Yule Traditions
Posted By Ardellis on December 19, 2005
Friday night was my annual pilgrimage with my Mom to see the Christmas Revels. For their 35th anniversary, they’ve gone back to their roots in Medieval England, but they pick a different place and time period every year (my favorites have included Kalevala-era Finland and Catholicised Mexico). This isn’t their best year — I suspect the passing of their founder, John Langstaff, has put a slight damper on things — but still a good show.
And, well, I simply adore David Coffin. (Note to self: Must remember to give Mom back her copy of his Nantucket Sleighride CD. I think I’ve had it for over a year.)
Saturday, of course, was spent errand-running. Must have a Yankee Swap gift for the office party. Must have supplies to wrap the baked goods in. And must have food other than baked goods in the house (yeah, it’s kind of a rule).
Yesterday was that dreaded event known in my house as Bread Day.
For those of you who don’t know me IRL (all 2 of you), I only make bread once a year, at Yuletime, and I only make one kind of bread: nisu. It’s a traditional Finnish recipe with lots of butter and sugar and cardamom in it, that I inherited from my Finnish-American maternal grandmother. She learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, going further back than anyone now living knows, so I consider it my main matrilineal inheritance. And since cardamom is a solar spice, it’s ideal for solstice magick.
Making the stuff is an all-day project. This is largely because, since I only do it once a year, I like to make a lot of it (usually more than 30 loaves). Then you have to take into account that this is one of those breads that needs to rise 3 times before you can bake it (twice before and once after it’s braided). Generally, I start around 6 or 7 in the morning and wrap the last loaf just before midnight. Andy, whenever he can, flees the house on Bread Day, because sometime late in the afternoon, when I’m at the stage where half the dough is braided and the first few loaves are in the oven, when there are no flat surfaces left in my kitchen and there’s flour in my hair and my back is starting to ache… well, you can probably guess how much patience I have left with even simple questions like “What do you want to do about dinner?”
Ah, but it’s worth it! Today my whole house smells of butter and cardamom, and I get to have lightly toasted nisu with my coffee. Yum!
Just fed the last crust of our loaf to some squirrels outside, who looked quite happy with the treat! Richard and I (and the wildlife of Raleigh) are very grateful to your wonderful tradition.