Another story of a culinary nature I found in the archives. It appears from the ink and paper used to write it down to be for an early Sleeping Hedgehog newsletter in the Edwardian era. No author noted.
I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry you didn’t receive an invitation to spend your holiday with those few who stick around the Green Man during this time of the year. I’m far away from the Green Man myself at the moment, off in a southern clime, in what feels like another universe.
I won’t bore you with descriptions of this southwestern land of eternal brown, with its sweaty winter dead-leaf days and cloudless eye-achingly blue skies raked with barren, stunted live oak branches. The trees along this particular stretch of woods look much of a sameness whether it be the midsummer brown season or the midwinter one. I lie back in the crackling brown leaves, and close my eyes, and picture a place where the world is green all summer long, but blankets itself with white during the winter holidays… .
Snow crusts gently upward in fluffy drifts against the doors at the Green Man estate. The lane to the front entryway is wide and trampled, the prints of hoof and boot and paw mingling in the white with loose dirt stirred up from beneath the frost or carried in from far travels. A beautiful team of matched dapple grays pulls up the drive — Percherons, majestic in their white shaggy manes and tufted ankles, with their coats like wide flat fields of snowflake stars. The back of the wagon they pull is piled high with hay, a miniature mountain which sways with the team’s gait, spilling here and there small spiky tuffets which flutter down to salt the trodden white and brown tracks with gold.
The hamper itself is quite large. The wagon driver whistles to her team and they halt as one, the large brass bells chiming on their worn black leather harnesses, muted in the snow-stippled air. The horses’ breath puffs out in small visible clouds, red ribbons braided into their thick white tails standing stark against the nearly matching white snow of the world beyond. At the sound of harness bells the front door swings wide, and four strapping young men — the ones without whom we wouldn’t have our teetering stockpiles of firewood to heat this ancient drafty place, nor our snow-shoveled paths through the winter clad gardens — come bounding down the wide stairs and heave the hamper from its nest of golden hay.
The hamper is lowered to the floor in the middle of the hall. It’s made of hickory splints with a solid hinged lid, like an oversized picnic basket. It appears to be quite old — the wood is dark with age and has a slight musty smell mixed with ancient hay, as though the hamper had sat in a barn loft for untallied decades. It’s lined with a tablecloth, white and red in a Dorset Mountain weave, which forms the perfect bed for the hamper’s contents.
Ahhh. The contents of the Green Man holiday hamper. On top are the simple, cozy gifts which make our after-supper winter walks all the more delightful — hand-knit wool mittens and thick boot-length socks, and scarves with crocheted fringes fashioned in clever patterns by fingers far more dexterous than most could ever hope to possess. There are cranberry strings and short evergreen boughs, and blood-orange pomanders studded with cloves to decorate the mantel in the main hall. There are buttery shortbreads lightly dusted with powdered sugar, candied yams still miraculously warm in their crockery, and decanters of dark maple syrup from the north and hand blown jars of honey from bees who feed on southern wildflowers, both of which receive equal appreciation from our winter bound staff. There’s a pot each of wild elderberry and strawberry and blackberry jams, and wheels of sharp cheddar, and cave-aged gruyère with salty inclusions. For our four-legged members there are hand-tied bags of dried catnip, and hard homemade dog biscuits. For the musicians there are silver flutes and pennywhistles and harmonicas; and for me, an extra bottle of St. Germain, artisanal French liqueur made from handpicked elder flower blossoms. I imagine it warming my tongue even now, as I savour the taste of crisp air from the Alpine foothills, the taste of fleeting spring days and of tiny white blossoms.
But no. If you didn’t get your invitation to our estate for the holidays, you and I are both far from all that, wherever we are. And yet when we close our eyes… and breathe deep… we can practically taste it!
[...] A Holiday Hamper [...]