If this world is not my home

This world is not my home
 I'm just a passing through
My treasures are laid up
 Somewhere beyond the blue...

It's hard to disagree with these sentiments but there are some here-and-now-treasures that I figure I will never forget even come eternity. Certain experiences like that walk along the coast from Lee Abbey, or a panorama that opens up on reaching a mountain summit, a riot of flowers, strawberries sprinkled with sugar, falling in love and its consummation, slipping naked into the sea or a mountain lake, running barefoot through grassy river meadows. And music...

If ever there was quintessential humanity it is in music. It seems that the human psyche is preconditioned to appreciate what we call music. Scientists try to understand this in terms of evolutionary advantage, which music does not seem to have. Or is it that music can in fact actually transcend mere humanity as when at the very dawn of history the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy or at that singularity of divine purpose suddenly there was with the angle a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" Is it after all the prime medium whereby we worship so it must be capable of prising a crack in the heavenlies.

Apparently not everyone experiences frisson aka the chills when listening to music. My friend Flavia describes this feeling very well when, attending her mother's funeral, she says: the organ swelled into a song of triumph, the glorious music causing me to feel suddenly as if caterpillars were crawling up my spine. They say this frisson is the result of a dopamine release caused by the brain as it anticipates patterns it recognises in music.

Often I pass through the kitchen here and the cooks have an electronic gizmo playing Goodness Knows What through a tinny loudspeaker. IMHO and in mild disgust this muzak seems to me mere noise being used to fill a void. But then my hearing is poor. My ultra reverence for serious music does not acknowledge background "music", which foible of mine tends to restrict the amount and type I listen to.

I've always been fascinated by the aeolian harp. Although man-made to be harmonic, it is played by the wind and so, to some degree, the sound it makes is random, so can it be called music? For music it must be, in that it gives us the chills, it stirs one's heart-strings. So there we have it - music reaches into the heavens and at the same time reaches into our innermost being.

Of course I'm only talking about "good" music. But it seems that what's good for one person may be bad for another and who am I to judge? Besides, I've noticed with music, or a novel, indeed any art form - you have to go beyond the first impression in order to fully enjoy it. Good art has depth. Which reinforces the idea of anticipation. It's hard to anticipate something that is alien.

The longest running BBC Radio 4 program Desert Island Discs has been on the air since January 1942. In it the castaway gets to choose eight recordings (usually music), a book and a luxury item to take to his or her desert island in addition to the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Bible (etc.) and, one supposes, food. A tantalizingly short excerpt of each recording is played, but the interesting part is what and why the choices. So far they haven't invited me to the program. I think I know why.

What music would you choose?  I can go along with the three "absolute favourites" in this video clip and readers of this blog will know that I would add at least Bruckner's eighth. And maybe Handel's Messiah.  Most of my choices would be so called "classical" but I might add some Simon and Garfunkel. Maybe even some hymn tunes for their harmony. And, talking about the Emperor concerto, I really liked Alina Berco's performance.

Music can be so rich, so perfect, so evocative, so uplifting, sublime, fantastic, almost too good to be true. Like Golden Syrup or Evaporated milk but so much better and with much longer lasting effect. I'd be sad if heaven excluded it.

Chocolate

Yesterday I overheard my wife extolling my self control at being able to open a bar of chocolate, eat a few squares, and then return it to the draw for another day. I hasten to add that my self control is not as good as she claimed.

I may have inherited the chocolate deal from my father. As a child I was amazed at how he could keep an easter egg unfinished until the next Easter. He had a special cupboard in his bedroom under the stairs leading to the loft - it was strictly out of bounds although I did manage to fleetingly see the interior a few times. His box of Meccano was kept here (I now have this relic) and, joy of joys, various tin-plate O-gauge locomotives and rolling stock. Was it here that he kept his cache of unconsumed chocolate?

My daughter (and oh-the-delight-of-my-eyes) gave me 10 small bars (the sort that used to cost 6d when I was a boy) of Irish Cadburys Dairy Milk (CDM) on my birthday - this was several years ago - and I am eating the last bar at the moment. Even way past its sell-by date it still tastes supreme. By "eating" I mean I had a few squares yesterday and the rest is awaiting a suitable opportunity in my bedside cabinet. You may wonder why all times are not suitable for eating chocolate. The reason is maybe because I live in community. If you bring chocolate to the communal lounge (some do, I even have myself on rare occasions) it sort of vanishes. You end up with maybe one square if you're lucky.  There again it seems antisocial to disappear to one's bedroom to consume the stuff without the-help-of-others. Such are the joys of community.

Without doubt Irish CDM is superior to the UK equivalent. My daughter in law recently arranged a blind taste test and I correctly identified the Irish one. At one time you could tell the difference by the colour of the foil wrapping, whether gold (Irish) or purple (UK), but with modern wrapping the only clue is the small print saying where the bar was manufactured. Cadburys online are cagey about any difference claiming the recipe is the same but the milk is local so could contribute a difference. And of course Cadburys has been taken over by Mondelez so who knows what effect that change has made on the product.

Here are two responses to my querying the subject with the manufacturer:

email received Jan 2016
The Irish business is expert in manufacturing Cadbury chocolate tablets, Flake, wafer and extruded chocolate products. Our range of Irish made products includes; 8-square Cadbury Dairy Milk, Turkish, Tiffin, Golden Crisp, Mint Crisp, Wholenut, Fruit & Nut, Caramello, as well as; Time Out, Snack Wafer, Moro, Flake, Flake 99, Twirl, Twirl Bites and Miniature Hero units. There are no plans to change any recipes or processes in Coolock.

email received Dec 2018
You can check which Cadbury products are made in Ireland by looking at the packaging for our products. Our packaging will include a batch code beside the best before date which begins with three letters. For example, our Coolock Factory products begin with OCO. I hope this information helps and if you have any further questions please do contact us again.

Neither of which says anything about the special taste of the Irish product.

At the "duty-free" shopping area at Dublin airport you can purchase CDM in various sized bars but recently I was unable to find a single bar made in Ireland. I queried this with one of the store keepers suggesting that surely at Dublin airport of all places they would want to promote the local product - the sales person looked at me with incomprehension and as though I were mad. And here in the community folk at least know about my fetish but as far as I know no one shares my views. Which is all very strange.

But then they do not share my views on Lyles Golden Syrup or Evaporated Milk.

Did I overstep?

Maybe my reference to Bruckner and praise in my last post was hyperbole but check out this link to see what others say.

In fact I rarely listen to Bruckner, strange though that might seem when the very name of my blog venerates him. But then I rarely eat fish pie or golden syrup filled trifle sponges. For each one the reason is partly circumstantial (I will not listen to good music unless it is quiet and I have some chance of hearing the whole performance, and my lifestyle does not often grant me such conditions), and partly because a great experience repeated too often is in danger of becoming commonplace. Whilst the thought of golden syrup at every meal sends certain thrills, I rather think I might tire at last.

Talking about golden syrup, does anyone else out there venerate evaporated milk as I do? Another family here venerates condensed milk to a similar degree. Whilst both substances start with reduced milk, and the original purpose of each was to preserve milk, they are very different in taste. So I did a bit of research. Condensed milk has, of course, a lot of sugar added and this helps preserve it. Evaporated milk, on the other hand, has no added sugar and thus has a shorter shelf life even when tinned. To help combat this, the process of making evaporated milk raises it to a higher temperature, so high that it starts to caramelise and it is this which gives it its characteristic taste. I should have known, caramel lover than I am. There is no way to start the day quite so pleasing as breakfast cereal with a healthy slosh of evaporated milk added to the normal whole milk and sugar.

And, talking about a pleasing start to the day, I was concocting a new temperature scale (as one does) whilst taking a longer than usual, and rather chilly run this afternoon, barefoot with Meg around the lake shore around by Baltiboys bridge. It goes something like this:

> 25'C is far too hot for life as we know it here in Ireland
20-25'C very hot and rather exceptionable
15-20'C hot: this and above is good for swimming in lakes, rivers or sea
10-15'C warm, OK for Autumn swimming but a bit parky in Spring
5-10'C cool, and most common here in Ireland
0-5'C cold, chilly when wet under-barefoot
< 0'C freezing, barefoot running is OK only if it is dry

A bit of wind-chill factor can be added to this rough guide, but the weather forecasters overdo it. And there is a bit of seasonal hysteresis especially for swimming because of the thermal mass of water.

An ancient recipe

I invented this recipe in my early childhood. It is one of my better inventions. Are you ready to be amazed?

The most important ingredient

The second ingredient, a rectangular trifle sponge

You will need a sharp knife to...

cut a thin lid off the sponge

and a sharp spoon

to excavate a large void in the thicker, lower part -
the more material you can remove, the better.

Here's one I did earlier

Reverently consider the Golden Syrup

Fill the spoon to overflowing with this wonderful
 substance and pour carefully into the void

This picture is self explanatory

The first spoonful is almost done

But wait, more is required...

Spoon-full number two

We want the filling to be generous

Too much, and it gets hard to eat

Make sure you leave enough on the spoon which
can now be consumed as a foretaste

Ready for final assembly. Observant readers will
notice the waste material - this can be eaten
but I suggest you bin it

Pop the top on and, hey presto, bon apetite

The proof of the pudding

is in the eating

It does not disappoint

Soon there will be only memories, but good ones

So now you have it. You can make your own - it really is not that difficult. Those of my readers in the USA please note that corn syrup will simply not do as a substitute for Lyle's Golden Syrup. There is absolutely no comparison. For variations on the recipe, try smothering with clotted cream. Another variation is to omit the trifle sponge. This will reduce cost without affecting the taste overmuch. Enjoy!

Running bare feet and tinned milk 2

Mcvities Golden Syrup cake (made with Tate and Lyle's Golden Syrup), topped with Tesco's Toffee Desert Sauce (ingredients major in condensed milk, golden syrup and cream), with the last of the tinned (evaporated) milk poured over.  Such synergy!

Another totally bare foot run along the "forest" route this morning, after a lot of rain during the night.  So the ground was very wet and slippery.  I missed my footing whilst investigating a stream and cut my hand on a rock when steadying myself.  Later I slipped on a down hill part and my other hand landed in a gorse bush to steady myself.  On the bright side I don't think I contracted any foot splinters though.