Birch porridge… The meaning of this winged expression causes a slight smile, because nowadays it is hopelessly outdated. But in the old days, the promise of a parent to feed his child with this “dish” brought a lot of unpleasant minutes to the mischievous one. The phrase "give birch porridge" meant a form of corporal punishment, that is, the usual flogging with a bunch of rods cut from a white-trunked tree. With the adjective "birch" everything is more or less clear, but where did "porridge" come from in the phrase? There are several interesting versions of this.
The "special preparation" rods
Phraseologism "birch porridge" arose among seminarians who studied at theological schools - burses. In the dictionaries of Dahl, Ushakov and other connoisseurs of Russian speech, this expression is a synonym for the word "rod". Teachers punished negligent students for any pranks and offenses. Could pull by the hair, give a slap in the face, with a ruler on the handswhip. If all these measures did not produce the proper impact on the bursak, he was punished with rods. The violator of the order was laid on a wide bench, ordered to expose a soft spot just below the back, which was hit with a birch broom.
The starting material for the rods was prepared in advance and put in a closet so that it was always at hand. It must be assumed that with a bunch of dry twigs, from which the leaves were stripped in advance, flogging the pen alty box was somewhat inconvenient. To hit weakly - there is no effect, but if you hit harder, you will only peel the skin to the blood. In order for the unfortunate child to fully experience all the inevitability and “charm” of cruel punishment, the rods must be soft and elastic. To do this, shortly before the execution, they were steamed in a tub of hot water. This is where the expression "birch porridge" came from - by analogy with a dish of boiled cereals.
A mash of damp bark and fallen leaves
The path to knowledge was not easy for a medieval student. A rare lucky man managed to evade individual or general spanking. The latter was held for all students without exception a couple of times a month for educational and preventive purposes. Corporal punishment with rods in most European countries has long been used for the adult population as a disciplinary sanction for minor offenses. In Russia, this method was abolished a little over a hundred years ago - in 1903.
It's not hard to imagine that afterflogging with rods steamed in water, on the soft spot of the offending person, there were pieces of bark, soaked knots, and remnants of leaves. Well, why not birch porridge? Surely, one of the performers of the execution or onlookers who watched the scene noticed this similarity. The phrase acquired an ironic connotation and went out to the people.
Treats for the Chosen Ones
Another version of the emergence of a verbal turnover is given by the modern linguist Olga Alexandrovna Anishchenko. In the study “Types of punishments and their names in the theological school of the XIX century”, the candidate of philological sciences explains in detail the meaning of the phraseological unit “birch porridge”. In educational institutions of that time, there was a custom in honor of the transition to the next educational level to arrange a large festive dinner for seminarians, where the main dish was some kind of porridge. Those students who did not particularly excel in their studies were not invited to the holiday. The teachers gloated, turning to the guilty: "And you are waiting for a special porridge, birch." It was a direct allusion to the traditional spanking in such cases.
The punishment is severe, senseless and cruel
Execution with rods was also called birch tea, birch bath, seminary porridge. According to the testimony of people who have taken courses in theological academies, students were mercilessly flogged not only for negligence, but also for innocent childish pranks, inflicting a hundred or more blows.
In some educational institutions, teachers showed indulgence to their charges and stopped spanking in response to their cries and tears. In schools wherethe teachers were not overly sentimental, sometimes it happened that during the “educational measure” the boy lost consciousness, and later ended up in a hospital bed, or even went to another world.
Was flogging effective? Most probably not. Its main goal is to keep students in fear and obedience. It was hardly possible to drive the necessary knowledge into the head of the unfortunate blockhead with birch twigs, but one could easily leave him crippled for the rest of his days or even take his life.
The dish is hearty, sweet and oily
But let's not talk about sad things. Having finally found out what the meaning of the phraseological unit "birch porridge" is, let's turn to the recipes of modern Russian cuisine. Apparently, some culinary experts liked the sonorous phrase so much that they summed up the technology for preparing delicious dishes under it.
Birch porridge can be cooked from half a glass of rice, taking twice as much liquid, seasoning with a pinch of s alt. The finished dish is flavored with dried fruits, sugar, butter. Then let it brew for 10 minutes under the lid, when serving, decorate with nuts. Everything is very simple, but the main secret is that instead of water or milk, birch sap is used to make porridge.
Buckwheat in pots for the second
A buckwheat dish is cooked in approximately the same way as rice porridge. Groats and birch sap should be taken in the same proportions of 1: 2. Porridge, placed in a clay portion pot and lightly s alted, simmer until cooked in the oven at 180 degrees. Before serving, the hot dish is mixed withfinely chopped pickled cucumber, seasoned with onion fried in vegetable fat and a piece of butter. Fast, tasty and original.
Probably, you can experiment with other cereals. No less appetizing will be porridge on birch sap, cooked from semolina, millet, barley or oatmeal. Fans of culinary fantasies will be able to surprise their guests with gourmet dishes, using fruits, berries, nuts, mushrooms, fresh or pickled vegetables, hot spices as an addition to cereals.
Birch bark porridge
The previous recipes are, of course, good. But true gourmets will not be surprised by this. They will certainly want to taste real birch porridge. It turns out that one also exists, and it is prepared from the bark of a tree. No, we will not eat birch bark. No matter how much you boil it, nothing good will come of it anyway. But if this same birch bark is removed, a less dense brown vascular tissue called bast or phloem will be found under it.
Tourists who have been in extreme situations claim that phloem can also be eaten raw. To do this, very thinly scrape it off the trunk with a knife. This woody layer is also suitable for making porridge. It will take a long time to cook until the bast turns into a homogeneous semi-liquid mass. It must be assumed that birch porridge, like any other, cannot be spoiled with oil. Seasoning the dish with s alt and sugar to taste is also not forbidden.
Birch buds and young leaves scalded with boiling water are quite edible. They are made from themsalads, combined with various garden greens, are added as fragrant seasonings to soups, broths, fried meat.
How the main ingredient is mined
We hope that a little more time will pass and the idiom "birch porridge" will cease to be associated with corporal punishment. And in order to cook a delicious cereal dish, we have to go to the forest for birch sap. Sweetish vitamin nectar should be collected in early spring with the onset of the first thaws, before the buds swell.
At this time, the movement of tree sap begins. A birch is chosen middle-aged, with a voluminous trunk. A hole is drilled in a tree with a hand drill or a brace, into which a tin or plastic groove is inserted. An empty container is suspended from below, where birch sap will drain. For a day you can get from 3 to 10 liters. After harvesting, the hole in the tree trunk must be sealed with clay or wax.
