by Tim Billbrough
Introduction
I am not an overly creative person, I don’t sing, dance, or make music. I can tell stories, but it’s not my forte. Most of my bardic passion comes from my love of food and cooking.
With an unusually large burst of Awen this past January, though, I set upon a quest to feast the Wheel of the Year with a special food item for each of the eight festivals. In these dishes, I try to capture the spirit of the specific festival, my own native land, and the ancient Celtic culture we derive from.
If you joined me for my Imbolc Bannock, you’ll know that these dishes are not special in and of themselves, my Bannock was essentially a cornbread interpretation, but what makes them special is the consideration, intent, and symbolism that goes into choosing what to make and the ingredients that go into it.
I have four rules that I try my best to follow in pursuit of this goal:
1. The dish must represent the festival in question, its themes and what we revere about it. This is how I honor the festival.
2. I must use only ingredients I grow myself/can source locally, or are native to my home in New Hampshire, USA. When I can do both, that is preferred. This is how I honor the land I live and practice on.
3. The ingredients must be seasonal to my own land, either through ripeness or appropriate preservation. My climate is slightly different than that of the Celtic Isles, so this is how I honor the Wheel of the Year itself.
4. The dish must be an interpretation of what our Celtic ancestors would have eaten around the time of festival. This is how I honor our Druid traditions.
Using these rules, I seek to channel my own self into my cooking and seek deeper connection between myself, my practice, and my land.
Symbolizing Alban Eilir
So, Alban Eilir, the Vernal Equinox. Also Eostra’s festival. It symbolizes balance, rebirth, and fertility, and the promise of the warm seasons to come.
As seems to be the norm for this, when I researched what our ancient Celtic ancestors would have eaten, there is little known to find. What we do know, however, is that this festival heavily influenced the Christian Easter and that rabbits and eggs were highly symbolic, both as images and as food. With that, I decided to make an egg dish of some sort.
But what, exactly, to make? There are many traditional ways to cook eggs. Boiling, and roasting seem to be the most chronistically appropriate for our ancient ancestors, but, however appropriate, I wanted my Alban Eilir dish to be something even just slightly more complex, with more room for symbolism and meaning.
I mentally stumbled down two clarifying avenues of thought. What are some more modern egg dishes that we enjoy? And what would have been in season, or available, to our ancestors?
Figuring it Out
I spent a tremendous amount of time on these questions, but it is an uninteresting story to tell. What I landed on is a simple dish called “nested eggs”. Or, alternatively, in the the UK as “egg in toast” or here in the US as “toad in the hole”. It is just a simple piece of toast with a hole cut from the center in which an egg is fried.
That decided, I now had to adapt it for my four rules.
First, the egg. This is easy enough. While chickens are not native to my homeland, they came over with the Europeans, and the indigenous people would have collected wild duck eggs about this time of year, I raise my own hens and have homegrown eggs aplenty.
The toast would be a bit more difficult. Wheat is not native to my area either and, in this instance, nor do I grow my own. I do grow some native wild rice, but not in great enough quantity to bother storing back. I grow it for its benefits to the pond on my property and simply harvest a small sheath for my Alban Elfed altar. Wild I can easily source more locally, I think I want to save it for Alban Elfed itself, so I will revisit it in six months. I could also do maize, or corn, but I just used that in place of oats for my Imbolc Bannock and I want to vary things up on this quest when I can.
No, I’m not going to use maize, but I am going to turn, once again, to the indigenous people of my area and look at maize’s younger sister, squash, the youngest of The Three Sisters of Native America: maize, beans, and squash. All three would have been set back for winter and would be available this time of year and I happen to have grown acorn squash in my garden last summer and have a couple left in my basement. A nice homegrown replacement for my toast.
I am including a walking onion bulb, some dried oregano, and dried sage from my garden as well. They are not native, but they still fit Rule 2 and should add quite a bit of flavor. I am also using salt. Not locally sourced, but an ingredient ubiquitous to just about everywhere, especially to my home, a gentle 20-minute drive to the ocean.
Making the Nested Egg
I started by cutting the acorn squash in half longitudinally and scooping out the seeds and fibers. I put them on a baking tray, salted them, and then baked them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 C/gas mark 4) for about 45 minutes until they were soft. While that was happening, I diced my walking onion bulb finely and fried it briefly with a tiny pinch of salt and aa much heftier pinch of both the sage and oregano. Once the onion was soft and the herbs were fragrant, I cut the heat and set them aside.
When the squash was done, rather than just plopping the eggs in the already existing cavity, which was tempting, I thought the dish would taste better if the ingredients were combined more. I scooped the squash flesh from into a mixing bowl and added the onion and herb mixture as well as a last-minute dash of maple syrup, which my brothers and I still help our father make on his farm every year, and a bit more salt.
I mixed everything together using a potato masher to get things fine and returned the mixture to the squash skins, where I made a depression to hold the egg. This is where I made a brief mistake and didn’t make one of the depressions big enough, so when I cracked the egg into it, some of the white
ran down and spilled onto the baking try, where it later burned. I recommend making the depressions quite deep!
I salted the tops of the eggs and plopped the whole tray back into the oven at the same temperature again for about 20 minutes, or until the white was set and the yolk still a little runny. I thought it would be quite nice mixed into the squash.
I was quite right, too. As I dug in to test out my recipe, I found the squash to be quite delisicous, but especially as I mixed in the yolk. It added a creaminess to the squash that was just delectable. The sage and oregano added to the savory flavor and the slight sweetness from the maple syrup kept things from getting too bitter. It could have used a bit of pepper, but pepper is not native to my area and can’t be grown here either, so I left it out. There is a local forage plant called Virgia Pepperweed I could use in its stead, but I don’t have any on hand and it isn’t forage season quite yet. I am going to go looking this summer though!
Conclusion
So there it is, my Alban Eilir dish. Nested Egg using a chicken egg and acorn squash. The egg itself is a symbol of Alban Eilir’s promise for the future, a classic symbol of the season. The squash a winter staple. The two together show the balance between the seasons as the equinox shows balance between the light and dark. And the reinvention of the dish itself symbolizes the renewal of spring. All the aspects of the Alban Eilir itself.
Recipe
Ingredients:
1 acorn squash
2 large chicken eggs
1 small onion or large shallot
Dried herbs to taste
Maple syrup/honey/other sweetener to taste.
Salt
Method
Split the squash and remove the seeds and fibers. Place on a tray, salt, and bake at 350F/177C/gas mark 4 for 45 minutes or until tender. Remove from oven.
While the squash is cooking, finely dice the onion and briefly fry with the dried herbs and a tiny amount of salt until transparent. If you want to use a fat here, go ahead. I did not.
When the squash is out of the oven and can be handled, remove the flesh to a mixing bowl, being carful not to tear the squash’s skin. Add onion and herb mixture as well as a bit more salt and your sweetener to the mixing bowl and mash all the ingredients together.
Once incorporated, return the mixture to the squash skins and make a depression in each to hold the egg. Make sure to make the depression big enough. Once done, crack one egg into the depression on each half and return to the oven for 15-30 minutes or until the eggs are done to your liking. Remove from oven and let sit 5 minutes. Enjoy!