flower fairies of the spring first edition

To stop fairies from meddling with the production and spoiling the butter, butter-churners invoked the power of holy water and wore wreaths made from rowan trees. Unlike butter production today, European farmers churned out butter only for three months of the year and preserved the rest in crocks with layers of salt. Hundreds of years ago, butter-churning was a coveted and complicated job. The recipe’s ingredients have associations with the magical world too, especially butter, which was an agricultural staple steeped in folklore. When farmers found fairy butter near their farm animals, they burned it to keep trolls away from their stock.

Midsummer’s Eve, celebrated since the 6th century, once involved throwing the fungus into fires composed of nine different kinds of wood in order to thwart evil spirits. One foraging book, The Fungal Pharmacy: The Complete Guide to Medicinal Mushrooms and Lichens of North America by Robert Rogers, dives into fairy butter’s association with fire and trolls in Sweden. Jelly fungi spore on everything from dead tree branches in forests to damp mine walls, both known stomping grounds of many magical creatures.įairy butter grows across the world, but much of its lore comes from Europe. It may have been inspired by the colorful jelly fungi long held to be the condiment of choice for magical creatures, giving rise to the names “fairy butter,” “witch’s butter,” and even “troll’s butter.” One type of jelly fungus, given the scientific name Tremella auranta by German-American mycologist Lewis David de Schweinitzbright, has a bright orange hue and a shape not unlike that of a small brain. Daniel Huangįairy butter is more than just a fanciful name. “But when you want to make your table look like the King’s table or somebody in France’s table, then you need recipes.” Fairy butter can be spread on cake, bread, or crackers. “You don’t need a cookbook to make stew and bread,” Clark says.

According to Frank Clark, Master of Historical Foodways at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, printed cookbooks were prized luxuries, so very few wealthy individuals had this fairy butter recipe on hand. Cookbooks of the era often featured elaborate spreads and aesthetically beautiful recipes with a French influence.

Flower fairies of the spring first edition