April Showers Bring Barrels of Wine

By Patricia Winton

I first moved to Rome on a bleak November day almost ten years ago. That first winter, rain pelted the city almost daily. I spent four months in a basement apartment with my only view through a small window near the ceiling where I watched feet splashing rain against the panes.

One night, around two AM, I stepped out of bed and into a pool of water that blanketed the entire floor of the apartment. It turned out that leaves had covered the storm drain in the courtyard, forcing the falling rain to rise in a virtual lake that eventually found its way under doorways and into the building. I spent hours mopping up the water and pouring it down the toilet. The resulting dampness led mold to grow on walls, enflaming my allergies. I coughed and wiped my runny nose until I moved.

When I got to my new digs that April, the sun arrived. I sat outside in a small courtyard to drink my morning coffee, to read, to study Italian, to let the sun wrap me in warmth and dry out my sodden body.

And everywhere I went, I praised the sun. “Isn’t it wonderful to see the sun?” and “What a beautiful, sunny day!” and “At last, the rain has stopped.” Italian people would shake their heads and frown. “Ogni goccia in aprile è un barile,” that is, for every drop of rain in April there will be a barrel of wine at harvest. This was my first introduction to superstitions about the weather here, and superstitions about wine productions abound.

Last year’s grape harvest produced the lowest number of barrels in about sixty years, so people have been paying careful attention to the weather this year. This April saw the highest rainfall in about thirty years, and if the first superstition holds, we should have a bumper crop this year.

Unfortunately, April was also the coldest in about thirty years; the rain and cold have continued into May. Neither situation bodes well for wine production because the extended cold and dampness lead to mildew and disease on the vines, retards blooms, and delays growth of the grapes.

But I’m going to be an optimist. Every drop of rain in April means a barrel of wine. I’m holding on to that.

                               

How Spirits Live On

With Halloween behind us, I’d rather not cover anything too scary for this week’s topic if I can help it. (Yes, I call myself a crime writer, but I’m really a wimp.)
 

Instead, I’ve been thinking about a wondrous little happening from close to a decade ago.

After my first daughter was born, my in-laws made the long journey from India to see her and spend time with all of us. When they arrived, my mother in-law fretted a bit about her older sister who’d recently lost her husband, so on the spur of the moment, she called to invite her to join us. Happily, her sister said yes, and after her arrival, what struck us all was the immediate, electric bond my six-month-old struck with her great aunt, like old soulmates.

Right from the get-go, my baby’s eyes would light up whenever she saw her great aunt, whom we affectionately call Ayee (which means “mother”). No matter how preoccupied Uma was with whatever bright, shiny object lay in front of her, she could acutely sense when Ayee was anywhere nearby.

After jumping into her arms, my girl would knowingly proceed to locate an old rosary Ayee wore around her neck. She didn’t seem to register anyone else’s necklaces, not even the gold chain Ayee also wore – only that rosary. For fun, or so we thought, our aunt would tuck the rosary into her blouse and tightly wrap her sari around her neck and chest to make it hard for Uma to find. But no matter how hidden away, Uma would find the piece and touch it delicately as though it held some special significance.

In some parts of India, it’s believed that when a newborn comes into the world, he or she inhabits the spirit of the last person who’d passed away in the family. As it happened, Ayee’s husband was the last person we’d lost before Uma’s birth. It’s just a superstition, of course. But as Ayee informed us, her husband had worn that rosary all of their married life. When he passed away, she’d removed it from his body and has worn it ever since.

Is it coincidence or proof of the supernatural, you think?

Don’t Eat the Chicken Feet

If you read Heidi’s post from Monday, you already know a thing or two about this topic. There’s also wearing garlic around your neck to ward off evil spirits. And eggs with two yolks being good luck. Every culture has its food-related superstitions.

In China, they say don’t cut noodles else your life will be cut short. In Judaism, keep something, anything, even a piece of wood, in your oven to avoid going hungry. The Greeks use garlic and sometimes cactus to ward off the evil eye. If you don’t have garlic, you can simply say skorda (garlic) and spit three times on yourself to get the same results. In Japan, don’t stick your chopsticks into your food, especially your rice, because rice with chopsticks stuck into them is traditionally placed at funeral altars. (Side note: I recently started using black sesame seeds for certain East Asian recipes, which worries my mom; black sesame seeds are used only during funerals in India.) The Sudanese sacrifice a sheep on Ramadan and distribute its meat to usher in good luck. Filipinos believe keeping a round grape in your mouth at the stroke of New Year’s is good luck. In Romania, nibbling off the corners of a slice of bread ensures better relations with your mother in-law. Hawaiian fishermen believe that if they carry bananas on their boats, they won’t catch any fish.

In our house, we scoff at such old-fashioned customs, but we follow them anyway. For example, you’ll never find anyone in this house directly passing salt shakers or chilies in any form—cooked, pickled, or raw—to one another as it could cause discord. When someone says, please 'pass the salt' around here, we pick it up, move it near them, and place it down. They can just pick it up themselves.

As well, when we bought our first house, we grudgingly took the advice of elders and boiled milk on the stove so that we would always have plenty of abundance in our home. But then we panicked when the milk wouldn’t boil over as it was supposed to, no matter how much extra we kept adding to the pan. Turns out skim milk doesn’t boil over. Needless to say, there was a quick run to the store for whole milk. (New and old customs don’t always mesh conveniently, right?)

There’s another savory custom that I haven’t yet tried but have seen performed on my kids a time or two. It involves roasting dried red chilies, throwing salt onto them, cooling the concoction for a bit, then pinching them together and circling it around the body of the person from whom to ward off the evil eye (typically, a baby or a bride). Then the chilies and salt are thrown into a burning coconut shell. At least I think that's what they do. There are several variations of this practice, yet I’m hoping burning other ingredients in my kitchen meets the general requirements. If so, my cooking has warded off a lot of evil over the years.

So why shouldn’t you eat the chicken feet? In some parts of Thailand, it’s believed that avoiding them could improve your handwriting. Not sure about this one. I’ve never eaten chicken feet, but my handwriting is mediocre at best.

Do you follow any age-old customs related to food and, if so, were you satisfied with the results?

The Living Dead

Halloween always brings back fond memories of my time in Peru. It’s not uncommon to find groups of kids dressed in costumes on that day shouting “Halloween, Halloween” (they don’t yell “trick or treat”) and scrounging for goodies. But it’s the two days following Halloween that intrigue me the most. Myths and superstitions abound and it’s these Incan and Peruvian traditions that are the inspiration behind my current novel, Vestige.

The Incas believed ancestral spirits shared the world of the living. Mummified kings and queens were treated as though alive, and were consulted as seers who bore messages from the gods. The descendents of royalty gave the mummies food and drink and took them to visit other mummies, linking the worlds of past and present.

Sharing the cosmos with the living and dead were the gods and spirits of the landscape. Mountain peaks, rocky outcrops and springs represented ancestors and guardian spirits. Many festivals were held in their honor, with the hope the living would receive their blessings for a bountiful harvest. And for the buried ancestors, it was usual for the graves to have built-in conduits so libations could be offered easily.

Steeped in history and religion, modern-day Peru is constantly blending the old and the new. Cuzco is a classic example. Downtown is a labyrinth of cobblestoned streets and centuries old buildings containing Internet cafes and bars. Buses and cars zoom past immaculate post-Colombian architecture built on Incan foundations. Modern holidays are observed, but ancient traditions are also celebrated.

My favorite holidays are held the first two days of November. Nationally, All Saints Day is followed by All Souls Day, but in Cuzco, there is a slight variation. November 1 is Día de Todos los Santos Vivos (Day of the Living Saints) and is celebrated with delectable delights such as tantawawa (breads shaped in the figures of babies and horses), lechon (roast suckling pig), sugar cane, and chicha (fermented maize that can have the saliva of the makers in it – yes, it seriously can). This momentous day is quickly followed by Día de los Santos Difuntos (Day of the Deceased Saints) when families honor their ancestors with visits to their burial grounds.

I was lucky enough to experience Día de los Santos Difuntos at the invitation of a colleague of mine who grew up in Cuzco. We bought flowers at the stall next to the cemetery and made our way into the grounds. Hundreds of people milled around the walls that contained 2-foot-by-1.5- foot niches representing their relatives’ final resting places. In Peru, when a person dies they are only buried in the ground for ten years, then dug up and cremated with the ashes being placed in the wall at the cemetery. For the wealthy, though, the ashes are put in marble tombs that are big enough to contain the whole family.

The niches for the deceased had spaces large enough for each family to make a diorama within them. Inside the glass enclosures were figurines, paintings, and photos that signified the ancestor’s life. For example, if the deceased was a football fan, football paraphernalia might adorn the space. A musician may have a CD of their favorite music or a miniature of the instrument they played. The attention and creativity that goes into creating these dioramas are a testament to the adoration the families have for the deceased person.

Coming from a country where death is a reverent affair, it was hard to adjust to the celebrations around the cemetery. A band had formed at the cemetery gate and the musicians beat drums and blew trumpets, the tune becoming more discordant as the day wore on and as more alcohol was consumed. Dancing, singing, and storytelling were in abundance and the atmosphere had become electric. Every now and again, a cloud of sadness would float through the crowd, but the general feeling was one of fond remembrance for the loved one.

Although our group didn’t make it through the whole night, family members stayed with their ancestors to greet the new day. When I finally walked away with my friend, my view of death had changed completely. One’s life should be celebrated – whether the person is alive or dead.

What books, movies or experiences have touched upon a superstition or tradition and made you reassess your values or look at life differently?

Good Luck Lemons

Last spring, I was fretting over my Meyer lemon tree. Weeks of rain brought out a flurry of new green leaves, but nary a blossom. The previous year, you could barely see the leaves for all the tiny white blooms covering them. I could smell their fragrance through my open window as I sat at my computer thinking up clever ways for the villain in my suspense novel to thwart my detective. But after such abundance, the tree seemed to have gone into a sulk.

A friend informed me that the situation was of my own doing. Apparently, I failed to take the proper precautions to ensure ongoing bounty. She wasn’t talking about fertilizer, pruning or proper irrigation.

“Sprinkle some salt around the perimeter,” she advised. “Then burn a bit of esfand and wave the smoke over the tree.” If performed during a season of abundance, this ritual will prevent jealous neighbors from putting the evil eye on the tree and ruining the next year’s crop. Esfand comes from a shrub that grows wild throughout the Middle East, and it produces a strong, woodsy odor when burned.

I have this advice on excellent authority. My friend is from Shiraz, a city in southern Iran, famous for its lovely gardens and fragrant citrus groves. Her family grows Seville oranges in their garden, and the trees are so bountiful that the blossoms end up in a variety of dishes, with plenty remaining to form big, juicy fruit. Some of the blooms add fragrance to tea, while others are turned into moraba-ye bahar-e narenj, or orange blossom preserves. To collect the flowers, the women spread large sheets under the trees, shake the branches until the blossoms snow down all around, then gather them up in the cloths.

I even have the proper tools for protecting my lemon tree from the evil eye:

First, you heat the wand over a flame until the metal coils glow red, then you dip it in a bowl of esfand. The seeds crackle and release their scent in a cloud of pungent smoke. I burn it in my kitchen to get rid of cooking smells, especially fish. My husband complains that this simply replaces one bad smell with another, but I like the scent. It reminds me of hiking in the forest and camp fires.

The ritual precaution seemed to work well for my Shirazi friend, so I tried it. And wouldn’t you know it – my lemon tree is now covered with lovely yellow globes, nearly ready for harvesting, with a second crop of tiny green fruit following close behind. I predict a steady supply of lemons throughout the coming year.

Do you observe any superstitions or rituals in your daily life? How well do they work?