Category: Farming history

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Medlars – a Rude Fruit for Winter

Detail of photo from the American Viscountess showing a medlar (link to the site below:)

Medlars were a very common and useful fruit particularly in the Medieval and Early Modern period. They come out in December but can only be eaten when they are rotten and ‘bletted’. They also store well. They, therefore, provide a source of winter sweetness when there were few other fresh sources available.

They are from the Rosaceae family which includes apples, pears, rosehips and quinces. The English called them ‘open arses’ or ‘dog’s arses’ or ‘granny’s arses’ because of the way they looked until the more polite French name the Medlar caught on.

Shakespeare uses both words and uses their sexual connotations as they were thought also to look like female genitalia. A medlar was also a name for a prostitute. So in Romeo and Juliet this speech by Mercutio to Romeo and their mates contains some very bawdy thoughts:

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.
O, Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a poppering pear!

RJ 2.1.33

I think you can also see how good Shakespeare was at making his allusions available to all classes. For the sophisticated he begins with the reference to the French medlar and in case the groundlings are missing out throws in the ‘open-arse’ so they know what he is alluding to.

Medlars fell out of favour in the 18th and 19th Centuries. For more on medlars have a look at British Food history https://britishfoodhistory.com/2017/11/12/forgotten-foods-7-openarses/

Or watch this video from ‘the American Viscountess’ from which I extracted the picture of the medlar above.

Video on Medlars
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January Time for a Good Cider Cup

John Worlidge in 1697 has a calendar discussing the farming year. and this is part of the discussion of January.

This Moneth is the rich mans charge, and the poor mans misery; the cold like the days increase, yet qualified with the hopes and expectations of the approaching Spring: The Trees, Meadows and Fields are now naked, unless cloathed in white, whilest the Countryman sits at home, and enjoys the fruit of his past labours, and contemplates on his intended Enterprises. Now is welcom a cup of good Cider, or other excellent Liquors, such that you prepared the Autumn before; moderately taken, it proves the best Physick.

John Worlidge in Systema Agriculturae, 1697

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If on January 12th the sun shine, it foreshows much wind.’

Abney Park cemetary in winter
Abney Park Cemetery in Winter photo by Harriet Salisbury

Or so says the Shepherd’s Almanac for 1676. Until the 12th Night we were forecasting the weather on the presumption that the weather on one of the 12 days will match the month of the same number. But having past Twelfth Night we have to find other methods of refining our forecasts.

Weather lore seems convinced of the undesirability of a warm January

‘January warm, the Lord have mercy’.

‘January commits the fault and May bears the blame.’

‘If Birds begin to Whistle in January, frosts to come’

‘When gnats swarm in January, the peasant become a beggar’

Most of the sayings about January quoted in Richard Inwards ‘Weather Lore’ first published in 1893, have this as their main focus. And the contrary also generally holds:

‘When oak trees bend with snow in January, good crops may be expected.’

‘A cold January, a feverish February, a dusty March, a weeping April , and a windy May presage a good year and gay.’

So much for long range forecasts, lets see how Weather Lore helps us use animals to determine whether it will rain today.

‘If animals crowd together, rain will follow.’

‘When dogs eat grass it will be rainy‘

‘When a cat sneezes, it is a sign of rain‘

‘If young horses do rub their backs against the ground, if is a sign of great drops of rain to follow.’

The only weather lore in my family was that a herd of cattle sitting down meant rain was on the way. (and of course ‘red sky at night, shepherd’s delight’ etc).

A survey by the Met Office in 2017 found that a surprisingly large number of people (75%) use ‘folklore’ to predict weather and 55% think they are useful methods of predictions. Here is a quote from their post.

  • Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight – used by 70% of UK adults – CORRECT
  • It can be too cold to snow – used by 49% – PROBABLY NOT IN THE UK
  • Cows lie down when it is about to rain – used by 44% – NOT CORRECT
  • Pine cones open up when good weather is coming – used by 26% CORRECT
  • If it rains on St Swithin’s day, it will rain on each of the next 40 days – used by 22% SINCE RECORDS BEGAN IN 1861, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A RECORD OF 40 DRY OR 40 WET DAYS IN A ROW FOLLOWING ST SWITHIN’S DAY.

Met Office 2017 https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2017/do-cows-really-lie-down-when-its-about-to-rain and BBC Newsround

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December 10 Time for your Beetle & Wedge

The Beetle and Wedge Boathouse Restaurant, Moulsford, Oxfordshire
Photo by Stephanie Musk (Wikipedia)

No season to hedge
get béetle and wedge
Cleaue logs now all
for kitchen and hall.

Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie by Thomas Tusser www.gutenberg.org

A beetle is a hammer and a wedge is used to split logs, so the first thing Tusser enjoins his readers to do for December is to stop digging and hedging and, instead, cut firewood.

He also suggests (if I read the Tudor writing correctly):

Sharpen dull working tooles

Leaue off tittle tattle and looke to thy cattle

and suggests:

Howse cow that is old, while winter doth hold.

But don’t forget:

Out once in a day, to drinke and to play.

He suggests covering strawberries with straw to protect them; Making sure your dried cod and ling don’t rot. Store the products of the Orchard in the attic. Bleed the horse and help the bees with ‘liquor and honie’.

‘Thus endeth Decembers abstract, agréeing with Decembers husbandrie.’

Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie by Thomas Tusser www.gutenbe