What the heck is Blueberry Grunt?

August is Blueberry month in Maggie's world.

What do YOU do with blueberries?

Foods in my books, including The Left-Behind Bride, are often specific dishes found in the community around Bridgewater, Lunenburg, and Riverport. Dishes called Hodge Podge, Solomon Gundy and Blueberry Grunt are commonplace there.

August through September is the blueberry season and the berries are prolific and delicious. If you’ve never had Blueberry Grunt, you're in for a hot, steamy, blueberry treat that rivals blueberry muffins. My mother made it is the pressure cooker or a large pot with a tight lid. Some people make it in a cast iron frypan and a lid. The name comes from the popping sound made by the blueberries as they heat up. Here’s a recipe.

BLUEBERRY GRUNT

 (From the Pages of Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens, collected by Marie Nightingale, 1975 printing)

The Sauce

•  ·        1 Quart of blueberries
• ·         1/2 cup of sugar (more to taste optional)
• ·         1/2 cup of water

Put berries, sugar, and water in a pot, cover and boil gently until there is plenty of juice.

   

 The Dumplings

•   ·       2 cups flour
• ·         4 teaspoons baking powder
• ·         1/2 teaspoon salt
• ·         1 teaspoon sugar
• ·         1 tablespoon butter
• ·         1 tablespoon shortening
• ·         1/4 to 1/3 cup milk

Sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a bowl. (I put it in and whisk it instead of sifting.) Cut in the butter and shortening and add enough milk to make a soft biscuit dough. (A bit dampish.)

Drop by spoonfuls onto the hot blueberries. Cover closely (tightly) and do not peek for 15 minutes. Serve hot.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON WHEN AND WHERE TO GET NS BLUEBERRIES GO TO:

 https://www.nswildblueberries.com/ 

This blueberry trivia comes from their site.

Wild Blueberry Trivia

• Nova Scotia's provincial production is over forty million pounds.
• The wild blueberry is the number 1 fruit crop in acreage export sales, and value.
• Oxford is the wild blueberry capital of Canada.
• Wild blueberries are high in antioxidants which have many health benefits including anti-aging effects, cancer inhibiting properties, heart health, urinary tract health, vision health.
• Nova Scotia wild blueberries are exported to the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom and other countries.
• Harvesting of wild blueberries begins in August and continues until late September.

by Mahrie G. Reid, Author

 

Brighton A Famous English Seaside Resort by Rosemary Morris

For more information on Rosemary's latest novel please click on the cover.

Photo Credit Brighton-royal-pavilion-Qmin Creeative Commons

I am enjoying the research for my next novel, Saturday’s Child, Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week, Book Six, set in Regency Brighton, so much that I have shared some of the facts in this brief blog, which I hope you will enjoy.
The assumption that until the Regency era, Brighthelmstone, later called Brighton, was a small fishing village is false. The town became a popular health resort in the 1750’s due to the belief that bathing in the sea and drinking brine cured every ailment. (A subject I blogged about last month.)
When the twenty-one-year old heir to the throne first visited Brighton to enjoy merry-making, it was already a centre of fashionable, somewhat louche society. Nevertheless, in 1811 when the population numbered 14,000 residents, crime was negligible, and doors were not locked at night.
Fashionable Regency Brighton boasted elegant houses on the north side of Marine Parade, which was parallel to the ocean, facilities for bathing, assembly rooms, a theatre, shops, libraries, and the future Prince Regent’s ground where the nobility played cricket.
Parliament rose in June, after which the heat in London became intolerable and the capital city was considered unhealthy. Families retreated to their estates in the country or to a seaside resort along improved roads that shortened their journeys.
Those who did not own a house in Brighton could lease one, stay in clean, comfortable hotels, boarding houses or lodgings, which replaced accommodation in previously dirty, overcrowded inns.
An illustrious visitor was the future King George IV. The twenty-one-year-old Prince, later the Prince Regent, first came to Brighton to escape from his father’s rigid control and the court’s formality. In 1785 he rented a farmhouse situated by the River Steine, on a site only six hundred yards from the sea. Subsequently he bought the property. During the next thirty years the modest building was transformed into The Royal Pavilion which has been restored and is open to the public.
The Prince Regent knew more about architecture and fine arts than any other European Prince. He put his knowledge to good use when he commissioned the building. Yet, because of its domes and pagodas Sidney Smith commented that it looked ‘as if St Paul’s had gone to sea and pupped’. The Royal Pavilion became a Chinese fantasy with paintings of emperors and empresses, mandarins and high-born ladies on the walls, tasselled canopies with bells overhead and a profusion of imperial five-clawed dragons. As well the magnificent décor, the prince installed bathrooms, gas lighting, an early type of central heating, and the most up to date kitchen gadgets. He was so proud of these that he often took his friends to the kitchen to admire them.
Brighton is still a popular seaside town and a visit to The Royal Pavilion is a worthwhile experience.

Novels by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess

Regency Novels False Pretences.

Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books one to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child and Friday’s Child.

(The novels in the series are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.)

Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary

The Perils of an Outhouse by Katherine Pym

Buy Here 

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Canvas Tent in the Woods

Based on true events, you are about to read a grumbly tale:

One weekend my dad announced we were going camping. He professed it was cheaper than motel rooms with 7 people crammed on beds and rented cots (2 adults and 5 kids), and all the meals eaten in restaurants. My parents were new to this and had borrowed the gear.

Brown Bear ready to Eat me.

Camping never appealed to me. Far too rustic and dangerous, crevasse-like gouges marred trees where bears had scraped their claws down the length of the trunks. Deep lakes and river rapids spoiled the fun. Never heard wolves howl in the distance, but we were warned of skunks and wolverines. Rabid squirrels had been found in the area. Biting insects swarmed about our ears. Horrible.

I disliked going on vacation only to work my fingers to the bone: Cooking over a campfire and lugging buckets of cold water to wash tin dishes took away from swimming and exploring. The soap always thinned in the hard water or seemed to go away altogether, which meant stuck-on food took forever to scrape off. Then, I had to find a way to dump grease from the cast iron skillets so that beasties wouldn’t find their way into camp.

I was given the task to air out sleeping bags in the morning and return them to their places in the afternoon. They always dwarfed me as I dragged them across the ground, and the sun beating down on the old canvas gave the tent a strange smell.

Headaches plagued me after sleeping on the ground. One trip we were without a tent, and arriving late to the campground, the only place left was on a hill. The next morning I had slipped to the edge of a precipice and nearly died in the night.

Memory: when between chores, mom and I walked along a path by the river, where we found a dam made of branches and sticks. “Now, Kathy don’t let your brothers disturb the dam,” Mom said. “It might be a beaver’s house with baby beavers inside.” It was interesting to think a small animal could make such a large footprint, and disturb an entire flow of a river.

Outhouse in the wilderness

Going to the toilet in the bushes or wait my turn at the outhouse was always the worst. Flies were a terrible bother, and one never knew if a bee’s or wasps’ nest had taken residence somewhere in there.

We used flashlights to guide our way through the groaning, spooky forest in the night, sit over holes where many others had squatted, and smell the leavings from those bodies. Really gaggingly horrible.

One night my brother dropped the flashlight in the hole. He returned the next day with my other brothers, one of whom was around the age of 5 or 6. They realized the flashlight hadn’t taken a dive into the sludge, but fallen onto a large pile of poop topped with toilet paper. Horrifying with stinky residue, but retrievable.

“Hey Jimmy,” Tom said. “We’ll lower you down so you can grab the flashlight.”

John nodded. “Sure. Let’s do it. We won’t drop you.”

With heartfelt innocence, Jimmy smiled at them.

“We promise,” John said as he raised the platform with the holes.

A Two-Seater

They grabbed Jimmy around his ankles and slowly lowered him into the cesspit. 

Birdsong paused. Insects stopped flying, their buzzes strangled. A raven cried terror from a tree.  Even the breezes had died in morbid expectation.

Lower and lower Jimmy went until his ankles were just above the walls of the pit. 

“Can you reach it?” Tom yelled.

Jimmy coughed. “Almost.”

Tom and John lowered Jimmy so that his entire body was beneath the pit’s rim. “Can you reach it, now?” John demanded.

“Got it,” Jimmy yelled. “Get me out of here.”

They hauled him up, clutching the fouled flashlight. “Here.” He handed it to Tom.

They ran out of the outhouse with their prize, placed it in its proper spot for the next person, never telling anyone where it had been.

Until much much later.

Truly horrible. 

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Many thanks to wikicommons, public domain & my memory.