Disclaimer! This is a very old recipe and I take NO responsibility for how it tastes!
Take a pottle (half a gallon!) of sweet thick Cream, and the white of eyght Egs (8 eggs), and beate them altogether, with a spoone, then put them into your cream with a dishfull of Rosewater, and a dishfull of Sugar withall, then take a sticke and make it clene, and then cut it in the end foursquare, and therewith beat all the aforesaid things together, and ever as it ariseth take it off, and put it in to a Cullender, this doone, take a platter and setae an Apple in the midst of it, stick a thicke bush of Rosemary in the Apple. Then cast your Snow upon the Rosemary and fill your platter therewith, and if you have wafers cast some withall, and so serve them forthe.
Consider the availability of ingredients in 1594.... cream, eggs, rose petals for steeped Rosewater, sugar, an Apple, a twig of Rosemary, wafers (shortbread cookies). The recipe makes a pretty scene. I imagine it looks like a tree on a hill covered in snow.
My family is aging. There are no more letters to Santa, and the jolly ol' elf doesn't visit anymore. We dropped the tradition of filling stockings long ago. In fact each year, we struggle between which traditions to keep and which to leave for younger families with small children.
If there is anything I know for sure, it is that I love to be around children at Christmas. There is a sparkle in their little eyes that I remember from my own childhood. I plan to offer as many children's Christmas painting classes in December as possible. We play Christmas music and talk about toys. And several sweet families have invited me to their homes for their traditions of Christmas baking and meals and reading the poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."
I plan to observe many old traditions, but I also plan to make new traditions. A Bowl of Snow might just be one of them.
*Note to Self: Collect clean rose petals this summer and make/freeze Rosewater.
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