19 November 2007

A Pocket Full of "Ishes" for a Manic Monday


The problem with stream of consciousness is that you sometimes end up in the middle of a raging flood. Mo has decreed RELISH and I obediantly put up a recipe for Cranberry Relish a few days ago. Of course, since half of my heritage is southern, my brain immediately corrected relish to Piccalilli which is canned at home and is much better than anything you can find made by Heinz

INGREDIENTS:

20 green tomatoes
1 large green bell pepper
1 large red bell pepper
1 hot red pepper
1 cup Kosher salt
6 cups vinegar
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon mustard seed
1/3 cup prepared horseradish

PREPARATION:

Chop tomatoes and peppers; put in a large enameled kettle. Sprinkle with the salt, cover with water, and let soak overnight. Combine vinegar, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and mustard. Drain tomatoes and peppers thoroughly.

Add vinegar mixture and simmer until tender. Add horseradish.

Pack into hot sterilized jars, leaving a 1/2-inch headspace; seal. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
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Then the stream overflowed:

Now relish is green and green made me think of leprechauns. It isn't St. Patrick's Day, but one of the best uses of "ish" was written by Yip Harburg who also wrote a little ditty called "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and pots of gold are found at the end of rainbows and that brings you back to leprechauns that showed up on the screen in the form of Tommy Steele getting taller by the minute while hunting for his pot of gold and a rainbow belonging to Finnian ... Moving arms and legs rapidly to tread water in that fast flowing stream of consciousness.

Finnian's Rainbow came to the stage in 1947 and to the screen in 1963. While seeming dated now, it was originally way ahead of it's time with it's subjects of poverty and racism while making it all palatable with a wonderful collection of songs including standards such as "How Are Things In Glocca Morra", "That Old Devil Moon", and "If This Isn't Love". The score also contained some humorous patter songs to capture the Irish magic including "When I'm Not Near The One I love", and a delightful song about the flutters of first falling in love that actually contains the Manic Monday word: Relish --- along with a whole lot of other ishes. You can listen to the whole score by clicking on the title link below or just read the lyrics or take side trips on the bios of both Clark and Steele who are still going strong. What made this song so interesting was the Minuet like rhythms and pauses and a lyric that managed to rhyme mouse and Eisenhower.
SOMETHING SORT OF GRANDISH

(Burton Lane / E.Y. "Yip" Harburg)



Tommy Steele & Petula Clark (Film Soundtrack - 1963)

PETULA: Is it a warmish, kind of glowish, kind of peculiarish sensation?
TOMMY: Oh no, it's sort of a shimmerish kind of quimmerish, flibbery-gibberish sensation.
PETULA: Does it make you feel humming birds in your heart?
TOMMY: Butterflies in me feet
PETULA: And bees in your bonnet
TOMMY: Stars in me britches
PETULA: Does it make you want to dance?
TOMMY: I hadn't noticed
PETULA: And sing?
TOMMY: Oh, it does, it does....

TOMMY:

Something sweet
Something sort of grandish
Sweeps my soul
When thou art near

My heart feels so sugar candish
My head feels so ginger beer (Laughter)

Something so dareish
So I don't careish
Stirs me from limb to limb
It's so terrifish, magnifish, delish
To have such an amorish, glamorish dish

We could be, oh, so bride and groomish
Skies could be so bluish blue
Life could be so love in bloomish
If my ishes could all come true

PETULA:

Thou art sweet
Thou art sort of grandish
Thou outlandish cavalier
From now on, we're hand in handish

Romeo

TOMMY:

And Guinevere

Thou'rt so adorish
Toujours l'amourish
I'm so cherchez la femme

PETULA:

Why should I vanquish
Relinquish, resish
When I simply relish
this swellish condish

TOMMY:

I might be manish or mouseish
I might be a fowl or fish
But with thee I'm Eisenhowish
Please accept my propasish

BOTH:

You're under my skinish
So please be give-inish
Or it's the beginish
of the finish of me

I hope you all enjoyed the music and may all your ishes come true.


13 comments:

Schmoop said...

Relish is sooo under rated, as is Finnian's Rainbow. Cheers!!

Anonymous said...

I have never had a green tomato but have heard so much about them. With all of those tomatoes in that recipe, I'll bet that Piccalilli recipe could feed a crowd--enough for us all of Manic Monday ☺ Great Post!

Sandee said...

Excellent. Wonderful as always and I hope all your ishes come true too. Have a great MM. Did you know that I posted the exact Cranberry relish recipe that you have below. It's a great one too. :)

Anonymous said...

HEY HEY! Ugh Im glad people arent writing about hot dog relish ICK! Cant stand it! Come stop by my blog!

Have a great Thanksgiving!

DEB

Anonymous said...

Excellent post... and I forgot about piccalilli...and I'm southern by birth...shame on me! LOL!

Gattina said...

I didn't understand the word "relish" and my dictionary didn't help me either. Relish for me was the labelled glass on Moo's blog, lol !

maryt/theteach said...

OMG! Such work for a grand post, Jamie! Come visit me at Work of the Poet

Anonymous said...

Jamie....
when my brother and I were little kids, we decided that if we gave the boogie man hiding under our beds a name he wouldn't be so scary.....
we really thought hard about what name to give this mythical creature.... and what did we come up with....

Piccalilli Man

every time one of us said it..... we'd laugh our butts off....

Stine said...

So much to taste... so little time...
Thanks for your kind words on my groogle post!

Kara said...

Great post :D Thanks for visiting my MM post!

Trish said...

Hehee! I loved it! Happy MM and Thanksgiving to you!

Travis Cody said...

I bow to your superior ability to stream. This is a terrific post.

I have been know to juggle leprechauns you know.

Happy MM!

Linda said...

That's a lot of 'ishes' in one post but excellently done as always!

I have always liked "How Are Things in Glocca Mora" but I prefer the Mandy Patinkin version but then again, I love that man's voice!