Wassailing the Trees and 2 types of Toasts

For years we have wassailed our fruit trees on the Twelfth Night to ensure a bountiful fruit harvest, because who doesn’t want a bountiful fruit harvest, right? My kids were little and I never really went into too much depth though… until this year when I went down a rabbit hole and became obsessed with wassail toast. More on that later. For years we stuck a cinnamon stick in a cup of apple juice and sang songs about wassailing or fruit and it was a good time. Actually only my 7 year old ever remembers the words to “Here we come a Wassailing” so he’s generally in charge lol. They also sometimes make up songs about specific fruit trees in our yard. It’s fun and you should try it!

As my kids have gotten a bit older I decided to start researching more about the tradition overall and more traditional recipes for wassail. As some general background wassail is both a noun and a verb- it is a beverage and it is activity. It’s always some sort of communal punch, but the recipes are all over the place and likely hyper local. They mostly include alcohol, but there are lots of different types. The only thing I found in nearly every recipe was toast. In fact, the reason we “give a toast” is because of the toast in a wassail bowl- people would raise the bowl (along with said toast) above their head and wish their fellow revealers and/or trees good health. The word wassail is from the old Norse salutation ves heill – literally meaning ‘be in good health’ or ‘be fortunate’. In fact, this toast was and still is speared on tree branches as a part of the wishing the trees good health. So now, if you are anything like me, you are picturing soggy white bread floating in a punch bowl and its sounding pretty disgusting.  

Fear not! After reading a ton of historical texts I finally had an epiphany! There was no soggy white bread in the Middle Ages… bread was denser, drier and grainier. (Manchet and maslin were two common types of medieval breads if you want to go even further down the rabbit hole than I did) It was very common to eat stale or dried bread with liquids- both soup and ale. It was thrifty and filling. Think about the bread floating on french onion soup, that’s not gross at all and it’s a remnant of the same food tradition. Ok but that’s still not bread floating in a drink you say…. which got me thinking about biscotti. Biscotti is very much a bread in the medieval sense, in fact in Spanish and Italian many foods that we would call cookies are “pan di _____” or “bread of _____.” Most accounts I read of wassail toast refer to spices- it was a special spiced toast. Some mention sugar. And while Americans largely think of biscotti as something to be dipped in coffee, in Italy it is often instead dipped in vin santo. Suddenly, we have a delicious “toast” that is dipped in wine or ale. (Also if you’ve never tried biscotti dipped in red wine– do it– its delicious) Another good example is zwieback which means “twice baked.” These “toasts” were completely dried out, not toasted the way we think of now. So suddenly the toast idea is starting to make sense.

So back to wassailing trees, this is actually a tradition with a clear line of scholarship to support it. Sometimes called a “field visiting” tradition it can be traced to Roman traditions honoring Pomana the goddess of fruit trees, gardens and orchards and beyond. It was outlawed by the Catholic Church is 1577. It is enjoying something of a resurgence lately, because seriously, who doesn’t want to sing, drink and have bountiful garden?? Pouring some wassail on the trees seems to be key, along with loud silly singing and wishing every good health. Wassail soaked toasts should be speared on the branches for the robins who are thought to be the guardians of the orchard. Robins eat insects not fruit and are adorable so I support giving them a winter treat and hope they do guard my orchard. (From bugs…)

Spiced Wassail Biscotti Toast

You can make your own wassail toast from any biscotti recipe you like, as long as you add some spices it’s staying reasonably true to what I think these toasts actually looked like. I am allergic to wheat so I like Aran Goyoaga’s biscotti recipe from Cannelle et Vanille Bakes Simple. Feel free to add or subtract spices to you your taste- cardamon or anise would both bee good too!

Ingredients:

• your favorite biscotti recipe
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• cinnamon sugar

Method:

For the most part follow your recipe, but mix in the spices with the dry ingredients.

Before baking sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the formed dough like a crust.

Biscotti are baked twice, initially in a log shape, then they are sliced and baked again usually at a lower temperature for longer. Make sure you really dry them out the second time you bake, even if you need to cook them longer than the recipes states.

Dip in your wassail and enjoy!

Kid Friendly Wassail

So a really traditional wassail would be primarily booze, but as my primary audience here are kids, this one isn’t going to be super traditional. It does include ever traditional spice I found mention of, along with rosemary which is referenced by 17th century playright Ben Johnson. We added bay leaves that we wrote well wished for our trees onto with edible markers. Lastly it includes roasted apples. I read an amazing account of people putting hot “crabs” into wassail. They were hot roasted crabapples that immediately started hissing and exploding apart when they hit the hot liquid. I didn’t plan ahead enough to have any crabapple on hand, but I used small apples and they were very exciting. Grown ups can add some alcohol of their choice.

Ingredients:

• good quality apple cider
• cinnamon stick
• nutmeg
• chunk of ginger
• allspice berries
• sprig of rosemary
• bay leaves with well wishes for the trees written in edible marker
• a few small apples (or crabapples)

Put the cider into a large pot on the stove (or crockpot) and add all the spices. Bring to a simmer and allow the spices to meld.

Meanwhile, core your apples and place them on a baking sheet. Roast in a 400 F oven and roast until very soft. The timing will depend entirely on the size of the apples, start checking them around 45 minutes. (many recipes stuff the apple cores with sugar, but cider is pretty sweet as is, you may want to do this if you are adding alcohol.)

Quickly transfer the hot soft apples into the cider and if you are lucky they will hiss and pop and explode somewhat. (The kids really liked this…) Ladle into glasses and serve with wassail biscottis. And don’t forget to pour some on the trees!

A Toast for the Robins

So where is this second toast you were promised? As mentioned above, robins are purportedly the guardian spirits of the orchard, which I seem some validity in as they are are voracious insectivores and don’t eat fruit. However, traditionally people soak bread in booze and spear it onto the branches of the trees. Robins don’t eat bread (or booze to my knowledge) and they are ground feeders, they feel most comfortable hopping along the ground. (This goes for both British and American robins even though they aren’t the same species) So I decided that the humans would stick to eating the human toast and I would make a toast for robins that was more to their tastes. Winter is tough time for birds and most robins don’t migrate so a treat now and then may be just what they need to protect your orchard!

Materials:

• bread
• star shaped cookie cutters (optional)
• peanut butter or suet
• dried mealworms

Method:

Cut your bread into star shapes (or not as you see fit) and toast a little in the oven. This isn’t essential it just makes it easier to spread the peanut butter on.

Spread with an even layer of peanut butter or suet and sprinkle with mealworms. Its gross but robins adore them.

Place on the ground around your tree– I know they would look cute hanging in the tree, but robins prefer them on the ground!!

Check back the next day and see if the robins enjoyed your treat!