It’s been quite a week waking up to discover there was no water and that the irrigation guys had drained the well! Welcome to the country! After chasing all the appropriate people the well is back to normal. A wonderful thing is happening this moment. Because of the heavy rains yesterday my guys who come mow the acreage came this morning. It just so happened that I had made way too much pizza. So my guys are sitting on my front porch chowing down on pizza and taking a little break before their next stop. It always makes me so happy to see people enjoying the food that I make. It’s a beautiful thing!
“Work With What You Got!”
© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2016 All Rights Reserved
Feast of Saint Medard
June 8th is the Feast of Saint Medard.
“Should Saint Medard’s day be wet
It will rain for forty yet;
At least until Saint Barnabas
The summer sun won’t favor us”
This is a saying in France, and in particular in Picardy, where Saint Medard was born in Merovingian times. He was bishop of Noyon and a great missionary who worked for the conversion of the Franks. When Queen Radegunde left her murderer husband, King Clotaire, she fled to Saint Medard for refuge and was clothed by him in religious habit.
There are many varied stories of how he became a “weather saint.” Legend has it that one day Saint Medard gave away one of his father’s finest colts to a poor peasant who had lost his horse. Immediately after giving away the colt there was a torrential rain and everyone was soaked to the bone except for the generous Saint Medard.
“It’s Saint Medard watering his colts,” say the French farmers when the June rains come and help their fields. Later, when Saint Medard became bishop whe was known for his immense kindness to the farming people and especially to the poor among them.
Saint Medard set aside the income from twelve acres of his own land to be given to the most virtuous girl of his diocese, and it was he who started the “feast of the rose queen.” For many centuries in French churches a crown of roses was placed upon the head of the girl who had most edified the parish. The custom of crowning the rose queen still exists in some of the working districts in the suburbs of Paris, but the feast has become a secular one and takes place in the local sale des fetes with the mayor and civil officials in attendance.
Saint Swithin’s Day
Saint Swithin is one of the “weather saints” particularly rain. There is a saying that goes:
Saint Swithin’s Day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain;
Saint Swithin’s Day, if thou be fair,
For forty days ‘twill rain nae mair.
Saint Swithin’s connection with the weather, and particularly with the rain, doubtless comes from the legend that in his humility he asked to be buried outside his cathedral, where passersby would step over his grave and raindrops from the eaves would fall upon it. He lived in the 9th century and was for a time one of the counselors of the Saxon king, Egbert. Later be became Bishop of Winchester, where great devotion to him long prevailed. Little else is known of him except that his feast is celebrated on the date when his relics were removed from the humble grave he had desired and placed, nearly a century after his death, in a new shrine built for him, where many miraculous cures took place.
Besides the rain, Saint Swithin’s specialty is apples. To honor Saint Swithin we are making Apple Crumble Pie.
