’s full of chocolate chips and is cake texture rather than bread, well, mine is. I’ll make it again next year.

 

I found this poem.

 

     The Pumpkin

Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,

The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,

And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,

With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,

Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,

While he waited to know that his warning was true,

And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain

For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain. 

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden

Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;

And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold

Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;

Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,

On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,

Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,

And the sun of September melts down on his vines. 

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,

From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,

When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board

The old broken links of affection restored,

When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,

And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie? 

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!

When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,

Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,

Our chair a broad pumpkin,—our lantern the moon,

Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam,

In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team! 

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better

E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!

Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,

Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!

And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,

Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,

That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,

And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,

And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky

Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie! 

John Greenleaf Whittier   1807 - 1892

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

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Apples are the only fruit ....

They say that if all else fails, write about what you know.  Well, after struggling with the theme of "How many Apples" this week, I thought it best to tell you a little about eating habits of an Autistic Child. Namely, my son's. Sorry if anyone feels I tend to bang on about him.

Autism brings a myriad of challenges when trying to raise a child. Because the condition affects each child differently in varying degree's of severity it can be a steep learning curve at times. Once you've managed to crack it though, get yourself into a routine, it becomes easier bit by bit.

Joe (my son), is on the milder end of the Autistic Spectrum, but that doesn't mean that there are any less challenging situations, just that they are slightly easier in some area's to decipher. One of the frustrating things with Joe, is his diet. It is nigh on impossible to get him to try anything new. He'll try a different food if HE chooses to, and no amount of coaxing, bribing, or shouting will sway him. So, you have to get inventive!

I know it is challenging enough to get kids to eat anything healthy, but Joe will NOT eat any vegetables with the exception of chips for Potato. Full stop. No Pea's, Carrot's, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Green Beans, Sweetcorn, nothing! The only fruit he will eat are Apples.  He likes the taste of some other fruit, but not the texture or look of them.  My head should have a permanent bruise and lump from where I've been banging it on a brick wall.  The seriously annoying thing is that when he was being weaned as a baby, he ate everything!  Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

If you have any inventive ways of getting a child to try new food, especially fruit and veg, please let me know. It must look however, like its their own idea to try it.


How Many Apples?

To my Son, they are THE most important fruit,
No other can even compare,
Their taste and texture are just right,
He won't even eat a Banana or Pear.
You see, eating for him, is sensory,
It must look, smell, feel and taste just right,
Banana's smell and taste really lovely,
But feel slimy when eaten, therefore disliked.
Although Pears may look similar to Apples
Their texture when eaten is grainy,
Another fruit crossed off his edible list,
The look on his face expressing this plainly.
He's tried Strawberries, which smell and taste lovely,
Peaches, Plums and Apricots are much the same,
But the look and texture repulse him,
But now we're starting to play him at his own game.
He'll happily drink pure fruit juices,
Occasionally a Smoothie or two,
It's the only way to get him to consume a variety,
Because Apples are the ONLY fruit for you know who!
Absolutely NO vegetables will cross his lips,
We've even tried hiding them inside other food,
Like Fish Shapes studded with Sweetcorn and Pea's,
But he just spits it all out, oh how rude!
So, how many Apples will my Son eat,
In his lifetime? Who can say?
Although challenging, he eats one thing healthy,
Unknowingly DRINKING others, crafty Mummy hey?


Thanks for reading my waffle. x

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