Tartan of the Day
Aug 22
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Muffin Day
Jack: "How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless."
Algernon: "Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them."
~ The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde, 1895
Forget your troubles today with an English or American-style muffin! And if there's a muffin worthy of tartan, the quintessential blueberry muffin makes a striking statement with its purply richness. The purplish blue of the native blueberry is created by phytochemicals known as anthocyanins, responsible for the colour and resultant naming of the fruit in many languages. The "blue berry" directly translates to many languages including the Scots blaeberry and the Norwegian blåbær likely because apart from blueberries, bluefish and blue corn, the color blue is rare amongst edible plants and animals. Ripe blueberries have a light green flesh, while their berry cousins, bilberries, whortleberries and huckleberries are red or purple throughout. Native Americans referred to blueberries as “star berries” because of the star-shaped blossoms and made a beef jerky called Sautahig similar to pemmican, but substituting the cranberries with dried blueberries. While muffins retain their original form in the UK (a light yeast-leavened bread, cooked on a griddle and flipped, resulting in the classic flattened shape), across the pond muffins evolved to a form and texture similar to cupcakes, with both sweet and savoury flavours. Either way, pass the butter! 🫐 🧈
“You ought to have seen what I saw on my way
To the village, through Mortenson’s pasture to-day:
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum ..."
~Robert Frost, "Blueberries"
A particularly loved American style muffin, the blueberry muffin is even the official state muffin of Minnesota!
The names of blueberries in languages other than English often translate as "blueberry", e.g., Scots blaeberry and Norwegian blåbær. Blaeberry, blåbær and French myrtilles usually refer to the European native bilberry (V. myrtillus), while bleuets refers to the North American blueberry. Native Americans once called blueberries “starberries” because the blossoms make a star shape. Similar to pemmican, A beef jerky called Sautauthig, was made with dried blueberries and meat and was consumed year round.
In the winter of 1620, the Pilgrims established a settlement at Plimoth (Plymouth). Many perished during the first few months, but those that survived went on to build homes and establish farms. From the Wampanoag Indians , they learned how to gather blueberries, dry them under the summer's sun and store them for the winter.
This tartan, designed by Carol A.L. Martin, has extra blueberries for the blueberry muffin aficionado.
For the complete text of Robert Frost's 1915 poem, "Blueberries," click the muffins!