Season's Eatings: A New Year's Fable

The end of an old year and the start of a new one provide annual opportunities for reflection and renewal. With that in mind, I'd like to offer you a story that really wraps up all my columns over the previous year and that will, I hope, offer you an opportunity to reflect on your own eating and purchasing choices as we head into a new year.  

The story is usually called "The Twelve Months," and it is a Russian fairy tale that shares many elements with the more familiar "Cinderella" stories. The version as I retell it here, however, also serves as a parable that can inspire reflection on trust, patience, and the gifts of the changing seasons. I'd like to thank Patrick Swanson and Boston's Christmas Revels for bringing this story to my attention. 

Once upon a time, there was a woman who always desired more than she had. She was blessed with abundance--a comfortable home, children, a full pantry. But still she was not satisfied. This woman, whose husband had recently passed away, had two daughters. One, named Helena, was her own child with her late husband. The other, named Natalia, was her stepchild from her late husband's first marriage. The two girls loved each other devotedly, but the stepmother despised and resented Natalia, and convinced herself that Natalia's beauty and cheerfulness (not to mention her healthy appetite) were the reasons for her ongoing discontentment.  

One bitterly cold January day, as the world slept under its cold blanket of snow and ice, the woman devised a plan that, she hoped, would get Natalia out of her life once and for all. Shortly after breakfast, she called the girl to her. "I would like to decorate the house with flowers for the New Year," the woman said to Natalia. "Go out and gather me crocuses, and don't come back until you find them." The crafty stepmother knew that Natalia was, above all, a perfectly obedient child, and that she would continue to search for the flowers until she found them . . . or froze to death. Helena begged her mother not to send Natalia out into the cold winter's day on such a fool's errand, but the woman insisted. 

The small family's house was on the edge of a vast, dense forest. Natalia remembered seeing crocuses near the edge of the trees the previous spring, so she struggled through the deep snow until she reached the forest. She searched and searched?she even tried digging under the thick blanket of snow to see if she could find the elusive shoots of baby flowers. But she had no luck, and after a full day of wandering, Natalia soon found herself lost in the forest as the sun began to set.  

She stumbled across a large clearing among the thick trees as darkness began to fall. There she was astonished to see a group of twelve men and women, dressed in colorful and festive attire of all different colors. These strangers were dancing and singing together around a large bonfire. Natalia, who was practically frozen and frantic with fear, drew close to the fire to warm her hands.

As she did so, the oldest of the dancers, a tall, imposing man with long white hair and beard and a silvery-white robe, approached her. "What are you doing here, my child? Why are you so far from home?" he asked her in a gravelly but kindly voice.  

"Please, sir," Natalia said, her voice trembling from fright and shivering, "I need to find some crocuses, and my stepmother says I can't return home without them. Have you seen any crocuses growing in these woods?" The assembled figures laughed boisterously. 

"Crocuses in January?" the old man chuckled. "Not likely. But I think we may be able to help you. March?" he asked as he faced the gathered figures. A beautiful woman dressed in the pale green of early spring stepped forward. In her hand, she held out a nosegay of crocuses, purple, yellow, and white.  

"Take these back to your stepmother," March said in a quiet tone, "And tell her that from now on she should be more patient. All things come in time."  Natalia thanked March and January for their kindness, and ran, the crocuses clutched in her cold hands, all the way home.

When she burst into the small, warm cottage and handed the flowers to her stepmother, the woman was speechless with surprise and then with anger. "But how . . . ?" the woman asked, dumbfounded that Natalia had been able to fulfill her absurd request. Without a word of thanks, Natalia's stepmother sent the girl to bed without any dinner, while Helena quietly put the crocuses, forgotten by her mother, into a small vase of water.  

The woman spent all night plotting. The next morning, she sent Natalia out on another absurd errand. This time, she asked for strawberries. "Strawberries in winter?" Natalia asked in disbelief. But, being an obedient child, she set out with her small basket. This time, though, she headed straight for the forest glade, hoping that the kindly, mysterious dancers would still be there to help her.  

They were, dancing as before. Again Natalia explained her errand, and June--a robust young man dressed in bright yellow--pointed to a place where brilliant red strawberries poked their juicy heads through the thick blanket of snow. Natalia filled her basket, thanked the dancers, and headed back home. Again, her stepmother received the offering with more anger than appreciation, and again, she sent Natalia out the following morning with another absurd request--this time for apples.  

And so it went, as the stepmother requested peaches, pumpkins, cherries, tomatoes . . . each time, Natalia returned to the forest, and each time a different Month was able to fulfill her wish, even as thick snows still covered the ground in their northern forest. Finally, after Natalia's stepmother had given up hope that Natalia would ever be lost in the forest's snows, she locked the poor girl in her room until Natalia confessed who had been helping her. Convinced that she had finally found the solution to her unending greed, the woman rushed out into the forest to find the Twelve Months herself, eager to have her every wish instantly fulfilled.  

But the woman, as focused as she was on obtaining every exotic foodstuff she could imagine, had forgotten that it was, after all, still January. As she walked toward the forest, a wild blizzard moved in. Snow whirled through the sky and piled in huge drifts among the ancient trees. Fierce winds whipped their branches and made navigation nearly impossible. It was easy, in such a storm, for a person to disappear, never to be seen again. 

As hours turned into days without a sign of their mother, Natalia and Helena gave up hope that the woman might ever return. As the snow still piled high against the doors and windows of their small cottage, the two girls despaired: what would they find to eat? Natalia, growing faint with hunger, closed her eyes and thought of kindly old January. Almost at once, she heard his voice in her mind. "We will provide," he said in his gruff voice. "Look in the cellar and you will have all you need."  

The two girls raced to the root cellar. There they found parsnips, potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, beets, onions, and garlic--all they needed to survive the rest of the harsh winter. And as the snow melted and the months wore on, the two girls discovered that the months continued to provide, each in its turn. Rhubarb arrived, and chives, with strawberries, greens, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, plums, apples, pears, and pumpkins following as the year wore on. The two girls grew and thrived, trusting in the months to provide them with abundance, and never longing for those things they could not have.

 

As your new year dawns, remember that although we may long for strawberries in January, each season has its own delights that can be best savored in season. Trust that spring, and summer, and fall will come in their turns, each bringing its own culinary gifts to our tables. May the new year bring you twelve months of health, happiness, and the pleasures of good friends and wonderful food.

 

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Norah Piehl, Food Correspondent:Norah's column, "Season's Eatings," published twice monthly to Gather Essentials: Food, considers  the importance of eating seasonally and locally. "Season's Eatings" helps the growing number of farmers' market shoppers make good choices at the market, highlighting in-season produce and often including a recipe or two. Norah's column alsos profile local growers and markets, discusses other items (from cheese to chutney) that might be found at your local market, and generally offer sresources for those who wish to continue exploring their local and regional agricultural offerings.

Norah is a professional writer, editor, and book reviewer. In her spare time, Norah enjoys knitting (and blogging about knitting) and playing handbells with Boston's Back Bay Ringers.

You can find all of Norah's columns at www.gather.com/seasons eatingsKeep up with Norah's other postings and Gather activity by joining her Gather network -- just click here: http://quincy74.gather.com and select the orange "Connect" button on the left-hand side of the page.

You'll find Norah and other Food Correspondents, plus celebrity chef content and plenty of other Foodies, at Food.gather.com