maeve.mossin Seasons & Celebrations · Galway ·
MemoryBarmbrack and turnip lanterns before the pumpkins
Here's a thing. The shops in Galway have the barmbracks stacked up already and the smell of mixed spice and tea-soaked fruit caught me in the queue and I was back at my gran's table waiting to see who'd get the ring. We carved turnips for Halloween lanterns then, not pumpkins. A hollowed turnip with a candle inside smells of hot cabbage and singed wax, grand altogether, so it is. Pumpkins came later. Next to a turnip they're a tin whistle beside a full céilí band.
6 comments
cormac.bog
Turnip lanterns, yes. My da's always smelled scorched by the end of the night.
hamish_heather
Neep lanterns in Scotland too. Scooping one out is how you loose a thumbnail.
sinead.smoke
Barmbrack toasted with butter behind the bar on a slow night. Best smell in Limerick.
aoife_mint
Cork here. We got the ring in ours once and my brother still claims it was his.
juniper_jules
Hot turnip and wax sounds more like a raku firing gone wrong then a lantern.
maeve.moss
Here's a thing.
The truth of it. A spoon and a bad temper and the smell all through the kitchen for days, like a tune you can't shake.