Persimmon Pudding with Rum Pomegrenate Glaze

When one lives with a Henry (my super inquisitive, obnoxiously smart, nine year old) one is pushed into the far edges of culture and human experience. I know more, vicariously collecting knowledge through Henry's explorations, about jellyfish than any adult should. I thought I was fairly knowledgeable about Comic books... no. Not even close. I am now asked daily, in fact just now again from a little pajama clad Henry flitting around the living room in pajama bottoms, about my favorite X-man, Marvel, D.C. Nation, Pokemon...etc figures, and the normal ones just won't do. No, I am carried into the deep recesses of the archives of long dead heroes. The ones that only appeared in a couple of comics back in the 60's.

Holidays are not immune to his influence. Thanksgiving is now partially an exploration of early American and British exile culture. We can not make pumpkin pie. We must dig through the resources of fringe websites, and literary journals scouring site archives of sites like Old Sturbridge Village, looking for legitimate recipes that the early settlers did eat. And then, we must attempt to make those recipes. We must try to emulate a fireplace oven and find or simulate archaic cooking tools to make legitimate our efforts at Thanksgiving meal.

It really isn't as bad as all that.

Actually, its pretty fun. Hard sometimes, but definitely fun. Yesterday (and today's) effort was Persimmon Pudding. This isn't a pudding as we know it today. These puddings are from the mid 1700's and were popular among the British citizens both in the homeland and in the colonies. Earlier forms of these steamed puddings involved meat and some sort of grain for use as a binder. Sailors would boil their rations in this way much of time. Blood sausage and other "sausages" were made this way. Eventually, all of the blood... meat... and other savory things were phased out and what remains is the desert puddings. Even these are slowly being lost to the modern definition of pudding.

Steamed puddings are really super super moist breads that develop deep flavors through the carmelization of sugars in what amounts to hours of steaming.  They generally involve some sort of fruit and grain along with other preserved ingredients. This specific pudding also has those amazing Thanksgiving spices (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, etc) and has a spice cake quality. Like many old world deserts, it isn't overly sweet, so it benefits from some sort of glaze.

I used, and adapted a recipe that Henry and I found in the Old Sturbridge Village document archives. Here is the version that we came up with:

Pudding:
1 stick of butter
1 cup white sugar
4 ripe (These really need to be ripe. They should feel a bit like a water balloon) persimmons
1 Tbs Rum
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 table spoons of hot water
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 capful of real vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 a cup of walnuts
1 cup of dried cranberries

Glaze:
1/2 Tbs Butter (melted)
1 1/2 cups of confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon of Rum
1 to 2 Tbs of milk

1 pomegranate (taken apart and juiced... reserve 1/2 cup of unbroken pips (those little red juicy guys))
1/4 cup of sugar

Directions

Cream the Butter and sugar in a stand mixer. Peel and seed the persimmons. This is a deceptively easy and messy task if your persimmons are truly ripe. Just cut the things in half and squeeze the pulp into a bowl. Pull out the seeds (they're about as big as Lima beans... so not easy to miss). Dump the pulp into a food processor and process until the fiber break down a bit. Just a few good pulses should do. In a bowl, lightly beat the eggs, combine with the pulp, rum, and the baking soda slurry (combine the warm water and the baking soda).  Add this to the creamed butter and sugar, alternating with the flour, while the mixer is running on medium slow. Let the mixer run for about five minutes or so. While it's mixing, in a bowl, combine the vanilla, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, walnuts and cranberries. After the mixer has run for five minutes, add the spice/nut mix to the bowl and run the mixer on slow just to combine it all.

So... I don't have a pudding mold. Nor, will I be buying one anytime soon. But, I did have a bundt cake  mold, which is almost like a pudding mold. The big deal here, is whatever you choose to use, it should have a hole in the middle. I don't think that the thing will set if you were to just try to boil it in a mixing bowl. So, bundt cake pan. Take the pan and butter the heck out of it. This is going to want to stick, so it really needs to be well buttered. Pudding molds have tops that clamp down tight so they can steam without taking on water. I decided to try just using tinfoil, and it seemed to work well. Butter a sheet of tinfoil just like the bundt cake pan. Poor the batter into the pan and then put the tinfoil on the top of the pan, making sure to get a really tight seal along the edge of the pan. The pan I used was one of those coated jobbies so things release easily, and it had a nice lip around the edge. I think I lucked out a couple of times there. The lip made it easy to really crimp the tinfoil around the edge, creating a nice seal. Find a big pot. Mine had to be really big... actually I used a lobster pot that we had down stairs. Put the bundt cake pan in the pot and then fill the big pot with water until it reaches half way up the sides of the bundt cake pan. I took special care here not to let the water get on the tinfoil... I don't know why, it just didn't seem like that would be a good thing.

Get the water boiling and immediately reduce it to a slow simmer. Put a cover on the big pot and simmer this thing for a full two hours. No lie... two hours. You might want to make sure periodically that the water hasn't evaporated. Mine didn't. I did have to make several adjustments throughout the steaming to maintain a slow simmer though. At the end, peel a bit of the tinfoil back (yes I did burn myself here, I was good about the tinfoil, but I didn't expect the steam inside the pudding mold to get me when I peeled the tinfoil back) and stick a skewer in. It should come out clean.

This next bit is tough. Reseal the tinfoil and somehow, get the the bundt cake pan out of the big pan... not gonna lie here... this was pretty hard. I ended up carefully using a couple of kitchen towels and quickly, got the edge of the thing and picked it up.

Take the tinfoil off and let the pan sit and cool for another hour. Make sure it isn't warm anymore when you attempt to take take it out. I took a plate and put it over the of the bundt cake pan and then inverted the whole thing. It just came right out nicely for me. When the pudding is nice and cool (I did this this morning) make the icing.

The icing is nice and easy. Combine the butter, vanilla, rum and 1 Tbs of milk. Mix it with a fork until it is combined. If you want it to be thinner, just keep adding a little bit of milk until it gets to the consistency you want. I actually made mine a bit too thin. Spoon it over the top of the pudding and let it run down the sides.

Take the pomegranate pips and crush them in between two mixing bowls fitted inside of each other. (see the picture). Press down and pour the juice out. Mix them up and press again, do this as many times as you can. Take the juice and in a small pot combine it with the sugar. Simmer it down until a stripe that you make with your finger stays on the back of a wooden spoon. It will seem a bit liquidy, but when you let it cool it will get syrupy. I let it cool till it reached about room temperature in another little mixing bowl. Put the reserved pomegranate pips along the top and sides of the pudding, and then drizzle the pomegranate syrup lightly along the top. Take care not to completely overrun the icing. I then took the excess syrup and poured some of it on the pomegranate pips on the outside edge of the pudding.

That's about it. I'll tell you how it tasted after tonight's Thanksgiving meal. Did I tell you that I love Thanksgiving? I love Thanksgiving.

db

Eye of Newt

Eye of newt, and toe of frog

Wing of bat, and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork, and blind worm's sting

Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a Hell-broth, boil and bubble

Shakespeare doesn't normally show up on my morning walks, but He did this morning. These are one of my favorite little guys in the fall. They are really around all year long, but the heat and undergrowth keeps them hidden under logs and such. In the fall, they start to show up, brazenly walking along the dirt roads of Rutland State Park. They can be brazen too... because they're poisonous. There really aren't too many poisonous animals in New England, but these guys are. They are pretty special little guys actually. Several myths, other than Shakespeare's nice archaic addition, exist surrounding salamanders. One is that they are oblivious to fire. This probably comes from the fact that they live in wet logs... which may repel the heat of a fire for a while. When the fire finally gets too hot, the salamander leaves and crawls (hopefully) out of the fire. Also, they tend to be brightly colored or spotted with bright colors. This little guy certainly is.

The Eastern Red Spotted Newt. This is it's land phase, and when they're in their land phase, they're called an even more ethereal-greek, Narniac, Harry-Potterish sounding name, an Eft. Sounds like they should be hanging out with Mr. Tumnus. I know they're poisonous, but it certainly doesn't stop me from picking them up every time I see one. There is something about their little feet... I don't know... just so cute! They don't bite, like a snake, and even if they did I would be fine. The poison isn't in their saliva, it comes out of their skin when they are attacked. That's one of the reasons that they are so brightly colored when in their land phase. If a naive Robin were to take one for a meal, he would probably not forget the stomach problems he would have after. No more bright orange salamanders for him. When the EFT is in either of its water phases, it is green with a yellow or orangeish belly. The bright  red spots on its back remain. 

They live a pretty long life, upward of 15 to 25 (one actually lived in containment for 25) years. The first few years they live in the water, they are an undeveloped juvenile. They then move to their land phase and can stay on land for seven years. When they are fully adults and ready to mate, they move back to the water and live out their days there. 

Shakespeare's witches in Macbeth weren't far off in their potion making. I mean they are poisonous, and if they really needed an eyeball to make the thing especially piquant, then a newt would probably be a good choice. They can grow them back. Newts have a layer of cells hugging close to their "rods and cones" called a retinal pigment epithelium. This is pretty much a series of stem cells that convert new growing cells into those necessary to grow the whole thing back. Scientists are obviously picking out their eyes by the hundreds and harvesting the cells. Actually, they are being contained in a nice building in Rensselaer, New York.  

I don't pick out their eyeballs. I just think they are about the cutest thing you could probably pick up in New England in the fall. 

db

Blue Fairies

Ever try to catch a fairy? It's actually not that hard. They move pretty slow, but trying to take a picture of one in the air, well that is a different story altogether.

They are out there. Sky blue, sitting on a little cloud of fluff, drifting slowly here and there. They are tiny little guys. Most of the time I see them in the fall. I remember being visited by them when I was waiting for the bus at my neighbor's house. We would get a little bit ahead of them, (they move pretty slowly) and cup our hands around their forward trajectory. Inevitably, they would fly right into our hands and happily land for a little while. They aren't picky or timid. It seems that their lives are pretty carefree.

So... what are they. Well, they go by a couple common names, some of which are "fairy flies", "angel flies", and for the less romantic, "fluff bugs." The real name for these girls is "Eriosomatinae." Broken apart and translated roughly, it means "Wool Body."  Leave it to latin for taking all of the fun out of things.  This is a Woolly Aphid. Bright blue and tiny, they are really aphids. They suck the juice out of plants and exude this syrupy liquid called "honey dew" (I wonder if "Honey Dew Donuts" realizes they are named after aphid excrement.) This liquid is like gold in the insect world. Ants guard farms of green aphids... (really, they milk them like cows) and drink the honey dew. Wasps flock to the stuff and can even become a hazard to humans because they gather in such numbers.

The Woolly Aphids are the only aphids to surreptitiously float around like in the picture. The others seem much more down to earth and serious about their eating and exuding. Woolly aphids have another gland that exudes a wax-like substance that makes up the little cloud of fluff that they wear like a skirt. It is thought that the wax might provide some sort of protection from predators (no one likes a mouthful of wax), or it might help them to float about as they do. A sub-type of the Woolly Aphid, the Apple Woolly Aphid, can present a problem to farmers as they gather in great numbers to suck the juice from apple trees. Together, their fluff looks like some sort of mold, a form of camouflage that may be another way the wax protects the aphids. Whatever the reasons, they are striking in their tiny appearance. Fragile and sweet, oddly feminine, they are a little magical and unassuming presence in the early Autumn.

fragile

Sometimes, Henry wakes up early like me. It's usually a bit after me and a bit before everyone else wakes up. He wanders... truly wanders... down stairs, pajama clad, and finds me wherever I am sitting. He pays no respect to what I am doing, whether its reading, or writing, or eating and he worms his way through whatever is in my hands and sits on my lap. He says "Good morning Dad." And I am compelled, by the severe realization that whatever I am doing is practically meaningless compared to what has just wandered in, to put whatever it is that I am doing down and to hold the silly mop-headed boy that has come looking for me.

He asks me what I like almost constantly. A comparison of two things "Dad, who's better, Iron man or Mysterio?" and I do my best to answer, and he then, if he agrees, smiles and says "Yeah I think so too." or if he disagrees "Yeah.. I think so too." Henry is at this magical age where what I do is good. My God....I can't begin to tell you what this is doing to me. I live my life wishing I were somewhere away from everyone and Henry and Nora are  taking me in as their own.

I miss my kids when they go to bed. Five minutes after they have quieted, I wish they were still up. That isn't to say that they can't get on my nerves... certainly their bickering and constant demands of equality wear on me. But it doesn't matter. I just want them near me. I want all of the chaos and craziness of their lives intermixed with mine. It's dangerous... maybe even more than that... but I want Henry's adoration. I know it is an age... a growing stage... but to be the epicenter of someone's life to that degree, to have that much gravity assigned to me, is amazing, especially in the form of this little boy with legs too long and unruly hair that looks better left alone than combed, with eyes that look directly into mine and hands that wind their way through whatever I previously thought was important and into my beard and hair. I understand solitude and crave that simplicity... but to be needed is beyond that. To be needed in this way is to find that your place in this world is not your place at all...

db

color and time

I was walking with Henry last week and he said that he felt bad for Chaucer because he can only see in black and white. I shot back a quick reply that dogs rely far more on scent than on vision and that their sense of smell is far better than ours. Since then, I have been thinking about Henry's point. When I take Chaucer out in the mornings for his walk, he immediately runs around the same spots and smells them and marks them. I would dare to say... and I have paid attention... that Chaucer is 90% smell when he goes outside and explores. I don't think he pays much attention to his sense of sight at all.

What would it be like to have that sensitive a sense of smell... how would it change things for us. I thought a lot about it this morning and I think it would effect almost everything... even our sense of time. Every morning when I take Chauc out he gets all crazy in the car before we get to RSP. Whininglike crazy.  He goes out, not only to walk, but to greet a world of things that as far as I am concerned, aren't there anymore. It doesn't matter to him though. He is scenting and leaving scent in a blur of really what amounts to time travel. Think of it like this. What if, when we went outside, a remnant of everyone that was there for that past few days was still left... like a world of ghosts. Not only would that serve as a record of who has passed, but as a way of communication with what is going to come.  We live a very "in the moment" existence. Sight is a split second input, either I am there or I am not. Smell, for Chaucer is much slower. His world of reception opens up a world of communication that is all but invisible to us. I go out hoping to see a coyote, or a bear, or deer every morning. Chaucer "sees" them all every morning. Every time we walk, they are there. And they are saying things to him. The closest that I can get to relating what it must be like for him is to say that things are leaving notes for him. But this, I think, may be a far lesser comparison. If our sense of sight is sharp, Chaucer's sense of smell is vivid. He may see in black and white, but his sense of smell transcends time. He would see us as trapped in a moment whereas he can "see" for weeks.

Our eyes take in this bouncing light that travels so fast. If I turned on a very powerful flashlight (and could bend that beam of light to hug the earth) it would take that beam of light 0.1344 seconds to get back to me; much less than a blink of an eye. Powerful.. and amazing that our eyes can take in these blazing fast currents of energy. We live in the moment... the second... the nanosecond. It is no wonder we are so caught up in time's passing... it flashes and dies in the faint of a breath, constantly. Chaucer's world may not be like this at all. Not just the remnant of things remain for Chauc, but in a way, the

things themselves. If he isn't relying on this bouncing light to tell him that things are here or gone, then perhaps to his senses, they are still there. Sight must seem a fickle and impermanent thing to someone who "sees" far into the past everywhere they go. I see the bird flash yellow and its gone. Chaucer "sees" the bird, and where it came from and where it goes all in one moment... all together... the same existence. Time is blurred and the world is more full of things present.

He is sitting in our house now. His place... and he knows it is his because he is literally filling the place with himself. Territories must be so strong to him. If a bear has passed and marked an area once, his presence in that place is less... if he has done so more than once, many times maybe, he is more in the place. There is more of him there.

I think Henry, that Chaucer is not one to be felt sorry for. Maybe it is us, in our frantically changing world that is missing out on a existence filled to overflowing with life and meaning.

by threads

This morning was one of those foggy mornings... honestly, we've only had a couple of them this

spring. The park was filled with dew-laden spiderwebs. It is amazing just how many there are... in some places on the forest floor, there were two or three every square foot. I can't imagine how many flies there would be without the counter balance of all of these little predators out there eating them up.


The webs were beautiful. I took a few pictures and am just going to post them.

Blue Herons

Most of what you see outside is small. Well... those things that actively move about anyways. Birds scoot through the brush around me; rabbits occasionally bounce across the road ahead; mice... slugs... beetles... small things. There are a few things that are bigger than me out there, and I have seen them on occasion, however, of the bigger things that appear, the blue herons are by far the most common. They,

like me, are crotchety old things and don't take kindly to being interrupted. Unlike me, they are also beautiful.

I found a Blue Heron's flight feather once when I was canoeing through a marsh. It was about a foot and a half long, and steel blue-grey. Really beautiful. These are big birds. And they are killing machines. This morning, as I walked by a man fishing unsuccessfully in the park, there was a Heron, about fifty feet away having the opposite experience. It is no wonder that these Herons are so common. They stilt themselves above the water on poles and wait for whatever is unlucky enough to swim below them to come by. Then, with a swift thrust of their rapier like beak, they stab the thing

through and swallow it whole. They eat frog and fish and snakes and all of those things that are so common in wetlands. They have it down to such a science ,that it is a wonder that there aren't a bunch of overweight waterbirds lounging around our swamps.



They are graceful things in movement and appearance only. Their call is something akin to a Buick crashing into a garbage truck. It is metallic and grating. I bet the dinosaurs sounded like Blue Herons before they ate things. They don't generally stay long when I walk past them. This one stayed just long enough to catch and eat a catfish ( I wonder how they deal with their barbs?). I do love to see them, especially in their nesting places. They build massive nests in the tops of dead trees in wetlands. The overall effect is something out of

science fiction. Long spindly towers holding bulbous shaped houses at the top with stooped shouldered, thin legged beings astride them. It seems like they are even more abundant now than ever and I rarely walk without seeing them fly away from me at their first sight of my moving down the road.

db