Month: December 2020

A Christmas Tradition: Yule Logs

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by Sandra Merville Hart

The custom of burning logs around the time of the winter solstice dates back to 5000 BC in Egypt and the time of Moses.

“Yule” logs were first used around winter solstice by the Vikings in an outdoor celebration of longer days that were coming. They brought the celebration to Britain when they invaded them.

The custom of burning yule logs moved inside homes in the fourth century.

By 1066, most British communities celebrated the custom, which continued for the next 700 years. Late winter or early spring was the time to cut a yule log from their land or a friend’s land for the next year’s celebration. The large log that had to burn for the 12 twelve days of Christmas was dragged home and set to dry.

Spices, wine, and rum were periodically rubbed into the log. When burning, the spices gave a pleasant perfume-like aroma to remind everyone of the gifts of the Magi.

It was brought into the home on Christmas Eve. After the church bells rang that day, it was lit from a piece of last year’s yule log. Folks considered it a bad sign if the log didn’t light on the first attempt.

After the fire started, the family symbolically burned the year’s misfortunes by tossing sprigs of holly into the hearth. The Christmas story was told. The family played games and sang songs before eating a meal prepared over the yule log’s fire.

For the remainder of the 12 days of Christmas, the women tended the fire because it was considered bad luck for it to die out early. A small piece of the yule log was then saved to ignite the next year’s fire.

Centuries passed. As huge hearths became a thing of the past, the yule logs were only required to burn 12 hours.

The French replaced the traditional yule log with a buche de Noel. This log-shaped cake was served after Christmas Eve’s midnight mass.

So, yule logs are usually a sweet treat these days.

It’s fun to learn the surprising history behind this modern holiday tradition.

 

Sources

Collins, Ace. Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas, Zondervan, 2003.

“Yule Log,” Wikipedia, 2020/11/13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_log.

 

Death of an Imposter by Deborah Sprinkle

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Bernie Santos never expected to begin a murder investigation her first week as detective. After all, this was the quiet community of Pleasant Valley. Nor did she expect to meet a handsome doctor. Bad things seem to happen around him. Is it a coincidence?

Dr. Daniel O’Leary comes to town to help his aunt with autopsies—at least that’s his story. He’s really an undercover FBI agent working on a case. He doesn’t expect to fall in love with the police detective who suspects him.

This story grabbed my attention and held on. Suspenseful. Fast-paced. Action-packed. Real, believable characters. I had no idea of the killer’s identity until just before the detectives discovered it.

This book was a page turner for me. I recommend this book to those who love action-packed romantic suspense novels.

I’ll look for more books by this author!

-Sandra Merville Hart

Amazon

New Year’s Day Dinners in the 1870s

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by Sandra Merville Hart

My dad always wanted black-eyed peas as a side dish on New Year’s Day. He said that it brought good luck into the new year. I’ve carried on this tradition for my family.

Looking for ideas for meals to serve on the first day of the year?

Here are some suggestions for New Year’s Day from an 1870s cookbook.

Suggestions for meat dishes:

Raw oysters, mock turtle soup;

Boiled turkey with oyster sauce;

roast haunch of venison, currant jelly;

deviled crabs;

cold sliced ham

There were plenty of side-dishes:

Beets, stuffed cabbage, potato souffle, baked turnips, lima beans, dried corn, canned pease (peas);

Indian bread, French rolls, biscuits, rye bread;

Chicken salad;

Celery, cold slaw garnished with fried oysters, pickled walnuts, variety of pickles;

Plums, peaches, sweet pickled cucumbers, gooseberries, spiced currants

There were lots of dessert choices:

English plum pudding, Bohemian cream; Orange souffle,

Pies—mince, potato, and chess;

Cakes—black, Phil Sheridan, pyramid pound;

Oranges, figs, nuts, raisins

Beverage choices were coffee, tea, and chocolate.

If you are wondering what to serve for New Year’s Day dinner, there are plenty of choices here!

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

 

A Joyful Christmas

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What a nice collection—all six historical stories are set during Christmas. They all have a “feel good” ending, which I really like. I read all six stories in a weekend so my interest was captured and held throughout for almost all of them.

Of course, I have my favorites. An Irish Bride for Christmas by Vickie McDonough tugged at my heart. Jackson’s niece is kept from him and Larkin believes the lies told about him.

Christmas Service by Erica Vetsch was a touching story with a great ending.

Under His Wings by Liz Tolsma had characters that readers will love—and one they definitely won’t.

A Star in the Night by Liz Johnson and Shelter in the Storm by Carrie Turansky were page turners for me. Not only were they set during the Civil War, but also the same location as one of my novels—the area of Franklin, Tennessee.

A portion of my Civil War romance, A Musket in My Hands, takes place a year later. The tragic Battle of Franklin happened on November 30, 1864, and is an important part of my story.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Christianbook.com

Peppernuts

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by Sandra Merville Hart

I recently found that Christmas dinner in the 1870s included lots of desserts. One of them was a cookie called peppernuts. This Danish cookie is also known as Pfeffernusse. To my knowledge, I’ve never eaten or even seen this cookie and decided to try it.

There are no nuts or pepper or spices in the 1870s by Mrs. Emma G. Rea, so I imagined the cookie earned its name from being small-sized. I found a modern recipe that contained ground almonds and several spices—cardamom, cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice, and nutmeg. I decided to make both recipes and compare.

For the 1870s recipe, combine 1 cup of sugar with ½ cup butter until completely blended. Stir in 2 beaten eggs and 2 tablespoons of milk.

Mrs. Rea’s recipe then calls for “flour enough to roll.” There’s a lot of guesswork with these historical recipes. I started out with 1 cup of flour and mixed in 1 teaspoon of baking powder with it. Then I added a ¼ cup of flour at a time until it was just “enough to roll,” about 1 ¾ cups in total.

I chilled the dough for about 30 minutes.

I used a method from the modern recipe that suggested rolling the dough into half-inch ropes and slicing into half-inch pieces. This was quick and easy.

Bake at 375 degrees 8 – 10 minutes or until lightly brown.

The cookies flattened out in the baking, so I’ll increase the flour next time I bake them to 2 cups.

These cookies were delicious! What an easy cookie recipe with ingredients usually kept on hand. The cookies reminded me of vanilla wafers, even though there is no vanilla in them. Family who tried them went back for more again and again.

I then made the modern recipe that used ground almonds and several spices. Delicious! I chilled this dough about 30 minutes the same as the first recipe. These cookies use more flour and retained their shape in the oven.

My husband prefers the old-fashioned recipe. They are so different that it didn’t seem like the same cookie to me. I liked them both.

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

Ojakangas, Beatrice. “Peppernuts, Food Network, 2020/11/23 https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/peppernuts-recipe-1955898.

Christmas at Carnton by Tamera Alexander

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Aletta Prescott struggles to make ends meet for her young son. She just lost her husband in this War Between the States as well as her job. Her baby is due in a couple of months and there’s no money to pay the mortgage. She prays for help.

Captain Jack Winston, a sharpshooter in the Confederate army, is recovering from battle wounds. His eyes aren’t healing as fast as he’d like. He yearns to get back to the battles but instead his colonel assigns him the task of assisting the Women’s Relief Society in Franklin, Tennessee.

Aletta feels fortunate to land a temporary position at the Carnton Plantation but she thinks the captain could better serve his country on the battlefield.

I really liked this story. It was a page turner for me. The characters were lovable and real. The struggles of the wives left back home while their husbands were at war tugged at my heart.

Part of the reason it snagged my interest was the setting—Franklin, Tennessee, in 1863. A portion of my Civil War romance,  A Musket in My Hands, takes place a year later. The tragic Battle of Franklin happened on November 30, 1864, and is an important part of my story.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Christianbook.com

A Christmas Tradition: Christmas Stockings

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by Sandra Merville Hart

Modern Christmas stockings are large enough to hold fruit and small gifts, but this tradition had humble beginnings.

Hundreds of years ago, poor children often had only one pair of stockings (socks) so they washed them each night and hung them by the fireplace to dry. The next morning, they donned warm, dry stockings.

A priest named Nicholas ministered to families in his town of Patara and the whole area of what’s now known as Turkey in the fourth century. Nicholas, a wealthy man who became an archbishop while still in his twenties, had a generous heart for poor families, especially children.

Metaphrastes, a Christian author who lived in the tenth century, wrote that Nicholas learned of a poor widower while traveling outside his parish. He and his three teenaged daughters were starving to death. The father considered selling one of them into slavery to provide dowries for the others so at least two could marry, but he couldn’t do it.

The desperate father prayed for help. That night, some one opened a window, dropped a gold coin in the oldest daughter’s stocking, and quietly left.

The widower thanked God for the miracle. The coin was used to provide a dowry for his daughter and she was married. Then a gold coin was found in the next daughter’s stocking one morning. She was soon married. Later, the same thing happened for the youngest daughter. It always happened when Nicholas was nearby.

Adults and children in the region began checking their stockings daily. Nicholas traveled often to perform his duties and was known for his generosity.

It was around 350 when Nicholas died on December 6th. It became known as St. Nicholas’s Day. Children hung their stockings the night before hoping to find a treat the next morning. Often, they found one.

Stockings were associated with St. Nicholas’s Day for centuries. Then a poem by Clement Clarke Moore called “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” was published in 1823. It later became known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” and changed the date the stockings were hung to Christmas Eve.

Traditional gifts in stockings are symbolic. Oranges symbolize Nicholas’s gift of gold to the widower and his daughters. Apples are for health. Walnuts are for good luck.

It’s fun to learn the surprising history behind this modern holiday tradition.

Sources

Collins, Ace. Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas, Zondervan, 2003.

Spivack, Emily. “The Legend of the Christmas Stocking,” Smithsonian Magazine, 2020/11/13 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-legend-of-the-christmas-stocking-160854441/.

 

For the Love of Emma by Starr Ayers

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A packet of love letters found among the possessions of the author’s deceased mother sparked this wonderful time slip story.

In 1938, it’s love at first sight for Noah, a medic at Fort Bragg. Emma works as a waitress at Rainbow Restaurant and he goes there often in hopes of talking with her. Emma likes how he stands up for her and a courtship soon begins.

For a time, they must communicate through letters. Those letters from Noah are found by Emma’s daughters after her death in 2011. The contemporary side of this story with the sisters is just as intriguing as the historical aspect as readers receive clues about events.

Nostalgic. Mysterious. Ayers’ skillful weaving of the 1930s realistic characters living in the brink of World War II with the contemporary story snagged my interest from the first chapter.

The characters are believable and likeable. There is more than one man worthy of a good woman in this story. The intrigue of finding out what happened to their romance made this a page turner for me.

I can’t wait to read the second book in the series! Definitely recommend.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Amazon

Pita Bread Recipe

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Today’s post is by fellow author, Patricia Meredith. We both have stories in Christmas Fiction off the Beaten Path, a collection of inspirational Christmas stories. Sandra’s nostalgic story is about a hard-working family  man in a difficult place called “Not This Year.” Patricia’s story was inspired by the song “Mary, Did You Know?” Welcome to Historical Nibbles, Patricia!

 by Patricia Meredith

Joseph was working late again, so it was just me and Jesus. I cut up his lamb into small pieces, praying that maybe this time he’d eat the meat without complaint.

Like most children I’d known, he hadn’t yet “acquired a taste” for meat, but it seemed to me the only thing he had acquired a taste for was bread. Bread for every meal. My hands were growing sore with all the kneading.

“You cannot live on bread alone!” I cried when he refused once again to touch anything else before him.

His lips puckered and his eyes widened, and then he shoved in another fistful of bread.

I shook my head. At least he was growing.

                                   — “Mary, Did You Know?” by Patricia Meredith

Like Mary, I love baking bread. One of my favorites is a simple Pita Bread recipe that makes a delicious, chewy bread perfect for wrapping around fresh vegetables and hummus. It’s cooked in a cast-iron skillet, which means if you cook it over an open fire, you get that nice outdoor smell and flavor added to the food, reminiscent of the way Mary might have cooked it in her home.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup warm water

1 packet (2 ¼ tsp) active dry yeast

2 ½- 3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp salt

1 tablespoon olive oil (+1-2 T olive oil for cooking)

DIRECTIONS:

Mix the water and yeast and let stand for about five minutes. Add salt, olive oil, and 2 ½ cups of flour. Mix until combined and then knead with more flour for about 5-7 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic. Try to be sparing with the extra flour—less is better.

Run a little olive oil into a clean bowl, roll the dough in the oil, and then let the dough rest in the bowl, covered, until it’s doubled (about 1 hour).

Turn the dough out and divide it into smaller pieces. Depending on how thick you like your pita, you can usually get about 12-16 out of the risen dough. Using a floured rolling pin, roll each piece into a flat circle.

Heat a cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Drizzle oil in the pan. Lay a pita on the skillet and bake 1-2 minutes, until the bubbles start to form, keeping an eye on it. It should get toasted spots on it. Flip again and cook another 1-2 minutes on the other side. It should puff up, forming small pockets.

Remove from heat and cover with a towel. Eat hot and fresh!

 

About Patricia:

Patricia Meredith is the author of historical and cozy mysteries. She currently lives just outside Spokane, Washington on a farm with peacocks, ducks, guinea fowl, chickens, and sheep. When she’s not writing, she’s playing board games with her husband, creating imaginary worlds with her two kids, or out in the garden reading a good book with a cup of tea. Check out her blog at Patricia-Meredith.com, or follow her on Instagram and Facebook at @pmeredithauthor.

“Mary, Did You Know?” is one of the stories included in the Christmas Fiction Off the Beaten Path anthology. Ask for it at your favorite bookstore.

Amazon

A Christmas Tradition: Christmas Trees

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by Sandra Merville Hart

About a thousand years ago, people living in what is now Scandinavia were captivated by the way evergreen trees survived their harsh winters. They chopped down the trees and took them into their homes in the hopes they’d bring strength to survive the winter season.

The French and Germans hung evergreen trees upside down from the ceiling in the twelfth century, a practice that continued for about 200 years.

In December, fir trees, called “paradise trees,” were placed outside Catholic churches during medieval times in Europe’s Baltic region. Apples were hung on its branches for a play about Adam and Eve.

Fir trees were displayed on the ground in homes instead of hung from the ceiling by late in the 16th century.

Martin Luther, after a walk in the forest on a moonlit night, is generally credited with placing the first lit candles on a Christmas tree. To him the evergreen tree represented God’s everlasting love for us. The hope that the birth of Jesus brought into the world was symbolized by the candles or lights on the tree.

Americans of German descent living in Pennsylvania in the 1820s are said to have brought the tradition of Christmas trees to the United States to stay. It took the marriage of Prince Albert of Germany to Queen Victoria of England for the tradition to really take hold in the United States.

Toys, candy, popcorn, and candles decorated those Victorian trees.

It was easy for those living in rural areas to chop down an evergreen tree for their home. Those in cities had a tougher challenge. In 1851, Mark Carr recognized the need. He filled a large horse-drawn carriage with evergreens and sold them in a vacant lot in New York City.

Lots like that one can be found in cities and towns today. An estimated 81% of homes display an artificial tree, but there’s something about the traditional sight and smell of a real tree that keeps others buying them year after year.

Sources

“Christmas Trees,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020/11/12 https://www.britannica.com/print/article/115737.

Collins, Ace. Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas, Zondervan, 2003.

Kennedy, Lesley. “How 25 Christmas Traditions Got Their Start,” History, 2020/11/12

https://www.history.com/news/christmas-traditions-history.