Ephemera

I collect little bits of ephemera — paper scraps, ticket stubs, notes, receipts, dried flowers, wristbands. All memories of sweet times spent with friends, or reminders of God’s kindness to me. Not everything is happy — there are two pages in my journal that are blank, except for the dried petals from my grandpa’s funeral five years ago. (I didn’t have words at the time, the petals seemed so much more eloquent.) But the first time my boyfriend took me to a movie? It was one of our first dates. You bet I kept that ticket stub. It meant so much, to have him drop $15 on me to see Star Wars.

These little memory pieces — they pile up.

I was going through one such pile this afternoon, and a little flower fell out. And I couldn’t remember where it had come from. The memory was lost. I’m sure it was a good one, or meant something important.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the transitory nature of our lives — barely three generations later, and you’re just a memory. If you’re lucky, your descendents are telling stories about you, remembering you imperfectly and losing something of the original in every telling. How much more, the innumerable smaller moments we each face every day, that rapidly fade into oblivion.

What if — what if that’s how God wanted it? Our lives to be so full of sweet little blessings that our brains physically can’t hold them all?

So, I thanked God for the flower, chucked it, and am now eagerly looking forward to a new string of memories He is going to give me.

Because God is really, really good, and I look forward to imperfectly, fleetingly, remembering His kindness and faithfulness to me.

City living, day 223

It’s been long enough that some of the honeymoon feelings have worn off. The delicious novelty is gone, and I’ve settled into an easy familiarity, beginning to complain about commutes and distances (starting to sound vaguely like I did as a suburbanite — which is a little alarming!)

We’ve had gunshots, sirens, people smoking substances that maybe shouldn’t be legal in our stairwell.

I’m facing a summer full of road trips and adventures in new places!

But today, I walked to my favorite bakery (three blocks away) and I thought….maybe this is the last time for a while. I’m going to miss the bakery while I’m on the road.

So today, in the face of an impending change, I’m resolved to stop and enjoy each moment I still have in this crazy, wonderful city for exactly what it is, and not waste it.

Gelatin, Jellies and Flummery

Brace yourself. This may be more than you ever wanted to know. I know I was surprised….

First off, this website: http://www.historicfood.com/Jellies.htm

Gelatin and puddings, in their various forms, were very popular desserts of the past. We have record of Henry VIII serving ‘ribband (ribbon) jelly’ in the 1500s, and by the time you get to the 1700s, the thing is in full swing. Gelatin’s zenith seemed to be in the Victorian era, when molds reached their most complex — multiple colors, figures, and shapes encased in clear jelly are pretty common. Historic Food has pictures of jelly fish encased in a clear jelly “fish pond”, plates of jelly molded to look like bacon and eggs, and jelly ‘bombes’ on beds of crystallized fruit. Seriously. Check it out. I just read the entire page in a sort of fascinated horror. Scholarship and museum-level conservation combined with some really weird old foods of the past (now we can just buy powdered gelatin, but back then….well, you boiled calves feet or isinglass — fish flotation bladders — to get your jiggle on. Lovely.) (Although, if we investigated where powdered gelatin comes from now, would it actually be any less weird?)

A set tart of jelly from William Rabisha, The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected, (London:1661). This dish is made with custard pastry, a hard pastry with no shortening, used also for making “set” or shaped custards. The compartments are filled with coloured jellies and leach. From HistoricFood.com.

I digress.

The reason for this sudden foray into bizarre historical foods is that, this summer, one of my friends made a pudding-type dish which she called a “flummery”, flavored with lemon and wine. I was enthralled — I finished my entire little cup of gelatin — while my friends all took polite bites and agreed with the chef that the recipe needed tweaking. I restrained myself from asking for seconds.

Then, this afternoon, when the memory of that tasty, solidly jiggling concoction crossed my mind, I realized I could make it myself…. if only I could figure out how. Turns out none of the current cookbooks I own, really deal with that sort of food (odd!) Enter Internet. And, this website: http://savoringthepast.net/2013/10/11/yellow-flummery/

Yellow Flummery, 1796 reinterpreted for 2013. Via Savoring the Past.

The author’s adventures in isinglass and “Bessie boots” are quite hilarious and worth the 15 minute diversion (!) He kindly did a lot of experimentation and came up with an updated recipe for yellow flummery — which seems a great deal like what I remember snacking on this summer. Next time I go out grocery shopping you can bet I’ll be looking for some powdered gelatin and a couple of lemons. If it’s at all a success I’m sure you’ll hear about it again.

So there you are. People in the past ate really weird stuff that became an art form in its own right. And maybe, just maybe, we can bring part of it back and let it be tasty and interesting again.

Melinda