Concrete Lemon …

 

Well it's not what I thought … I imagined that this would be a great subject for a We Are The World Blogfest post …

Detailed taxonomic illustration by
Kohler 1897

… but no … it is most definitely not concrete in the way we understand it today … the term arose in the early 1500s coming about from Latin (concretus) – having different meanings as the language English progressed – and those grammatical aspects are way beyond me … (I looked up concrete origin of word): the English Language is a dynamic one … always changing …

Right let's get back to lemons … and the Mr Coxwell … who perfected this concrete lemon substance …

An essay by Dr Trotter

Mr Coxwell was a chemist and druggist in Fleet Street, London and was a member of the Committee of Chemistry at the Society for the Promotion of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, and … as you know the inventor of concrete lemon.

Concrete as we know it – it was not - but it did have the appearance of smashed white sugar … perhaps I'll look at concrete dust differently now …

Henry Coxwell's description

However Mr Coxwell had created crystallised lemon juice for use at sea … to ease the disease of scurvy …

Scurvy had been recorded in Ancient Egypt over 3,500 years ago; Hippocrates, the Greek physician, described the symptoms of scurvy; the Chinese recognised it …

Eventually in the early years of the 2^nd millennium 'we' started to catch up - that fresh citrus particularly could ward off scurvy …

Produce could be part of the cargo – but would not last … so stop off points were found and then planted with fruit trees and vegetables to be available for maritime travellers …

Very early Cape Town, harbour and 
Table Mountain

… Jan van Riebeeck, acting for the Dutch East India Company, arrived in 1792 at what is now the Cape Town area to set up a victualing settlement to grow fruit trees and develop gardens for a permanent supply of fresh produce.

These stop off points developed in places such as St Helena Island, along the St Lawrence River ... and other places as explorers opened up the world …

Communication and the spread of information was not easy in these early days … so it took until the 1920s before 'our world' understood scurvy … now in the 21^st century it is virtually eliminated though still occurs amongst malnourished people and there have been outbreaks in refugee camps ...

Back to Coxwell and his concrete lemon that particularly valuable commodity … developed in the late 1700s and early 1800s – at least it could be kept and stored easily in the cargo … as a veritable increase in trade spread around the globe.

Description of his reduced lemon juice
in the Bath Chronicle of 1799

The wonders of life through the ages ... 

On July 10^th 1784 … see Crell's Journal in the link … where he notes that 'there is a worm that cankers the bud of all improvement here' … the Naval Service took a while before this ingenious discovery would benefit its seamen.

This subject bemused me … to be found … c/o British Library and its archives … and I learnt quite a lot from reading it …

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Interlude … Tamarisk, Old Man’s Beard … last of the summer …

 

Walking down to the lonely sea and sky, as the last of the summer unwound – before being brutally interrupted with the almost unannounced coming of an early winter … perhaps rough autumn would be a better description of the much needed torrents of rain and hail we had here …

Old Man's Beard

 … the hedgerows bubbled over with Old Man’s Beard and waving crusted salt cedar heather-coloured Tamarisk fronds …

 … gorgeous sight to the eyes framing the English Channel, with its rocky shore guarded by pebble embedded groynes …

 

Tamarisk fronds

I’ve been reading about Linnaeus … the great naturalist and taxonomer (Carl Linnaeus (1707-78), who invented the system of giving all living organisms two Latin names.

 

It was he who gave Tamarix Gallica, the French Tamarisk, its botanical classification in 1753, while it had been in cultivation since 1596.

 

Gaz Nougat from Isfahan, Iran

How do they know: I guess recorded as such … though, to me, of more surprise is that its juice is an ingredient for Gaz – a Persian nougat delicacy from Isfahan, central Iran.  (White nougat is delicious … )

 

Old Man’s Beard … what a name … for our only native clematis (Clematis vitalba), which in folk lore is also known as the baccy plant – not something I’d heard of before …

 

Looking down towards the seashore

… I spotted this (to me) anomaly when I read an article by one of our broadcasters, Monty Don, … known as ‘the nation’s gardener’ … he’d learnt as a kid from ‘an old boy’, a farm labourer, that Old Man’s Beard stems could be smoked, after they were peeled, showing the confined woody tubes, which could then be lit …

  

… bliss … the two kids could loaf with a smoke  under a hedge mulling over their future … before they became old enough for a proper ‘straight’ – as cigarettes were called.

 

Cuban cigar - showing rolls

It seems that once technology in the 1880s caught up … affording a packet of cigarettes led to smokers rejecting roll-ups.  Over the next 100 years we know what happened … yet in War needs must and at times the poor resorted to finding other ways to have a smoke.

I’m using this ‘interlude’ to post some photos before the ‘rough autumn’ really sets in … and to see if I can control Blogger – at least enough to not cause me any more ill-dressed posts … which I do not like!

 

Virginia Creeper turning - early September

As you might expect I couldn’t but help but add a few anecdotes in to the post … my mother, who would have been 100 in a couple of weeks, told me about this plant as we drove my grandmother around the lanes of Cornwall in the early 1970s …

 

… the other garden plant names I mainly remember by that osmosis of youth – growing up … but Old Man’s Beard (or Traveller’s Joy, as it was also known) has always stuck in my memory – as my Ma’s hedgerow plant.

 

One of the many paths going
down towards the sea

 

Here’s to a positive ending to this post … we shall see … as long as I centralise the photos 'we're' ok ... for today that will do ... the next one will be the last of my London visits - to the Tutankhamun exhibition: it was wonderful!

 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

The Obedient Plant … found in Butchart Gardens ...

A second visit to Butchart Gardens highlighted ‘the Obedient Plant’ … having come across Miss Willmott’s Ghost at the Abkhazi Gardens in Victoria … the Obedient Plant became an obvious candidate for a post.

Obedient – the flowers stay in situ once bent back … as here ... 

For those Latin minded gardeners - it is Physostegia

Unobedient … if that’s a word?!  As the poor plant should be without man-handling!

So here are some views, some notes, some comments for a Thanksgiving post … Canadians celebrate on Monday … the history I will do in a follow up …

An early 1900s view of the limestone quarry (cement works) prior to its conversion into the Gardens we see today …

The Sunken Garden as I saw it … sadly it was a gloomy day ...

I’d gone back because I wanted to take the boat trip they offer from the tiny Tod Inlet – which is the secluded water leading up into the Gardens.

Tod inlet – small and sheltered … though the boats only run during early Spring to early Autumn (Fall I guess to you!) …

The trip gives a little history of the origins of the Gardens and goes around Brentwood Bay … I’d come over on the ferry – as a way of connecting the Cowichan Valley across to the Saanich Peninsula where Victoria’s airport is.

This captured pic gives an idea … I live just to the north of Mill Bay …

One of three ... 

I love the specimen trays they have out in the information centre – which is where I’d found Miss Willmott’s ghost.  

 

Specimen trays and …

Pears, Walnuts, Beechnuts and a Dogwood berry

Autumnal displays …

Here another find is the green Echinacea flower … interestingly the Greek ekhinos means hedgehog: live and learn!

There were hundreds of people there … and trying to find a few quiet moments is almost impossible – but good that the Gardens are thriving, I guess!

Seedbeds that earlier in the summer were grass … they are utilising their space effectively …

The various photos are briefly described …

My tomato and goat cheese tart was positively delicious – I went back for another before I left … couldn’t resist!  Apologies for the bite out!!

From a very wet Black Friday … the sun is due to reappear tomorrow … I hope you all have lovely weekends and for Canadians enjoy your Thanksgiving day …

This is an iphone photo… I think it is the Eunonymus Europaeus …

This iphone photo doesn't do it justice - the colours are
lovely ... while the Blue Poppy itself is gorgeous

You can buy one of these delightful shopping bags … advertising their special Tibetan Blue Poppy … another story – another day!

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Abkhazi Gardens and Miss Willmott’s ghost …

Extraordinary things you can happen upon … Miss Willmott’s ghost being one of them … it is actually Eryngium Giganteum ‘Silver Ghost’ (per the RHS site) … isn’t it pretty … prickly, but pretty …

my iphone photo

The Ghost was on display at Abkhazi Gardens as a plant of interest with the note about Miss Willmott’s ghost – quite honestly wouldn’t you have been quizzy about this apparition let alone its owner …

A rough photo (in difficult light) of the
note appending the examples of the
3 plants on show at Abkhazi Gardens

Equally Ellen Willmott (1858 – 1934) is one of those real life characters of whom stories could be made … I’ve included some links … but aged 7 she found a cheque for one thousand pounds from her rich godmother … these sorts of cheques continued on, until in 1890, when she and her sister shared the inherited fortune (the equivalent of five million pounds each).

Both the Willmott parents were wealthy and doted on their daughters – Ellen’s sister, Ada sadly died, but Rose survived – marrying into the aristocratic Berkeley family, this branch lived at Spetchley Park, just outside Worcester … where Ellen extended her gardening influence …

… but back to the 7 year old Ellie and the family with a love of beautiful things … and an obvious candidate for a flourishing garden.  Her father moved them out to Warley Place, 24 miles commuting distance from Frederick Wilmott’s city life, bought another 22 acres over the road, built a cottage for the girls and life continued on!

Warley Place as painted by
Alfred Parsons

Ellie, a passionate horticulturist, who became an influential member of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), was said to have cultivated more than 100,000 plants, sponsored expeditions to discover new species … and has more than 60 plants named after her.

She inherited the 33 acres of Warley Place after her father’s death in 1892, and bought two more properties in France and Italy … she loved her plants and her life … and was a prodigious spender.

Rosa Willmottiae -
Ellen was a rose fundi

Due to her total immersion in all realms of horticulture she was very influential at the RHS, became a member of the Linnaean Society of London … was accorded all kinds of awards by organisations in Britain, France and Italy.

She was highly talented playing the violin and piano … she owned a Stradivarius … Queen Alexandra (Edward VII’s wife) and various princesses visited Ellen and Warley for musical soirees or to view the estate  … yet ‘my plants and my gardens come before anything in life … when I can no longer plant, as it is too dark, I read or write about them’ …

Spetchley Park Hall

Rose’s husband’s property Spetchley Park, near Worcester, looks like a wonderful place to visit … Edward Elgar was a regular visitor … they are reviving the gardens to their historical and horticultural best …

Ellen and Rose as children

… including the carriages, a melon yard, a horse pool, a root cellar and all the essentials of a modernised country mansion for the touristy visitors …

Sadly her own prodigious spending came home to roost – despite the fortunes – she had to sell her overseas properties, personal effects and then when the time came her death duties were settled by selling Warley Place.

Abkhazi Gardens - painted by Kmit,
see my post on Clearwater Studio

It had been neglected … and is now a nature reserve after the house had been demolished.  A sad end … but perhaps fitting to have a Silver Ghost appearing around the world in various gardens that Miss Willmott had wandered through quietly dropping seeds as she went.

The Essay:Miss Willmott’s Ghost … by Jane Brown appeared in The Independent in 1999 … about various gardeners …

Oxonian Gardener - article on Ellen Willmott

SpetchleyPark in Wikipedia

SpetchleyPark Gardens – the official website

Abkhazi Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia - my post 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Herbs, Spices and Herbalists – Mint: Part 7 …

Tis coming up to Easter … the time of roast lamb, new potatoes glistening with butter and mint, mint sauce, home-made gravy, baby leeks, and new carrots … a delicious Easter lunch welcoming in the early Spring …

Garden Mint

… garden mint is not that convenient … desperately easy to grow, but incredibly keen to spread – keep it in a pot … however an essential for lamb and/or new potatoes – Jersey Royals perhaps …

Mint Jelly - so so good!

… yet the Lamiaceae (or Labiatae) is a ‘huge’ family of flowering plants commonly known as mint or deadnettle … they include Mentha, the strongly scented herbs, and include Peppermint and Spearmint … as well as many other varieties: apple mint, orange mint, pineapple mint …

Winter Savoury

To my surprise the Mint Family also includes a large number of herbs, lots of small shrubs and a few medium to very large trees … including basil, rosemary, thyme, savoury, lavender, sage, marjoram and others … also the tropical hardwood tree ‘teak’, which I would never have put into the ‘Mint family’ …

Jersey Royals simmered in Mint, tossed in butter,
sprinkled with parsley

We will concentrate on our Garden Mint … which George Orwell proclaimed that new potatoes simmered with mint and tossed in butter were superior to the fried potato dishes traditional in other countries … he has a point …

Jersey - highlighted in the Channel
Islands

… Keith from Keith’s Ramblings reminded me in my Boxty post that it can’t be long before the Jersey Royals are in the shops – heralding the start of Spring in a foodie way … the first outdoor produce from the warmer Channel Islands – that has led to this ‘Mint’ post …

Freshly made mint sauce

Pliny the Elder (AD 23 – August 25, AD 79) was keen on mint … ‘the smell of Mint doth stir up the minde, and the taste to a greedy desire of meat’, so it looks like mint sauce has been around for 2,000 years + and more I expect …

Mint is known to have originated in Asia and the Mediterranean region … the Greeks used it to clean their food tables, bathed with it … whilst the Romans used it in sauces, as an aid to digestion and as a mouth freshener.

Growing potatoes on Jersey
with Mont Orgueil castle in the back ground

Medieval monks developed further culinary and medicinal uses … as mint symbolised hospitality and was a welcome of friendship to guests.  The Jews strewed the floors of their synagogues with mint so that its clean and aromatic perfume scented the place as they entered to worship.

Shakespeare loved his plants and wove them into his tales … as here “The Winter’s Tale (Act 4, Scene 4):

"Hot lavender, mints savoury, marjoram,

The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ th’ sun

And with him rises weeping.  These are flowers

Of middle summer, and I think they are given

To men of middle age.”

Mint Chocolate Ice Cream

Mint goes with so many things … chopped mint and sugar on pineapple, or grapefruit slices – can I say chocolate – let’s move on … how about finely chopped mint with some sour cream, or cream cheese, served with a baked potato …

Mint leaves added to refreshing lemon water

… while at home as a deterrent for the ever present clothes-moth, or ants and the cabbage white caterpillar in the garden … then our bathrooms, our mouths … we would not be same without the tingle of our toothpaste cleansers …

Twinings Mint Tea

So here’s to Mint – enjoy a cup of mint tea, a cool glass of minted lemonade, or mint water … peppermint is a native to these shores … and is good for indigestion … I will not make an obvious link to Brexit …

Rack of Lamb with Mint Sauce

… but I am looking forward to British Spring Lamb, with new potatoes, mint sauce and freshly dug vegetables … simple foods that nature provides from the earth …

Melon Salad - so refreshing in summer
with the sprinkling of chopped mint

One final idea – a recipe I came upon as I was starting out in life which inspired my love of herby bread – that’s a standard when I cook – how about a melon salad … melon, cucumber, tomato pieces … with a vinaigrette of choice, fresh chopped parsley, chives and mint to sprinkle over … served with the herby bread – oh so good!!

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories