For the Love of Dirt: AN UDDERLY GOOD TIME

Thursday, March 11, 2021

AN UDDERLY GOOD TIME

"And the plants will rise up. They will rise and shine. One day. When winter falls. And the Ides of March will be upon us...." -R. Raphe

My mother had a thing about the Ides of March. She'd read Shakespeare aloud, at the kitchen table, night after night. She'd get me to read along with her. She liked Julius Caesar best.

Hamlet. Julius Caesar. Macbeth.....

Lupercalia, that's what it's called, my mother would say. That Roman holiday . A soothsayer warns Caesar to beware the Ides of March. (Act 1 Scene 2 of Julius Caesar) We MUST have a tea party. An Ides of March party, she say again.

And so we did. That one year.Though it proved a lot harder to do than she thought.

She got a book from the library ( no internet remember). She walked downtown to the library to ask for an ancient roman cook book. And came back with a dozen.

The food turned out to be rather unobtainable. My mother read out the recipes considered applicable to an Ides of March tea party....my job was to write them down.

Sows udders stuffed with salted sea urchins. Flamingoes boiled with dates, Ostriches cooked whole, Snails drowned in milk till they were fat then fried alive in oil, and Stuffed Dormouse ( leave on the fur).

Oh yum.

My mother decided that sausage rolls would suffice as sows udders, tomatoe aspic could stand in for flamingoes, chicken legs would be great as Ostriches, and though snails were available she got smoked oysters ( her favourite) instead, and instead of a dormouse or two she figured on a chocolate cake.

the ONE thing she decided would be authentic and actually able to do was something called POSCA. A drink that everyone in Rome, even Caesar, glugged down.

POSCA was just a glass of water with a tablespoon of honey and red wine vinegar. We'd call it a cleanse now. Romans LOVED it and drank it by the gallons. They would even poach pears in it as a type of dessert. But we stuck to her chocolate cake.....

At some roman dinner parties. POSCA was great for washing down Dormouse.

Another thing that was easy to make was something called BEANS ....spooned over the sows udders.

Dried BEANS were mixed in broth, wine, honey, celery, vinegar, egg yolks and olive oil and boiled at the same time the Udders were cooked. Once they were done, you were supposed to spear the stuffed udders and smother them with the beans. We passed on that. But my mother still made a small pot of beans. No one touched them. Most likely cause she had a label attached that said they were to be smothered over Udders. She tried to be authentic after all.

There were just a few friends at the party. They read thru passages of "Julius Caesar". My mother acted out the part of the soothsayer. I had never seen her like that. It was fun . It was more than fun. No one touched the oysters. Especially after my mother explained they were supposed to be fat , gooey snails.......but still, an udderly good time was had by all.