Tag Archives: Dorothy Sayers

A Year of Country Wines: February is for Parsnip Sherry

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“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields

This year I will make twelve country wines. Each wine is loosely based on the wine calendar in the classic British book, First Steps in Winemaking by C.J.J. Berry. I do, however, plan to freely substitute ingredients based on the principle that most should be available either on the farm or from a neighbor. Next year I will gather friends and taste each one and share the results with you.

Cheers, Brian

It may be true that “fine words butter no parsnips”. But this month we gather to find out if these roots can turn out a respectable sherry. Will it become a fine Amontillado worthy of enticing an enemy into a cellar during Carnival? Or shall it be consigned to my still (that is, if I owned one) to produce some oddly flavored brandy?

This recipe contains many off-the-farm ingredients, including, alas, the actual parsnips. I had intended to get the roots from some friends and neighbors. But by the time holiday feasts had ended so had their supply of parsnips. So, this exercise turns out to be both expensive and a bit more commercial than intended. In a year’s time we shall see if it was all worth the effort and expense. If it was, then I am sure the recipe can be tinkered with to make it more farm friendly.

The recipe:

Parsnips (unwaxed)             4.5 lb.

Hops                                      ½ oz.

Malt extract                           ½ lb.

Light brown sugar               2.5 lb.

Citric acid                              1 tsp

Water                                     1 gallon

Yeast                                      Red Star premier cuvee

Yeast nutrient                       1 tsp

Pectic enzyme                       ½ tsp

The process:

Clean the parsnips, but do not peel. Cut them into slices and boil gently in half the water until soft. Then strain the liquid into a pot (leftover roots to the pigs). Put the hops in a bag and add to the remaining ½ gallon and simmer for a half hour. Mix the two liquids into the primary fermenter. Stir in the malt, sugar and citric acid and allow to cool to blood temperature. Add yeast, nutrient, pectic enzyme.

After 7-14 days rack the wine into a glass carboy. In 3-6 months transfer to ½ gallon jugs.

Next February we taste.

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Reading this weekend: A Cloud of Witnesses (D. Sayers). And selections from Rural Rides (W. Cobbett).

 

Soon It Will All Be Over

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Deep in the winter mud season it is hard to see through to the other side, where spring rules. Could we but string two intimate days with the sun, no rain, and a warming wind, then I’m sure my mood would lift. But each day, this day, I slog. I slog out to the barn to feed the sheep. I slog to the chicken coop. I slosh and slog to feed the pigs, raising with each step a black-brown slurry that splatters my newly laundered Carhartts. Looking down with disgust, I turn to find something convenient to kick, and sink ankle deep into the mire.

I stomp back to the farmhouse to change my clothes. Once inside, I do a compulsive check of the weather website. I shout upstairs to Cindy, “It’s going to be cloudy and rainy today.” “Yeah, I’m looking out the window,” she replies to the idiot who seeks written confirmation of the obvious.

Having failed to receive appropriate commiseration, I review my impressively detailed to-do list. It doesn’t take much searching to find an excuse to do nothing. Listed on the page are a multitude of tasks related to mud season … none of which can be completed because it is mud season. We need to have a dump truck of fill dirt delivered to redirect rain runoff from pooling in the inner corral, but the owner of the truck wants a guarantee he won’t get stuck in the mud. Which means that maybe in July, when the sludge of winter is a dim memory, as I trudge through my rounds cursing the heat and drought of summer, he will show up.

Then, there is the large pile of gravel to be distributed where the sheep traverse gates and buildings, areas where the mud is deepest. Yet the tractor in this season slips and slides with alarming imprecision as I navigate the entryways. The front tires sink deep into the mud when I attempt to pick up the heavy load of gravel. Another task that must wait for summer (when I’m sure I will have all the time in the world).

Which reminds me of an essay I wrote in third grade:

“I just finished my last math test and now am taking my last writing test. Things don’t look very good right now. But soon it will all be over, and I can run and jump and fish and play.”

I like that kid, I think. He certainly had his priorities straight.

I head back outside to work in the hoop house. At the back of the barnyard, through various muck-laden gateways, the hoop house in winter is a delight, both warmish and dry. What water there is comes from a drip tape that irrigates the rows in a controlled fashion. Unless, that is, one of the tapes breaks. That’s when you open the door to find that your well-organized watering overnight, for the past eight hours, has created a muddy, mucky mess that mirrors the world outside. Sadly and not surprisingly, on this day, this is what the open door reveals.

Soon it will all be over, then I can run and jump….

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Reading this weekend: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (D. Sayers). And rereading, The Unlikely Vineyard: the education of a farmer and her quest for terroir (D. Heekin).