All About Thyme: January 2025

Happy New Year Edition!

January's Special Days: A Potpourri of Celebrations

Herb of the Year for 2025. Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla). Selected by the International Herb Association
Flower of the Month for January: Carnation, symbolizing love, fascination, distinction
January is Hot Tea Month

Week 1
January 6. Yesterday was Twelfth Day, the last day of the Christmas season and the traditional time for taking down the tree. In case you missed the memo, folklore suggests that you might be in for a bit of bad luck.
January 11. National Hot Toddy Day. Just the excuse you need. And here’s a classic.
January 12. What’s in a name? Soy beans, it turns out. On this day in 1943, the U.S. government announced that the name “Victory Sausages’ would replace “frankfurters” for the duration of the war against Germany—and that meat would be replaced by soybean meal.

Week 2
January 13. In pre-Christian Ireland, the Feast of Brewing was celebrated about this time. IOW, bottoms up. Also: I’ll show up in your inbox with a LifeScapes post about critters.
January 17. If you haven’t had enough drinking time yet, this is the traditional Wassail Night in England’s West Country: time to wassail your apple tree. (Invite the neighbors, so they don’t get suspicious and call the police.)
January 18. The Sun moves into the Zodiac sign of Aquarius, and Aquarius Season begins.

Week 3
January 20. We’ll open the discussion of our first Guerrilla Readers book, Democracy Awakening. Look for my post and a few more questions.
January 21. The Celtic Month of the Rowan begins today. (Read about it in China Bayles' always-thymely Book of Days).
January 25. The Scottish poet Robert Burns was born on this day in 1759. Fans and friends celebrate with a Burns Night supper.

Week 4
January 27. National Chocolate Cake Day. (I know you know that chocolate is an herb.)

Beer: A Magical, Mysterious Brew

A fine beer may be judged with only one sip, but it's better to be thoroughly sure.—Czech proverb

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.—Dave Barry

People have been brewing beer for over six thousand years. The Sumerians discovered the fermentation process, perhaps accidentally, when somebody left some bread out in the rain. The earliest account of brewing describes wheat or barley bread crumbled into liquid and fermented—a process involving natural yeasts—to produce a tasty and inebriating drink.

Beer (sometimes called “liquid bread”) has been an important foodstuff in many cultures, especially in places where the water isn't fit to drink. People of all ages—men, women, children—drank it throughout the day, and workers were often paid with jugs of beer. Some beers were important medicinally. Other beers played an important part in worship, where they were considered to be the source of inspiration from the gods. They were ceremonially prepared and ritually drunk by priests, such as the Druids who celebrated the Feast of Brewing. Laws were frequently made to regulate the consumption of beer. For example, the Puritans were allowed to chug-a-lug only two quarts of beer for breakfast.

And yes, from the beginning, herbs have played an important role in the brewing of beer. Hops, the best-known of these flavorful herbs, were not added to beer until the seventeenth century. Before then, a mixture of herbs called gruit added subtle, complex flavors to the barley malt. Depending on what grew on the local hillsides, many plants were used: heather, bog myrtle, yarrow, rosemary, juniper berries, ginger, caraway seed, anise seed, nutmeg, cinnamon, wormwood, sage, broom. Hops came along in the Middle Ages and (because they were convenient, transportable, and a good preservative) became the herb of choice in beer. These days, artisanal breweries are returning to traditional practices. Cloves, bananas, raisins, ginger—who knew?

And if you’re so inclined, you can make ginger beer at home. Here’s how one food historian interprets Elizabeth Copley’s 1810 recipe for 36-hour ginger beer, with notes about the historical ingredients.

Three unusual books about beer:

• Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation, by Stephen Buhner

• The Homebrewer's Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs, by Dennis Fisher

• The Homebrewer's Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to Making Your Own Beer from Scratch, by Marika Josephson, Aaron Kleidon, Ryan Tockstein

Your January To-Do List

Eat your holiday tree? Substacker Julia Skinner of Roots: Historic Foods for the Modern World, shares her taste for pine treats. You’ll be surprised. (I was.)

To celebrate Hot Tea Month, read a good book on the remarkable universe of tea:

• A Thirst for Empire: How Tea Shaped the Modern World, by Erika Rappaport;

• The Tea Lover’s Bible: The Complete Guide to Exploring the World of Tea and Its Health Benefits, by Lydia Merrill;

• Healing Herbal Teas, by Sarah Farr.

Make your own Victory Sausages. These sausages were not much liked in the 1940s, not even when the newfangled hot dogs bore the flag-raising slogan, "less meat and more patriotism." These days, given the plight of our planet and concern for our health, your homemade meatless, gluten-free soy-free sausages are more likely to be cheered.

Wassailing is the traditional practice of encouraging the tree spirits to boost the harvest in the coming year. It happens around the twelfth night after Christmas and involves singing, dancing, and general merriment around your backyard apple tree. Here's how to make the traditional cider drink, spiked or booze-free. Share with the neighbors. No apple tree? Try wassailing a rose bush. You never know.

On Chocolate Cake Day, impress your family with this one-bowl wonder. Rich dark chocolate with an intense expresso flavor. Bonus with this recipe: how to make your own expresso powder. (You already knew that coffee is an herb, didn’t you?)

Read about Robert Burns and listen to a wee bit of Scottish music—bagpipes, preferably. Or, if you're really ambitious (wi' a mickle o' Scots blood in your veins), you could host a bonnie Burns supper for friends. Some cullen skink, perhaps? Or haggis, bridies, neeps, or tatties? For a muckle o’ traditional Scottish recipes, check out this collection.

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
—Robert Burns, The Selkirk Grace

Hungry for inspiration to kick off your writing year? This Story Circle craft-focused retreat (Dallas TX, March 21-23) may be the springboard you need!

Whew—a full calendar for January! Thanks for reading all the way to the end of this long post! Comments are open for paid subscribers. Next Monday, I’ll be back with the January issue of LifeScapes. And if you haven’t caught up with the latest China Bayles mystery, Forget Me Never, here’s what you’re looking for.