http://www.farmersalmanac.com/blog/2010/12/07/whats-your-favorite-holiday-tradition/ Weather, Gardening, Full Moons, Best Days and more. Fri, 19 Jul 2013 14:41:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.farmersalmanac.com/blog/2010/12/07/whats-your-favorite-holiday-tradition/#comment-5024 Frutero Fri, 24 Dec 2010 21:26:06 +0000 http://www.farmersalmanac.com/?p=11653#comment-5024 Afternote: my friend from down the road and I sat in my garden and had some of that summer peach ratafia on the first day of winter. It was excellent. Here is the recipe (though it’s not quite so exact):
Wide-mouth bottle or jar of about 1 quart capacity
1/5 blond rum
Peaches, cut into thin slices or bits, enough to fill jar
Cane sugar, white or turbinado
Layer enough peaches to cover bottom, follow with enough sugar to cover peaches, then enough rum to cover both. Note how much you use of each, because further layers will be harder to eyeball.
Repeat till vessel is full. Close or stopper (note: this doesn’t fizz, so no need to vent). Fruit will float.
Stir on first day of autumn, and again on November 1. By November, fruit should be sinking.
On first day of winter, uncork and drink to a fruitful year. Enjoy through holiday season, and when ratafia is gone, take fruit and make fruitcake, mince pies, or sundaes!

]]> http://www.farmersalmanac.com/blog/2010/12/07/whats-your-favorite-holiday-tradition/#comment-4774 Frutero Tue, 14 Dec 2010 19:12:46 +0000 http://www.farmersalmanac.com/?p=11653#comment-4774 Actually, distinctive customs were something we associated with New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. On New Year’s Eve, we always prepared sandwich loaf, which was not to be cut and served until the stroke of midnight. In the South, of course, the mandatory New Year’s Day feast is pork with blackeyed peas, but in Florida, weather permitting, one starts a garden or plants fruit trees. Weather not permitting, or where weather never permits, it’s a good day to plan a garden and/or make up a seed order. Another custom for the winter holidays must be planned ahead of time. On the first day of summer, you take the local ready fruit (peaches, Chickassaw plums, or wild cherries here; strawberries further north) and put down a ratafia. This is stirred once on November 1, but not drunk until the first day of winter. The brandied (or rummed or vodka’d) fruit left behind is excellent in fruitcakes, parfaits, or sundaes. Likely these customs are all old country charms designed to encourage plentiful harvests in the coming year.

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