Melancholy Thanksgiving

[flemmings]

Yesterday's gold and blue yields to grey warm drizzle. I read about shamans in Korea, which is a fast trip to Otherwhere, and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, wondering if the latter is merely referencing the loving little heroine of Victorian children's books or writing one perfectly straightforward. This after ripping through the rest of House of Five Leaves yesterday, a manga which recreates a whole host of samurai TV show tropes, most specifically that ningen kankei trumps everything and everyone is deeply moral where human emotions are concerned-- and *only* where they're concerned. Cold-hearted killers will pardon the murder of their friends if they feel responsible for destroying the killer's trust in humanity; young boys will pass over the murder of their parents if someone they like benefited from the deed. Yeah, sure.

Also cooked a turkey breast, not being up for the extravagance of a whole bird. Brined the proper degree and cooked with a meat thermometer, go me. Alas, tried using store-made bacon sage and chorizo stuffing with it, which had to go around the bird, and which turned out to be incredibly fatty and greasy. Have mixed it with cooked rice and will probably add apples and apricots and something else to absorb the grease, like squash, but doubt it will ever make a palatable dish.

Comments

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

When desperate, I've been known to pour boiling water thru things in a colander. It washes the grease out at the expense of flavor ...

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Did that with the stuff in the pan. ^_^ Produced a still-greasy sludge. I fancy there was pig fat in whatever the binder was-- or maybe there was no binder, just pig, and you were supposed to provide your own starchy portion.

[yumiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Mushrooms, when cooked not too much, absorb grease really, really well. Can use giant ones and then pick them out to use in another dish, imo. (I've only used this in limited circumstances, so ... no guarantees XD)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Really? And I have mushrooms too. Would I cook them together with the stuffing or separately and then mix?

[yumiyoshi.livejournal.com]

If This Were Me: I would chop up the mushrooms but not so fine that you can't pick them out if you want to. Then I'd dump the stuffing into the widest bottom pan you have (for best surface area), mix the uncooked mushrooms in, then turn on the heat to medium. I'd want to mix everything thoroughly and cook until the mushrooms start looking squishy. You can tell when the oil is about to come BACK out of them when they start sweating/looking shiny. At that point stop. Take out the mushrooms if you want, or just eat around them.

I should say this has only worked for me once in a vegetable context, ie, they were far too greasy and the mushrooms basically wiped them up. I'm NOT sure how easily you can pull oil back out of bread, which is also absorbent in the same way that mushrooms are. Fingers crossed, if you try this tactic. XD

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'll try that. There's no bread in the stuffing to date, just a little rice and an awful lot of pig meat/ butter, because I basted the breast to start with. The mushrooms might pull some of the butter out at least.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

what are Korea Shamans like? and where do you read about them, curious mind wants to know. are they anything like the Manchurian Shamans, I wonder. otherworld indeed

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Laurel Kendall, Shamans, Housewives, and Other Restless Spirits: Women in Korean Ritual Life.

(Academic review here (http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/asie_0766-1177_1991_num_6_1_993)

It's an account of anthropological research (cough cough) done in the 70s in one village north of Seoul. The shamans are all women; there are some male shamans in Korea but post-Confucian values thought it undignified, at the very least, for men to be possessed by rowdy spirits demanding money and jumping up and down (literally) in ecstatic dance while going through many changes of costume. (Then again, she points out that Confucian values didn't become entrenched in Korea until a few centuries ago, which was something I didn't know.)

So shamanism is a very female type of world, social as much as supernatural, and a normal part of everyday life. Village women will consult the shaman about sickness and bad fortune, but also go see the doctor, the Buddhist priest, and the geomancer. Shaman have a circle of 'regulars' and other shamans who help with the long and tiring rituals of possession. They tend to be older women whose children are grown, or widows: there's prejudice against the profession both from the Confucian and Christian sides, so the less interference from the husband's side the better.

Fascinating reading, in any case.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

that is very interesting - I will go look it up, and reminds me that I must go and put together the post about folk ritual play in China. Really fantody stuff.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Sounds fascinating. Please do.

Kendall brought a Chinese-American colleague to the shaman for a divination, and the shaman was kerblonxed that the colleague's mother had let her leave home without telling her who all the family ghosts were and what they were likely to get up to. Can't help thinking that Korean 'family ghosts' = Anglo 'all those relatives we don't talk about.'