A View From (A Cathedral Miles Away From)The Greenhouse; Burt Opens Up!

Although a little reluctant to visit in the beginning, I found the installation of the sculpture “Museum Of The Moon” inside Carlisle Cathedral an interesting thing to visit. However, I found the Treasury Vault (housed in the same building) had more to offer the amateur history buff, detailing as it does a potted history of Christianity in Cumberland and housing some fine pieces of religious artefact, alongside interesting finds from the many archeological excavations that have taken place in and around the city. The moon “sculpture” itself (I don’t believe it is a balloon) is at a scale of 1:500,000 and, hanging as it does, with the famous blue starred ceiling above it, it creates an impressive image. The “voluntary” entrance fee isn’t really voluntary at all, there are a couple of fiercely protective little older ladies on duty to make sure of that, but, all in all, this is really an interesting place to visit. To the vault, surprisingly, although there is much mention of Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Britons, Vikings and Normans as you peruse the historical story boards, there’s no mention whatsoever of the African, Asian and Chinese people who actually built Britain. One wonders if Sadiq Khan or any of his fellow travellers are aware of this obvious gap in our nations history and, if so, will they be taking steps to right this clearly terrible example of “far-right” mis(sing)information?

After a gap of a couple of years firstly during Covid, and after a short return to normality a freak injury to the head cook conspired to suspend the bi-annual village “Big Breakfast” events, the team got back in the saddle (as it were), girded its collective loins and set about resurrecting this very popular and previously well supported event. It’s hard to say how many eggs and white loaves I’ve fried over the years’ since I took up the mantle of head bread and egg frier, but eggs alone will number in the thousands. It isn’t a job for the faint hearted, either (although I say this myself) and my standards are quite exacting. I won’t send out either an egg, or a half slice of bread, unless I’d have been perfectly happy to consume them myself. Any fears that we may have had about the level of support were soon quelled as a steady stream of people kept me at my station from 9.30 am until just after 2pm. At the final reckoning we’d served 180 breakfasts and been part of a true community event where some folk give freely of their time, without needing a “religious” excuse to do so, so that others can enjoy some company, a good gossip and some quality pork products, to boot. You can’t beat a little slice of English village life, it rekindles the spirits in these trying times.

If I’m honest, we planted far too many capsicum and chili plants and although the results have been mixed, we’ve still ended up with a glut of both fruits. There are chili fans in the village, but there are only so many you can give away, even in Cumbria where pockets are deeper and arms shorter than even Edinburgh, without people beginning to question ones motives. Any road up, I happened to come across a mention of how easy it is to make a Tabasco style hot sauce at home, so long as you had the patience, the inclination and, most importantly the kit. I’ve never been a big You Tube user, but there are countless short videos on there that point to the process being virtually idiot proof (just as well I thought to myself as I perused several of them). First job is to acquire the kit (more of this later) before undertaking the gather. Not having any actual Tabasco peppers, I decided to try a mix, but I wanted plenty of heat so I concentrated on Scotch Bonnet, backed up by Apache, red Thai finger and a mix of milder, brightly coloured fruits, with a couple of red jalapenos, to make up the half kilo I needed.

It’s important when undertaking a fermentation batch that your main ingredient is clean, de-stalked and free from any sign of rot, fungus or “softening” along the body. This bit of the operation took a little time, but I wanted my first try at this to be as good as I could make it, considering the outlay. I decided to keep the little green one in, just because I could. A reweigh at this point required me to nip back to the greenhouse for another handful, but I ended up with exactly 500 grammes.

The Apache chili is probably the closest in size and shape to the Tabasco so, going by the video I’d watched, I left them whole. I did cut into similar sized pieces both the coloured and Thai fruits and I tore the Scotch Bonnet into pieces of a similar size, leaving in the membrane and about half the seeds, again to ad to the heat. The gloves, unless you’re a real chili fiend who can remember not to rub their eyes or go to the toilet without scrupulously washing their hands first, are an essential. For those with short attention spans, don’t worry, we’re almost there.

Although not an essential part of the process, a few slices of red onion (for sweetness) and some small cubes of clean oak (to attempt to reproduce the barrel aging that Tabasco is famed for) and the dry ingredients are ready for the container. At this point I have to confess to buying a fermentation kit, to wit, two 1.5 litre glass jars with airlocks and two glass weights. I consider this outlay investment, rather than cost, as the fermenting of vegetables seems like a decent idea, going forward. The most essential part of the process, and the thing that makes the magic happen, is the brine. There are several schools of though on this regarding the strength of the solution, I settled on 3% but some recommendations went as strong as 8%. 15mgs of non-iodised salt (I used Maldon fine Sicilian) to ever 500mls of filtered water, stirred together until fully dissolved and that’s that!

I sterilised the jar for good measure, packed the chilies and oak cubes into it, carefully laid in the onion slices, placed the weight on top and added the brine. It was several days before I saw evidence of activity, which I’m guessing is down to the lows salinity, but she’s bubbling away quite merrily now, safely ensconced in the crisp cupboard (everyone has a crisp cupboard, don’t they). I have a little look every day, and I’ll keep you posted, but it will probably be around mid-January before we can go on to the next stage.

Neither Burt or myself could stand looking at the wilderness that was once a thriving potato and pea patch any longer, so we decided we needed to at least make a start of readying it for fallow season. I enjoy days like this with Burt. He’s normally the most taciturn and stoical of chaps, but he misses very little and, with a little gentle nudging, he can sometimes be encourage to put in his two-pennyworth. We’d been silently working away, me pulling out the stakes and canes and Burt holding them for me, when the silence was broken;

“This reparations business” he said, before taking a breath and continuing “it’s a bit like me claiming that every farmer, market-gardener and smallholder alive and working in Britain, or even beyond (he has distant cousins standing in fields the world over) owes me reparations for previous generations of my ancestors being forced into doing the jobs that nobody else was prepared to do”. “To be honest” I replied, “you make a fair point.” I was about to explain why I thought this, but Burt cut me short,

“The point I’m making is that nobody, at least in Britain anyway, is forcing me, or my fellow members of the European Scarecrow collective, to do anything we don’t want to do. The days of forced scare-crowing are long since passed and those that were party to said forcing have long moldered in the ground. In fact, and if I recall correctly, it was the British themselves who, at great expense, brought an end to scarecrow serfdom, at least in what we consider to be the in the civilised world. Britain owes we scarecrows nothing that we can’t achieve by the sweat of our own brows.” He finished. “Well, when you put it like that….” I mused, but it was clear that Burt had said his piece, at least for now. “Here,” I said to him with a wry smile on my face, “let me take those canes and stakes off you, we don’t want the neighbours thinking you’re overworked and under valued, do we”? Burt nodded sagely and that was that. I took the stakes and canes, put them in their safe-space and went to make myself a mug of nettle tea.

I won’t lie, I used to enjoy a bag of sweets as much as the next bloke, but in recent years, maybe because I’m not driving so much, or maybe because I’m a little more conscious about what I put in my body, or maybe it’s just because sweets aren’t the same as they were, I rarely indulge these days, beyond the odd bit of chocolate and the occasional packet of gums, which, for a long time, were my go to. If I had to list my favourites, without going into the most boring of detail, I’d say it was a toss up between the American Hard Gum and the original Lion Sports/Football Mix. I especially enjoyed finding the odd (and sometimes more than odd) licourice flavoured ones as they suited my taste, having fond memories of buying penny licourice sticks from Mr. Aldersleys Emporium Of Delights, which stood beside The Hippodrome Cinema in Rossington, my home village.

Memory tells me that the original Midget Gem, also a product of Lion, had a licourice flavour too, but Maynard Bassetts, in its wisdom, has done away with that little taste of joy, no doubt due to changing “tastes”. But “taste” isn’t really my point here. The ice cream van, which generally visits the village every Sunday in the season, paid it’s final call of the year last week and it was selling off stock at slightly reduced prices. My daughter, remembering my penchant, bought me these as a little treat (and a bit of a joke, at a guess). I had no idea, until Monday this week, that  Maynard Bassetts, under pressure from a disability campaigner (back in 2022) who felt the word “midget” might be offensive to the vertically challenged amongst us, had changed the name of its ersatz product to “Mini Gems” although I was aware, much to my continued chagrin, that they’d substituted the licourice for blackcurrant.

Research tells me that Lion still makes both the original Sports Mix and Midget Gems with licourice. Maynard Bassetts is dead to me (though I’m sure it won’t miss my annual, and dwindling couple of quid), although whether I’ll go back to a couple of bags a week, even if I can find Lion products, is open to serious debate.
 

© Colin Cross 2026