celebrations – amo vitam

Groundhog Day and Candlemas

Today is a cross-quarter day, one of the four days of the year that fall between the quarter days. The quarter days, of course, were (or still are, really) festivals roughly equating to the solstices and equinoxes: Lady Day on March 25, St. John’s on June 24th, Michaelmas on Sept. 29, and Christmas on Dec. 25th. Smack-dab in between those days, there are the cross-quarter days, the old Celtic quarter days: Imbolc, Beltaine, Lughnasadh, and Samhain, on February, May, August, and November 1st, respectively. Notice something? Right close to several of those days are festivals we still know of today: May Day on May 1st; Halloween or “All Hallows E’en”, the evening before All Saint’s Day on Nov.1st; and then here we have Candlemas, also known as Groundhog Day or St. Brigid’s Day, on February 2nd.

In the old European traditions, Candlemas was an important day. It was the start of the agricultural year, the time when maids and farm labourers were hired or re-hired and got their yearly wages. In the Alpine regions, it was and still is also the last day of Christmastide. The Christmas tree, which is put up and decorated on Christmas Eve (not in early December like in America) stays up until Candlemas. Of course, by then a very small sneeze in its general vicinity will cause an avalanche of dry pine needles to shower to the ground, leaving a prickly pole with some sadly denuded sticks protruding from it that are valiantly attempting to hold up the decorations. Time to pack them away until next winter.

Because this winter, I’m glad to say, is more than half over now. If the quarter day of winter solstice means the turning point in the light, where we celebrate the changeover from the days getting shorter and shorter to the long ascend towards summer solstice (when I’ll be moaning about there being too much light, especially at 4am when the birds are yelling outside my window), the cross-quarter day of Candlemas means that we can actually see the days getting longer. By now, we have a reasonable chance of having our breakfast and maybe even cooking our supper in daylight, and back in the days when the only artificial light people had were candles, from Candlemas on they might be able to do their spinning without them.

Candlemas is called Candlemas because it was the day when the yearly supply of candles for both church and home was blessed. I only just learned that among the domestic candles people took to be blessed was a black “weather candle”, which was lit by way of a prayer for safety when there was a thunderstorm or other dangerous weather threatening. The black colour originally came from the weather candles being made of the sooty wax drippings of a church’s votive candles. People back in the day knew how to recycle.

When I thought about what other names February 2nd has, I remembered that way back when I first started blogging, I’d already written a post about it. I looked it up, and it’s actually quite funny (even if I say so myself). I’m pretty sure the photo of the groundhog (or gopher, rather) was one I took myself on a camping trip, but I can’t remember exactly what year or where.

The fact that in today’s English-speaking world most people know the term “Groundhog Day” is also funny. Because what they know, or associate with it, isn’t necessarily February 2nd. I mean, when you saw the title of this post, did you immediately think I was going to talk about a day that repeats itself over and over in an endless loop? If you did, you can thank the Bill Murray movie. I like it when a piece of fiction that was created simply for entertainment brings a whole new understanding of a concept to our culture, and becomes so firmly embedded in our ideas that it changes the very definition of a word.

That’s what culture is: transmission of ideas from one person to another. Celtic Imbolc, black weather candles in the Alps, the Groundhog Day movie. It ties us to the people around us and to those who came before.

Life, the Universe, and Groundhog Day (and Groundhog Day, and Groundhog Day, and Groundhog… Never mind). Happy Candlemas!

Let Them Eat Cake, or: How to Have Kaffee und Kuchen

IMG_20170730_160443484 — The cake buffet

The first event on my current trip to Germany was yet another family birthday, a big one. And, as is usual, it was celebrated with food – lovely food, homemade food, mountains and lashings of food. In this case, cake.

Germany has a cake culture. Well, a whole baked-goods culture, actually – it’s the country with the most varieties of bread, which is the staple food, eaten for breakfast, break (even called “Brotzeit“, bread time, in some places), and supper. (Dinner – eaten at midday – is a cooked meal, and it does not usually include bread.) Having a good bakery in easy reach is crucial for one’s comfort – “Give us this day our daily bread”, and all that.

But there are times when the occasion calls for cake. And Germans know how to make the most of it. None of this “Bake one cake, and serve a single slice at the end of a large meal when you’re already stuffed” thing. No – cake (like bread) needs to be properly appreciated. So eating cake is a separate meal here: Kaffee und Kuchen, coffee and cake. It takes place in the mid-afternoon, half-way between dinner/lunch and supper, and it consists of, well, coffee and cake. Or tea and cake, or cocoa or milk or juice and cake.

Now, let me be clear: this is not a daily occurrence. Not even a weekly one, to the extent I’m showing it here. It’s a special-occasion one, for holidays, celebrations and company. On an ordinary weekday, many Germans have a cup of coffee and perhaps a few cookies or some other goodie in the middle of the afternoon; and for Sundays, they might bake a cake – a simpler one, say, a pound cake – or get a few pieces of Torte from the aforementioned bakery. But if there’s special company (like, a relative who’s visiting from Canada), or it’s Easter, or someone has a big-number birthday, they’ll pull out all the stops. It’s perfect for inviting guests – as festive as you could wish, but you can prepare everything ahead of time, don’t have to fuss with hot food, and the guests don’t stay ’til all hours.

So next time you find yourself in Germany, and someone says “Kommen Sie zum Kaffee!” (“Come for coffee!”), first of all, feel honoured (Germans aren’t quick to invite people to their houses, so an invitation like that is special). And here is what you can expect:

Kaffee und Kuchen usually happens around 4:00 PM, or 16:00 Uhr (saykh-tsayn Oor, sixteen o’clock). It’s not just a quick hand-you-a-cup-of-coffee affair, but a sit-down meal at a nicely set table, and it can easily last an hour or more – because, of course, eating is only part of the point; having a conversation is the main thing.

For a proper Kaffee a hostess will often put out her good china, and perhaps bring out a nice cut-crystal dish for the whipped cream. (Side note: no ice cream with cake here – ice cream is another thing that’s enjoyed by itself in its own right, not as an afterthought to cake; and it usually comes out as an immediate after-dinner dessert or special treat, not with Kaffee und Kuchen). The table is set with cake plates, coffee cups & saucers, cake forks and teaspoons. In the middle of the table, there’s the creamer and sugar bowl, whipped cream, and platter of cake – or platters, rather, as it’s usual to have at least two, if not three or more kinds of cakes.

The number of goodie varieties depends on the number of guests, of course. For today’s birthday party, which took place in a church hall and had about 45 guests, there were 12 cakes. Go ahead, pick up your dropped jaw again. It was lavish, and people commented on just how lavish (especially as the hostess had baked almost all of the cakes herself), but not all that unusual. Did I mention Germans know how to appreciate cake? By the end, about half or two-thirds of the cakes had been eaten, and whoever wanted to got to take a few pieces of the remainders home.

IMG_20170730_174756123 — Some of the aftermath, complete with paper plates for leftovers.

Of course with this number of cakes you don’t get to try every single variety – not because it would be socially unacceptable, but because it’s physically impossible. So you choose your favourites, and have those (apricot cheese cake, raspberry cream, red currant meringue, and fruit flan for me, in this case). With a buffet-style Kaffee und Kuchen like we had today, it’s fine to put a couple of pieces of cake on your plate at once, eat them, and go back for seconds; in a smaller circle (which is the normal way) you’ll just let your hostess serve you one piece at a time, eat it, make appreciative noises, then have another one. Repeat until fill point is reached, then say “Nein, danke!” (No, thank you!) to the next offering (you might have to repeat that phrase several times with escalating levels of firmness before it’s accepted as a fact that you actually don’t want more).

Speaking of appreciative noises, letting your hostess or host know that their cakes are amazing, impressive and utterly delicious and that you’d love to have more but you absolutely can’t (“Ich kann nicht mehr!“) is always acceptable. Appreciated hostess is a happy hostess, and you’re that much more likely to get invited back next time. Incidentally, you might also bring along a little hostess gift to express your gratitude for the invitation, especially if it is a special occasion – some flowers, or chocolates, or what-have-you.

IMG_20170730_180615343 — Someone’s leftover-cake package with the butterfly decorations from the tables.

By the way, Kaffee und Kuchen is something that’s practised at all ages. A children’s birthday party is often held as a Kaffee – it’s still called that even though the kids don’t drink coffee, but have cocoa or juice or pop. Also, the goodies are often more kid-friendly; one of my aunts, who long since passed away, for kids always made her specialty of fresh-baked waffle cones, which she filled right in front of you with whipped cream from a cream syphon (the kind that coffee shops top fancy drinks with) – it was very exciting.

As I said before, many Germans will bake their own cakes for a nice Kaffee und Kuchen, but it’s also perfectly acceptable to buy some from a bakery, which will usually have a really good selection. Another option for Kaffee und Kuchen is to go to a café for it. In that case, the timing is the same (mid-afternoon on Sundays or special occasions – perhaps on an outing), but you’ll generally only order one piece of cake with your cup of coffee or tea – and that’s usually enough, too, as café portions tend to be generous.

Incidentally, if you’ve ever heard the term Kaffeeklatsch or Coffee Klatsch, that’s where it comes from: women meeting in the afternoon over Kaffee und Kuchen and having a big gossip fest.

Life, the Universe, Kaffee und Kuchen. What’s your favourite kind?

Easter Eggs

IMG_20160328_102501 Happy Easter Monday, to those of you who celebrate it (Germans, Canadians, Brits, Down-Under-ites?). Here’s Steve, being the Easter Bear, to add his good wishes.

Yes, we still have Easter eggs at our house, even though the Offspring are a few years past the Easter egg hunting stage. Much like I can’t imagine Christmas without cookies, I can’t have Easter without eggs. When we were kids, we always got some in our Easter baskets, or rather, we hunted for them in the garden. (One year, one got missed, and a friend of my brother’s found it months later in the juniper bushes beside the garage. I vaguely recall someone cracking it open; it wasn’t a pretty sight.)

Eggs were somewhat of a luxury item around our house; you got one boiled for breakfast maybe once or twice a week – one, mind you. And sometimes when you had a picnic lunch for a trip, there’d be a hard-boiled egg in it, which was always a treat. But on Easter, you got something like four or five of them, all to yourself. So very awesome.

Of course, there were chocolate and tiny sugar eggs and chocolate bunnies, too, and my grandmother sometimes got us these really elaborate caramel creations – like the hollow chocolate bunnies or lambs you can get, but made out of hard caramel (like Werther’s candies), with very intricate detailing. I recall one large Easter bunny, upright with a basket full of eggs on his back. In my memory, he’s really big, something like 8″ high, but he probably wasn’t – I was quite a bit smaller then myself, and you know how back then everything was so much bigger than it is now.

IMG_20160326_142855 So yes, there was plenty of sugar to be had for my childhood Easter celebrations, but the real Easter eggs were still something special that I treasured. And so I still want Easter eggs to celebrate with, as well as chocolate and other sugar, so I always make a dozen or so. I also bake a sweet bread bunny each year now. That’s not something from my childhood, but a tradition I started when the Offspring were little. Maybe it’ll become part of their childhood memory – can’t have Easter without a baked Easter bunny?

Life, the Universe, and Easter Eggs. Have a Happy Eastertide!