I need a virgin, and a plane ticket to Italy. NOW.
“There may be some basis to the legends concerning unicorns after all. A roe deer was discovered on a preserve near Florence, Italy sporting only one horn. This is not to say he lost a horn and has been wandering around looking a bit lopsided–the horn grows directly in the center of his head, adding a great deal of speculation as whether this rare creature could be the stuff from which fables grow.
One horned deer are uncommon but not unheard of, although the solitary horn is usually positioned on one side or another. It is believed this unusual occurrence may have been the result of early trauma or a genetic defect, but if there is one unicorn wandering around, perhaps there have been others.”
Something occurred to me on this reread that I haven’t thought of before. While I would never dream of suggesting that Katniss led a “comfortable” life before her father died, I can’t help noting that she grew up with a world of advantages not shared by her Seam neighbors (or even some of the merchants!), and it’s interesting when you start to pull it all together.
Her father was a skilled (maybe expert) hunter and forager, so she certainly ate better than the rest of the Seam (especially that all-precious protein - including fresh fish for brain and vision health - as well as fruit, wild greens, nuts). Her mother was a trained apothecary/herbalist, so she had some of the best available medical care (Since no one can afford doctors, apothecaries are our healers - p.8) under her own roof for injuries and illnesses, and her mother probably taught her good hygiene practices from the start.
Her mother knew the herbs to use for everything and her father could and would go beyond the fence to retrieve them. However Mrs. Everdeen ended things with her parents, she still ended up with their priceless handwritten materia medica.
Aaaaaaand, now I need a Jack/Alys/Raisa Rapunzel retelling where pregnant Alys desperately wants her katniss tubers (actually, didn’t I tease that much in an aside in WtM a loooooong time ago??) and Raisa is the unloved witch with three little sons and no daughter/no hopes of having one. Jack adamantly refuses to give up their baby but desperate, miserable third-trimester Alys is willing to broker any deal (heck, maybe witch!Raisa even shows up to serve as midwife because Alys is struggling). Raisa disappears with Katniss, and Jack, assuming the worst, goes to the ends of the earth in search of his daughter, only to find her her cherished and adored by her stepmama in Milk-Daughter fashion…
Katniss’s father took her to the woods, occasionally giving her lungs a reprieve from the sooty air of Twelve, and gave her expert survival instruction that would have served her well even if she’d never gone to the Games. He taught her to swim - something I doubt anyone else in Twelve had the opportunity to learn, let alone practice (unless they were sneaking off to the woods as well) - a very beneficial form of exercise for her little body, and to climb trees.
She mentions that both her parents sang (though we know less about her mother’s voice than her father’s). Believe it or not, there was once music in my house. Music that I helped make. My father pulled me in with that remarkable voice… (p. 234) That voice was, in my humble opinion, the nearest thing Twelve had to real magic. …whenever my father sang, all the birds in the area would fall silent and listen. His voice was that beautiful, high and clear and so filled with life it made you want to laugh and cry at the same time. (p. 43) And we know this isn’t just Katniss idealizing his memory because we get almost a verbatim account in Mr. Mellark’s “Because when he sings…even the birds stop to listen” (p.300). This may be more of a personal headcanon, but I’m willing to bet her father filled that house with breathtaking tales as well as songs.
She knew what velvet was - granted, from a small sample on the collar of one of her mother’s dresses, but it’s a unique little snippet of luxury for a Seam child to have been exposed to. (This always brings back a fond memory from my own childhood: my mother had a “Sunday sweater” with narrow white stripes of angora every couple of inches, which I loved to trace with a fingertip when I was in her lap.) And as far as I can tell, Katniss had a (largely) stay-at-home mother, since Mrs. Everdeen was “expected to get a job” (p. 26) within a month of her husband’s death - not that she couldn’t have been running her Seam apothecary business before Mr. Everdeen died, but she definitely wasn’t on a time clock and was probably/primarily working from home, which certainly benefited the girls more than having both parents gone for up to twelve hours a day.
Those parents had a tender, loving relationship, and as Katniss remarks in the bread flashback, My parents never hit us. I couldn’t even imagine it. (p. 31) This topic is worth an entire post of its own. I suspect that hitting one’s children in Twelve was a fairly (sadly) common practice, but it’s so foreign to eleven-year-old Katniss that she can’t even imagine it.
As I said earlier, I would never begin to describe Katniss’s childhood as luxurious, but until her father’s death, I’m inclined to think she led a much nicer life than a lot of her fellow district citizens. Thoughts?
Reblogging for an edit of sorts and a couple additional thoughts:
1)@lovely-tothe-bone , you’re going to love/hate this: It was Gale who taught Katniss to fish, not her father.
He taught me snares and fishing. I showed him what plants to eat and eventually gave him one of our precious bows. (THG, p. 110)
Now, I have a really hard time accepting that Mr. Everdeen didn’t fish, especially when it’s a relatively passive/easy/safe way to catch food - or, for that matter, that he never used snares. Maybe, as @ghtlovesthg mentioned to me in conversation, Mr. Everdeen simply didn’t have a lot of free time due to his mining work and two little girls at home, so when he did take Katniss to the woods, they stuck to actively pursuing food through hunting and foraging (not walking a snare line/sitting by the lake with poles). Katniss also says (emphasis mine):My father knew [there’s food if you know how to find it] and he taught me some before he was blown to bits in a mine explosion. So I would make a case for Mr. Everdeen knowing a lot more bushcraft than he managed to teach Katniss before his death.
2)@ghtlovesthg also pointed out that one of the biggest advantages Katniss had over the rest of the district was the mental benefit of getting away from Twelve and seeing that the wilderness beyond wasn’t a “Here be dragons” wasteland that the good, kind Capitol is protecting them from. Whereas Peeta’s world/knowledge was effectively defined not by the fence but by the boundaries of the square.
3) And speaking of Peeta:
…there’s something kind of depressing about living your life on stale bread, the hard, dry loaves that no one else wanted. One thing about us, since I bring our food home on a daily basis, most of it is so fresh you have to make sure it isn’t going to make a run for it. (p. 310)
I’ve had my mind blown 3x tonight rereading the first four chapters while searching for clues unrelated to what I discovered
@lovely-tothe-bone - That line stood out to me too, but I figured it was one of those:
Person 1: You’re the best doctor/musican/kickboxer I know.
Person 2: (indignation/eye roll/etc) I’m the ONLY doctor/musician/kickboxer you know!
Person 1: (optional, grinning) It’s still true!
Minus the joke because of the context, of course. That said, we know that Mr. Everdeen made “a few” bows that Katniss keeps hidden in the woods, and her remark “Even he had to scrap his own work sometimes” implies that bow-making is something he did with some regularity. But she also points out that “He could have made good money selling them” - does this mean that he was making them in anticipation of a rebellion (i.e., not for others to hunt with) but was killed before it came to fruition, and that’s why Katniss has her own little armory in the woods?
I really struggle with “the few of us who hunt” - like, it almost feels like a glitch on Collins’ part. If other people are sneaking under the fence, surely Katniss/Mr. Everdeen/Gale has encountered them, run across their snare lines, etc., but it feels to me like the woods is their own private domain. And if Mr. Everdeen wasn’t distributing his bows, are these people hunting with knives/makeshift spears? (We know that Gale didn’t have a bow till he got one from Katniss.)
For what it’s worth, I headcanon that Hazelle (is Mr. Everdeen’s cousin to some degree and) hunted/hunts with snares and that it was she who taught Gale, not his father. :)
Braised Duck & Creamed Spinach It’s November; the perfect time in the autumn season for harvesting the last of the pumpkins, preparing recipe’s for the approaching Thanksgiving feast, and seemingly enough… a very unlucky month if you are a bird. In assuming that the reader is not, in fact, a bird, I don’t think that last bit will be much of a problem for you and I, so I bid you keep reading.
If you have not heard, we’re already a few weeks into duck season! Though I hardly have time to go hunting myself, the local huntsman have been busy as ever. Just last week I was gifted the most delectable duck and was overwhelmed with excitement. What a treat.
Buuut, to be completely honest, I was a bit baffled in deciding how to prepare the bird. I have only ever eaten farmed duck, and from what I’ve heard, it has a very different flavor from wild duck. In a word, wild duck tastes… well, wild. Hah. (^.^;) If anything, it has much less fat and a “dryer” texture, along with a robust, gamey taste. If you’ve had any kind of venison meat, you’ll know what I mean.
Have I got you interested? Click “Read More” for the entire recipe!
Of course, acquiring a wild mallard or duck isn’t as common as one would like, so if you find yourself without a huntsman, farmed duck from the market will substitute just fine. I’m sure even a chicken would do the trick for this recipe. And of course, lets not forget the perfect side to pair with this dish, creamed spinach! Both recipe’s are inspired by French and British influences. Mmm.
Braised Duck Ingredients: 4 skinned duck breasts (wild or farmed) 3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp minced garlic A pinch of Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation: 1. Mix the Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, garlic, and salt/pepper. In a container, add the marinade and the duck breasts. Toss well to coat. Cover, and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or overnight. The longer they sit, the better the flavor.
2. Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place the duck and juices in an ovenproof dish, cover with foil or a lid, and place in the oven for 30 minutes.
3. After 30 minutes, remove the lid or foil, and continue to cook the duck for another 10 minutes or until it browns/caramelizes on the outside.
Creamed Spinach Ingredients: 2 bunches of spinach, stems removed ¼ of an onion, finely chopped 2 tbsp olive oil ¼ cup of heavy cream Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation: In a medium saute pan over medium-high heat, add the olive oiland onions; cook for 2 minutes until soft. Add the chopped spinach and warm through. Add the salt/pepper & heavy cream. Mix well. Cook until liquid reduces by half, roughly 3 to 4 minutes.
And now for a horrible duck joke that will surely make you want to throw a cleaver at my head.
Q: What time does a duck wake up?
A: At the quack of dawn!
Harr, Harr. As always, let me know how you liked the recipe!
