Oct 13 2024 - Pumpkin Pie Wars

 

Who would guess that even Thanksgiving can give way to wars?  Yes, there are Pumpkin Pie Wars. What makes for Pumpkin Pie Wars?  There was a so-called pie war in 2014 between two bakeries in Cincinnati over billboards and their placement right next to each other.   Then there's a TV move in 2016 named Pumpkin Pie Wars - that's a Hallmark moment, so don't expect any fighting.  Maybe a pie fight.   Historically, the Civil Qar had a stand-off between South and North over pumpkin pie. There was no pumpkin pie in the South and they considered this a cultural domination.  Making Thanksgiving a permanent holiday was seen by prominent Southerners as a culture war - that was in the 19th century.  When it comes to dominance, there's no argument over the largest pumpkin pie in the world - 3,699 pounds in New Bremen, Ohio.  It was 20 feet in diameter.  What did their recipe have?  Canned pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin spice. Looks like a traditional pumpkin pie.   In relation to the largest pie records, this pumpkin pie is far behind.  The world's largest meat pie weighed 23,237 pounds, made in Stratford-up-Avon College in the UK.  And the world's largest cherry pie, in 1990, came in at 37,713 pounds and a diameter of 20 feet.  That was in B.C.  Shouldn't the largest pie be an apple one?  Yes - 40,000 pounds in 1997 in Wenatchee Valley in Washington.  Given these are foods to be eaten, you can imagine what they taste like.  Even participants involved in "building" the pies said they tasted poor.    This is a silly Millie puppy image. Just popped in a new background so we can have a Happy Thanksgiving card.

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Oct 4 2022 - Pumpkin Pie on the Horizon

 

Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among most religions after harvests and at other times.   But North America's two Thanksgivings are Colonizing Settler Festivals - distinctive compared to everyone else as they relate to survival rather than just celebrating the harvest. We call our thanksgiving "Canadian Thanksgiving".  It is a Canadian Joke.  The date?  It was late - in 1957 - that Canada fixed Thanksgiving to the second Monday in October.  There aren't that many Thanksgiving Days around the globe.  Japan's holiday is Labour Thanksgiving Day - an all in one celebration of labour and production that started during the American occupation. The  really big #1 holiday each year is New Year's and there are variations and versions all over the globe.  Thanksgiving is far down the kist of important holidays - except for us Canadians and Americans. The distinction of  the Thanksgiving meal is pumpkin pie.  I wouldn't consider pumpkin pie part of Christmas or even desirable t Christmas.  But it is for Thanksgiving.  Native to North America, it was exported to France and then England in the 1500s.  How perfect that the Pilgrims brought the pumpkin pie back to New England when they arrived. Canadians have a notion that everything has  "become" political in the U.S. in the last few years.  Here's how far back the social politics goes:  When Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, observers in the Confederacy saw it as a move to impose Yankee traditions on the South. We' have our own Canadian jabs and snubs about the earlier date of "Canadian Thanksgiving"  -  You don't have to wake up at ungodly hours to participate in Black Friday with your parents.  When Americans get around to posting about Thanksgiving, Canadians have "been there, done that."

There are lots of pumpkin displays - at the farmer's fruit and vegetable stands and in front of supermarkets.  They are autumn's celebration here. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

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Nov 1 2020 - Peter Pumpkin Treater

 

Someone has figured out a festive event for children at Halloween that doesn't need crowds.  it involves Peter the Pumpkin, carving the pumpkin, planting some of the seeds in a pot or the garden, marking it with a smile outline, and the next morning Peter has delivered some candy to the spot. That was devised by Julie Georgas who is the managing director for PR firm  Zeno Canada.  Her picture is on the home page of the website.    Here's her Peter Pumpkin Treater's Poem: Peter Peter Pumpkin Treater Makes Halloween even sweeter On the night before Halloween Carve a pumpkin and save some seeds Plant them in your garden or a special pot  And draw a smile to mark the spot  The seeds will grow in Peter's magic pumpkin land  And he will thank you for lending him a hand  A candy surprise awaits when you wake  For all the pumpkins you helped Peter make. So we've got Halloween covered for next year (that's my forecast imbedded in there).   Now it is time to figure out November's festivities - ahead of Christmas red and green.  Maybe it is time for a theme of blue and silver.   I'm thinking we spray paint the pumpkins blue and set them in pots with the white birch and juniper branches.   This grey squirrel from Gage Park  will deliver the chocolate covered nuts that are part of the November Festivities.

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Oct 14 2020 - Evermore

 

I got the sense of Pottermore as coming from Evermore.  It seems a strange expression.  It says in the dictionary it is chiefly used for rhetorical effect or in ecclesiastical contexts - it means always.  Other definitions say continually, forever and always in the future. Shakespeare's big vocabulary included this word: Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor from Love Expands “LADY CAPULET: Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death? What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears? An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live; Therefore, have done: some grief shows much of love; But much of grief shows still some want of wit. JULIET: Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss. from Romeo and Juliet Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly express'd; from a Sonnet The ecclesiastical references to evermore seem to be mostly in the Old Testament - it has many verses with evermore, but with the message of cruelty and punishment ahead for those who do not obey.  Even Psalms with its celebration has the sense of obedience: Psalms 86:12 I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore. So I have an explanation of  Pottermore - it is expected to always be with us. In the past, I would have considered this a decorative pumpkin stem.  Now I see it as a Millie chewing toy.

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Oct 11 2020 - And Why so Earl y?

 

What is with Canada that Thanksgiving is so early?  Why don't we follow the American dates?  Today there is a general answer first and a social political answer at the end.   A general answer is that festivals of thanks and celebrations of harvest took place in Europe in the month of October. We might note that all North Hemisphere inhabitants had a fall harvest celebration that dates back to the beginnings of communal living.  These just aren't documented very well.  What is more important is that history is written with an orientation towards colonialist celebration.  Our Canadian history writing is orientated around European settler celebrations.  How do I know this?  Our first documented European settler celebration of Thanks (vs harvest thanksgiving) was in 1578 with Martin Frobisher, the explorer.  It occurred in Nunavut.  I would be thankful too if I'd arrived in Nunavut - how did he get up there?  I expect he got lost looking for the famed North-West Passage to the orient. It seems to me an indication of historian orientation - to inject European settlers into every social context - to confuse Martin Frobisher's meal of thanks of survival with the traditional fall harvest thanks.   So on to turkey:  the first documented harvest thanksgiving celebration featuring the uniquely North American turkey, squash and pumpkin wa in Nova Scotia in the 1750s and by the 1870s was common across Canada. In Canadian provinces the date had moved around quite a bit - even as late as December 6th, and other times coinciding with American Thanksgiving.  Canada decided in 1957 to make Thanksgiving the second Monday in October, particularly to separate it from Remembrance Day - November 11th.  It had co-occured before then to mark the sacrifices of veterans in the great Wars.   An excellent article on Canadian Thanksgiving was written in 2017, in McLean's Magazine HERE  with a broader point of view. The author, Christine Sismondo expresses clearly the concerns over European settlers and their dominance over the social landscape.  Here's the concluding paragraph: "Since the United States has thoroughly taken ownership of it (Thanksgiving) as a founding myth for its nation-building project, to the point that it’s practically eclipsed Canadian Thanksgiving, we could make the holiday our own by using it in a totally different way. A good start would be to acknowledge that Europe had pre-contact harvest feast traditions of their own, but to stop pretending Europeans invented Thanksgiving in Canada or the United States and, instead, consider how to repurpose the holiday to redress historical wrongs—and imagine a new Canadian identity." I think we'll be keeping track of what Christine Sismondo has to say from now on. Here's one of my favourite Autumn pictures - Charles Daley Park's gazebo under the yellow of Locust trees.  And then here's Millie with her version of pumpkin pie.

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