A troubling bit of dialogue in Pride and Prejudice

Warning: this post is unrelated to farming except that I was thinking about it while uprooting weeds from my brick pathway. I had to think about something, this is what came up.

When I first read P & P back in high school, I thought it was a flawless book. The glut of movies and other tributes had not come out yet, and I could imagine Lizzy and Darcy however I wanted to. Which was nice. Very nice.

But upon a re-reading a few years later, two lines near the end of the book troubled me. In one, Elizabeth has informed her sister Jane that she (Elizabeth) is marrying Darcy. Jane is shocked enough to doubt her. Elizabeth has always professed dislike for the man. And she is know for occasionally teasing or tricking her family. Jane wonders if Lizzy is joking. And because Darcy is very rich, she wonders but tries not to believe that her sister may not be joking but worse - marrying without love, for money.

Jane is too sweet to accuse, but she earnestly questions her sister, asking is she sure she really loves Darcy enough to marry him. To which Elizabeth responds

"You will think I love him too much when I tell all...I love him more than I do Bingley (Jane's fiance). I'm afraid you will be angry".

Jane begs her to stop teasing, and eventually Elizabeth gives her actual assurance that yes, she wants to marry because she loves Mr. Darcy.

The other line that bothers me is in a letter from Elizabeth to her dear Aunt Gardiner, who assumed that Darcy had proposed to her weeks before he actually did. Lizzy put off answering because she was mortified at the whole situation. Waiting in vain for her previously spurned suitor to ask a second time was causing tension that rippled beyond her and led to other encounters such as a furious scolding from Lady Catherine.

So when she finally has the proposal, and then is too busy communicating with her immediate family to write, she realizes she owes her aunt a great letter.

Before making the announcement, she teases a bit. And one of her teases is:

'But now suppose as much as you choose; give a loose to your fancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the subject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you cannot greatly err'

She then goes on to more openly state that she's engaged.

When I reread these passages I was in for one of those mild Austen shocks one sometimes gets.

I thought to myself - this suggests that 'something' happened between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. That - not to put to fine a point on it - they got together in a physical sense. In what other sense could she love her future husband "too much". Lizzy is toying with Jane by implying that she and Darcy misbehaved very badly.

Similarly, the married, experienced Mrs. Gardiner's flight of fancy regarding every possible interaction between a man "violently in love" and her niece would probably include the gentleman taking liberties and the lady encouraging him to.

REALLY, Miss Austen? Is that what you meant to suggest?

My earliest reaction was that no, this was not what she meant. Either Austen, or her heroine, was so innocent that she could make these suggestions with nary a hint of sexuality.

But then could I believe that much innocence in Miss Austen? Or that she thinks Elizabeth is so unworldly?

If Marianne Dashwood had asked her sister to indulge her fancy and imagine 'anything short of marriage' going on with Willoughby, Eleanor would have had to conclude that her sister was doing something she shouldn't.

Or to stay within the context of the book. Imagine Lydia writing to her sister Kitty that "you will think I love Wickham too much when I tell you all...". This sounds very much like a young woman whose passions were stronger than her principles.

If neither of these scenarios is enough, imagine Mary Crawford tormenting Fanny with either of those lines.

     Mary:  Oh, you will think I love Edmund too much when I tell all.
     Fanny (alarmed):  Indeed, Miss Crawford, in that case perhaps it would be better for you not to tell.
      Mary: Alright then, just give a loose to your fancy, indulge your imagination on every possible flight which the subject affords...

how could we not suspect that poor Edmund has been mercilessly seduced by the wiley and athletic little Miss Crawford?

So in another Austen context, these quotes would have been suspiciously sexual. Coming from Elizabeth, we are strongly inclined to give them the most innocent interpretation. This is because she has often proven her integrity and her ability to overcome passing fancies for young men. After all she resisted Wickham, who later seduced her sister. And when Colonel Fitzwilliam briefly flirted with her, she let herself feel attraction and then quickly shut those feelings down when she saw they weren't going anywhere. This woman can control.

But it is also because of her know inclination to tease her family. So we assume that she is innocently teasing, and that the implication of premarital shenanigans is muted by her excellent character and playful nature.

But I have to doubt this - or at least I doubt that Lizzy is naive enough not to recognize the implication behind her banter.

Why would Lizzy, whose man-crazy baby sister has just been sunken in society by her forced and sinful marriage, be oblivious to something like that? And why make the joke to Jane, who had borne the brunt of every one's anxiety in the aftermath of the elopement. Jane is incarnate goodness and we have no doubts she will keep her virtue for the day she marries Bingley. The idea of Lizzy abandoning her principles like this would be painful to Jane. And if there is one thing we know for a fact, it's that Lizzy would do nothing, ever, to hurt Jane.

So here we are then. Lizzy seems to be consciously implying that she slept with Mr. Darcy before marriage. And I at least am pretty sure she actually has not. She is (briefly) causing Jane unnecessary pain and toying with her own reputation. Why?

My hunch is she does this to protect Jane from a far worse suspicion - that she doesn't love her future husband. When Jane asks if Elizabeth loves Mr. Darcy ' enough to marry him' - she means among other things, enough to be intimate with him for the rest of their lives. We have only to imagine life between the Collinses, the Wickhams, or even the older generation of Bennetts to realize how miserable this could be.

Jane is imagining a loveless, mercenary marriage, in which her idolized sister has trapped herself and an honorable man. In contrast, Lizzy's hint that they love each other too much - that their passions got ahead of their vows - is meant to be a relief.

Essentially Jane needs to hear that Elizabeth has thought about sex with Mr. Darcy and is looking forward to it. And because Jane knows the part about loving him 'too much' is a joke, she can interpret it as Lizzy's embarrassed confession that she really is ready (eager?) for married intimacy.

If Jane desperately needed this backhanded reassurance, the same cannot be said for Aunt Gardiner. She saw Darcy and Lizzy together and concluded that her neice was exaggerating her dislike and that he was madly in love. She trusted Mr. Darcy to propose and Lizzy to come to her senses and say yes. And Mrs. Gardiner herself is a partner in a happy, respectful marriage. She would have far less reason than Jane to worry. Jane witnesses daily her own parents' failed union. Mrs. Gardiner has no such cause for doubt.

The Gardiners spent a good deal of time cleaning up Lydia's reputation after her premarital antics. They just experienced the problems of letting your passions get ahead of your mind. Why on earth would Lizzy tease them by suggesting she's done the same?

My guess is that Elizabeth is making amends for not writing sooner. Mrs. Gardiner did more than anyone else to bring Lizzy and Darcy together. She believed the match would happen at a time when everyone else was in doubt. She was discrete about it, but she appeared to be utterly confident. Lizzy owed her a great deal for this. On top of that, she and her family owe the Gardiners for their role in rehabilitating Lydia.

I think the hint of misconduct was meant to show how completely Lizzy felt that Mrs. Gardiner trusted her. She could toy with the idea of pre-marital relations, and know that her aunt would  never believe it of her. And she wanted very much to show that she was back in her teasing high spirits again.

Mr. Bennett was deeply opposed to the marriage when he first learned of it. Why didn't Lizzy try this method of convincing with him?

Probably for two reasons. First, he's her dad. Talking about sex - even in a most circuitous way - would be awkward.

Second, he really doesn't like Darcy. Jane and Mrs. Gardiner may doubt that Lizzy is ready to experience all aspects of marriage with him, but they respect and like him and hope or wish she could love him.

Mr. Bennett thinks his favorite daughter is about to make a horrible mistake. So Elizabeth is uncharacteristically sincere with him. No teasing, no implications, just flat out declaration of her love and Mr. Darcy's good qualities. It's the genius of Miss Austen that she held Mr. Bennett in reserve like this - so that as a reader we could see Elizabeth's declarations from many different perspectives and form a strong conclusion.

Whether she loves Mr. Darcy as much as he does her we may never learn, but she certainly knows what she's getting into by marrying him.

Supper of the blue chicken

It was Friday, April 19. Traffic in Seattle seemed to be horrible in sympathy for the shut down streets of Boston.

Friends were meeting me at a Costco parking lot to give me an unwanted rooster to butcher.

I waited in my car, listening to endless radio chatter about what a sweetie pie this Dzhokhar Tzarnaev was supposed to be. Part of me was indignant. Fine, he was popular, but let's give this a rest, folks. If he really did plant a bomb next to an eight year old, we might want to revise our assessment here.

Another part was internalizing it. When I received the rooster, I was surprised to feel deeply conflicted in a way I had not felt before. "Oh, no." I thought "He's adorable. So cute. Every mother hen's dream for her little rooster. This can't be right." And indeed, the rooster was white and fluffy and proud and very handsome. Well - roosters are almost all handsome. Ask any rooster, he'll agree.

One theory why so many species of birds have attractive males is their beauty reflects good health. Hens prefer mates in tip top condition. They choose ones with perfect, glossy plumage and lots of it.

At any rate, one of the hard things about eating roosters is it seems wrong to destroy such a lovely creature - like vandalism almost. But that's objectifying a rooster and looking away from the real reason it should be hard. Taking a life, even for food, even humanely, shouldn't be easy or fun.

A rooster's looks don't always help him to a happy life and often get him in trouble. The more conspicuous, the more other roosters want to fight with them. The more predators try to eat them. This white rooster would be like a beacon to every hawk in North Burien. 

Before I butchered this little rooster, I had to take a long pause and sort this all out. I had to get distanced from the news, from the senselessness of it all, and my self pity at having to do this. Poor me? Poor bird, more like. Make this as dignified as you can, Sarah.

After a pause, I did. I held him until he relaxed, and then let him go. Then I began to pluck the roo. That's when I got my other surprise.

         Some chicken breeds are blue. 

Not their feathers, their skin. Their muscles. Blue. Really dark, gunmetal blue skin over lavender meat. With violet bones. 

I don't know why this shocked me so much but it did. I was worried my kid would freak about eating a blue chicken. But he thought it was cool and told me I was being silly. Still hedging, I put the rooster in the freezer for a couple of weeks while I figured out how to cook him.

It turns out yes, all silkies, regardless of feather color, are blue underneath. They are prized in Chinese medicine as an ingredient in a healing soup. Most accounts said they taste like chicken (no surprise) but are tough and stringy.

I don't like chicken soup. More specifically I can't even bring myself to eat it. I don't like how all the flavor leaves the chicken and goes into the water. I don't like the smell of boiled skin. The first time I cleaned a wound on one of my hens, her wet, plucked skin smelled like chicken soup.

So although I wanted to respect the culinary tradition, I decided I'd rather respect the chicken by cooking him in a way I would enjoy. And to celebrate the beauty of roosters, I decided to make a colorful meal.

I roasted the bird, and served him with homemade saffron egg noodles, rainbow chard and a dessert tart of meringue and strawberries. Only the tart was as colorful as we had hoped. The chicken, the chard and the noodles all lost their crayon-like vibrancy with cooking.

But Oh Dear Lord was that chicken delicious. I've been cooking and eating meat for the past year, and this is the first time I think I got it right. This chicken was tender as springtime and intensely flavorful.

I did well.

Recipes

Slow Roasted Free Range Silkie

1 silkie or other small, stringy chicken
2 quarts water or whey + 1/2 cup water divided (I used whey from draining Greek yogurt)
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 sprig each - rosemary, sage
1 tsp butter

At least 24 hours in advance, prepare the brine by stirring the salt and the sugar into the whey or water.

Place the chicken in the brine - it should be covered. Weigh it down so the chicken is fully submerged.



5 hours before dinner, drain the chicken and discard the brine.

Preheat oven to 225

Dry the chicken well and rub skin with butter. For a free range chicken, use a lot of butter.

Place the herbs in the bird's cavity, and truss the legs and wings tight to the body.

Place the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan or dutch oven with a tight fitting lid.

Pour 1/4 cup water into the pan. Cover tightly and roast for 4 hours or till temperature reads 160 by the leg bone..

Remove lid and pour in 1/4 cup water if pan is dry.

Turn oven to 450. Roast for 15 minutes or until skin is crisp.

Remove pan from oven. Place chicken on a platter to rest, and set pan on stove. Don't clean that pan yet!

Saffron pasta ribbons

2 Cups flour
4 large egg yolks
1/2 t + 1t salt, divided
Boiling water
pinch saffron threads
1 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Snipped fresh rosemary to taste

Place saffron in a heat resistant bowl and pour 1/4 cup boiling water over. Let cool to room temperature.

Place flour and salt in food processor and pulse to combine.

Add egg yolks and water. Mix. It should form lots of small, granular lumps of stiff, tacky dough. When squeezed, dough should form a lump.

If it crumbles, add more water by the tablespoon, mixing well between additions, until it stays together when squeezed.

If the dough is even remotely sticky, add flour the same way - 1 T at a time, mixing between additions until it is non-sticky.

Briefly knead dough.

Using a pasta roller, and working in batches, roll out dough on setting 1. Fold and roll until it becomes very smooth and supple. The dough should be completely non-sticky.

Adjust setting to 2, and roll dough again. Continue to setting 5 or 6.

Then use the wide noodle setting to cut dough into strips.

Let noodles dry briefly (I hang them on plastic coat hangers).

Bring to boil a large pot of water. Add 1 t salt. Add noodles, a handful at a time, stirring constantly to prevent sticking.

After the last noodles go in, cook for five minutes.

Drain.

Place noodles, still damp, in the pan the chicken cooked in. Pour on olive oil and snipped rosemary.

Toss pasta so it picks up cooking flavors from the chicken.

Place in bowl and set chicken pieces over.

Meringue Tart with strawberries

4 egg whites
1 cup fine white sugar + extra to sprinkle
1 t vanilla
strawberries

Set oven to 275. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place a plate on the paper and trace a circle.

Place egg whites in a very clean mixing bowl, and beat with a very clean whisk at the highest mixer setting.

When whites form a foam, add vanilla and mix.

When foam begins to thicken, start adding sugar 1 T at a time.

Between each tablespoon, mix until the sugar is completely gone.

The foam will thicken, turn white, and expand.

Beat until the foam holds its shape when you stop the mixer and pull out the beater.

Scoop out the foam and form a circle on the paper.

I piped a bit of foam around the edge to form a rim

Bake for 1 1/2 hours. Then turn off oven and open oven door.

Remove the meringue after it has cooled, such as an hour later.

Transfer fully cooled meringue to serving plate.

Just before serving, fill with sliced strawberries, sprinkle with sugar and garnish as you choose.

This dish is very pretty but we found it too sweet.

Noah ate the chicken to the bones. 

Shared on: mondays-homestead-barn-hop-110 ; gastronomicalsovereignty.com ;frugal days sustainable ways 71; 87th-wildcrafting-wednesday, HomeAcre blog hop, simple-lives-thursday-146

Don't eat of that tree

What goat could resist?

Today I opened the gate to the part of the garden near the house - the part we usually keep off limits to the goats.

The grass has grown very high, very fast, and blackberry has crept in behind the tool shed. Perfect browse for the ever hungry goats, I thought.

I gave Noah a long, slender branch and asked him to gently block the goats if they tried to get into the flower bed.



Most of the flowers are hardy perennials that no amount of chewing could damage, but the red flowering currant is not.

I showed Noah the rose bush, overgrown with akebia.


Let them eat that.

Let them have the huge bottom leaves of the artichoke. It's a thistle, and goats love thistle, right?

Let them fill their bellies with the long green grass.


They've eaten enough fresh grass this spring; I'm no longer worried they will bloat. 

Just keep them away from the currant tree.

It has a single, slender trunk and one good chomp would kill it.

Alstroemeria - who needs it?

In they came, sampling and tasting here and there. A bite of garlic leaf was enough.




A puff of dandelion seed tickled too much to try for more. The alstroemeria is spreading everywhere. Take it down, goats.

Dandelions. Help yourself!

But within ten minutes, Meggie was shoving past Noah and his feeble stick and reaching for the fading red blossoms of my little currant.

"Mom, help".

Out I ran, yelling at the goats,

"I let you have everything in the garden, except this one tree.

Why do you have to eat it? Out you go".

As we rounded them back out I realized I have once again done it.

I've paraphrased the first book of Genesis.

This happens a lot lately. Why did my family eat the nice cookies I hid for the bake sale, when I left all the slightly damaged ones on a plate for them?

Why did I eat all the candy in Noah's treat drawer when the fridge is stocked full of healthy, cut up vegetables and fruits?






Why does the kid play in his room when the spring is so glorious I can hardly breathe in all the fragrance of earth and flower?

Lightning, cast out of the garden, turns her head away

I used to read that book with bitterness in my heart. I wholeheartedly identified with Adam and Eve. Why create temptation that can't be resisted? 

But over time my sympathies have changed and I begin to see the viewpoint attributed to God. Being responsible means acknowledging that others are agents of their own will.

It is deeply frustrating watching others make decisions I don't agree with. But it's the nature of living among others.

I will say. Those who know me know, I am not a believer.Yet these stories resonate strongly with me. Some part of me says they are literally true.The story of the fall didn't happen once, then. It happens all the time.Genesis just tells it like it is.

Noah guarding the tree with a sword (his idea, I didn't suggest this)

A fence. Best plan yet.