Medieval Cooking

Have you ever been poking around the internet, surfing through this page and that looking for one thing but finding something else really great along the way? Such is the case with this page: http://www.medievalcookery.com/, Medieval Cookery.

I wasn’t looking for recipes; well in a way I guess I am always looking for recipes. I love to cook and I love to eat so I'm always pleased to find a really interesting recipe for something new or even a new twist on an old favorite. Anyway it was not my conscious intent to look for recipes of any kind little less medieval recipes but never-the-less I happened upon this great site.

If you’ve ever looked at actual medieval recipes you will have noticed that they are not so easy to read, even the ones that are in English. Well it might be the English of the 14^th and 15^th centuries but it is certainly not the English that we speak today. Then of course there are the recipes from other European countries like France, Italy, Germany and such. Even if you happen to speak these languages I dare say the language of the time will likewise be different than its modern equivalent.

Well the owner of this wonderful website, Daniel Myers, as well as few other like-minded medieval cooking enthusiasts have done all of the tedious work of translating the arcane language into understandable lingo and modern measurements. I was not at all surprised to learn that he is a member of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc). I have happened on recipes from other members in the past but I can’t say that I have ever found such a well put together source for medieval recipes on the web.

The recipes are broken down by country of origin, difficulty, ease of transport, whether or not they freeze well and there are even vegetarian recipes. Understandably most of the recipes required some interpretation to make them feasible for most of us; its not as if we can go out to local market and pick up a swan. The author also sites source material and frequently posts the original text. When you read the original text you find yourself quite thankful that the authors did all the hard work for us.

Some of the recipes listed will actually take you another site, http://www.greneboke.com/index.shtml, The Commonplace Boke of Lady Avelyn Grene. This is another great source and well worth exploring but it is a work in progress and not quite as polished as Daniel’s site.

Many of the recipes are really quite easy and the ingredients are for the most part fairly easy to come by so just about anyone who likes to cook will be able to find a least a recipe or two that not only peaks their interest but it also quite accessible. Being rather obsessed with herbs, I was intrigued by the liberal use of spices and herbs in many of the dishes including some that we do not think of today as culinary herbs such as hyssop. Of course, you will probably not find hyssop at your local supermarket but it can be had at many health stores, herb shops or even online.

The site is very easy to use; the recipes are intriguing as well as being quite accessible for most cooks. So if you like to cook and are yearning for something a little different, check it out.

Happy Cooking!

Raven

https://www.ravensflight.net

Spiders

I have this whole love/hate relationship with spiders. Well, actually that’s not true at all; it’s more of a respect versus freak-out relationship.

On one-hand I totally admire their skill and determination. Back when the store (Raven’s Flight) was open every summer we would find these huge spider webs…sometimes five to six feet wide in the garden. We always left them because you have to admit…there’s something really witchy about spiders. Then of course pretty much all the weavers that I know love spiders; but then again all the weavers that I know are witches.

Then there’s the whole Web of Wyrd thing and then there’s Ariadne and well I think a lot of you get what I mean.

As a wort cunner I love them in my garden; not spider mites…..that’s something else all together but garden spiders are a great help when it comes to those nasty little creatures that would mange` my plants.  In the summer I happily leave them alone to weave their delicate webs all over our breeze-way and I have to admit to a certain sense of satisfaction when I see all the tragic victims of their industrious web weaving and vicious feeding. I have even been known to leave the much feared black widow to her own on occasion because…well I think they’re sort of awesome.

On the other-hand I was bitten by a brown recluse spider when I was a teen-ager in Texas. If my mother hadn’t been dating a doctor at the time who realized that the mosquito bite on the back of my leg was not actually a mosquito bite my life might have been a lot different. I know lots of people who have been bitten by spiders and although it is usually not that big of a deal sometimes it is. Spider are poisonous you know….all spiders to some degree or another. I remembering reading some where that no matter how clean your house is, you are never more than three feet away from a spider. Then of course there’s the whole thing about how many spiders we inadvertently eat while we are sleeping.

From a very young age I kind of had a thing with spiders. I remember a dream I had when I was very little, living Houma, Louisiana. I remember that in the dream I was sitting on the hard wood floor leaning back on my hands watching a spider crawl up my arm. I wasn’t scared or freaked out; it just kind of felt like there was some reason that I was supposed to let the spider crawl up my arm. That’s always stuck with me; it’s probably the dream I remember best of all the dreams I’ve had in my life and I couldn’t have been more than four years old. Weird, huh? Or maybe not….considering I grew up to be a witch, maybe it was some sort of spider/Goddess initiation into the magickal world. One can only surmise.

Here in the mountains there can be two things that you can count on every spring. One is the alternating days of spring sunshine and spring fog and even snow that can make a gardener’s life very frustrating. The other is the spring population explosion of baby spiders. Every year I marvel at how at the most inconvenient moment tiny spiders will drop down on their tiny silken threads often only inches from your face; and that’s only the ones that you see. This could be disconcerting to some people even if it was an event that only happened outside but these merrily descending spiders drop down from trees, from the ceiling and even from your visor when you are driving. My usual course of action is to grab their little threads and set them down somewhere out of the way; it all happens very fast with little thought and it is usually no problem. Then again the ones that drop down from the visor while you’re driving are always a little more dramatic…. especially when you are driving on mountain roads.

As a general rule I don’t kill them; in fact I usually don’t tell my husband when I find one somewhere in the house because I know he will, but mores the pity for him. You see the truth is, and I have never told anyone this before, I have this odd belief that when I die I will have to go to spider court to be judged and there will be a great scale to decide my fate. On one side will be all of the spiders that I have willfully killed. You see I think that they are smart enough to realize that being the great lumbering giants that we are we occasionally accidentally murder some of their number and they give us a pass on these. On the other side are all the spiders we have saved from an untimely death. When the day of spider judgment comes I will not be judged harshly. On the other hand I can not be so sure about my husband or my dog my Bearly who seems to regard them as a tasty doggie delicacy.

The only thing that might weigh against me in spider court is the recurring drama that I experienced again tonight. Have you ever seen a spider in the bath tub after you’ve turned the water on? You see it vainly trying to climb up the slippery sides of the tub in a desperate attempt to escape the quickly approaching water. When this happens to me I always do the same thing. I turn off the water, grab a piece of cardboard or a cup or something else dry to put in front of them so that they can crawl on and I can transport them to safety. Every time I have done this the same thing happens. Just as I turn from the bath tub and am getting ready to set them down in the corner or on the floor they always test me. Even if their little legs have gotten wet and no matter how exhausted they may be from their panicked attempts to flee the oncoming torrent of bath water they always test my true spider loyalty and admiration. With lightening speed they turn around and head straight for hand!

So with all of my reflection on their importance in the world of witchcraft, with all of the admiration and gratitude I have for them not to mention my sincere belief that they may indeed have a great deal to do with my immediate afterlife…..why oh why do I always freak out, scream and fling them across the bathroom in manner which must certainly result in serious injury if not death.

Spider court may not turn out that well after all! 

Raven

www.ravensflight.net

HOREHOUND AND THE HARD CANDY QUEST

Horehound is a wonderful herb, an unappreciated herb and one of my favorite herbs. It has numerous uses both medicinally and magickally. It is easy to grow being tolerant of many climate zones, moisture and light conditions and soil types. It is an excellent choice for a drought tolerant garden too. Although it is not native to this continent it can be found growing in the wild all over the place. You see, it was such an important herb to European settlers that they brought it with them to the New World and its inherent hardiness and adaptability allowed it to naturalize here. It is relatively inexpensive to buy and not as difficult to find as many of the herbs that witches trend towards, although in most cases you will not find it a corner grocery store; of course that will depend on your corner grocery store.

Horehound is thought to be sacred to Horus, Isis and Osiris although personally I find it most appropriate to Horus but that’s just me. Magickally it is useful for warding off negative and malicious energy, breaking spells, clearing away obstacles to inspiration, preventing theft, keeping secrets, honesty, fidelity, retention of knowledge and working with animals. With all of this going for it you’d think it would be more popular than it is.

 All herb workers have herbs that they just naturally have an affinity for and horehound is one of mine both magickally and medicinally. I love the scent and feel of the fresh leaves and I find its energy very easy to tap into and work with. I use it dried, fresh, infused and tinctured.

Medicinally it has a long history of use, back to the Romans at least, as a remedy for all sorts of coughs, sore throats and chest congestion and digestive complaints.  Sugar and honey syrups were and are at least as popular as infusions when it came to the methods of administering this soothing and healing herb which makes sense due to the fact that horehound is such a bitter herb. The syrups evolved into a hard candy or lozenge which overtime became the one of the most popular ways to partake of the medicinal properties of the herb.

Horehound candy is as much an old-fashioned treat as it is an old-fashioned remedy; one that could be found not only in drug stores but also general stores and candy shops. My father is rather fond of the dark brown sweet yet bitter confection that was definitely something that was very common in his youth. Those of you who are of my generation may have some few faint memories of the candy but few successive generations have ever tasted the candy or even seen it; especially those who grew up in large urban areas. Its taste is not one that everyone will find appealing but it is certainly a taste of times gone by. You can still find horehound candy in boutique stores seeking to capture the appeal of old-fashioned shops but in general it is not widely available. 

Seeing as I had a rather abundant harvest of horehound last autumn I decided that I would try my hand at making horehound candy. I thought it would make an excellent Yule gift for my dad and others and it would also be handy to keep about for cold and flu season. Even though I am rather proficient in the kitchen I had no experience in making hard candy. Truthfully the fact that I had never made it actually made it an even more appealing quest; something of an adventure if you will.

I started by doing some research and what I learned fairly quickly is that there are very few hard and fast rules. I searched the internet and my own collection of cookbooks and I did indeed find many, many recipes for horehound candy as well as all sorts of other hard candies. While I seldom follow any recipe exactly it is often very helpful to have a reference point to start from. I thought that there would be some basic recipe, some general guideline as to proportions either in reference to the amount of herbs to use in the infusion or to the ratio of infusion to sugar. What I found was that there was little similarity in the recipes; every recipe whether it was attributed to someone’s granny or Aunt Bessie was completely different. What I did learn from all of my research was that basically all you need is a bunch of sugar of some sort, an herbal infusion, a thermometer and some time and patience to make old-fashioned horehound candy.

All types of sugar can apparently be used either alone or in various combinations. When I say all types I do mean all types: white or brown granulated, corn syrup, molasses, honey, etc, etc. The proportions of water to fresh or dried herbs used to make the infusion were as varied as the amount and variations of the sugars in the many recipes. My first infusion attempt was way too strong and had to be diluted by half.

I include a thermometer as being necessary for this task but in truth hard candy was being made long before candy thermometers were readily available. You see the candy must be cooked to a certain temperature which is referred to as the hard crack stage to achieve the hard aspect of the finished candy and while the correct stage can be determined by dropping small amounts into a container of cold water and observing the result, but it is a lot easier to just use a thermometer; at least until a certain level of experience is obtained. You see it takes quite a bit of time to get the candy syrup to the correct stage and if I’m going to spend that much time on a project I want to have the best possible outcome. Once the correct stage is reached your next challenge will be forming the syrup into candy. Again there are various ways to achieve this; pulling and forming, molding, pouring on a slab and scoring before it gets too hard.

As it turned out, much of the process depended on my own cunning and happily it was such a great success. In fact it was such a great success that I have now created all sorts of other hard candies; candies of a more magickal nature. The thought occurred to me that if one could make hard candies for medicinal and/or confectionery purposes why not for magickal or spiritual purposes. Why not a prosperity, love or a protection candy? Why not an Isis or a Morrigan candy? Okay, maybe not a Morrigan candy, that would probably not taste to good but you get the idea. I now have recipes for magickal candy, God and Goddess candy and recipes for Sabbat candies. So many possibilities, so little time!

So the point of all this is that hopefully it illustrates that you can bring the magickal into the mundane in many, many ways. On the other hand, I hope that some of you will give horehound a try in your magickal and medicinal work; if you do I think you will be pleased.

Blessings

Raven

Raven’s Flight the Magickal Apothecary

SALT

Salt

Have you ever really thought about salt?  Good old sodium chloride, it sits on almost every dinner table, in every kitchen cabinet. But do you ever really think about it? It is so much a part of our everyday lives and it such an inexpensive commodity that many of us probably do not think that much about it. Interestingly enough, I do think about it from time to time. I sometimes ponder the many types of salt that are now available. I wonder if I should branch out and use some of the more exotic varieties in my bath salts. I like to cook so I have considered trying some of the gourmet salts that seem to be all the rage with the “foodies”. I also occasionally consider if all salt is technically sea salt; a theory put forth by a participant in one of my classes.

It is a necessary element for humans and animals alike. People who raise livestock have to provide them with salt licks and animals in the wild will seek it out from more natural sources. Just down the road from here is a place called Deer Lick; that quaint and somewhat funny name comes from the fact that the creek beds in this particular area were frequented in years past by the wild population of deer. The deer would congregate there and lick the rocks and stones to get the natural salt and other minerals that wash down from the higher elevations.

Mankind has a long history with salt; the truth is salt has played an incredibly important role in the history of humanity. We have mined, extracted, harvested, traded, savored and valued it through out our time on this planet. The oldest known salt works are some 5,000 years old in China and those of us who are Celtophiles undoubtedly know of the Hallstatt salt mines in what it is now Austria; these are but a mere 2,500 years old, give or take. Let us not forget the brilliant and brave Salt March of 1930 by Ghandi and his followers to protest the British Salt Tax. In some ways it could be said that salt has played and important part in shaping the history of human beings.

Historically we have used salt to flavor and preserve our food, to make soap, to dye cloth and to soothe and heal. Today we also use it to make glycerin, soften hard water, produce chlorine, melt ice and snow and the list goes on and on.

As witches, ceremonialists, magickal and spiritual practioners we use salt for our specific practices. Spiritually and magickally we use it to cleanse, to purify, to heal, soothe and to protect. Lots of authors and teachers are specific that we should use sea salt for our workings but there are those who claim that table salt is just as good or in truth no different. Chemically speaking salt is basically sodium chloride and depending on where the salt comes from it will also contain various other minerals or other organic constituents. Table salt is highly processed with all of the “impurities” removed and sometimes it is “iodized” to correct a deficiency on some diets. Many practitioners believe that these processes render the salt less than ideal for magickal and/or spiritual work.

Salt is very plentiful in some locales which is a good thing because as man has evolved we have found more and more uses for this abundant mineral. Interestingly enough although the acquisition of salt has definitely grown in scope the basic processes to harvest it has remained relatively unchanged. The deposits are either mined or it is harvested by flushing salt beds with water, transferring the water and dissolved salt to “beds” and then evaporating the water so as to harvest the mineral. Salt is also obtained from sea water by an evaporation process; this type is commonly referred to as Bay Salt, Sea Salt and sometimes solar salt.

Probably at no time in our history have we had so many choices when it comes to salt. Salt has been a rather precious commodity through out most if not all of human history but I dare say that never before have there been so many variations so widely available. Gone are the days when Dead Sea Salt was our most exotic choice. Today we can purchase Hawaiian Red Sea, Himalayan Pink, Dendritic, Premium Pacific Sea Salt, Celtic Grey Sea Salt, Smoked Salt, Indian Black Salt, Italian Sea Salt and the list goes on. The old standbys are naturally still available; kosher salt, table salt and of course Dead Sea salt.

Recently through an interesting series of events I acquired a large quantity of pure salt harvested from great ancient salt lakes long dried up, right here in the Southern California desert. This salt is pure, no additives, no anti-caking agents. Besides sodium chloride it contains trace amounts of other natural minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium (just like sea salt). This is a rock salt, slightly smaller than pea sized and it is mostly white with an occasional grayish-yellow cast. This is salt from the land we live on and while using salt from far flung lands does have a certain appeal there is something equally awesome about using local salt for some or all of our magickal work. It is inexpensive and perfect for all sorts of spiritual and magickal workings.

So, if you do find yourself thinking about salt; if you are discerning about the type of salt you use for your work I hope you try our Natural California Salt. It is inexpensive, natural and perfect for many types of magickal and spiritual work.

Salty Blessings

Raven

Raven's Flight

www.ravensflight.net

Birch and The Season of New Beginnings

No matter how well versed they are in their art, every wort-cunner and herbalist will over time develop a few favorite botanicals. Whether these favorites are for healing, magickal or spiritual work there is something that “speaks” to the practitioner in some significant way. One of my favorite botanicals for magickal work is birch.

Birch trees (Betula alba. Betula benta) have long been harvested by mankind for a myriad of purposes; food, medicine, shelter, paper and clothing are among the many gifts that this beautiful and graceful tree has given humanity over the ages. There is also a vast amount of magickal and mythical folklore associated with the tree. From a seasonal prospective probably the best known associations are those of Imbolg and the festivals of the goddess Brigit. The birch is a feminine tree often associated with the Earth Goddess or Earth Mother and in some cultures is called The Lady of the Woods. Protection, exorcism, purification, love and fertility are among the many magickal associations for birch but the ones that really resonate with me are banishing and new beginnings; which pretty much go hand in hand if you think about it.

Over the years birch bark and leaves have found their way into many of my magickal products but it is the essential oil that I really favor. The fresh and stimulating scent is similar to that of wintergreen; similar but not the same. From a magickal prospective there are many oils that have similar properties and associations but energetically there is no substitute in my opinion. (*It should be noted here that while birch oil is incorporated into many skin healing products with great success it can cause skin irritation, rash or contact dermatitis if the undiluted oil comes into contact with skin. Never apply undiluted to skin and always take precautions when working with the oil.)

The leaves and bark are both ingredients in various charcoal incenses and herbal blends that I make. On the other hand the essential oil is an ingredient in many products; soaps, oil blends, candles, charcoal and stick incenses and more. The biggest disadvantage to using birch in magickal products is its sporadic availability. When the bark is unobtainable I can usually find the leaves and vice-versa so when it comes to charcoal incenses and herbal blends one can usually be substituted for the other. On the other hand when there is no oil to be had there are simply products that won’t get made.

We are currently in one of those periods of birch oil unavailability which many of you have noticed as some of your favorite products have been out of stock for a while.

I usually like to do business with companies that I am familiar with; when it comes to essential oils not all companies are created equally so when I find a supplier whose quality and value I have come to trust I am hesitant to go elsewhere. For a while now, all of my usual sources have been out and when questioned about estimated arrival dates they have no answers for me.  In fact one of my regular suppliers has even removed it from their catalog due to the inconsistent availability so I have reluctantly yet diligently been searching for a new source.

Without any anticipation of success I recently began what I was sure would be yet another futile search for the ever elusive birch essential oil. Of course I first I tried all of my regular essential oil suppliers just in case but as expected with no success. So I began searching about on the internet; mind you I had tried many times over the preceding months with no success. Whenever I was able to find a dealer that advertised the oil, I was always met with those discouraging words, “out of stock”.

So, was it coincidence, serendipity or simply the magick of the season that caused me to be successful on my very first try? After all, my previous searches had been before the Winter Solstice but this search was done in the Imbolg season. Also in keeping with the energy of new beginnings the supplier not only had large quantities of the desired essential oil but they also carried quite a few other products that I have been trying to find for some time now; so in my opinion it was definitely the magick of the season!

Birch essential oil is a major component in my Banishing Products and Brigit Products not mention my Special Birch Soap and the Birch Votive Candles.  All of these products are back in stock now and I have also added a Birch Pillar Candles and Tea Light Candles as well. In the coming months there will be other new products that will have been made possible by the quest for Birch Essential Oil.

So thank you Lady of the Woods for sending me on this journey that has resulted once again in New Beginnings!

A Blessed Imbolg Season to you all!

Raven

Raven’s Flight

The Magickal Apothecary

www.ravensflight.net

The Magick of Color

Color plays an important part in the lives of all human beings perhaps a far more important role than many even realize. As magickal/spiritual people, we probably pay more attention to color than many do.

Color often has special importance in our seasonal and ritual observances. Certain colors may denote our level of training or accomplishment within a coven or other group. Many traditions have color associations that relate to elements, direction, seasons, sabbats, deities and so on. Ceremonial magicians as well as others who adhere to the Western esoteric traditions follow very defined systems of color correspondence in their workings.

But what of spell craft? There are many types of ingredients for spells and other magickal workings that are often chosen for their color such as candles, charm bags, magickal inks and so on. The modern practitioner has at his or her hands multitudes of books and internet sites that lay out color correspondence systems. These systems are often based on the same esoteric traditions that are favored by ceremonialists while others are based on different cultural or ethnic traditions and then there are those that are a mish-mash of all of the above.

It is true that for some the certainty and safety of following a chart may be desirable and even sufficient for the type and amount of work the practitioner is doing. In my opinion these correspondence charts are great reference tools especially for beginners but they are by no means absolute. Certainly when we are starting off on this path we all rely to a greater degree on correspondence charts that we find published on the net or in any number of books on spell crafting but as we gain experience and confidence in our work we should rely less and less on them. I am not suggesting that these charts are in any way ineffective or incorrect. Quite the opposite in fact; they are most probably very effective for those who published them, but that is no guarantee that they will be as effective for you.

There are general color correspondences that are perhaps adequate especially for more general types of workings but as we human beings are complicated creatures so are our desires and intentions in relation to our magickal work. For instance most people would agree that in general red and pink are a good colors for love spells and workings. On the other hand there are many types of love and many ways that a crafter might approach a love working. While red or sometimes pink are the generally accepted colors for love magick, I have myself found reason to use burgundy, magenta and white.

Another good example is that in America, the color most often associated with prosperity work is green, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that our money is green. In many other places gold or yellow are the accepted colors because they represent the precious metal gold that is so universally considered to be representative of wealth. While I often use green and gold for these types of workings, depending on the way in which I am trying to achieve prosperity I have also used orange, red and blue.

As a cunning woman I am bound by no set tradition of color correspondences when it comes to crafting. I have over the years worked with many types and versions of color magick and while this knowledge does influence my workings it by no means dictates it. Sometimes my choice for color correspondence might be influenced by planetary associations, elemental correspondences, and different cultural or ethnic traditions or simply by intuition. In fact there are times when I don’t even have to think about it, it is simply clear to me which color is appropriate.

How colors affect us and therefore affect our spell work is at least in part a product of all that we have experienced and believed in over the course of our lives. Since each person is indeed an individual it only makes sense that you not be restricted in your color choices by the associations and correspondences of others.

When designing a spell or other magickal working do not be afraid to make color choices that seem right to you. I definitely recommend that each practitioner be at least familiar with the many traditional systems of color association but I also encourage each practitioner to allow themselves the freedom to choose colors for candles, charm bags and all of the other possible parts and accoutrements of spell work based on intuition and preference.

Happy Crafting

Raven

Raven’s Flight The Magickal Apothecary

www.ravensflight.net