#Apple wassailing

[maypoleman1]

16th January

St Sigebert’s Day/ Old Twelfth Night

Source: UCANR website

Today is St Sigebert’s Day. Sigebert was another Anglo-Saxon king who renounced his throne in favour of the monastic life. However, when the fearsome pagan king of Mercia, Penda, attacked Sigebert’s former realm of East Anglia, his ex-subjects persuaded him to come out of retirement in order to save them from the pagan’s wrath. Remaining true to his vows, Sigebert agreed to resume his throne, but insisted he be armed with a wooden sword and so avoid taking a human life in battle. Unfortunately for the pacific Sigebert and his East Anglians, Penda’s Mercians destroyed his army, conferring immediate martyrdom on the holy king, as well as sainthood.

Today is also Old Twelfth Night, being the last night of Christmas according to the old calendar. For that reason apple wassailing continued on the night of the 16th for over 200 years after the date of Epiphany Eve moved to 5th January. On this night men would gather by firelight in orchards to toast the apple trees with cider and to wish the spirits of the trees a Happy New Year and exhort them to allow their trees a bountiful late summer harvest. A typical verse sung by the wassailers was:

Old Apple Tree we wassail thee and hope that thou wilt bear,

For Lord doth know where we shall be till apples come another year.

Although the Old Twelfth Night wassailing tradition died out in the early twentieth century, it was revived in the 1980s and enthusiastic wassailing now takes place in the orchards of Much Marcle near Ledbury in Hereford and Worcester; Norton Fitzwarren outside Taunton in Somerset and Carhampton, also in Somerset. Amazingly, the revivals were sponsored and funded by cider makers Westons, and Taunton Cider.

[benjhawkins]

Celebrating Día de Los Reyes with tostones, arroz con gandules, a rosca de Reyes I forgot to take a pic of, and heaping glass of coquito 🤤

¡Salud, mis amigues!

[foodandfolklore]

Wassail - A Holiday Drink to Good Health

Wassail has a long history in Europe and winter holiday celebration. It was a drink commonly made and served at celebrations and feasts. To ale, crab apples and assorted spices would be added and allowed to steep. This drink would be heated and served in a large bowl so others could fill their cup.

Every house hold made their Wassail a little different. Partly due to what was available, and partly due to personal tastes. But despite being drastically different, Wassail may be the grandparent of Eggnog. Just another case of people getting access to better ingredients and culinary knowledge.

But Wassail is still drank to this day, though it's fallen a little out of the main stream. Each person makes it their own way still, but now it's more like an apple cider. You can make your own for the season, too. The word Wassail means "To Good Health" and is what people would often say it as part of the toast; which is how the name came. So when you make your Wassail, try to imagine the people partaking having another year of good health and prosperity.

Making Wassail

I make mine in an Electric Cauldron (Slow Cooker) but you can make yours on stove stop too. This recipe focuses mainly on Apples (Longevity, Luck, Rebirth) Oranges (Solar Energy, Happiness, Health) and Cloves (Protection, Kinship, Prosperity).

Need: -1 Gallon Apple Cider -1/2 cup Orange juice -1/2 cup Brown Sugar -1 Orange -Whole Cloves -1-2 Apples, diced -1 Tbsp All spice -1 Tbsp Ginger -2 Tbsp Nutmeg -3 Cinnamon sticks -1 Apple Sliced Widthwise (Optional) -1/2 cup Spiced Rum (Optional)

Combine everything into your crock pot/slow cooker, except orange, cloves, and sliced apple. Cover and let simmer on med/low for about an hour.

After some time has passed, retrieve the whole spices. You can let them simmer for longer for more intense flavour, but be aware if they are left for too long, the whole spices can leave a bitter taste.

Slice the orange into wheels. Stick the cloves into the fruit. Have some fun and arrange the cloves to look like symbols important to you. Spirals (a symbol of life) are commonly done. But you can do your initial, your zodiac sign, a sigil you made, or just poke them in randomly.

Place the Orange wheels with cloves on top of the Wassail. If you want some additional variety, you can add some apple slices. When you slice into an apple, it naturally leaves a star shape. This star shape can add a lot of spiritual energy to your Wassail. If you are worried about seeds but still want the star, try cutting out the middle with a small star shaped cookie cutter.

Continue to let your Wassail simmer on low until hot and people are ready to drink.

Tip: You may want to consider keeping the alcohol separate and just add right before serving. This way you can leave it out for anyone who may not want it.

And feel free to experiment! Check out your cupboard and see what kinds of whole spices you've been holding onto. I honestly do it a little different each year. The warm winter spices are your best bet. All spice, Star Anise; I might try throwing in some left over pumpkin spice this year. Do what feels right and hope it tastes half way decent :P

[tallhenrysalmanac]

Wassail

Ingredients:

- 6 Fuji Apples

- 1 cup Brown Sugar

- 1 cup Water

- 72 oz English-style Ale

- 750mL Madeira

- 10 Whole Cloves

- 10 Whole Allspice Berries

- 1 Cinnamon Stick, 2-inches long

- 1 tsp Ground Ginger

- 1 tsp Ground Nutmeg

Supplies:

- 8x8 Glass Baking Dish

- Apple Corer

- Large Slow-Cooker

- Cheesecloth

- Kitchen Twine

- Ladle

Method:

- Preheat oven to 350°F

- Remove cores from Apples and set in the baking dish standing upright

- Fill Apples with Brown Sugar and pour Water into the dish

- Bake until tender, about 45 minutes

- Pour the Ale and Madeira into the slow cooker and add Ginger and Nutmeg

- Put the Allspice Berries, Cinnamon, and Cloves in the cheesecloth and tie with kitchen twine

- Set to medium and bring it to at least 120°F (do not allow to boil)

- Add the baked Apples and the liquid from the dish into the cooker

- Ladle into cups to serve

[awesome-recipes101]

Wassail

5 servings

Wassail is a warm, spiced punch that’s traditionally served when celebrating the ancient English Yuletide tradition of the same name. Historically, gatherers would sing and hand out mugs of cider, ale, or wine in exchange for gifts. While different recipes use varying types of alcohol, fruit, and spices, most modern batches of wassail use apple cider as the base.

Simmering Wassail also makes the aroma of your house smell great.

Ingredients:

4 cups apple cider

1 cup orange juice

¼ cup lemon juice

2 cinnamon sticks

6 whole cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ tablespoon brown sugar (optional)

Directions:

Add all the ingredients to a pot.  Bring the ingredients to a simmer using medium-low heat.  Continue to simmer for 45 minutes, lowering the heat if necessary.  Then pour the warm wassail into cups or mugs and serve.

[love-yellow-door]

Benedict Cumberbatch warned of evil spirits at his new Somerset cider orchard https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/whats-on/benedict-cumberbatch-warned-evil-spirits-8078167

[timetraveltasting]

LAMBS WOOL WASSAIL (1847)

"Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green!" - I have always loved this traditional Christmas carol, so when I saw that Max Miller made Lambs Wool Wassail, the beer-based version of the drink, for Tasting History (or rather, Drinking History), I just had to make it! As my last historical dish before going on Christmas vacation (I'm writing this from a ryokan near Mt. Fuji, Japan!), I really wanted it to be a Christmastime concoction. Wassail is a word that can mean many things: it was originally a salutation, then became a type of song, a toast, a tradition to encourage a good harvest, a party, a drunken fight, or the tradition of going door to door to either ask for drinks or carol, depending on the time period. The word 'wassail' comes from the Saxon, 'Waes Hael', which means 'Good Health'. It was a toast commonly associated with the new year. Still practiced today in the West of England, wassailing occurred on Twelfth Night (January 5) to wake the fruit trees from their winter slumber through song. It is this tradition that gives wassail its many meanings, be that drink, caroling, or a drunken party. Due to time constraints, my wassailing was a little on the tame side, but I hope to hold a proper wassailing celebration next year with a cider-based version of the drink with all of my friends, since those fruit trees need waking. See you in the new year, and Was Hael! See Max’s video on how to make it here or see the ingredients and process at the end of this post, sourced from his website.

My experience making it:

I adjusted Max's version of this recipe slightly: I omitted the toast portion completely for lack of bread in the house, and I did, in fact, strain the drink (he did not do this, but he recommended doing it to take out the chunks, which are not a nice texture). For the apples, I used Granny Smith, and for the beer, I used Duckstein Winterbier, which is a brown beer with some Christmas-like spiced notes. I used powdered ginger, also.

I first preheated the oven. I didn't have an apple corer, so I decided to use an apple slicer. This was a mistake, as now the apples were in slices, and as a result, they lost a lot of moisture in the oven. I took them out and se-skinned them, to some avail, then tried my best to mash them into an applesauce consistency, but there was not really enough moisture for this. At this point, I decided to put the apple mixture through a strainer to get out the larger chunks and create a very fine applesauce, which even after straining, was still not very saucy. I then heated the beer on the stove, and once it was hot enough, added the strained apple mixture in. Luckily, the particles were small enough that they didn't float around too much and dissolved well. I also stirred in the ginger and nutmeg. After simmering it on the stove a short while, it looked hot enough to serve. I ladled the wassail out into some ceramic cups for my husband and I to enjoy on a cold night.

My experience tasting it:

After waiting for it to cool down a little as to not burn our tongues, my husband and I took a sip. It tasted a bit Christmas-y, with the nutmeg and ginger, but also a bit bitter from the dark beer. We could hardly taste the apple, but did feel the particles in there texture-wise. Since I'm not a big fan of ginger, and that was the primary flavour we could taste, I was not a big fan, even though I wanted so much to like this! It was just... okay. Next time, I hope to make an apple cider-based version, hopefully with less ginger, to have with friends. If you end up making it, if you liked it, or if you changed anything from the original recipe, do let me know!

Lambs Wool Wassail original recipe (1847)

Sourced from Oxford Night Caps: A Collection of Receipts for Making Various Beverages Used in the University by Richard Cook (1847).

Mix the pulp of half a dozen roasted apples with some raw sugar, a grated nutmeg, and a small quantity of ginger. Add one quart of strong ale made moderately warm. Stir the whole well together, and, if sweet enough, it is fit for use. This mixture is sometimes served up in a bowl, with sweet cakes floating in it.

Modern Recipe

Based on Oxford Night Caps: A Collection of Receipts for Making Various Beverages Used in the University by Richard Cook (1847) and Max Miller’s version in his Tasting History video.

Ingredients:

6 tart apples

1 quart (1 L) ale, I used Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale

1/2 cup (105 g) brown sugar, more or less to taste

2 tsp grated nutmeg (or 1 whole nutmeg, grated)

2 tsp grated fresh ginger, or 1 1/2 tsp dried ginger

White toast or little yeasted cakes, optional

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Core the apples and set them on a lined baking sheet, then bake them for 45 minutes.

Remove the skins from the roasted apples (this should be easy to do). Mash the apple as fine as you can.

Mix in the brown sugar, nutmeg, and ginger.

Heat the ale over low heat just until it is steaming, you don’t want it to boil.

Stir the apple mixture into the steaming ale and continue to cook over low heat for 5 minutes, making sure that it doesn’t boil.

For extra authenticity, break out your giant wooden bowl (preferably made of white oak or white maple) or 10-gallon silver gilt bowl, place a piece of white toast or little yeasted cakes in it before pouring in the wassail, and serve it forth. Alternatively, whatever bowl you have will do. Was hael!

[murasaki-sama]

I am so jealous of people who like black coffee as is, with no sugar or cream or anything. Or even black coffee with a tiny bit of sugar or cream.

I mean think about it. This drink comes in unlimited free refills, is available at most restaurants, is socially acceptable to order all year round and at most times of the day or night.

I am warm drink enjoyer (all warm drinks) and none of the others get a teeny tiny bit of that treatment.

Hot chocolate? expensive, one cup per purchase, comes over sugared with whip cream, made with water mostly (never with milk), only socially acceptable to order during the fall and winter.

Tea? here in america, even at Tea Shops or whatever, the best you can get is hot leave juice, and the worst you can get is a disgrace. went to a Chinese restaurant yesterday and what I got when I ordered green tea and my sister ordered Jasmine was just... bad.

Most people don't even know what Wassail is, so good like finding that and ordering it.

Apple cider or any other fruit cider probably isn't available either, not even in the fall. the best you might get is apple juice, in a small class, one cup per purchase and oddly expensive per cup too.

And if one does like coffee, but a bit doctored up with sugar and cream, all you get are tiny sugar bags and small cream cups, and it takes like six of one and half a dozen of the other to fix a single cup, so even with unlimited refills you spend half of you meal time opening containers and mixing them in your coffee. and then there is the caffeine thing, which many other warm drinks do not have.

so yeah, i really envy people who just order coffee, black, and drink it as is. lucky bastards.

[margolestz]

Wassailing the Apple Tree Man

Wassailing the apple tree. Image by CuriousRambler.com and AI In the cider-producing areas of the UK, January is wassailing time. It’s a time when people go out into the apple orchard and encourage the trees to produce a good yield in the coming year. It’s believed that the spirit of the orchard, also known as the Apple Tree Man, lives in the oldest tree. So we gather around and wassail that…

[martianbugsbunny]

especially with those turnovers!!! they look much better than the ones I made a while ago lol

PUMPKINS HAVE HAD A MONOPOLY OVER FALL FOR FAR TOO LONG. WE MUST REMEMBER THE APPLE.

*edit* (this post is not for the “both” crowd. This is about apple superiority 🤷🏾‍♀️)

[maypoleman1]

17th January

St Anthony of Egypt’s Day/ Old Twelfth Day

Saint Anthony the Great. Source: Wikipedia

Today is St Anthony of Egypt’s Day. Anthony was a fourth century Egyptian monk who, because of his pioneering work in early Christian monasticism, became known as The Father of All Monks, and was canonised after his death. Rather more strangely, Anthony was often later pictured with a pig in attendance, probably as a result of the medieval order of warrior monks, the Hospitallers of St Anthony, who adopted the pig as its emblem. It later became common for farmers to refer to the runt of a litter of swine the Tantony in the saint’s honour. Whether this serious-minded monastic innovator would appreciate being commemorated in this way is somewhat debatable

Today is also Old Twelfth Day - Epiphany under the old calendar. Apple wassailing continued tonight, particularly as a revival in Carhampton in Somerset. In addition to the ceremony of toasting described for yesterday’s wassails, the Carhampton cider drinkers will douse the apple tree’s roots in alcohol to encourage summer growth and blast several shotgun volleys through its branches to wake the tree from its winter slumber so it begins to push out some of its dormant greenery.

[keitandsarah]

Wassail Punch A spicy apple cider served hot in the winter months. 2 cups orange juice, 2 quarts apple cider, 12 whole cloves, 1 pinch ground ginger, 4 cinnamon sticks, 1/2 cup lemon juice, 1 pinch ground nutmeg

[wearemidnightsouls]

Grandma's Wassail Recipe This warm wassail recipe is easy to make with apple cider, orange and pineapple juice, lemon, and warm spices for a traditional holiday drink.

[psychedelic-charm]

I'm particularly sad that there's no recipe for the Spirit of Homewarming drink. The narrator of the commercial said that "all of your favorite holiday drinks will be mixed into one beautiful beverage", and I want to know which ones. Eggnog and hot cocoa make sense, but what's the third holiday drink?

Not that I'd want to drink it because it's gross, but it's just weird that nobody actually explains what's in it.

OOH MY GOD THE NEW COOKBOOK PAGES HAVE ME LAUGHING MY ASS OFF GOOD LOORODD

THE PEAAAAA

[andrepessel]

Wassail Punch Recipe a hot cup of smoky apple cider during the winter.