YORKTON - Merry Christmas, gardening friends! Over these Christmas days, we are blessed to partake of special flavours of Christmas, with the wonderful weave of many cultures and traditions. Let’s take a vegetable and fruit tour of special holiday dishes: fruit salads from the Philippines; spicy chickpeas as part of an East Indian feast, boiled red cabbage for a Scandinavian treat, the list goes on with garden ingredients from every country, and it is all delicious!
For many, delicious kutia is a Christmas Eve staple, with wheat and poppy the two important ingredients. The wheat crop was so important to our ancestors, and was honoured by inclusion in one of the main dishes of Christmas Eve. A sheaf of wheat is placed in the home is a hope that the crop will be good next year.
The produce of the garden blends into delicious borscht: carrots, celery, ruby-red beets, crispy cabbage, and onions all combine to make a delicious soup. A variation is the tart flavour of the cabbage soup, or the creamy and velvety flavour of mushroom soup.
Potatoes and onions are part of another Christmas Eve favourite: pyrohy. This is comfort food at its finest: melt-in-your-mouth pillows of dough and potato, drizzled with melted butter and golden onions fried gently in butter for a long time until they become amber-coloured morsels as delicious and sweet as candy. One of my favourites, sauerkraut pyrohy, brings cabbage to centre stage again with sauerkraut pyrohy or delicious holobtsi, cabbage rolls.
A dear friend of ours, sadly now passed way, loved the dish of broad beans, onions and garlic, three more treasures from the garden. To this day, whenever we see this simple but delicious recipe, we always think of him.
These are just a few dishes, but the garden yields many special dishes that come from the fruits of the earth, the labour of our hands and backs, and this produce so deserves our respect and appreciation.
For myself, these special holiday dishes weave the comfort of family tradition and so many special memories, but also are tied with threads of sadness as I think of so many dear family who have passed away. My darling parents were the wonderful gardeners who gave me the gift of a life-long interest in gardening, a hobby that never stops teaching new things; the gift of the joy of growing our delicious vegetables and fruits; the gift of the lessons of sharing earth’s bounty with others; and the greatest gift of all, so many beautiful family memories of times spent in our garden. How I miss my dear parents; I love you forever.
I know many of you have had losses this year, and are facing sadness and disappointments that were unforeseen last Christmas. I pray that when spring comes, you will find peace and solace in your garden, it is such a healing place of renewal and peace.
That great Christmas song “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” always makes me cry. It’s bittersweet, and says “Through the years we all will be together, If the fates allow”. Only God knows what will come in the days ahead. But let’s “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough” and pray for health, happiness, and bright times in the coming year! Holiday wishes to you from the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society. www.yorktonhort.ca
So from my precious husband Keith and I, we wish you a very Merry Christmas. Thank you to you dear gardeners who so generously share your joys and insights with me, and thank you to our friends at Yorkton This Week for their continued hard work, and for the gift of bringing us local news. God’s blessings to you all! Merry Christmas!
