Orache: The Poor Man’s Pot Herb

orache, color illustration

A leafy, emerald-green plant, the unassuming orache originated in Eastern Europe and came to be considered the poor man’s pot herb. An 1894 edition of the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland reports that the herb earned its name because of its supposed ability to cure aches — “golden aches, yellow aches, jaundice, in fact.” The 1835 An Encyclopaedia of Gardening calls orache a “hardy annual” with stems that rise “three or four feet high.” Several varieties of orache exist, “but the two principal are the white or pale green, and the red or purple leaved.”

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Soured Herring for Swedish Summer Festivals

swedes in traditional costume

Celebrated on the Friday that falls between June 20 and June 26, the Swedish Midsummer (Midsommer) festival involves the joyful consumption of pickled herring, boiled red potatoes with sour cream, strawberries, and brännvin, a potent liquor distilled from spuds, grains, or wood cellulose.

As midsummer gives way to the dog days of August, Swedes opt for a more peculiar delectation — surströmming, or soured Baltic herring, which they eat during August parties known as surströmmingsskiva. The fermented fish comes in cans bulging with trapped gases that when opened release an overwhelming odor of piscine rot. Needless to say, surströmmingsskiva often take place outdoors.

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Ham Sandwiches for Homebound Hilarity

little pierre and his accordion

In his 1912 essay “The Wildness of Domesticity” G.K. Chesterton lauds the humble home as “the only place of liberty.” “It is the only spot on the earth where a man can alter arrangements, suddenly make an experiment or indulge in a whim,” he writes.

For its part, the wider world suffers neither experiment nor whim gladly. Indeed, everywhere else a man ventures “he must accept the strict rules of the shop, inn, club, or museum that he happens to enter.” In his own home, on the other hand, he “can eat his meals on the floor … if he likes.”

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