IN QUEST OF UMAMI AN ARGUMENT FOR SLOW FOOD

Each year, a growing number of country villages across Italy cordon off their downtown areas and host open-air street festivals dedicated to the celebration of “slow food” – a phenomenon which has given birth to an international counter-insurgency movement decrying the world’s obsession with what for want of a better term we call “Fast Food”. While I tend to be suspicious of all “movements” which threaten to become socio-political cults, I find comfort in the renewed focus on the idea that we would be happier people if we took more time to savor and appreciate the food we eat.
As a young boy, I was invited by their son to spend some time on a small farm in upstate New York, owned by an Italian family we had come to know in a more urban environment. The parents of my friend were immigrants from Sicily, and on their newly-acquired farm they had embraced a return to the country life they had once known in the “old world”. While I was already thoroughly-indoctrinated into the ethic of family dining (I had a mother who required our attendance at the kitchen table if we wanted to eat), I was unprepared for life with the Bruno Bralla family, where the thick board table was piled high with a dozen different kinds of smoked meats, sausages and cheeses, including rounds of Provolone and lengths of Pecorino which hung from the low ceiling on cords and from which each person was free to cut off slices and chunks. We each were equipped with a wooden platter, a large very sharp knife, a thick glass of red wine, and total freedom. One could choose home-cured veal, pancetta, salami, mortadella, capacolla, breseaola, prosciutti, or a variety of pickled peppers and marinated olives, which we could pile on the half-loaves of crunchy bread we pulled apart by hand. It took an hour to eat, all the while Senior Bralla regaled us with stories of his former life as a smuggler in the Italian Alps. And you had time to taste everything in its own moment!
Science tells us that we humans possess four well-known and long-identified taste centers, scattered around the mouth, tongue and palate. We distinguish sweet, sour, bitter and salty, and from these neuro-sites, signals are sent to the brain. They help to activate the metabolic system that converts what we eat into what our bodies need and, given time, when we should stop eating. (Satiation takes about twenty minutes.) All of this is interesting and helpful, but there is more.
Since around 1908, we have known there is a fifth taste center. Isolated by Professor Kibunae Ikeda of Tokyo University, it was given the Japanese symbol for “delicious taste” which translates into the spoken word “umami”. The closest word in the English language which has some equivalency is “savory”, thus a food which is imbued with umami we might say is possessed of “savoryness”, or perhaps, “meatyness”. The chemical which produces this taste quality is a glutamate, and can be found in many non-meat foods, such as cooked mushrooms, certain kinds of seaweed and in things like anchovies, and pastes made from these sources.
One of the joys of cooking lies in the art of using ingredients, combinations, and kitchen science to discover and amplify the almost limitless nuances of tastes and flavors with which to bring pleasure and enjoyment to those who dine with us. In no other venue can we touch the creative possibilities available to us in quite the same way. This being true, why don’t we slow down, leave the world outside, and give the inner self time to explore, savor and relish the culinary gift of the moment ?
Years ago we were able to visit with the late Scott and Helen Nearing on their self-sufficient homestead on Maine’s Point Rosier, where they had settled to live and write about their search for happiness. They explained to us why they chose to eat with chop sticks from the simple wooden bowls in which they served up the daily fare from their gardens, berry patches, orchards, root cellar and greenhouse. “We have found”, Helen said, “that we are better able to concentrate on each morsel, consider where it came from and give our palate the opportunity to celebrate life deliberately, piece by piece”.
From a health standpoint, we are told that if we eat slowly, we will improve digestion, avoid high acidity, and eat less. Some say it can amount to a lifelong weight-control strategy. What I know for sure is that good food, well and lovingly-prepared is too great a gift to take for granted or to disrespect with thoughtless, thankless and “high-speed” consumption. In my quest for the mythical umami, a fifth taste tells me this is true.

A simple meal of fruit, crusty peasant bread, and a well- aged cheese invites diners to eat slowly, enjoy conversation, and linger long enough to savor time spent in carrying out an ages-old human tradition.


A meal guaranteed to titillate all five taste centers, a Dutch oven of home-made file gumbo brings together four diverse culinary cultures in an amalgam of at least fifteen key ingredients; a marriage of Spanish “Creole”, French” Cajon”, Choctaw Indian, and African “Carib” food traditions.

Photos by Al Cooper

A QUIET KIND OF INTEGRITY TRAP DAY ON MONHEGAN ISLAND

It will come as no surprise to those who know me and follow my word-ramblings that I cannot hide for long my special love for coastal New England; it is a sad burden to bear if a year passes without a return to my private “Mecca-by-the-sea”, no matter how brief.
It has become my Maine habit to rise early each morning in order to pay an anonymous visit to a nearby wharf where I can observe the start of a “fishermen’s day”, as lobster boats line up at the fuel dock, take aboard blue barrels of bait, and, amid the burbling of diesels and the cry of gulls wend their way, one by one, through the narrow passage from New Harbor to the waiting Atlantic.
On one memorable occasion, I was late in getting there, disappointed to realize I had missed the moment. The local “fleet” had already sailed. All except one boat. I watched as a lone teen age boy, in yellow boots and ragged jacket prepared his small, unsophisticated lobster boat just beneath the overhanging dock from which I watched. I was not alone. Within easy ear-shot were two old-time “locals”; grizzled men of the sea who no longer plied the trade, but were always there, watching, measuring, still attached by a lifetime of memories to a way of life which would always define them. Finally, the neophyte lobsterman cast off, his final purchase – a six pack of Coca Cola – lowered to him by dock workers, as the two old timers watched critically. I could sense a touch of mild disapproval, even in their silence. Then one took his pipe from his mouth, and amid curls of blue smoke said to his companion in a grudging bit of Down-East understatement “Wal, he may be late, but he always goes”.
You would have to have grown up among these seemingly-gruff, and unarguably laconic “Yankees” to understand – as I did – that a great compliment had just been shared. Over the years, that mental picture and those words have stayed with me: “He may be late, but he always goes”. There is much to be said for the old fashioned virtue of persistence; that inborn tenacity which drives people to honor some tradition, cause, or ethic even when it is difficult or uncomfortable to do so. Inherent in the lives of these Maine lobster fishermen can be seen a respect for old values, and a quiet kind of integrity which never fails to warm my heart and restore a flagging pride in my race.
Lobsters from the cold waters of the northeast are – to be sure – the king and queen of seafood. However, to the truly initiated, a “Maine Lobster” (Homarus americanus) is in a special league, and a “Monhegan Lobster” is supreme. In the waters around Monhegan Island, nature, (and man) have been especially kind to this culinary crustacean which, for a number of reasons grows larger and more delectable there. And they sell for a higher price! Many years ago, the lobstermen of Monhegan got together and decided to limit the length of their fishing season and the size of their catch, believing that the extra-large specimens should be protected as “breeders”;all of this when there were no such limits on lobstering in other Maine waters. What’s more, they discouraged (in their own way) poaching by “outsiders”.
As a matter of long tradition, their self-imposed season would run from January 1st into the month of June, the exact starting day determined by common consent in an annual meeting. For weeks, the local fishermen would stack their repaired and weighted traps beside the island’s wharf as they prepared for the magic day known as “Trap Day”, honor bound to the idea that all should have an equal chance of success. This ideal came to a test one year when the wife of one of their number was taken seriously ill, and was being treated in a mainland hospital, where her husband remained at her side. Not only did the Monhegan men see to it that his traps and boat would be ready upon his return weeks later, but that no boat would launch until they could all launch. “Trap Day” on Monhegan Island – to this day – takes place when everyone is ready to go.

Lobster traps help to frame the approach to Monhegan Island’s lone dock, connected by a network of hiking trails to Cathedral Woods, the stone lighthouse and the 200 foot cliffs which drop off sharply into a breaking sea on the island’s east side. The small harbor is protected by tiny Manana, an islet where Viking artifacts have been found.


Maine lobstermen at Round Pond help each other to load traps, floats and gear for a day off-shore. From here, it is a twelve mile run out to Monhegan. A two-man crew might maintain and harvest from 100 to 200 traps, attached to floats painted with their unique licensed color scheme. Each float might be tied to six or eight traps which are usually “pulled” daily, in all kinds of weather.


An old and weathered “fish shack” acts as a community bulletin board on Monhegan Island, a favorite destination for artists and tourists in the summer months, but year-round home to fewer than one hundred hearty residents. The entire island comprises little more than one square mile. It was probably the first point on the New England coast to have been visited by Europeans.
All Photos by Al Cooper

RAILS, MAILS and PUPPY DOG TALES

Sometime in 1831, and probably on a South Carolina railroad, a local postmaster in a hurry got the idea of asking a locomotive engineer to hand-carry a mail pouch to another destination along the line, thereby beating the best stage coach delivery by a noteworthy margin. This, and other such experiments, no doubt brought attention to the British Railway System which had begun doing the same thing on the Liverpool to Manchester route a year earlier, using special mail carriages. On July 7, 1838 the U.S. Congress designated all railroads as official postal routes, and the age of steam was poised to alter the whole concept of communication across the growing expanse of North America.
In 1862, as the American Civil War was entering its second year, the “railway post office” came into being, with converted baggage cars put into service on the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad, which in turn connected with the Pony Express. In the years to come an important step forward was made when cars were especially designed to facilitate the sorting and bundling of mail en route, eliminating the need for pre-sorting at both ends, and making possible delivery at way points in between.
Railroad Postal Offices (RPO’s) would become the very backbone of rapid mail delivery in America, and would remain so for another century, finally phasing out in the 1960s, as commercial aviation and the Interstate highway system matured, and railroads declined. (As a matter of fact, many railroad systems had depended on U.S. Mail contracts for their existence as passenger traffic had fallen off.)
Over the years, the RPO turned into a highly-efficient “post office on wheels”, manned by a select group of mail clerks who worked long hours on their feet in a 70-mile-per-hour, clicking, rolling and bouncing environment, where they had to memorize hundreds of details of information in order to anticipate ultimate destinations spanning thousands of miles of delivery routes; they were unable to rely on printed references or schedules of any kind. As a youth, I knew one of these devoted postal employees, who was seldom at home, but sound asleep during the hours when he was. He was the father of a “best friend”, and I came to think of him as a “ghost”.
In order to serve the many towns through which passenger trains traveled without stopping, mail pouches were picked up from high-speed hooks suspended beside the tracks at the same instant a RPO clerk would kick a sack of mail for that destination out the open door. It should be pointed out that this was dangerous duty anyway. Because the mail car was at the front of the train, (usually right behind the coal tender), derailments, collisions and other train mishaps found the crews in an exposed position.
And that brings us to the second part of this story.
On a cold autumn night in the “blizzard year” of 1888, postal workers in Albany, New York found a puppy nestled among a pile of mail sacks in their office. A mixed-breed terrier, the waif became a resident of the place, finding a mysterious attachment to mail sacks, whether fabric or leather. He seemed only happy and content when in contact with the U.S. mail. One day, he thus managed to find his way to a mail train and embarked on his first rail journey, returning to the Albany post office to the amazement of his benefactors who continued to feed and care for him. This was just the beginning of a travel career which would span nine years for the “Post Office Pooch” who picked up the name “Owney”. (Nowhere can I find any recorded origin for the name.) Wishing to insure his care and safe return from the increasingly distant journeys, the workers affixed a harness and label to Owney, requesting as well that postal employees at distant destinations would attach some kind of tag or adornment as evidence of his travels.
In the years to come, Owney would accumulate a total of 1,017 tokens, medals and trinkets, each of which would be preserved by his caretakers at the Albany office. Owney became not only the mascot of the Albany staff, but a sought-after traveler on cars of the railway postal service where he was looked upon as a “good luck” mascot. As long as the Terrier was cuddled among the mail bags loaded aboard, no accident would ever befall a train on which he rode. (Between 1890 and 1900, 80 railway postal clerks were killed and 2000 injured in a record number of wrecks and accidents across the U.S.!)
As if his hundreds of rail journeys were not record enough, Owney made a round-the-world trip, by steamship and train in 1895, visiting Japan (twice), China, the Suez, Algiers and the Azores, returning to Albany 132 days and 143,000 miles later. Convinced that the traveling terrier must belong to someone of importance, Japanese officials issued Owney an Imperial Passport, entitling him to travel anywhere in the world.
Worn out and nearly blind, Owney retired from the Postal Service in 1897, and died shortly thereafter. . A preserved Owney stands today in a glass display case along with his collection of tags and tributes at the U.S. Post Office Museum in Washington, D.C.

Shown with some of his one thousand-seventeen medals, Owney the Postal Pooch is pictured late in his adventuresome life. Smithsonian Photo


The interior of a Railway Post Office of the 1940s shows the system of folding mailbag holders, and the crowded working area in which the highly-trained RPO staff sorted and processed mail. A fully restored postal car can be seen at the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
Catskill Archive Photo

THE ROAD TO SECCESSION – PART II THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY

Returning to historic events along the road to secession in America’s first century, it can quickly be seen why the U.S. Congress of 1850 could easily be called an “equal opportunity” legislature. Before the session was over, there was something for both sides to hate when it came to the question of slavery, and what to do about it. In their effort to walk a balance between the forces of abolition and defenders of slavery, they came up with what was fondly proclaimed to be a “great compromise”, allowing California to join the Union as a “free” state (placating northern sentiments), while passing a tough “Fugitive Slave Act” which infuriated those same citizens by promising jail and stiff fines to anyone assisting people of color escaping slavery in the south in an effort to court southern sympathy. In the end, it accomplished neither.
For years, Congress had sought to mollify both sides of the controversy, first by allowing new states to make their own choice by “mutual consent” (resulting in the “Kansas Wars”), and then by parceling out “free soil” and “slave state” status in alternate doses. Now, with the Fugitive Slave act the law of the land, northern abolitionists found themselves actually required to support and enforce the very doctrine they hated.
The state of Vermont had outlawed slavery when it became a sovereign republic in 1777, and it was quick now to act to nullify the new act written in Washington. Wisconsin followed suit, setting off a nullification scare which shook Congress and the courts, beginning a slide toward some kind of a dissolution of the paper-thin union in the eyes of a growing proportion of the citizenry.
For years, northerners of several persuasions had been openly aiding escaping black slaves, either harboring them or transporting them to friendlier locations. Rather than to discourage this activity, Congress unwittingly gave it a new impetus, ushering in a phenomenon known as “the underground railway”, an unorganized but well-oiled network of co-conspirators who secretly acted as a lifeline for fleeing slaves from the southern states. From New York and New England in the east to Ohio, Indiana and Michigan in the west, a map of escape routes, beginning in border states like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, would have looked much like a railroad system map, even though railroads seldom played a role in the movement of this covert traffic flow.
It is popular among some present-day writers to downplay the effectiveness – and even the significance - of this piece of history, just as it is in vogue to echo the claims of the 19th century “lost cause” writers on the subject of slavery itself. In part because I grew up in Vermont where diarists and family historians had kept faithful records, and where I knew of old homes in many towns and villages which still contained the “hidey holes” in which escaping slaves had taken refuge (even within the memories of some octogenarians of my time), I hold a very different view. I believe the records which claim that more than 100,000 fugitive slaves made their way through this clandestine network, in which the state of my youth played a key role because of its border with Canada, and because of the high level of motivation of its populace. NOTE: On October 19th, 1864, the border town of St. Albans , Vermont was attacked by a troop of Confederate soldiers who had made their way to Montreal in order to wreak punishment on the people of Vermont in this northern-most action of the Civil War.
Many of the facilitators – including Harriet Tubman, who made at least 19 dangerous journeys into the heart of the south to guide escapees ¬– were free blacks who placed themselves at great risk. Members of the Quaker religion were also committed to the covert effort, and perhaps chief among those was an ancestor of mine named Levi Coffin, descended from the same settler of Nantucket who was my eighth great grandfather. Levi is credited with personally saving more than 3000 individual runaways. William Still, a prominent Pennsylvanian often sheltered as many as 30 “contrabands” a night in his Philadelphia home, acting as one of many “conductors” along the route of the “Underground Railway”.
Sympathy for the abolition movement was not exclusive to the people of the North. Only one out of ten southerners owned or traded black slaves in 1860, and it is likely that the “escape routes” began with secret help along the so-called border states. As we shall see in a forthcoming article, sentiment in favor of secession was anything but unanimous in the general population of such soon-to-be Confederate states as Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia. In fact, the present state of West Virginia was “born” when the citizens west of the mountains voted their way OUT.


An April 24, 1851 poster warns colored people in Boston to protect themselves from “slave catchers”. Because a sizable reward was paid for the return of escaped slaves, it was not unusual for free men of color who had never been slaves to find themselves in chains and heading south.


The Levi Coffin house in Newport, Indiana is today a National Historic Landmark. This photo shows the secret indoor well which was required to sustain temporary “guests” riding the “Underground Railroad” heading north to freedom.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE GEESE

Their wings folded to catch the last breath of the day’s air currents, a pair of Canada Geese hold themselves aloft over waters whose exact location on the surface map of North America is written in their very DNA.
Photo by Bill Houghton


Back in 1950, Frankie Lane introduced and made popular a new romantic ballad which opened with the words “My heart knows what the wild goose knows, and I must go where the wild goose goes”. At the time, those lyrics had a special appeal for me; in fact to this day, I associate my life-long love for wild things and wild places with the message enshrined in that refrain.
By the time I reached my early teens, Canadian geese were only beginning to make a return from near-extinction across North America. The sound of wild geese somewhere overhead was enough to bring me and my brothers running from wherever we happened to be, to shade our eyes and look upward in anticipation of the heightened heartbeat which would come as we found the wavering Vee’s. “Look! Wild geese” we would shout, running to tell others what we were seeing and hearing. So unusual was such an event then, that I can still picture the exact moment and circumstances surrounding it. (One fall morning, our herd of Jersey’s was left half-milked so that we could run from the barn to look skyward in response to the cries which came to our wondering ears.)
Today, many among us have forgotten the story of human intervention which brought about the redemption of a threatened species, hearing instead of how those same geese have become such a problem in populated areas, that their unbridled rate of reproduction has actually made them a local nuisance, and a menace to commercial aviation. (Fifty Canadian geese can produce and leave behind more than two tons of excrement a year!)
My wife and I are fortunate enough to live where we overlook 80 acres of pond water which becomes a sanctuary to hundreds of waterfowl, including migrants heading either north or south by season, and others who make it their year-round home. From our vantage point, we have learned much about the culture of wild geese, especially from being able to observe a combined flock of approximately 50 Canada’s who spend much of their year here, along the banks of the Virgin river, where nearby farm lands help to provide them with the four pounds of food each adult consumes in a typical day. We also enjoy watching the Bald and Golden eagles, Red tail hawks, falcons, and other birds of prey who share a relationship with the waterfowl, and perform an important role in preserving a natural balance in the economy of species.
For one thing, we have learned something about familial loyalty, leadership, devotion, persistence and integrity. It is usual for adult geese to mate for life – a life which can last up to 24 years – and to share the demanding responsibility of parenthood, year after year. “Our” geese build their nests and hatch their eggs in the relative safety of rugged cliffs high above the water, and we have learned to watch for the change in feeding and travel habits as breeding season transitions into the “home-making” routine. The female does not begin the incubating process until all her eggs are laid. From then on, and for the next 28 days, the male does the hunting and provides security, displaying a tireless work ethic and devotion. As he departs or arrives at the nest, a great deal of conversation takes place between the two parents, but then again, wild geese are highly vocal. (The entire flock will verbally signal their mutual agreement to depart the pond each day, and similarly celebrate their approach for landing later in the day with a decidedly different chorus of honking.)
When you hear the barking of migrating geese high overhead, they are actually voicing a message of constant encouragement to each other, just as they are thoughtful about alternating the leader’s position at the point of the vee, while assuming a flight formation which protects those who follow from the vortex created from the wings of those in front. If one of their number falters from illness or exhaustion, at least one other member of the flight will remain behind with the straggler until both are able to rejoin the group. (I witnessed this phenomenon once while camping in the lake country north and west of Lake Superior.)
In years past, we enjoyed the year-round presence of two White Holland domestic geese on the pond, obviously unable to fly or mate. What entertained and educated us was the unique but obviously welcome relationship which existed between these two “strange ones” and their wild relatives from Canada. After the wild babies were old enough to join the flock on the pond, the white geese would act as surrogate parents while the real parents were free to fly away and forage together during the day. We would marvel through our binoculars as we watched the caring activities of this volunteer “aunt and uncle”, day after day and year after year. We mourned when first one, and then the other fell prey to coyotes.
Recalling all this and what I have learned from it, I am drawn to the parting line of Frankie Lane’s old ballad:
“Tonight I heard the wild goose cry / Hangin’ north in the lonely sky/Tried to sleep, but it warn’t no use/’cause I am brother to the old wild goose.”


Wild geese (Branta Canadensis) wing their way over the vast wilderness of Ontario’s Lake Superior country in an original sketch by the author. Their annual migration route might very well involve 2200 miles of celestial navigation, in some of the world’s worst weather.
Al Cooper Sketch

REMEMBERING AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR THE LONG ROAD TO SECESSION

In the year 2011, our nation marks the Sesquicentennial of the beginning of “The War Between the States”; “The American Civil War”, or what is still looked upon by many Southern historians as “The War of Northern Aggression”. Because this chapter of our national story continues to invite dissection from a myriad of perspectives, each of these nominations has a claim on legitimacy. Despite a fascination which has spawned more than 500,000 books dealing with the subject, it is disappointing to think that a generation or two of our citizens have grown up in comparative ignorance of this seminal event in our national history, and the extent to which, one-hundred and fifty years later, it continues to leave its fingerprints on our very sense of who we are as Americans.
At the outset of a year in which HOME COUNTRY will feature a number of reflections on this segment of our history, I must confess to readers and editors a personal passion for American history in general, and Civil War history in particular. I have walked the battlefields of that conflict from the “Sunken Road” at Antietam and the “Bloody Pond” of Shilo, to the “Peach Orchard” at Gettysburg, and the “Field of Shoes” in the Shenandoah Valley. I have wept at the cemetery on “Marye’s Heights”, repeatedly at the fence-line where “Pickett’s Charge” ended , from the overlook of the “Devil’s Den” at “Little Round Top”, and again in the wilderness of Chancellorsville. From Spotsylvania and Manasses Junction to Yellow Tavern and New Market, I have been touched by the aura left to forever haunt these hallowed grounds by the events which transpired there, and felt profoundly the presence of the legions who clashed there. I feel as connected by the bonds of brotherhood with the troopers – blue and gray – who fought then as with the G.I.s with whom I shared the scorched and seared hills of Korea just over a century later.
No less a public figure and man-of-history as Winston Churchill would write of America’s Civil War, that among all of the world’s conflicts, it was the one “which was most inevitable and necessary”; this from one who had just witnessed and been a major participant in World War II.
To begin to appreciate what he meant, it is important that the true student of history does not begin the process from the standpoint of knowing how things turned out in the end, but rather from a perspective that goes back to the beginning – or as close to the beginning as possible. Those who starred in this drama, after all, had no way of knowing how it would play out.
As the framers of our Constitution labored through that hot Philadelphia summer of 1787, it became increasingly clear that at least two major obstacles were insurmountable, given the political and social landscape of the loosely-knit Confederation, and despite the fact that anything less than agreement would spell a virtual end of any long-term “nationhood”. One of those questions involved slavery which lay at the core of the southern economic system, and without which the largely agricultural nature of their society would not survive. The second question – very much connected with the first – was “states’ rights”, and the balance of powers, not only between state and federal governments, but between the then thirteen separate and independent (and very different) states.
In the end, the problem was overcome (postponed) with the Connecticut Compromise establishing two houses of Congress balanced in such a way as to protect the voting powers of small and less-populated states, and by leaving the question of slavery untouched. To give those great men their due, it was widely believed at that time, that slavery was already on its way out and would die a natural death within twenty years, (several southern states had already written laws toward that end). At that moment, no one could foresee the massive impact of immigration, which would benefit the economies of northern states while undermining the ability of the south to trade competitively with European markets without an even greater reliance on slave labor. At the same time, the western movement, enhanced by the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of new lands after the war with Mexico, all tended to favor the voting majorities of the North. The growing disparity – political, economic and societal – between the North and the South became the dominant factor in national and regional politics, breeding as well a thorough and deep-lying personal enmity between the citizens themselves on many levels. The two great political parties began to coalesce around the issue of abolition, leading to an ideological re-alignment giving birth to the new Republican Party which attracted abolitionists from both sides, including a Senator from Massachusetts, whose assault in the halls of Congress would shock the country.
In the next chapter on “The Long Road to Secession”, we will meet an activist Supreme Court judge named Roger Taney, revisit the “Dred Scott Decision”, and weigh the impact of a best-selling book with the title “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.


On May 22nd, 1856, Preston Brooks, a Congressman from South Carolina, assaulted Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in a famous caning incident on the floor of the U.S. Senate, so severely injuring the abolitionist leader (then a fellow Democrat), that he would be unable to serve for three years. The incident infuriated the North, cementing the new political anti-slavery coalition, and shocking the nation into a realization that the two sides had reached an irreconcilable abyss.

A John Magee lithograph

FROM WHITE DWARFS TO RED GIANTS Traveling the Night Skies of Winter

With my feet planted solidly here on a speck of canyon country in Southern Utah, in the intense dark of a mid-winter night, I can see “forever”. From horizon to horizon the marvels stretch across the heavens in a visual display which has been played out since a “beginning” we can only imagine; from stars that are so old in celestial time they are in their last star-moments of life, to others so “new” they would not yet have been visible to earth’s dinosaurs.
If there is one dominating figure among the constellations of winter, it would be Orion, the great “hunter” of Greek mythology. My eyes automatically turn to this overpowering figure as I step outdoors on any clear night. It is like an old, dependable friend reminding me of the few certainties of earth life and of the age old connection between humankind and the night skies. The grand scale of this mythical figure erases any need for telescope or binoculars, unless one is focusing on the great Nebula which seems to hang from Orion’s belt, like a glowing sword; one of the most magnificent of such astronomical sights. At the upper left “shoulder” of the hourglass constellation as viewed from earth is the red supergiant star known as Betelgeuse , which is the size of 800 of our Suns and probably approaching the end of its long life. It lies about 520 light years away and glows with the brilliance of 1500 “suns”.
The right foot of Orion as viewed from earth is a blue giant named Rigel (“foot” in Arabic), which is twice as far from earth as Betelgeuse, but whose brightness shines with a luminosity of 55,000 suns! Rigel is actually a “double star”; twins bound together by gravity and birth. (Probably 80 % of all stars in our galaxy are actually “doubles”, our own sun being an exception.)
The three bright stars which make up Orion’s belt, point directly to Sirius, the “Dog Star” in Canis Major, the brightest star in the heavens. A close neighbor of ours at a distance of only 8.7 light years and a key to human navigation since ancient times, Sirius also has a white dwarf companion star with which it rotates once every fifty years. Such an impact has this conjunction had upon life on earth that it is now believed that the great pyramids of Giza were laid out in the exact similitude of Orion’s belt, with the Milky Way representing the river Nile.
Another “old friend” in the winter sky is a cluster of stars we call “The Pleiades”, (Seven Sisters in Greek). This open cluster figures importantly in the history and mythology of many cultures: To America’s Cherokees it is known as Ani’tsutsa or “The Boys”, and among many tribes it ushers in cleansing ceremonies, and the time for naming newborn children. In Japan, the name for Pleiades is “Subaru”, and the symbol for the famous car-maker contains those famous stars.
While that shiny “thumb print” high overhead in midwinter is easily seen with the naked eye, binoculars will reveal the seven brightest members of this cluster, and suggest that there are really many more hiding in the luminescence – actually several hundreds. 440 light years from earth, what you are actually seeing in the Pleiades is a star “nursery” in action; a young star system unfolding from what fairly recently (in celestial time) was a dust cloud left over from a supernova. The group of bright stars are physically related, and are moving in the same direction, although future generations of earth people will notice a wider separation between them.
Not to be forgotten in all of this is our own captive satellite – the Moon – upon which rests the earth’s tidal system and earth life itself as we know it. As it travels across our night sky along a circular path known as the great ecliptic, it presents us with an ever-evolving image, and keeps company with other planets of our solar system whose perceived journeys take them within a few degrees of the moon’s route. In January in fact, the Moon and gigantic Jupiter will appear almost in alignment for a few hours. The full moon of January has been called “The Hard Times Moon” by Maine’s Penobscot people, “The Melting Snow Moon” of the Navajo, and “The Whirling Wind Moon” of the Narragansett. To early settlers, it was known simply as “The Wolf Moon”.


Often mistaken for “The Little Dipper” because of the relationship of the brightest of its primary stars, the Pleiades has been known as “the Cradle”, the “Seven Sisters”, and “The Boys”. They lie in a very young corner of our galaxy and keep us company through the long cold nights of winter.
NASA Photo


A full moon rises out of the Atlantic ocean along Maine’s mid-coast, providing us with one of Nature’s most powerful illusions, seeming to be larger than it is because of its closeness to our horizon.
Al Cooper Photo

PREPAREDNESS TIP

Among my neighbors are several hundred who recently were forced to evacuate their homes on very short notice by a set of circumstances few would have anticipated. Others chose to shelter in place and take defensive action, while others found themselves isolated wherever they happened to be by road closures which remained in place for many hours. Those same closures left some who had been away, cut off from family members and vital resources, and unable to return; all of this in an area where cell phone coverage is spotty at the best of times, and where a major power outage had occurred just hours before.
This series of “cascading contingencies” should remind us all of the importance of having a comprehensive family emergency plan, making our homes resource centers, keeping our evacuation kits up to date, and furnishing our vehicles with such necessities as will provide a level of security and comfort when we can’t get home.

THE ANATOMY OF A BLIZZARD

My great, great Uncle, Rueben Coyte, was a figure of iconic proportions in our family, and for me, born into a world without a surviving grandfather, he was a transformational presence. Uncle Reuben – or “Icky” as he was lovingly known to us – had been a young lad when the battle of Gettysburg was fought, and I spent my earliest years curled up on his ample lap learning history as seen through the eyes of a devoted observer and master story-teller. A direct descendant of our New Jersey town’s founding pioneer family,“Icky” had witnessed eight decades of America’s emergence from colonial youth to global prominence. Some of his most fascinating stories revolved around “The Great Blizzard of 1888”, an obvious historic milestone for people of his generation and an event against which all future natural weather phenomena would be measured for years to come.
It all began with an unseasonal warm spell in early March, followed by a period of heavy rains. Shortly after midnight Eastern time on March 11th, it turned to snow, and for the next three days, it snowed without letup up and down the Mid-Atlantic coast line. In what some called “The Great White Hurricane”, the storm dropped up to 58 inches of new snow, as gale force winds gusted up to 80 miles per hour and temperatures dropped into single digits. Drifts up to thirty and forty feet in depth covered even three-story houses in many places, and reduced visibility halted virtually all human movement. Electricity was the first piece of infrastructure to go, followed by telephone and telegraph communications, gas transmission lines and water and sewer systems. Rail lines between northeastern cities were so mangled that it would take eight days after the storm passed to restore operations. (It was this disaster which led directly to the first underground rail systems or “subways” in America).
Because fire stations were immobilized by the storm, fires in New York City alone accounted for more than $25 million in damage and loss during the blizzard’s grip. Storm-caused deaths totaled more than 400, with half of those in New York City. From Chesapeake Bay on the south to Portland, Maine in the north, more than 200 ships were either sunk or grounded, with 100 seamen losing their lives.
If the known costs of the Great Blizzard were calculated in present-day dollars, they would probably come close to $2 billion!
The winter of 1888 had already made its mark on weather history two months earlier, in a storm which swept down out of the Canadian north bringing Arctic cold to collide with warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico over the high plains of Wisconsin, Nebraska and the Dakota Territory. Because the savage cold, high winds and driven snow struck unexpectedly and in the middle of the day, it came to be known as “The Schoolhouse Blizzard”. All across the northern tier of states, children became “trapped” in the one-room schoolhouses which predominated in prairie regions, in many cases entombed by cold and blowing, drifting snow, and blinding visibility. Out of that stormy turmoil came a national heroine whose name, Minnie Freeman, became a household word. When the storm blew out first the windows, and then the roof of the tiny sod school house in which she and her children were marooned, she decided to lead her charges to safety. Lashing them together with whatever ropes and pieces of clothing were at hand, she started out into the teeth of the gale, heading for a house she new sat about one mile away.
Her exploit was heralded widely by a fascinated press, and she eventually found herself deluged with adoring letters, including 80 marriage proposals. A song, “Thirteen Were Saved” or “Nebraska’s Fearless Maid” became the semi-official “Song of The Great Blizzard of 1888”.
Weather statistics suggest that if you live long enough, and happen to be in the right place at the right time, you stand a good chance of experiencing a blizzard of your own. With that recognition in mind, it is only prudent to equip the home in which you live, and the vehicle in which you and those you love travel, with a “worst case scenario in mind.


Blizzard conditions can develop very quickly, and with little warning. High winds, blowing and drifting snow, and falling temperatures can turn a “fair” day into a “white knuckle” experience for the unprepared. The most deadly blizzard in recent times occurred in Iran in 1972 with a death toll of 4000.

SAVORING TIMELESS GIFTS FROM A WINTER GARDEN

While there is something to be said for the biblical admonition to enjoy each good food “in the season thereof”, I find something especially satisfying in indulging in the pleasure of feasting on greens and tubers that reach their penultimate goodness long after usual harvest times. A decade ago, when still living in an alpine environment at 7000 feet in the Wasatch Mountains, I took an almost perverse pleasure in pushing the early snows of winter away from backyard grow-beds to munch on leafy vines and buried carrots and beets, in open defiance of a calendar which spoke in discouraging terms of seasonal change. Nowadays, here in southern Utah I have the pleasure of escaping to a greenhouse, where even on a wet, cold and breezy day, I can bask in the lush presence of green and growing things.
Whether home-grown or store-bought, I never cease to rejoice at the beautiful crinkly exterior of a head of Savoy cabbage as winter winds blow, and I look forward to preparing this wonder of history and horticulture. Cabbages – in one variety or another – have been a part of human agriculture for at least 4,000 years, with a climate hardiness which makes them a year-round and vitamin-rich food source for many cultures. My absolute drop-dead favorite though is the Savoy, with its green-blue crumpled outer leaves and creamy-white and tender interior. Much milder and sweeter than its more common cousins, it lacks the sulfur after taste, and proves its versatility in dozens of culinary possibilities. I like steaming the large outer leaves until they are sufficiently soft to wrap around a prepared filling of sautéed onions, hamburger, garlic, cooked rice, chopped cabbage and tomato sauce, then to be covered with more leaves and slow-baked for a meal of stuffed Savoy.
Just this week, we enjoyed a favorite recipe for winter soup made from shredded Savoy cabbage with white cannellini beans and chicken stock, prepared with a mirepoix of minced onions, garlic, celery and carrots. Named for the corner of Europe where France, Italy and Switzerland meet, Savoy has earned its reputation as the “queen” of cabbages. (Here, I have to give a plug for FARMERS’ MARKET in LaVerkin, Utah whose produce managers seem always to find a way to keep this often hard-to-find vegetable on hand.)
Another cold-weather vegetable worth getting to know is the leek, a member of the alium family along with onions, scallions and garlic. Unlike the onion, the leek doesn’t develop a bulb at the root end, but a long thick mostly-white stem with a green wide-leafed top. It is milder, sweeter, and more flavorful than an onion, and a natural ingredient of great soups. It too has been a favorite in Europe and Egypt where its use dates back at least to the first century BC. So tied to Welsh history is the ancient leek that legendary kings required their soldiers to wear leek leaves in their head gear in battle. Even today, embossed leeks appear in some English royal heraldry.
The leek’s commercial popularity in the U.S. has been quite recent (except for those of us who love to cook, and therefore had to grow our own for years). Since it is the white portion that is most suitable for culinary use, growers commonly blanche the growing stalk by hilling earth and sand around it. After removing the root and trimming away the green leaves therefore, it is important to cut slits down the length of the leek to rinse away any remaining grit when preparing for use.
For “Leek & Potato Soup”, I use the white parts of three leeks, sliced in rings then chopped; three large potatoes, skinned and cut into ½ inch cubes; 3 stalks of celery, diced; 3 cups chicken broth; three dry bay leaves and ½ pint half-and-half. I sauté the leeks and celery in 2 tbs. butter until transparent before adding the potatoes, bay leaves and broth. Cook for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender, but not mushy. Add in the half-and-half without bringing to a boil, adjusting with some milk if the consistency is too thick. At this point, I remove the bay leaves (important) and blend into a puree about half of the soup, returning it to the mix so that there is a good combination of “chunky” and “creamy”. Salt and pepper carefully, garnish with chopped parsley and serve with hard rolls.


Savoy cabbage, leeks and potatoes represent a fine example of vegetables which are at their best in winter, and which, in numerous combinations, lend themselves to cold weather soup-making.


Given some protection from the harshest weather, over-wintering garden beds can be a source of leaf lettuce, kale, spinach, leeks, and such “in-earth” treats as parsnips, baby beets, and sweet-and-crunchy carrots. This garden bed of the author’s survived the first of winter’s storms at 7000 feet.

TAKING TIME TO SAY “WOW” (A Book Review)

Because I am a serious reader of books on an eclectic range of subjects, it would ordinarily be difficult to select a single “Best Of” for an entire year; I would have to hedge the question by naming a group of candidates by subject matter or some other qualification. For the year just now passing from view, no such purview is required. The book which stands out among all others is LIFE IS A VERB and the author is Patti Digh.
Ms. Digh (pronounced DYE) is well known in the business world as a behavioral consultant, lecturing and advising international corporations and institutions on personnel practices, but this book arises from an altogether private and personal set of motivations. In 2003, her stepfather was diagnosed with terminal and untreatable cancer. Patti, together with her mother, decided to stay at his side during the difficult period between diagnosis and death, a span of time which turned out to be 37 days.
The experience of “helping a loved one die” left the author with the question: If I had only 37 days to live, how would I spend each one of those days? The resulting book, LIFE IS A VERB carries the subtitle 37 days to wake up, be mindful, and live intentionally. A subject which might have become trite and saccharine in the hands of a less skilled and insightful story-teller became for me a profound journey in introspection, and an invitation to revisit – and even revise – some of my own strategies for living meaningfully.
The format of the beautifully crafted and creatively illustrated book divides the 37 “lessons” into nine sections or chapters, all devised to undergird a set of principles worth turning into practices. Like all good story-tellers, the author makes use of a simple but highly personal experience to introduce each of the concepts she encapsulates, with each chapter ending with some “homework” for the reader; a challenge for implementing a real-life application. Virtually every page contains highlighted quotes to artfully illuminate and give weight to the concepts being discussed. For instance, in her chapter on the importance of placing value on small things (titled “Don’t Sell Your Red Books”), Digh quotes Albert Einstein who said “not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything which counts can be counted”.
One of my favorite Digh chapters summarizes the importance of taking the time to appreciate the gifts life gives us, at the end of which she leaves us with one of her challenges based in a food metaphor:
“Eat your bread pudding slowly, savor it, swim awhile in that pomegranate sauce, reach out for a raisin island, and rest. Eat well, eat slowly, appreciate the artistry of your food, make your life’s meal last a long time; give up Pop-Tarts and be sure to thank the real chefs.”
This is a book you will wish to “own”, not borrow from a handy library or well-intentioned friend. I say this for two reasons: First, if you follow the author’s advice, you will find yourself writing notes to yourself in the margins, and doing a lot of underlining with felt markers for future reference, and because of the ringing of internal “bells” the paragraphs will set off in your mind. Secondly, it is a book you will read more than once.
I started my adventure with LIFE IS A VERB seated on the front porch of a friend’s cottage in coastal Oregon. It was raining lightly, and the breeze set off the tinkling of a set of small discreetly-tuned wind chimes nearby. I was all alone, with the misty grayness of the day, and my heart and mind were in one of those rare moments of perfect harmony. Beginning then, and for the rest of the 37 days after returning home, I “lived my way” through its enchanting chapters for the first time. Since then, I have allowed the book to flip open to a random page now and then, discovering that there is often a new and hidden meaning the second or third time around.
And then there are the 120 hand-drawn and highly-creative illustrations, each contributed by a reader of the author’s blog site; each bringing humor, insight and even a bit of whimsy to the mix, and all of it tied together by editors and publishers who shared Ms. Digh’s passion for perfection of presentation.
A final and personal reflection: More and more I find myself observing the little things that make each day special, while taking the time to say WOW!



Whether overhead or at our feet, we inhabit a world full of beauty, wonder and excitement. The color and symmetry of a Golden Garden Spider leaves me with little more to say on the subject other than WOW!

FRENCH-CANADIAN CHRISTMAS MEAT PIE

(Here is a Christmas treat worth indulging. I first heard of it living
in Vermont and working in Quebec, and then Donna Cooper made one for us
years ago.

I made my first one last week with Shirley's incomparable crust. It
lasted us for three days.

The veal is expensive if you can even find it. Next time I may try
substituting ground turkey white meat.)


FRENCH-CANADIAN CHRISTMAS
MEAT PIE


INGREDIENTS

1 lb. ground veal (or extra lean beef) 1 cup bread crumbs
½ lb. ground pork 1 can beef broth
½ lb. ground pork sausage ¼ cup chopped parsley
1 med. Onion, finely minced 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, peeled and minced 1 tsp. salt
1 cup stewed tomatoes, chopped ¼ tsp ground cloves
½ cup finely minced celery ¼ tsp ground mace
¼ tsp. ground pepper 2 bay whole bay leaves
Touch of cayenne powder (optional)
1 cup bread crumbs
1 can beef broth
¼ cup chopped parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp ground mace
2 bay whole bay leaves

Pastry crust for double crust, nine-inch pie


Saute the onion and garlic in a Tbs. oil in bottom of Dutch oven to soften. Add the ground meat and cook until the pinkness is gone, adding the tomatoes, celery, bay leaves, parsley and carrots and some of the broth. Allow to simmer together for about twenty minutes, adding more of the unused broth as needed. Mix in the seasonings and remove from heat to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, set the oven on 375 degrees, while rolling out crust for a two-crust nine inch pie.
Mix enough bread crumbs into the cooked filling to make it workable; line the pie dish with bottom crust, fill with the mixture, apply top crust, pinch edges closed and slit top for ventilation. Bake for 50-55 minutes, covering edges with strips of foil for last 15 minutes if necessary.


Serve with a sweet relish or chutney on the side.

PREPAREDNESS TIP

The tradition of gift-giving runs long and deep in our history and reaches across almost every social and economic border. As we approach the end of one year and the beginning of another, the Holiday Season – despite its commercialism – reminds us of the generous giving and gracious receiving which is so much a part of family and community life. It’s a good time to include in that shopping list a few items which will help those we love and care for to be even more secure and self-reliant. An emergency radio receiver, a vacuum food saver, a bread mixer, a pressure canner, or even a few cartons of canning jars and other home preserving accessories, all become doubly-meaningful gifts this year. Thoughtful “stocking-stuffers” like flashlights, batteries, a Ball home preserving guide, or even a clutch of favorite recipes, will go a long way to encourage the provident life style which will last far beyond the giving season.

WANDERING THROUGH THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WORDS

In far northern Alaska there is a small village on the Bering Sea with the ancient name of Shaktoolik. At one time that word meant simply “sandbar”, or “stretched-out place”. Over time, and for reasons which a look at geography will explain, it took on an altogether different meaning. To today’s native people of the far north it describes . . . “the feeling you have when you have been going toward a place for so long that it seems that you will never get there”. The richness and subtlety of the Eskimo language struck me with a familiar ring as I came across that piece of linguistic trivia while researching a totally unrelated subject years ago. It reminded me of a gentle stream near a Connecticut farm where, as a ten-year-old, I spent many happy summer hours grappling for slippery trout with bare hands in the heat of the day. The brook was known to locals as “Noromeoknowhosunkatankshunk” (in American phonetics anyway), an old Abenaki Indian word which meant “water from the faraway hills which shines brightly in the sun as it travels over many rocks”.
I don’t know just when it was that I began to harbor a deep love for language – in particular the language of my ancestry and the land of my inheritance; what some scholars would refer to as “my native tongue”. In some strange way it was while studying high school French that I began to appreciate the intricacies of English, and to relish the unending nuances of meanings possible with a language which invited and welcomed new, invented and borrowed words without hesitation and with no holds barred.
While the roots of English go back to “Indo-European” origins, the influence of a diverse mix of “visitors” to that island realm, as well as an intrinsic Celtic connection, played a role in shaping the dialects and speech of its inhabitants. During nearly 400 years of Roman occupation and rule, Latin left a significant impact with here and there a reverence for ancient Greece evident in root words. The most important contribution to an evolving national tongue came with the Norman conquest of England beginning in 1066 AD, and a major shift in the pronunciation of vowel sounds over the following century or two.
Thanks to that Norman influence, 30% of the words we routinely use today have French roots. Add to that the ongoing invasions by Vikings, Goths and other Germanic peoples including the Angles and Saxons, who saw the British Isles as a steppingstone to the expansion of trade and the growth of empire, and you begin to glimpse a woven fabric with a warp of disparate linguistic strands.
The Normans brought with them a profound respect for the practice of law, and so we got terms like accuse, assault, jury, judge, embezzle, felony, adultery, fraud, liberty, curfew and parliament. William the Lion Hearted and his merry band of conquerors also contributed an interest in animals and the hunt, and they shared words such as bacon, beef, veal, pork, mutton, salmon, butcher and venison. In fact that word – venison - did not refer only to the meat of deer, but any wild game. Venerey meant to hunt.
In medieval England, it became essential among the upper class to follow a rigorous orthodoxy in speaking of animals in the plural. To do otherwise called attention to one’s lack of social graces when dining in company. For instance, one did not refer to a “flight” of crows, (no, no, no), but to a murder of crows. Similarly, you must say a kindle of kittens, a cast of hawks, a rafter of turkeys, a leap of leopards, a skulk of foxes, a peep of chickens, a business of ferrets, a husk of hares a charm of finches and a pitying of turtle doves. Just this morning, I witnessed a dissimulation of blackbirds going by, and listened to a paddling of ducks on the pond, (if they had been in flight it would have been a sord of mallards). My very favorite, for its musical sonority is an exaltation of larks. These and dozens of other animal terms once codified in Old English Primers of Speech, are made immortal by Dame Juliana’s “The Book of St, Albans”, and enumerated with great good humor by James Lipton, in his beautifully-illustrated “The Exaltation of Larks, or The Venereal Game”.
At the risk of being labeled as sesquipedalian, I delight in the exquisite suitability of borrowed words such as sangfroid when describing a friend whose imperturbability leaves me in awe, or doppelganger when observing a stranger in Wal-Mart whose likeness reminds me of an acquaintance who I know lives 3000 miles away. When author Jeffrey Archer characterized a barmaid of generous proportions in a short story as being steatopygous, I had a picture in my mind which no combination of many words could have painted so accurately, or with such lexicological kindness. To have done otherwise would surely have been to indulge in an exercise in Schadenfreude.
What a gift that our native tongue overflows with an eclectic euphony and a delectable diversity which reflect 600 years of open borders in a world of wonderful words!
To quote from Proverbs 25:11 “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”



The American Bison was quickly assigned the term “Buffalo” by settlers, who might not have known they were borrowing a Portuguese/Spanish word for large animals – including antelope. Other words of the same ancestry included alligator, bronco, barbecue, tornado and mosquito to name just a few. (This rampant bull was photographed while enjoying a few minutes of fugacious freedom in the author’s back yard.) Photo by Al

RATING GREAT APPLES – FROM A to Z

It is with a certain amount of conceit that we assert that something is “as American as apple pie”, and any patriotic Englishman cannot be blamed for challenging that particular bit of “colonial arrogance”. In actual fact, from the landing of the Mayflower onward, the old English tradition of pie-making – and especially apple pie-making - has connected us as surely as any pedigree chart to our English roots. That being said ( in the interest of historic niceties), I will hasten to add that here in “the New World” apples, their propagation and appreciation – and yes, even their elevation to the pinnacle of pie-heaven – have written a more glowing chapter in pomological history than anywhere else. And where else could a common fellow such as John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) cut such a botanical swath across the land and its history.
In truth, apples filled a primary niche in the colonial food chain because of the everyday need for the “cider” which could be pressed from this juice-laden fruit. European settlers brought with them a widespread and well-founded distrust of drinking water; water being believed to be the source of almost all sickness and disease. (In fact the reason the “Pilgrims” came ashore at Cape Cod arose from the end of their shipboard supply of beer – a “safe” beverage made from fermenting grain).
In the 1700s a typical Pennsylvania family put up fifteen to forty barrels of cider each year, and in order to claim a “homestead” in colonial Virginia, a settler was required first to plant an orchard. Everyone drank cider as a basic beverage, first from fresh pressings, and long term because of the natural fermentation process which gave it a long shelf life, reaching across a long, often-bitter winter to a new spring.
The qualities looked for in a cider apple included juiciness, a balance of sweetness and tartness, and a high tannin level. Very few apple varieties possess enough of these qualities to be a great stand-alone cider apple, unless you count Tremblett’s Bitter, Kingston Black or New Foxwhelp, still grown in England. In fact, the U.K. lays claim to “The Long Ashton Research Station” in Bristol, England, where the continued pursuit of the perfect cider is still ongoing.
In the U.S. today’s serious cider-makers usually go for a combination such as a Red or Gold Delicious for sweetness, Jonathan or Winesap for tartness, and a crab apple such as Hysop for a touch of tannin and color. One of New England’s best makers uses a blend of up to 13 varieties with McIntosh playing the lead role. Among the heirlooms still around, the Golden Russet would probably be regarded as the finest single American cider apple of all time.
When it comes to apple pie, some of the same qualities apply, but with great weight being given to cooking characteristics. The most desired pie apples are those which retain their shape in cooking, refusing to turn mushy. My first choice is Newtown Pippin, with Red Astrachan and Northern Spy close behind. Among supermarket varieties available today, we would combine Golden Delicious, Rome Beauty, and either Gala or Jonagold. Our basic rule always calls for a mix of three varieties. And given our Vermont roots, a piece of apple pie is always accompanied by a wedge of well-aged white cheddar cheese warmed to room temperature.
For drying, I prefer Wealthy, Gravenstein, Wolf River, or – in a pinch – Golden Delicious. It takes a high flavor level to survive the drying process, and many of the “old timers” favored in the past are no longer available.
For eating out of hand, the decision is highly personal. Of the newer choices available today, I give high marks to HoneyCrisp, Jonagold, Fuji and Mutsu. Among the heirlooms, I vote for Spitzenburg, Bramley’s Seedling, Ashmead’s Kernel, Cox Orange Pippin and Golden Russet, to name just a small handful. So high on our list that we just today ordeerd a box of them from an Indiana orchard is the venerable Northern Spy, at one time the number three apple across America, and one of the few that is good in cider, supreme in pie, and a Prince among long-keepers. Why does such a gem fall from favor you might ask ? As so often is the case, the tree is not always an annual bearer, takes several years to enter production and does not take kindly to machine-picking and handling.
As I savored the seductive sweetness of a Pitmaston Pineapple, (a small, unhandsome but wondrously-blessed apple of English origin), recently, I thought of the challenge to language faced by anyone attempting to find words to describe taste. Thus apple tasters employ such terms as: vinous; aromatic;sprightly;complex;pear-like;tangy;spicey;brisk;acidulous;winey;flowery as well as such standards as sweet, tart and acidic. The mouth-feel of an apple might be described as firm, crisp, snapping, breaking, crunchy or tender. And so, a lexicon as tantalizing as the alphabet itself, from an apple called Akane to another known as Zabergau Reinette tests both pallet and tongue.


A tiny apple with a long history shows up as an adornment on Christmas wreaths and decorations each year in December. America’s “Christmas Apple” is known as “Lady”, but in the France of King Louis XIII, it was “pomme d’Api”, and may even have been celebrated in ancient Rome itself.


An amalgam of 3 kinds of apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and tender, flakey crust, a hand-crafted apple pie has distinguished the American dessert table since colonial times.
Al Cooper Photos

CELEBRATING A LOVE AFFAIR WITH APPLES

Sometime around 1792, Mary Anne Brailsford transplanted a seedling she had started from a pit to a sunny spot in the backyard of her cottage in Notinghampshire, little knowing that fruit from that chance tree and its subsequent offspring would one day become one of England’s most celebrated contributions to the world of appledom. I said a silent “thank you” to Miss Brailsford this past week, as I once again became reacquainted with the heady tartness and juicy interior of the apple the world knows as Bramley’s Seedling, (named for the butcher who later occupied that humble cottage on Church Street in Southwell, U.K.).
The designation “chance” in my introductory sentence is important. In the natural order of things, the seed of an apple tree will not reproduce its parent’s kind; only by cutting a branch – or sion – from the original tree can genetic continuity be assured. Planting a seed, or pip from an apple is a sheer biologic gamble, almost always ending five or six years later in disappointment. But. . . every now and then, nature smiles on the adventurous propagator, and something important emerges. In colonial America, almost every neighborhood and dirt road saw such “accidents” taking root, and the young nation savored, shared and celebrated worthwhile apple adaptations numbering in the thousands. My own humble young orchard is itself the residence to a dozen of the most favored “heirlooms”, and each autumn, I send away for “samplings” from other antique growers around the country. This year, a juicy Bramley’s Seedling kept company with a Roxbury Russet, an Ashmead’s Kernel (another British classic), and nine other noteworthy, but little-known examples of pomological diversity. Each one with a story of its own.

A HISTORY LESSON

History is written in more than just books,
It’s more than mere dates on some page.
It’s found in the slates of a crumbling stone wall,
On a gravestone all lichened with age.
It perfumes the springtime where old lilacs grow,
And hides in the dark of gray barns.
It rings from the tower of a white-steepled church;
Colors afghans crocheted from old yarns.

But the history which speaks to me over the years,
Hangs from branches where sweet zephyrs blow;
Where the orchards of yesterday cling to a hill;
Where the RUSSETS and PEARMAINS still grow.
The taste of a MAIDEN’S BLUSH turns back the clock
To a time when fine apples were treasured,
When COX ORANGE PIPPINS and seedlings called BRAMLEYS
Were tested, and savored and measured.

Like an archival “Atlas” three centuries long,
Their names ring in spell-binding prose:
ROXBURY RUSSET, and RED ASTRACHAN,
RHODE ISLAND GREENING, SHEEPNOSE,
HUBBARDSTON NONE-SUCH, an apple called SNOW,
The cider-man’s friend, SOPS OF WINE;
Jefferson’s SPITZENBURG, crimson and gold,
The SMOKEHOUSE; the striped GRAVENSTEIN!

Not all of our national treasures,
Are found on Smithsonian shelves.
Not all of our past is recorded in words,
Into which future scholars will delve.
For the history which speaks to me over the years
Hangs from branches where sweet zephyrs blow;
Where the orchards of yesterday cling to a hill;
Where the RUSSETS and PEARMAINS still grow.

By Al Cooper


Considered one of the world’s most beautiful apples, with a shiny, porcelain-like exterior, the “Kandil Sinap” is also one of the most unusual. In a world of orbicular shapes, this “heirloom” from Turkey is tall and conical.


An 1875 Wisconsin seedling, the huge “Wolf River” is a sentimental favorite. It dominated a hillside pasture on our family farm in Vermont, and was much loved by my father. My mother once made an apple pie from just one of these two-pound giants, and happily, I own one of its offspring today.
Photos by Al Cooper

CLINTON’S FOLLY The "Big Dig" That Changed America

A color postcard from the 1930s depicts one of several river boats that plied the Hudson in an earlier day. The author’s interest in river history dates back to a day trip on the DeWitt Clinton in 1939.

While the idea began with George Washington, and was always in the back of the mind of each succeeding President, it was not until a New Yorker named DeWitt Clinton came along that anyone dared to do something about it. The idea was to build a canal - a manmade waterway - which would connect New York and the East to the Great Lakes and what was known as the Northwest Territory. There were many reasons to support those who said it either couldn’t be done or the cost would be too high for the young nation to bear. What’s more, it was argued, it couldn’t earn enough to pay for itself in the long run. In 1817, there were no civil engineers in the United States and no School of Engineering from which to draw an alumni with the kind of skills such a monumental task would require. In fact the surveying of the proposed route was carried out by two amateurs, one a Judge, the other a young school teacher who had never touched a surveying tool before the day they started to measure.
The proposed route would begin from the headwaters of the Hudson River near Troy and Albany in upstate New York, and traverse 363 miles of virtual wilderness, including the imposing granite Niagara escarpment, terminating at the pioneer town of Buffalo, and connecting with Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. A seemingly insurmountable engineering challenge arose from the fact that the landmass over which the construction would take place involved a rise of 600 feet. Since the technology of the day could lift water no more than twelve feet, at least 50 locks would have to be engineered, constructed and operated; a daunting feat of masonry enterprise. President Thomas Jefferson had called the whole idea “a little short of madness”.
DeWitt Clinton is an American Original too much overlooked in our history books; a politician who hated party politics, believed firmly in the uniqueness of our constitutional ethic, despised and fought against corruption of any kind, and managed to serve as Mayor of New York City, member of State legislatures, U.S. Senator, candidate for the Presidency, and twice Governor of New York. It was Clinton who convinced the New York Assembly to appropriate 7 million dollars to begin work on the Erie Canal, and who saw work begin at Rome, New York on July 4th, 1817.
Before the project was completed – to everyone’s surprise - nine years later, it would be called “Clinton’s Folly” or simply “Clinton’s Ditch”, and its mentor would be widely derided and vilified, and briefly driven out of office. Everything about the project was remarkable at one level or another, from its grand scale, engineering audacity, and the inventiveness which broke new ground in defeating obstacle after obstacle. Existing natural waterways were used wherever possible, and viaducts were constructed to bridge canyons, creeks and entire towns when necessary.(Some of those viaducts still carry transiting vessels high over busy highways, train tracks and town centers today.) German immigrant stone cutters came in large numbers to construct intricate locks and bridges, and completed sections of the canal were often connected to nearby waterways to support logistics.
Communities which had previously been no more than carriage stops on dusty roads suddenly blossomed into busy centers of enterprise. Even before the canal was completed, its very construction brought about a shift in commerce which was destined to change the face of America. And here, there is a Utah connection. In 1817, Joseph Smith Sr., the father of the Mormon prophet-to-be, left behind a foundering store in New England to seek a better future in the promising land of upper New York, where a tiny town named Palmyra had exploded into prominence thanks to the construction of a key lock in the canal system, and a new access to the inviting farmland nearby. (Lock No. 29 still operates at Palmyra today, providing a 16-foot lift in the New York Canal System.)
On October 26, 1825, The Erie Canal was officially opened. Gov. DeWitt Clinton carried a bucket of Lake Erie water on a barge, emptying it into the Hudson River at Rome. On a return voyage, he carried out the same ceremony in reverse.
The Erie Canal was America’s first “super-highway”, opening up migration to the West, turning mid-America into the “bread-basket” of the world, and establishing a previously-unimposing city called New York as the nation’s and the world’s most important seaport. The canal turned a profit its first year of use, and proved to be a boom to the entire U.S. economy and to usher in a major change in the way Americans saw themselves.
Even though the coming of the railroad and the internal combustion engine would inevitably change the way people and commerce move, a giant step forward in America’s history started out as “Clinton’s Folly”.

Today, the Erie Canal is part of “The New York State Canal System” and is designated a “National Historic Waterway”. Many abandoned locks and sections dot the New York landscape, and have served as a magnet for wanderers like Al Cooper. Lock No. 32 at Pittsford, N.Y. is used mostly by recreational boaters today.

WRITING DOWN HISTORY

Among a number of personal resolutions I made for myself many years ago was a determination to do a better job of writing down the important things that come along from day to day. There is something magical about the act of committing thoughts, ideas and observations to written words. The Scottish poet John Barry once told us that “God gave us the gift of memories that we might have June roses in the ‘November’ of our lives”. The things that are happening to us and around us today are likely to be those memories that bring us moments of pleasure and happiness in our ‘tomorrows’; I have found this to be one of life’s great truths.
My first ancestor to settle in America was named Tristram Coffin. Tristram was one of the original settlers of Nantucket Island – one of six Englishmen who purchased the island from its native inhabitants, and set about making it a self-reliant homeland. Beginning in the year 1659 he and his successors began keeping a record of the important things that happened in their new home. I am lucky enough to own a reproduction of that diary and every now and then I sit down with that thin volume, both because of the education involved in that study and because the very exercise serves to remind me that real history is most often written with a humble pen.
I notice, for instance, that in 1666 the first grist mill went into operation on the island, operated by Peter Folger who – exactly one year later – would father a daughter he would name Abiah, who would become the mother of Benjamin Franklin.
In 1695 – it is recorded – a French privateer anchored off shore and sent a large contingent of men to raid settlers’ houses for food.
1786 was a banner year for Nantucket’s whaling fleet, with 80 vessels leaving for northern waters, usually for cruises lasting for one year or more.
The patriotism of those early New Englanders is reflected in the grim statistics compiled during the course of the Revolutionary War: Between 1776 and 1781, it is recorded that more than 1,600 Nantucketers lost their lives in that conflict. We sometimes lose sight of the cost in lives brought about by that long-ago fight for independence.
The 1810 census revealed that the island’s 6,807 human inhabitants shared space with “332 horses, 15 oxen, 505 cows, 355 swine and about 10,000 sheep”.
The year 1820 saw Daniel Webster coming to Nantucket to try a case in court while far out in the distant Pacific, the hometown ship “Essex” was sunk by a whale, the survivors resorting to cannibalism in order to stay alive.
I find my curiosity aroused by entries which leave untold the “rest of a story”. Take for example this one from the year 1860: “Phoebe Fuller was attacked by Patience Cooper on November 22nd and died on December 12 from her injuries.” Or this 1822 notation: “ The ship ‘Globe’, Cap’t Thomas Worth sailed. During 1823 the crew mutinied, killing Cap’t Worth and three officers. The ship returned to Nantucket Nov. 14th, 1824.”
One of the most curious entries comes in the year 1780: “On May 19, with the wind southwest, rain fell intermittently until 10 o’clock, followed by semi-darkness. About noon the darkness was succeeded by a heavy yellow condition, which continued until mid-afternoon. This became known as the ‘yellow day’”. (The most extensive ever known, covering the entire eastern section of the United States and Canada.)
Flipping through the pages of this “local” diary, I find myself looking at 307 years of history, as seen and recorded through the eyes of succeeding generations of Nantucketers who felt it important to write down the highlights of island life as they saw it, from who was born and who died, to events which are sad, poignant, humorous and always . . . human. And here and there, I run into the name of my 8th great grandfather and his peers and descendants.
And what about that long-ago personal resolution ? I find myself “writing down history” as a way of life.


Tall ships with acres of billowing sails once made northeastern sea ports among the busiest in the world.



Those who settled the towns and villages of New England left behind thousands of country cemeteries in which they “wrote down history” on tablets of quarried stone such as these lichen-covered examples over-looking the nearby Atlantic.

PREPAREDNESS TIP

It is a good time to give some thought to preserving the harvest – whether home-grown or off the store shelf. Potatoes keep best if unwashed and kept in burlap sacks in an environment which is cool, dark and moist. An open container of water nearby will help. Winter squash are another good “keeper”, but keep them cool but dry and not touching each other. Make sure they have a stem attached and are free from wounds or soft spots. Hubbard types are best, but buttercup will keep for a month or two. Acorn and butternut are superb eating but have a limited shelf life. Another option is to cook the squash and freeze it in meal-size quantities. If you are lucky enough to have carrots and parsnips in the ground, leave them there – tops removed and covered with hardware wire and a layer of leaf or hay insulation. They will bring great pleasure all winter long.