21.13: Oh What A Little Bit of Moonshine Can Do

 

Where do you stand on the current enthralling “Weekend “ debate? Apparently, some poll or other asked the great British public the following question:- “Say it´s a Thursday morning....how do you refer to the coming weekend - this weekend or next weekend?”

It seems that the younger  generation refer to it as “this weekend,” whereas the older ones call it “next weekend.”

Logically, since it is only Thursday, Saturday and Sunday are still in the future, so they should be “next,” not “this”. Then, that being so, the previous Saturday and Sunday to this Thursday must be “this weekend,” and so too “last weekend” must be the Saturday and Sunday previous to that.

But then again, if a friend WhatsApps you on the Thursday,and suggests meeting up “this weekend, do you reply saying “you mean next weekend, don´t you ?”

Some have argued that from Monday to Friday “next weekend” refers to the one commencing on Saturday, whereas “last weekend” refers to the one ended the previous Sunday, and that “this weekend” is only to be used on Saturdays and Sundays.

Then a pilot chipped in (and I don´t know if he was a marine pilot or one of the airborne types) and he said that the distinction between “this “ and “next” is clearly defined for navigators; in a position report (a SitRep perhaps) the time is given for the point just past, then the estimated time for the upcoming point, and the name of the position after that is called “next”. So “next weekend” is the one after “this weekend” (whatever that may be.)

Over to ChrisW and PaulaDev for their views as navigators.

Luckily for our sanity, our breakfast walks are held on Wednesdays. When our small group assembled for this recent one at Herdade Bom Homem , a very nearly full moon was still visible in the sky, the day being the Autumn Equinox. Our in-house photographer had captured it while on his way to the meeting point, and in his enthusiasm he also contributed the following commentary which merits a colourful font befitting purple prose.

 

"The moon in its nest: as I turned towards the Silves road, the moon was staring at me from its perch atop the storks nest overlooking the market field; naturally, I had to answer the challenge despite having only my phone to record the event."

 He also contributed the early morning light shot used as the heading for this week´s blog.

The starters were Myriam, Yves, Hazel, Jane (ChrisD´s sister-in-law), ChrisD, and JohnH.

We started the walk by paying a brief visit to Maurice Clyde´s memorial plaque, Chris and his wife Rachel having been close friends of Maurice and Esmé´s in the old days.

Half our way up into the Serra, the Rest and Be Thankful bench was as welcome as ever.

We then passed one of Yves´carefully constructed cairns, vandalised once more, so repairs were required yet again.

Our path took us past a large group of beehives, their occupants fairly passive at that time of day.

Then on past the old Silves Camera recyling station and its imposing lines of boulders; they seem to be multiplying.

It was good to see that the Camera´s efforts in replanting the Herdade with a variety of trees are bearing fruit.

New Growth

Then a little bit further on, we met again the Camera´s forester who was tending some of the new growth. We had had a long chat with him back in July when he had told us of the damage done to his young trees by the deer.

Back in July

 He told us that he still has the same problem with deer attacking his sobreiros ( cork-oak). The male deer are being particularly aggressive at tis time of year, it being the rutting season, and the males fighting for territory and droits de seigneur. “Typical men” Myriam remarked and he agreed.

Back again to the Rest and Be Thankful, where Yves took another picture embellished with yet more of his purple prose.

 "The weight of year: therein hangs a life story! HE worked all his life, HE was a pillar of family, society and Bank, He led happy-go-lucky unthinking hordes up and down hills, HE never complained…SHE grew flowers and things in her garden, SHE comforted friends and kittens with smiles and warm soup, SHE looks radiant  while HE looks worn and forlorn…C’est la vie, innit, like?"

 (Don´t get me wrong – the more written contributions to the blog the better as far as I am concerned.)

Then it was back to the cars and up the road to Para e Fica in good time for breakfast.

The Track and the Statistics

The Breakfast

Cha Bela Luisa (Lemon verbena tea) good for the digestion and relief of anxiety, apparently. Others had coffees or beers.

Still Life

The breakfast was, as usual, very adequate.

Satisfied Customers

And to cap it all, Myriam produced Chinese moon cakes, sharing with us a gift to her from The Happy Sumo, a Japanese restaurant in Lagos operated by Chinese, to mark the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival.

The basic moon cake has a filling of mung bean or lotus seed paste but there are many varieties and all sorts of different fillings. A moon cake is a Chinese bakery product traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The festival is about lunar appreciation and moon watching. Mooncakes are regarded as a delicacy and are offered between friends or at family gatherings while celebrating the festival.

There are many different styles. For example, in China alone there are Beijing-style mooncake: Cantonese-style mooncake: Shanghai-style mooncake: Hong Kong-style mooncake: Chaoshan-style mooncake: Ningbo-style mooncake: Suzhou-style mooncake: Yunnan-style mooncake. In Malaysia and Indonesia they even do a durian filling to make them extra-savoury.

There is a folk tale about the overthrow of Mongol rule facilitated by messages smuggled in moon cakes.

Mooncakes were used by the Ming revolutionaries in their effort to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China at the end of the Yuan dynasty.^[8][9] The idea is said to have been conceived by Zhu Yuanzhang and his advisor Liu Bowen, who circulated a rumor that a deadly plague was spreading and that the only way to prevent it was to eat special mooncakes, which would instantly revive and give special powers to the user. This prompted the quick distribution of mooncakes. The mooncakes contained a secret message: on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, kill the rulers.^[10]

Another method of hiding a message was to print it on the surfaces of mooncakes (which came in packages of four), as a simple puzzle or mosaic. To read the message, each of the four mooncakes was cut into four parts. The resulting 16 pieces were pieced together to reveal the message. The pieces of mooncake were then eaten to destroy the message.

But in modern times, it is rumoured that Huawei have inserted micro-mini edible chips into the paste so that the Chinese authorities can monitor the movements (no joke intended) of those who have eaten the mooncakes and even indoctrinate the eaters with Xi Jinping Thought. You have been warned.

Traditional styles

Para e Fica did Myriam proud by producing their best gilt-edged crockery for presenting the mooncakes.

Last weeks quiz:

This was, I thought, quite a tough one. What was the connection between these four images?

The answer is:-

Approximate genetic similarity to humans. Fruit flies  ?? !!!

But once again Myriam was top banana with the correct answer. How does she do it?

This week´s quiz:

What completes this sequence?

And as for closing music, what else could it possibly be but that great swing standard How High The Moon. Here´s a version with Nat King Cole, who made his name a s a jazz pianist before becoming a crooner, Mel Tormé, better known as a jazz singer e.g. Mountain Greenery, but here obviously a very keen and capable drummer as well, and June Christie, a featured soloist with the Stan Kenton Orchestra.

PAPS 21.12: Fog Leaf, or a Tale of Lost and Found

 

In recent blogs we have spent some time talking about eminent ancient people such as Aristotle and Cicero, but we haven´t learned very much about what food they ate. Aristotle philosophised about food being life, and Cicero pontificated that “hunger is the best sauce”, but they gave no specifics. So we have to look elsewhere.

We find that at posh banquets the Ancients ate delicacies such as stuffed dormouse and braised flamingo, 

but here is a fairly normal every day recipe from Ancient Rome which might appeal to the Gourmet subsection of Walking WhatsApp group – Roast Lamb or Kid.

‘Marinated kid or lamb: 1 pint milk, 4 oz honey, 1 oz pepper, a little salt, a little asafoetida. For the sauce: 2 fl oz oil, 2 fl oz fish sauce, 2 fl oz honey, 8 crushed dates, half pint good wine, a little starch.’ 

This recipe is from Apicius, a Roman cookery book of different recipes thought to have been compiled in the 1st century AD. The recipe is particularly good with kid if you can find it but otherwise you can use lamb.

Serves 6

Ingredients
• Shoulder of kid or 1.25 kg leg of lamb
• Olive oil

Marinade
• 570ml milk
• 120g clear honey
• 1 tbsp pepper
• Salt
• 1/2 tsp asafoetida powder or 5 drops asafoetida tincture (you can use garlic or onion powder as a substitute)

Sauce
• 8 crushed fresh or dried dates
• 280ml red wine
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp clear honey
• 4 tbsp fish sauce
• A little cornflour (corn starch)

Method
For best results, you’ll want to marinate the meat overnight. Combine the marinade ingredients and leave the meat overnight in the marinade, turning it occasionally to ensure full absorption. At the same time, soak the fresh or dried dates in a little red wine. The next day remove the meat from the marinade, pat it dry, and then roast it in an oven pre-heated to 200°C/gas mark 6, well-seasoned and with olive oil. The timing should be 20 minutes to each 1lb (450g) and 20 minutes in addition. When the meat is nearly ready, pound the dates to a pulp and add to the remaining red wine, honey, fish sauce and oil. Bring to the boil in a saucepan and cook out briefly and then thicken with cornflour (corn starch, you can mix with a little water to avoid lumps). When the joint is cooked, remove it from the oven and leave to rest for 10 minutes before carving thick slices and serving with a little more of the fish sauce on the side.

The fish sauce is very important. Garum as it was called was a major industry – the Algarve region being a main source of the sauce for Romans in those days. The Archaeological Association is always telling us where the garum tanks are. Garum was a fermented mixture of fish entrails and little fish left to rot in the sun. Maybe Antje or Paul will give the recipe a go.

As for Wednesday´s walk, the skies were clear after Tuesday´s rains but we were a bit unclear about how many were going to be breakfasting. The old man behind the bar was told that there would now be 6, not 8 as originally ordered. Then he was told that there would be 7. Sex or septem, seis or seite, choose your language. We were indeed at sixes or sevens. Finally it was decided we would six because Maria was to go off early to attend a birthday party and ChrisW would be joining us after the walk. Luckily, the man behind the bar understood.

The Starters: Yves, Myriam, Antje, Hazel, JohnH, Maria, and Sascha.

After the Starter photo (suitably photoshopped - by the way, Yves being at pains to emphasise that he does not do Photoshop even although he is a semi-professional photographer), we set off on the by now familiar canal walk. Last time we were here there were signs that Silves Camera were taking steps to improve the safety of the road crossings over the canal.

Before : work in progress

After: work done

These have now been completed, so you need not now fear driving your car into the water late at night.

The ladies then paused to admire some coxcomb flowers and compare them with their own attempts at horticulture.

A long loop round and across brought us to a recently discovered track and we made our way to the large communal threshing floor at the top of the hill. (In the words of Rudyard Kipling in one of The Just So Stories, How the Whale got his Throat, “You must not forget the threshing floor, Best Beloved”) - I don´t know if Myriam approves of Rudyard Kipling - a terribly British Empire sort of chap.

Here we and Sascha paused for refreshment, while Yves proudly showed off his newly acquired walking cane which he had spent all of the past week whittling and polishing and completing with a metal tip.

We then followed a roundabout way down to the Clube Nautico where we paused for more refreshment while Sascha had a swim.

On our way home after leaving the Clube, Antje suddenly realised the she was missing her Fog leaF – a curse on this predictive text stuff – she meant Dog leaD.

A quick search back at the Clube was fruitless. Backtracking in our minds, we reckoned that she might have dropped it near the threshing floor (which you must not forget.)

Yves with his stick

Back then along the canal at some speed because the breakfast hour of 10 am was fast approaching. We met ChrisW coming in the opposite direction. Yves then took charge of the leadless Sascha just before the tarmac was reached.

Prompt at 10 am, the Restaurante served up the breakfast, as usual well-prepared by Chef Veronika. And, for once, the lady owner was in a good mood, all smiles as she brought us our food and drinks. Rod would have been amazed ay the transformation.

Hazel then did her greengrocer act, pulling all sorts of vegetables out of her carrier bag – peppers, beans, marrows, cucumbers.

This is a bottle gourd -edible, apparently

Conversation at breakfast, for some reason, dwelt on the word “pukka”.

Pukka Pies were mentioned (although in my opinion, they are a disappointing product – inadequately filled - more cutcha than pukka.)

According to my Hobson Jobson, which is a dictionary of Anglo-Indian words and phrases which describes itself as a “spice box of etymological curiosities and colourful expressions,” “pukka “ is from the Hindustani and means “ripe,” mature,” “cooked,” and hence “substantial” or “permanent” and so metaphorically “genuine.” A good chap is a Pukka Sahib. Its opposite “cutcha” is “unripe,” “raw,” and so “of inferior class,” "not quite from the top drawer."

What with Rudyard Kipling and pukka/cutcha , this blog is all at once redolent of the British Raj, which brings to mind this anecdote:-

Reporter: “What do you think of Western civilisation?”

Mahatma Gandhi: “It would be a good idea.”

The Track and the Statistics

Moving speed 3.4 kph - not too bad

Last week´s quiz

was what comes next in this sequence:

There was one entry a correct one, from Myriam. Her answer was Indurain, who is one of four riders to have won it five times.

I had thought that Yves and Ingrid would have got the answer with the Belgian rider Eddie Merckx perhaps the best known of the three; the other two being Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault. Miguel Indurain deserves to be better known because he won the race five times in a row.

This week´s quiz

is What is the connection between the following four forms of life?

P.S.

Breakfast over, ChrisW was persuaded to drive his pristine Seat over a rough track as we backtracked physically to look for the lost fog leaf which we thought might be somewhere near the threshing floor. 

Success. Lost and Found (now you know why you were not to forget the threshing floor)

P.P.S.

Next day Yves messaged to ask if any one knew where he had left his brand new walking cane – various suggestions and searches were made. As we go to press, the  final results not known. But probably  Lost ?

P.P.S.

Then on the Friday, Myriam found the following left in her car:

Sunglasses , probably Antje´s

Lost and Found.

Only one possible piece of music after all that.