Easter is almost a month in the past and for reasons unclear to me, my spouse is still obsessed with Easter eggs. Or, actually, with the story told to children about who lays the eggs—the famous Easter bunny versus Easter rooster controversy. (Apparently some people have not heard of the rooster, ever, and obviously this won't do.)
My spouse does indeed live with a walking encyclopedia with a sense of humor of an Asperger when it comes to facts. I suspect it's sometimes tiresome. Then at times it's useful. So just imagine his shock when he found out that the encyclopedia contains no information about Easter bunnies and rabbits at all. (And very little interest towards the subject, plus some faint memory that there was something about either animal in The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. Probably the rooster. Or, wait, maybe the rabbit?)
It's a good thing I have a lot of free time.
I started my quest suspecting that the bunny‒rooster controversy may have something to do with the east‒west division. Finland is located between eastern and western traditions, which bunch of our own customs added to it, and that's why we are popular among religious and folk scientists. That is also why traditions, as well as dialects, are often divided into eastern and western. My family is from Carelia—that is, east—and I remember being told since child that it is the rooster who lays the eggs. If my theory was correct, it would leave bunnies for the west.
First it seemed that this may actually be the case. The bunny tradition has a middle European origin: an Easter Hare was first mentioned in 1682 referring to an Alsace tradition. Rabbits and hares—like eggs—used to be symbols of fertility, for reasons quite obvious (although I certainly didn't know before that female rabbits can concieve again when still pregnant with the previous litter). It was also thought that hares are hermaphrodites and can thus reproduce without losing their virginity, which led to an association with Virgin Mary. The European hare later changed into a bunny in America.
It seems, however, that Easter rooster is a Scandinavian tradition. Here it claims that it is the rooster (påsktuppen) who lays the eggs, except that eggs laid by him are of cardboard and filled with candy. There are also blogs with Swedes horrified with the idea of a bunny. In Swedish Christian tradition the rooster is considered a symbol of vigilance, and in these beautiful illustrations the rooster claims that the hen has betrayed him, making him thus Jesus and the hen Judas. And while wikipedia keeps quiet about the rooster, googling in Finnish gives a lot of hits.
That about my theory. It seems that egg-laying bunnies dwell in America; hares in Europe; roosters in Scandinavia. But what about Russia, where many eastern Finnish traditions come from? My Russian informant tells me that a Russian saying goes,
"Every child knows that a hen lays eggs."
But why the abundance of eggs? And why chicks? The answer is simple. Because eggs were considered dairy, it was forbidden to eat them during the lent. If they were not let to hatch, they had to be hard-boiled in order to store them until the Easter feast, and then they had to be eaten quite quickly. Naturally it was also a good time to let eggs hatch—that's why the chicks.
Obviously a lot of symbolism is involved. The hard shell symbolizes the tomb of Christ and cracking the shell his resurrection from death. Painting eggs red symbolizes the blood Christ shed when crusified. In traditions even older, Zoroastriand painted eggs for their spring celebration, and in Fenno-Ugric mythology the world is created of a fallen egg.
Apparently people have also been toying with eggs, tapping, dumping, jarping, dancing and rolling them down the hills. Incidentally, the highest peak of otherwise very flat Estonia is called Suur Munamägi (Great Egg Hill, 318 m), and when residing in Southern Estonia I was told it was named so because people used to go there on Easter to roll down eggs.
And still one final piece of information: Easter is named after an old Germanic goddess Ēostre. The month named after her was equivalent to our April and a feast was held on her honor to celebrate spring.
02 toukokuuta 2012
29 huhtikuuta 2012
Ho Chi Minh! No, wait, hoatzin
There's a bird who lives in South America, mainly in Amazonas jungle, that is called hoatzin. Not Ho Chi Minh, as I tend to remember. It is different than any other bird in the world and similar to the fossil bird Archaeopteryx. Its chicks have dinosaurus-like claws on two of their wing digits, the thumb and the first finger. The chicks can use them to climb on trees to escape predators. (Hoatzins make their nests of sticks hanging over water when forests are flooding.) But if a predator still finds them, they fall to the water, escape by swimming under the surface and use their claws to climb back to their nests. Later, when they learn to fly, the claws atrophy. Hoatzin has a special digestive system so that it can use all the leaves it eats, fermenting them into cellulose. And because of that system it smells like manure, which is also the reason its older English name is stinkbird.
I am somehow deeply impressed by hoatzins.
23 huhtikuuta 2012
The sweet autistic freedom
The first time I encountered autists must have been in Cambodia.
I was volunteering in an orphanage in Phnom Penh for four months on spring 2007. I've never had much words to descibe the experience: it is like no language was made to tell about things I saw and felt and touched. Most of the kids in the orphanage were disabled or autistic, which of course was the reason they were abandoned on the first place. Caregivers worked 48 hours shifts with minimum wage and had so many kids on their responsibility that they could only take care everyone was fed and dry. Thus kids, who in west would have learned to walk and maybe even talk, were lying on mattresses on the floor day after day until their joints dislocated and the skin on their back started bleeding for rubbing against the mattress.
The first day—or probably the first week—I spent mostly crying. How can people live in such circumstances? How will their life be when they grow up? After a week I, like I guess most of the volunteers, realized that my crying helps nothing. Acting does.
And so I stopped crying. I was trained for a week by the local physiotherapists, and after that started to work with four children individually. One day one of them—a six years old autistic boy with bloody scars on his hand he had bitten in frustration—learnt to walk and started to explore the world. His wavering walk, and his smile, are imprinted in my memory. I did make a change in someone's life.
Some years later I started working as an assistant at a special needs school in Helsinki. I had seen much worse, of course—children who in Cambodia would have been lying on mattresses hitting their head on the floor were in a very different condition in Finland. First of all, they were not abandoned by their parents (and my greatest respect in the world goes undoubtly exactly to their parents). Second, they had been given all the possible help and assistance. They were not (and are not and will never be) like kids at regular schools, but they had had the possibility to grow and develop as themselves, as they are.
Yet my first reaction was emotional. I was standing on the school yard looking at the kids doing the weirdest things, pitying them for not being able to... not being able to... And then, I couldn't quite finish my sentence.
Indeed they do not live a life we easily consider a good life. Indeed they will not achieve certain milestones, learn to read, get friends, fall in love, get a job they like... The list would be endless. But what really stroke me was the realization of the stressless life they lead. While they do not achieve what we often find important, they do not actually care—and, what is even more important, they are not expected to care or to do any of those things.
It's all about expectations. I certainly feel distressed of everything I feel I should accomplish, should achieve, should want to have in life. While it's easy to say that you do not want something that is generally thought desirable—let us say children as it's an easy example—and while it's of course your own choice and (in our society) no-one can actually make you have children against your will, socially it is much more complicated. People who choose not to have children are constantly in a situation where they have to explain their decision, while people who have willingly followed a norm because it suits them, are often socially embraced. The same goes of course with anything slightly out of norm, like having your children too young, not wanting a career, wanting a career instead of a family, wanting a different kind of career, wanting unorthodox relationships, not wanting to be in a relationship... I'm sure everyone could give an example from their own life.
And while I do respect our educational system in many ways, one has to admit that it is full of expectations. There are syllabuses, schedules and norms. And there should be some: it's not like we should all kick others when we don't get what we want or pee in our pants for the joy of it. I just sometimes wonder doesn't our school system raise one mostly to fulfil expectations, and doesn't it encourage us a bit too much to take certain norms given. Why should everyone develop the same speed and be compared to and evaluated against the average speed? Why should we even learn all the same things even as children?
But the thing is that once you've been classified as not valid for this system—that is, invalid—you are free to learn and experience the world on your own speed. In great part autists are liberated from expectations, because it's almost impossible to bend them to do something they really do not want to do. And while ordinary children—or adults—can be persuaded by appealing to some social norms or relations (like not wanting anyone to be angry at you), autists simply just do not care.
As a consequence, my pity suddenly turned from them to myself and everyone else who is not a low-functioning autist. Ah, I thought. What a freedom!
Obviously, the solution wouldn't still be that we would all start behaving like LFA children. Nor would I change my current life to anyone else's. But being sensitive to all kind of expectations, I do wonder if there exists some kind of a middle ground, where we could enjoy all the abilities we have, grow and develop on our own speed without classifications to valids and invalids, learn what we are good at and interested in—and have a minimum pressure in what comes to accomplishing things and following certain social norms. That we would really have a social freedom to choose what we want in life.
I know some people can do that easily, but I also know that I'm not the only one who does not.
I was volunteering in an orphanage in Phnom Penh for four months on spring 2007. I've never had much words to descibe the experience: it is like no language was made to tell about things I saw and felt and touched. Most of the kids in the orphanage were disabled or autistic, which of course was the reason they were abandoned on the first place. Caregivers worked 48 hours shifts with minimum wage and had so many kids on their responsibility that they could only take care everyone was fed and dry. Thus kids, who in west would have learned to walk and maybe even talk, were lying on mattresses on the floor day after day until their joints dislocated and the skin on their back started bleeding for rubbing against the mattress.
The first day—or probably the first week—I spent mostly crying. How can people live in such circumstances? How will their life be when they grow up? After a week I, like I guess most of the volunteers, realized that my crying helps nothing. Acting does.
And so I stopped crying. I was trained for a week by the local physiotherapists, and after that started to work with four children individually. One day one of them—a six years old autistic boy with bloody scars on his hand he had bitten in frustration—learnt to walk and started to explore the world. His wavering walk, and his smile, are imprinted in my memory. I did make a change in someone's life.
Some years later I started working as an assistant at a special needs school in Helsinki. I had seen much worse, of course—children who in Cambodia would have been lying on mattresses hitting their head on the floor were in a very different condition in Finland. First of all, they were not abandoned by their parents (and my greatest respect in the world goes undoubtly exactly to their parents). Second, they had been given all the possible help and assistance. They were not (and are not and will never be) like kids at regular schools, but they had had the possibility to grow and develop as themselves, as they are.
Yet my first reaction was emotional. I was standing on the school yard looking at the kids doing the weirdest things, pitying them for not being able to... not being able to... And then, I couldn't quite finish my sentence.
Indeed they do not live a life we easily consider a good life. Indeed they will not achieve certain milestones, learn to read, get friends, fall in love, get a job they like... The list would be endless. But what really stroke me was the realization of the stressless life they lead. While they do not achieve what we often find important, they do not actually care—and, what is even more important, they are not expected to care or to do any of those things.
It's all about expectations. I certainly feel distressed of everything I feel I should accomplish, should achieve, should want to have in life. While it's easy to say that you do not want something that is generally thought desirable—let us say children as it's an easy example—and while it's of course your own choice and (in our society) no-one can actually make you have children against your will, socially it is much more complicated. People who choose not to have children are constantly in a situation where they have to explain their decision, while people who have willingly followed a norm because it suits them, are often socially embraced. The same goes of course with anything slightly out of norm, like having your children too young, not wanting a career, wanting a career instead of a family, wanting a different kind of career, wanting unorthodox relationships, not wanting to be in a relationship... I'm sure everyone could give an example from their own life.
And while I do respect our educational system in many ways, one has to admit that it is full of expectations. There are syllabuses, schedules and norms. And there should be some: it's not like we should all kick others when we don't get what we want or pee in our pants for the joy of it. I just sometimes wonder doesn't our school system raise one mostly to fulfil expectations, and doesn't it encourage us a bit too much to take certain norms given. Why should everyone develop the same speed and be compared to and evaluated against the average speed? Why should we even learn all the same things even as children?
But the thing is that once you've been classified as not valid for this system—that is, invalid—you are free to learn and experience the world on your own speed. In great part autists are liberated from expectations, because it's almost impossible to bend them to do something they really do not want to do. And while ordinary children—or adults—can be persuaded by appealing to some social norms or relations (like not wanting anyone to be angry at you), autists simply just do not care.
As a consequence, my pity suddenly turned from them to myself and everyone else who is not a low-functioning autist. Ah, I thought. What a freedom!
Obviously, the solution wouldn't still be that we would all start behaving like LFA children. Nor would I change my current life to anyone else's. But being sensitive to all kind of expectations, I do wonder if there exists some kind of a middle ground, where we could enjoy all the abilities we have, grow and develop on our own speed without classifications to valids and invalids, learn what we are good at and interested in—and have a minimum pressure in what comes to accomplishing things and following certain social norms. That we would really have a social freedom to choose what we want in life.
I know some people can do that easily, but I also know that I'm not the only one who does not.
06 huhtikuuta 2012
Kulitsa, pasha, some herons and too many restaurants
I think of food far too much. The healthier I try to eat, the more I think of food, and the more I end up searching for interesting recipes and trying them. I will have to do something about this.
That is, after Easter. Tomorrow is Easter Saturday and I'll make quark pastries and maybe some kulitsa, and on Sunday we'll have them with pasha, after the main course of asparagus and creamy basil sauce. And if I am to choose Easter music, it'll be Paul Desmond, which sounds perfectly like spring.
Spring. I like the light of spring and the bubbling feeling of forgotten dreams and adventures it brings to mind. The faint pink color of days and brightness of evenings. The smell of lilies in the bathroom reminds me of what God's touch in your life must feel like if you believe in God ̶ and I do think that I know how the touch of God's feels, this feeling of purposefulness, sense, love, light and softness at the same time, although I don't name it so.
Spring! I want to make a heronspotting trip to south of Estonia with my new car. It'll have to be early May: university exams are just over and herons are busy incubating their eggs and looking noble. Pärnumaa should be good for spotting herons; I've been thinking of Luitemaa park south of Pärnu, in spite of having promised myself never to drive the Pärnu ̶ Riga road again. All Pärnumaa birdwatching areas can be found on this map. I wish we'll also have time to visit the islands: they have lots of awesome birds there like eagles and black storks, and I've always wanted to drive all the way down to the southest point of the island and see the lighthouse.
And while in Estonia, I want to visit at least one these Tallinn restaurants: Ariran, an odd non-restaurant looking place which is said to be an east mafia money-laundering spot and where the mrs makes delicious home-style meals; Pirosmani, a Georgian café that somehow manages to make its scuffiness look purposeful; and Moses, which simply looks delicious. And, as usual, I'll have porridge for breakfast in either Reval Café or Gourmet Coffee on Koidula.
In Helsinki, in addition to my all time favourite Dong Bei Hu, I am going to try Lebanese Fattoush in Kontula of all places, and Ethiopian Queen Sheba. And then I promise to start thinking of something else than food.
That is, after Easter. Tomorrow is Easter Saturday and I'll make quark pastries and maybe some kulitsa, and on Sunday we'll have them with pasha, after the main course of asparagus and creamy basil sauce. And if I am to choose Easter music, it'll be Paul Desmond, which sounds perfectly like spring.
Spring. I like the light of spring and the bubbling feeling of forgotten dreams and adventures it brings to mind. The faint pink color of days and brightness of evenings. The smell of lilies in the bathroom reminds me of what God's touch in your life must feel like if you believe in God ̶ and I do think that I know how the touch of God's feels, this feeling of purposefulness, sense, love, light and softness at the same time, although I don't name it so.
Spring! I want to make a heronspotting trip to south of Estonia with my new car. It'll have to be early May: university exams are just over and herons are busy incubating their eggs and looking noble. Pärnumaa should be good for spotting herons; I've been thinking of Luitemaa park south of Pärnu, in spite of having promised myself never to drive the Pärnu ̶ Riga road again. All Pärnumaa birdwatching areas can be found on this map. I wish we'll also have time to visit the islands: they have lots of awesome birds there like eagles and black storks, and I've always wanted to drive all the way down to the southest point of the island and see the lighthouse.
And while in Estonia, I want to visit at least one these Tallinn restaurants: Ariran, an odd non-restaurant looking place which is said to be an east mafia money-laundering spot and where the mrs makes delicious home-style meals; Pirosmani, a Georgian café that somehow manages to make its scuffiness look purposeful; and Moses, which simply looks delicious. And, as usual, I'll have porridge for breakfast in either Reval Café or Gourmet Coffee on Koidula.
In Helsinki, in addition to my all time favourite Dong Bei Hu, I am going to try Lebanese Fattoush in Kontula of all places, and Ethiopian Queen Sheba. And then I promise to start thinking of something else than food.
05 huhtikuuta 2012
A perfect day
02 huhtikuuta 2012
Self-admiration and spice
I honestly feel that all of my guests should admire my collection of spices. They should express their awe of both variety and quality and ask interested questions. This applies especially for couchsurfers, when I show them where they can find everything they might need during their stay. I imagine an ideal discussion would go approximately like this:
'And if you should need any spices, you find them here', I say.
'How much spices you've got!' goes the couchsurfer, with an expression of astonishment.
'Oh, I'm afraid it's not so much', I say modestly, pointing out some vital shortcoming.
'But such good quality too!' continues the awed couchsurfer, ignoring my remark.
I imagine s/he would also like to go through all the tiny jars, bursting sometimes with excitement commenting 'organic galangal!', 'organic French rosemary!' or 'oh my god, you even have organic ramsons and Cambodian black pepper!', nodding vigorously to him/herself.
I also expect to hear something about the way sage behaves when you try to pour it from a jar or a box, a little like a flock of sheep would fall from a cliff to the sea; or, if not that, at least something about the coarseness of Korean chili on the skin of your fingers. This happens quite rarely, however. Mostly they just nod without any interest and probably with no plans of cooking. Apparently they do not realize they could just prepare a raw cocoa drink with ground cardamon, clove, dry ginger and some oat milk, or spice up their sandwiches with green pepper and basil. Poor people.
But as I am left alone to admire my spiceshelf, I don't think I have much else to do than to list them. Spices and herbs are also one of my favourite souvenirs, and I like to remember where they come from.
Things I have on my spice shelves
- algae, from Portugal
- basil, organic
- bay leaves, whole
- black pepper, organic, ground
- black pepper, Cambodian, whole,
got from a friend met accidentally in a hostel in Saigon
- capsicum, organic, ground
- cardamon, organic, ground
- cardamon, green, whole
- chili, Korean, roughly ground, bought in London
- chives, from France
- cloves, ground
- cloves, whole
- coriander, ground
- cumin, ground
- curry, Panang style, paste
- fennel, whole
- fenugreek, organic, whole
- galangal, ground, from France
- ginger, organic, ground
- green pepper, from France
- lemongrass, organic
- mustard seeds, yellow
- oregano, from France
- parsley, organic
- pili-pili, ground, from France
- piri-piri, sauce, a souvenir from Madeira
- ramsons, organic, from France
- rosemary, organic, from France
- sage, organic
- salt, gray sea salt, from France
- Sichuan pepper, whole
- soybean paste, Korean
- star anis, whole
- thyme, grown by myself in Estonia
- turmeric, ground
- vanilla, from France
- wasabi, paste
- white pepper, from France
Spices I need to get
- some good quality Indian or Thai kind of chili
- fennel, ground (I'm not exactly sure what for but I feel I should have it)
- fenugreek, ground (it's difficult to grind it smooth enough by yourself)
- nutmeg, ground (for soups and baking)
- vanilla, powdered
- wasabi, powdered
Observations. First, spices I've been using most lately are, quite curiously, ground cardamon and rosemary. Second, listing your spices is just what one should do on April 2nd when it's [add bad words here] SNOWING.
'And if you should need any spices, you find them here', I say.
'How much spices you've got!' goes the couchsurfer, with an expression of astonishment.
'Oh, I'm afraid it's not so much', I say modestly, pointing out some vital shortcoming.
'But such good quality too!' continues the awed couchsurfer, ignoring my remark.
I imagine s/he would also like to go through all the tiny jars, bursting sometimes with excitement commenting 'organic galangal!', 'organic French rosemary!' or 'oh my god, you even have organic ramsons and Cambodian black pepper!', nodding vigorously to him/herself.
I also expect to hear something about the way sage behaves when you try to pour it from a jar or a box, a little like a flock of sheep would fall from a cliff to the sea; or, if not that, at least something about the coarseness of Korean chili on the skin of your fingers. This happens quite rarely, however. Mostly they just nod without any interest and probably with no plans of cooking. Apparently they do not realize they could just prepare a raw cocoa drink with ground cardamon, clove, dry ginger and some oat milk, or spice up their sandwiches with green pepper and basil. Poor people.
But as I am left alone to admire my spiceshelf, I don't think I have much else to do than to list them. Spices and herbs are also one of my favourite souvenirs, and I like to remember where they come from.
Things I have on my spice shelves
- algae, from Portugal
- basil, organic
- bay leaves, whole
- black pepper, organic, ground
- black pepper, Cambodian, whole,
got from a friend met accidentally in a hostel in Saigon
- capsicum, organic, ground
- cardamon, organic, ground
- cardamon, green, whole
- chili, Korean, roughly ground, bought in London
- chives, from France
- cloves, ground
- cloves, whole
- coriander, ground
- cumin, ground
- curry, Panang style, paste
- fennel, whole
- fenugreek, organic, whole
- galangal, ground, from France
- ginger, organic, ground
- green pepper, from France
- lemongrass, organic
- mustard seeds, yellow
- oregano, from France
- parsley, organic
- pili-pili, ground, from France
- piri-piri, sauce, a souvenir from Madeira
- ramsons, organic, from France
- rosemary, organic, from France
- sage, organic
- salt, gray sea salt, from France
- Sichuan pepper, whole
- soybean paste, Korean
- star anis, whole
- thyme, grown by myself in Estonia
- turmeric, ground
- vanilla, from France
- wasabi, paste
- white pepper, from France
Spices I need to get
- some good quality Indian or Thai kind of chili
- fennel, ground (I'm not exactly sure what for but I feel I should have it)
- fenugreek, ground (it's difficult to grind it smooth enough by yourself)
- nutmeg, ground (for soups and baking)
- vanilla, powdered
- wasabi, powdered
Observations. First, spices I've been using most lately are, quite curiously, ground cardamon and rosemary. Second, listing your spices is just what one should do on April 2nd when it's [add bad words here] SNOWING.
 |
| From left: chives, pili-pili, cardamon, rosemary, sage, cloves, piri-piri, Sichuan pepper, oregano, ramsons, black pepper, green pepper, algae, mustard, white pepper, fenugreek, coriander |
28 maaliskuuta 2012
Kvass vs. sima
The first time I tasted it was on Olkhon island at lake Baikal. I was coming home from Cambodia by train. Probably my memories are clouded with the fact that it was the most memorable travel I've ever done. In reality, the kvass may have not tasted that good. It was home-made and I remember it was yeasty and a bit cloudy, not at all how a good kvass should be. But I had just gone to a banya and had a dip in the (cold-cold) lake Baikal and was surrounded by these untamed Siberian hills and cliffs... I fell in love with kvass as well as with Siberia.
While living in Estonia I had quite unlimited options of different kinds of kvass, which in Estonian is called kali (like Finnish kalja). But moving back to Finland, I returned to a sad kvass-vacuum. I simply had to start brewing it myself.
I've mainly used this recipe, although there's too much yeast in relation to too little sugar. Once, I think, the yeast actually ate all of the sugar, and the result was surprisingly sour. A half teaspoon of yeast should be enough. Another time I used Finnish style rye bread instead of Russian style ̶ which is often baked in a tin and closer to our archipelago style bread ̶ and the result was like drinking jälkiuunileipä (a kind of semi-hard sour rye bread). I've spiced kvass with winter spices like cinnamon, cardamon, ginger and cloves; I've spiced it with fresh mint; at times I've thrown in whatever comes to mind. Once a friend actually went through the trouble of preparing and baking a mash of rye flour and malt for the base ̶ it was awesome.
But kvass takes a lot of bread compared to how much of the ready beverage you get, and you have to know that you have time to sieve and prepare it the next morning and then bottle it the next evening ̶ and quite often I don't know if I will ̶ and then there's all the leftover mash that you simply have to bake to a bread, as otherwise it would be a terrible waste, so you have to know you have time for that too...Not very surprisingly, I only brew kvass for very special occasions and have turned to much simpler mead-kind of drinks instead.
Sima is a Finnish spring mead. I have to admit I've never followed the basic recipe with only lemon and brown sugar to give it taste. My favourite is sima with dandelion flowers, as they give the beverage a wonderfully soft, honey-like taste. For some reason I'm convinced that lemon balm would make a perfect base, too, although just one glass would certainly make one quite sleepy. For that experiment I have to wait until the end of the summer, but nettle beer and spruce beer I can already try in May. (The latter I first heard of in Jane Austen's Emma: it happens to be a favourite of both Emma and Mr. Knightley.)
But, as my favourite spiced tea this spring has been decaf green tea with cardamon and clove, I begun the brewing season by turning some of it into sima. Doesn't look especially tasty yet, but we'll see in few days how it'll turn out. Hopefully it'll be ready just for the general birthday party on Saturday.
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