Posts Tagged → Summer
It’s berry season!
For about 150,000 years we humans have been hunter-gatherers, living a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle that follows the migrating animals and the growth of plants our bodies can eat.
Edible plants were a huge component of hunter-gatherer food, easily dried and carried, many of them lasting well into October and November after plants have gone dormant in most places. Unlike meat, dried edible plants do not easily rot, or attract nibbling animals.
Among edible plants, fruits and wild berries reign supreme.
That is because fruits and berries contain an unusual mix of carbohydrates, sugars, minerals, and vitamins, all of which are necessary for survival. Especially vitamin C, a crucial ingredient in a healthy human body (think scurvy).
The fact that wild berries taste especially sweet and supplement other foods with extra flavor is a big draw.
Sweet-tasting foods rarely occur in Nature.
Blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, huckleberries, wineberries, and many others grow abundantly here in Pennsylvania and across the Eastern US.
Plains Indians like the Lakota, Pawnee, and Comanche made a mix of red meat and berries called pemmican. Ripe berries were turned into a big mush and then worked into meat strips. Usually the mixture was dried on wooden racks in the open air and sunlight, and the dried slabs and sticks were then put under the horse saddle to be worked and broken down into what we would call jerky today.
“Jerky” gets its name from the gentle jerking motion of the horse saddle, as horses step forward. The motion slowly breaks down the meat fibers, making them easily chewed and digested.
So here we are, a bunch of sedentary Americans, mostly eating out of cans and bagged frozen foods.
One antidote to this somewhat unhealthy arrangement is to go outside and do stuff.
Hike, walk, sit and read or sit and chat with someone face to face, fish, canoe, grill out, etc., so many easy outdoor activities.
A really easy outdoor activity is berry picking. Sure there are some thorns, but so what. The benefits are fresh, delicious, healthy berries that are not sprayed with chemicals, or bagged in plastic bags, or frozen. The whole family can do it. Go find a field edge, and bring some hard containers, and start picking.
Humans have been berry picking in that Summertime window of opportunity for a really long time. So long that it can be measured in ice ages come and gone, ice sheets advancing and retreating. That is a lot of years.
If we have been doing that activity for that long, you know it is good and natural. That the whole family can do it, and then make pies together afterwards, makes it all the better.
Just watch out for poison ivy!
Fellow Americans, enjoy your summer!
Dear fellow Americans, we got it good here. Summer time is for gardens, BBQ with friends, travel with the family, loafing by the pool, fishing, and so on.
Summertime in America is truly a serene time. We are blessed in this.
Don’t take it for granted.
The hoops and links and tethers that kept the world’s nations mostly stable over the past sixty years are broken. Entire arrangements of human life across enormous landscapes are changing. Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, all are in significant play. Iraq and Syria both have lost control of their borders.
Think this doesn’t effect you or your life? You’re wrong. Energy, trade, security, violent jihad, and more are all in flux, and changes are rippling across the globe.
America is a strong nation. Be prepared to be challenged, because it’s going to take all we have to succeed.
On that happy note, enjoy the hot dogs and cold beer!
My antidote to the heat
Several years ago my family bought me a Hamilton Beach smoothie maker (model 56222) for Father’s Day, and it long past earned its price. It has a pour spout which makes smoothies a lot cleaner to make, pour, and drink.
Fruit smoothies are a summertime daily staple of our family, and they can be made lots of different ways, with all kinds of natural ingredients (fresh and frozen blueberries, strawberries, citrus fruits, etc), for far less money than you might pay at a Rita’s or other ice cream venue.
Here is my antidote to the heat:
1) One 20-ounce can of Dole pineapple slices in heavy syrup or in natural pineapple juice.
2) One cup of Cabot Greek-style lowfat yogurt, vanilla bean flavor.
3) A quarter cup of water
4) 2-4 tablespoons of granulated sugar (more or less to taste)
5) lots of ice cubes or crushed ice
…….Pour the pineapple into the blender, juice and all. Spoon in the yogurt. Pour in the sugar, to taste. Pour the water over the sugar to help it dissolve. Fill the blender to the top with ice cubes or crushed ice, and put the top on. Pulse or use the smoothie function for 30-60 seconds.
The sliced pineapple blends better than the crushed pineapple, oddly, at least in our machine.
Plenty of times we skip the yogurt and just use water and a splash of lemon juice, along with frozen berries. Other times an old, mushy banana with pineapple, or some coconut milk with pineapple, and suddenly you are into daquiri land… Depends on what you are in the mood for. They are all refreshing. The world is your smoothie!
And not to take away anything from Rita’s: When our clan is in the mood for a cold, icy snack, places like Rita’s have far more flavors than we can come up with at home.
Last day of summer…so sad
It is tough to know who enjoys summer time more, me or my kids. Every summer we emphasize time together camping, on day trips to historic sites, beach trips and saltwater fishing, and both day camp and sleepover camp. We spend lots of time together, and by the end of each summer I feel like a big kid.
I admit that it’s hard to say goodbye. But it’s necessary.