My mother once passed around a photo of a toddler in a muddy springtime garden, mouth full of dirt, fingers gingerly lifting an earthworm to taste. For years my brothers taunted me – Wanda the Worm Eater.
Decades on I’m still caught by the spell of thawing earth, and the hidden, mysterious workings down below.
It’s March. The allées in the vineyard are suddenly bursting with clover and wildflowers, a godsend for the first pollinators. But the real showstopper: entire parcels of spring onions. I asked the farmer who planted them. No one, they grow wild. When he was a child they dug them up to sell for pocket money.
I’m trying to reach back to cellular memory, that collective place where we all have a hankering for spring earth, minerals, and an intriguing earthworm.
But the guy in my kitchen has drawn a culinary line. Earth flavors, yes. On condition they’re alchemized through a birthday omelet with eggs from a neighbor, spring onions from the vineyard, magic lettuce from the lawn.
4 thoughts on “The Taste of Earth”
With you in spirit! For the past two weeks (when I don’t feel like working my desk job in the dining room) I’ve been raking and clearing our little plot of land in Brooklyn. No yummy wild spring onions here, but little crocuses suddenly appeared, and I see the beginning of daffodils, tulips and other surprises. Our first spring here. Lots of fun. Very soul satisfying after 30 years living in an apartment in Manhattan.
Looks delicious! Beautiful post. Happy Birthday!
We have our first daffodils too, such a wonderful time of year, but I remember the old Scottish adage “Ne’er cast a clout before May is out”, so we may not be out of the winter woods just yet. Hope the omelette was good, it sounded scrummy.
Hope you had a lovely birthday Mary! Here’s to another year of celebrating YOU!!! Wishing you many, many more years of gracing us with your presence!