June - Episode 2
Welcome to my second batch of articles for June which is a little fewer than usual as I’m getting ready for my holiday! However, included is:
· Midsummer
· a look at strawberries – and a recipe
· a just-for-fun wordsearch
First here’s a piece inspired by Shakespeare…
It will soon be 24th June. Midsummer. I can’t help but think of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a hugely entertaining production of it at the RSC way back in 2005. I saw it with my daughter and we, along with the rest of the audience, were almost crying with laughter at the ‘Rude Mechanicals’. Since then, I’ve never been able to bring myself to see another version of it in case it didn’t live up to that level of enjoyment.
What I do keep revisiting, though, are the lines that Oberon speaks in Act 2:
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
(Oberon, Act 2 Scene 1)
One thing that some people comment on, or perhaps ‘are annoyed by’ is a better term, is that oxlips and violets wouldn’t be in flower at the same time as woodbine (honeysuckle) and roses – and certainly not at midsummer. And the conditions that each of the plants need are not exactly the same, so would they really be growing together on a bank? But this is fairyland! Anything is possible.
So, let’s suspend our disbelief for a few moments and have a look at the flowers on that fragrant bank where Titania sleeps sometime of the night.
There is only contender for Shakespeare’s wild thyme. It’s Thymus serpyllum. Its common name is indeed wild thyme and it’s also called creeping thyme and elfin thyme – quite appropriate really, since Titania slept on it and, according to Elizabethan folklore, fairies used thyme blossoms as cradles for their babies. It’s indigenous to Europe and can cope with a wide range of conditions, from poor, uncultivated soil to good garden soil; what it does like, however, is a nice sunny spot. Francis Bacon, writing in 1625 gives us a clue to its prostrate habit and fragrance, since he tells us that wild thyme, ‘perfume[s] the air most delightfully … being trodden upon and crushed’ and that we ‘are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.’
The chances of seeing an oxlip (Primula elatior) growing on a bank, or anywhere else for that matter, is pretty slim nowadays, unless you live in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire or Essex where occasionally it can still be found in damp woodlands or on woodland edges. It may well have been more prolific back in Shakespeare’s time but now it is classed as a vulnerable, near-threatened species. Oxlip is quite similar to cowslip (Primula veris) except for a few key features of the flowers: oxlip flowers are a much paler yellow than cowslips; they tend to all face the same direction; and oxlip flowers are more open (like a primrose) whereas cowslip flowers are more bell-shaped. The only thing that makes me wonder if Shakespeare actually meant cowslip, rather than oxlip, is that cowslips have an unforgettable honey-apricot fragrance, whereas oxlips are almost scent-free. Wouldn’t Titania have preferred something with an odour? But who am I to challenge Shakespeare?
I’m going to stick my neck out now and say that, unlike some commentators who believe that Viola canina (the scentless, heath dog violet) or Viola riviniana (the scentless, common dog violet) is the nodding violet mentioned here, I think it is more likely to be Viola odorata, the highly fragranced sweet violet.
All three have the typical downward bend of the violet’s stem which makes them look as if they are nodding, but surely Titania would nestle down amongst fragrant violets rather than unscented ones, given the choice? Viola odorata is a native plant which, if you’re lucky and know where to look, you’ll find in places where there is winter and spring sunshine, but shade in the summer. Titania’s overcanopied bower would be just right for it.
Which brings me to what was doing the overcanopying. First, we have woodbine, which must have been the native honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum. Gerard in his Herbal of 1597 describes Woodbinde, or Honysuckles as having the same habit and characteristics as Lonicera periclymenum and provides us with a picture to boot.
Second is the musk rose. To Elizabethans, musk rose was undoubtedly Rosa moschata: according to various sources it was introduced from who-knows-where (possibly the Himalayan region) via Italy by Thomas Cromwell during Henry VIII’s reign. It’s quite a modest rose flower-wise, bearing clusters of small, single, white flowers, but its fragrance more than makes up for its lack of ostentatiousness: Francis Bacon asserts that it is only surpassed by violets when it comes to generating ‘the sweetest smell in the air’. Being a short climber with prickles rather than thorns, it would be just the right choice for Titania’s canopy.
Finally, there is eglantine, the sweet briar, Rosa rubiginosa, which grows to about 3m. It bears soft pink, single flowers with surprisingly little aroma. The grey-green leaves, however, have a distinct fragrance of green apples, a lovely citrus-y contrast to all the other heady scents that surround Titania. Although she would have to be pretty careful of the thorny stems.
So there we have Titania’s fragrant bower – let’s leave her sleeping, dreaming perchance of her true-love ….
Strawberries
Eating a freshly picked, home-grown strawberry has to be one of the most satisfying, and flavoursome, experiences I have ever had. As a child I remember helping my mum harvest the first of the season and being allowed to pop one into my mouth, still warm from the sun – the taste is an abiding memory. Shop-bought strawberries seem to lack the ‘fruitiness’ of home-grown ones – perhaps because they have been bred to withstand the vagaries of being transported and still arrive ‘fresh’. So why not have a go at growing your own? If you’ve got the room you can have a traditional strawberry patch, complete with straw to lift the fruits off the ground – hence their name. But if, like many people, you only have a small garden or certainly not enough space for a dedicated strawberry bed, you can grow them in hanging baskets.
The advantages are first, your precious fruits are off the ground so those pesky critters slugs and snails can’t get their slimy munching apparatus round them, and second, you can tailor the soil to what is best for the plants (fertile, moisture-retentive but free-draining). There are a couple of disadvantages. First, that because the roots are restricted inside the basket the plants are entirely dependent on you to provide the water they need, and second, that nutrients in the growing medium will soon be used and you will have to provide extra food in the form of fertiliser. You also have to be aware of birds beating you to it when it comes to harvesting – but that’s true with whatever method of growing you use.
There are a couple of varieties that appear to be good for hanging baskets – the first is ‘Elan’ which produces and abundance of very sweet fruits, and the second is ‘Toscana’ which not only gives you lovely fruit but it also has deep rose-coloured flowers which will look stunning.
Alternatively, you can grow alpine, or wild strawberries. The fruits are much smaller than ‘ordinary’ strawberries but what they lack in size they make up for in flavour – they’re little taste-bombs of strawberryness (is that a word?). Good varieties include ‘Alexandria’ and ‘Fraise des Bois’.
And what to do with your harvest? I think the best option is just to eat them as they are – or make a delectable strawberry cheesecake!
Ingredients
200g digestive biscuits
75g unsalted butter
300g cream cheese
300g mascarpone
300g double cream
125g icing sugar
1/2 vanilla pod, seeds scraped
1 lemon, zested
400g strawberries, washed and hulled
1 tbsp of caster sugar
Method
1. For the biscuit base, crush the digestive biscuits to a fine crumb.
2. Melt the butter and mix in the biscuit crumbs.
3. Spread the biscuit mixture evenly into the bottom of a 20 cm spring form cake tin, pressing down firmly. Place in the fridge to firm up.
4. Take half the strawberries and cut into small pieces.
5. To make the cheesecake filling, begin by whisking the cream cheese, mascarpone and icing sugar in a bowl until the mixture is smooth. Fold in the lemon zest.
6. In a separate bowl, whisk the cream to soft peaks and fold in the vanilla seeds.
7. Gently fold the cream into the cheese mixture until thoroughly combined, but be careful not to over-mix it. Gently fold in the chopped strawberries.
8. Once the base has set, add the cheese mixture and smooth the top. Place in the fridge to set for at least 4 hours, or ideally overnight.
9. Slice the remaining strawberries into 3–5mm slices and toss with the caster sugar: this will slightly macerate the strawberries.
10. Once everything is set and chilled, carefully remove the cheesecake from the cake tin and arrange the strawberry slices on the top.
Finally, here’s a
Just for Fun Quiz of Plants Mentioned in Plays of Shakespeare
Note: all the names are accepted common names
1. This month’s Pollinator Plant
2. A hardy fragrant herb mentioned in the song ‘Scarborough Fair’
3. You can make chains from this flower
4. The national tree of England
5. When grown as a vegetable, this plant has Italian roots
6. This is the herb of remembrance
7. The common name for a type of Viola
8. The name of this sweet-smelling sub-shrub is also a colour
9. An old-fashioned name for Sweet Briar
10. A type of Origanum, often with the suffix ‘sweet’
11. This herb’s name also means to ‘bitterly regret’
Remaining picture credits: Honeysuckle from Gerard’s Herbal available as a free download from Internet Archive; Strawberry - Pixabay; Viola - my own.
Answers to quiz: 1. Rose 2. Thyme 3. Daisy 4. Oak 5. Fennel 6. Rosemary 7. Pansy 8. Lavender 9. Eglantine 10. Marjoram 11. Rue