Practical Witchery!, John Stormm [ap literature book list txt] 📗

to me that in this enlightened day and age where persecution is a bit tamer than the days of old, that many modern witches do not enjoy some of what we consider traditional fare on our Sabbaths.

These are the times we come together as a family and remember who we are, what we are and what we have come through to get here. We've seen our culture demonized beyond recognition. When you say "witch" to the average American, the picture that springs to their mind is worlds apart from what we are, but then, our invisibility has saved us for a long, long time. In our household, words like "witch" or "coven" were never used. In my grandmother and great grandmother's time, it was not "chic" to be known as a witch. In some places now, it is an unhealthy proposition at best. We were healers, midwives, herbalists and fortune tellers maybe, but never witches. We had a women's circle that would meet at odd times to share recipes, methods, techniques and news, but then every church parish had a women's circle also to conduct bake sales and ladies auxiliaries and such. Our language had to match their language to blend in and be left alone. Besides a good knowledge of medicines to care for our own, we shared a good knowledge of wild foods to supplement our groceries when things got tight or when we were outright forced to flee for our lives.

It was said of old, that you couldn't starve out a witch because they would eat the babies. I must confess that I like children as much as anyone, but I could never eat a whole one by myself. In fact, with my forest fare that I've grown up with, I just don't have a need or desire for that much red meat. Wild nuts and acorns in particular are rich in the amino acids and proteins you would get from meat. It's the Twenty First Century, and these witches are taking nothing for granted. We have learned that from our history, and not the popular history the world loves to write and rewrite. We aren't forced out into the woods by rioting townsfolk bearing torches, but we have been raised generation upon generation of witches prepared to live where others might fear to wander.

For our traditional feast fare, we gather the acorns of the white oak. The oak being a sacred tree is more than just lumber or shade to us, it is a bearer of good food for us too. Of all the varieties of oak, it produces the fattest and sweetest nut meats. Still it is a labor intensive food, but for us, part of our socializing as hereditary witches will occur around the preparation of acorn flour and a hearty root beer to have with our Sabbath meals. It's as much a part of our identity as the atheme and the cauldron. I will share a bit on its preparation and a recipe or two for those witches who might care to feel their roots go down deep.

When the white oak casts its acorns to the ground around the end of August and beginning of September, that is the time we go out and gather the fattest and plumpest of these for our flour. We gather them into sacks and take them home and preheat our ovens to about 425 degrees. We clean off any dirt and pull off the caps and roast them in a shallow pan until they turn brown and begin to split. Then we shell them and gossip (ancient tradition) while watching a good movie (not-so-ancient tradition) and get the nut meat separate from the hulls.

These nuts will still be quite bitter to the taste due to the tannic acid in the meat. To get this out we load the kernels into a cloth bag and seep them in a large pot of boiling water until it turns dark as tea. Change the water and repeat the process until it no longer turns dark and then lay out the nuts and allow to dry. Then we all pull up to a table with our mortar and pestles and grind the nuts into a light brown flour. Utilizing a couple sieves a good grade of flour can be obtained. This is then mixed with an unbleached whole grain flour or stored in an airtight container in the freezer until needed.

If anyone has any food allergies, particularly nuts, they might want to stay away from these dishes. We'll use that flour for scones, stew thickeners, pastry crusts for a variety of "shepherds pie" or meat and potato pies, some excellent cookies and muffins in our gatherings along with some home made sassafras root beer to wash them down or a bramble berry wine. It not only reminds us of who we are and what we've been through as a culture, but assures us that if we ever have to, we can do it for a few more centuries.Here's an acorn muffin recipe. If acorns have been blighted or are unavailable, you can use shelled hazelnuts (you don't have to steep the bitterness out of them) and grind them into flour and mix in equal portions with an unbleached, self rising flour. Word of warning: hazelnut flour will make everyone sleepier than a turkey dinner... which makes great "knock out muffins" to serve with milk to get the kids in bed, or help an insomniac get a good nights rest.

Acorn Fruit Muffins

Batter

1 1/2 cups of 50/50 flour and acorn flour

1/2 cup of unprocessed sugar

1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

3/4 cup of diced apples and raisins or other dried fruits

1 egg

1/2 cup of buttermilk or milk

1/3 cup of melted margarine or butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, adding the fruit at the end.

In a different bowl beat together the buttermilk, egg and melted butter then add them to the dry ingredients. Whisk until combined, the mixture should remain slightly lumpy.

Scoop the mixture into 12 well greased or paper lined muffin tins, filling them about half full.

Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until they are lightly browned and remove from the oven and let cool for about 5 minutes and remove them from the pan. You may now add toppings as desired. Dipping them in melted butter with a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon works fine as a topping too.

Merry meet and merry part... Blessed be!

 From The Earth Wytch Daily...

 

 

 

 

 

Ostara - Spring Tonic

 

The time of Ostara is upon us! The Spring Equinox, a balance of night and day, after a long season that has been all too dark and dreary.

"Ah," they would say, "Spring is in the air, and a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of..."

Uh,... well, it's been a while and I'm no longer so young. I remember now... HOT ROOT BEER!

This is also a notorious time for colds and flu as my grandmother would remind me. It was one of two great Equinoxes where she would take me out to the woods to harvest sassafras roots for her tonic.

The weather's still quite crisp and usually wet. We might not appreciate the aches and chills, but Nature needs all this moisture to give us her very best. We call her, Danu. But you might call her Gaia, or even Mother Nature. Like any good Mother, she has provided some wonderful treatments for such times.

There is a remarkable, magickal tree, my Grandma would tell me, that has three different types of leaves, all on the same branch. Three is a very important number in Celtic magicks and worth noting here, and trees are always important. The thing young folks want to remember is that the strength of the tree is in its roots. So, if we want the strength to fortify our bodies against the ravages of changeable weather, we need these roots for our tonic. Now, sassafras tea that you can buy in your local health food store is all well and good, but is as different as the noon time sun is from your best flashlight. The tea in your store is usually scraped bark. The tonic is from the brewed rootstock.

First we identify our trees. The three leaf shapes are the oval (think of football season in the fall), the mitten (got to keep those hands warm) and the ghost (great for tales around Halloween, but that's another season). If you see all three on the same branch, you have your sassafras. The leaves are fine and tender in a salad (kind of a citrus taste). If you scrape at the bark and sniff, it will smell of root beer. Now before we destroy all sorts of trees and ruin our chances of ever harvesting this another year, we need to look around for a lot of young saplings with the same leaves. This tree grows like a "rhizome." The roots are very hardy, and shoot out in all directions, and a single root may support several trees. So, in an area where these will not be able to support all those trees so close together, we do well to thin them out a little. Find the smaller trees and remove all the forest debris from around the base and pull firmly, but gently. Use a large knife or an ax to cut off the roots (Grandma's atheme was largely utilitarian in use), you might want to keep some of the tree stock for wands or staves as you will partake of their brew or reserve the brew for whomever the item is crafted for. You will now smell a rich and very heady scent of root beer from these roots. As children, it was all that Grandma could do to get our heads out of the sack with the roots. It’s a nature buzz, but nothing dangerous or illegal, I should note.

Scrub your roots in cold running water with a brush to remove the dirt and break them down to a manageable size for your pot. Healthy roots in the spring and fall should snap in half like a carrot. Then set up your cauldron, or just a large pot, with cold water. Put enough root stock, roughly about the volume of about three or four good sized carrots for about eight quarts of water. Bring it to a good rolling boil and breathe it in. The whole house will smell of root beer. No worries because it fades fast. Turn off the heat and cover the pot and allow those roots to steep well. When you look inside and see a dark, reddish brown brew, it’s time to sweeten with a little sugar or fructose (or whatever) and drink a good hearty mug of root beer. The pot will be stained, but it comes out with just a little bleach added to the water with soaking.

It’s great served hot for those with the sniffles. It will, quite literally put just a little more “spring” in their step. Adding sugar and setting out for a week will cause a touch of fermenting that will add that foamy head to your root beer served cold and is