As in the phrase “He’s pushing up daisies” referring to a dead man.
If you didn’t understand this one, you get an anti-geezer tag.
I understood the reference, Mary, hence the subject line. The question here was, “That’s the punchline?”
Und wenn sie wandelt
Am Hügel vorbei,
Und denkt im Herzen:
Der meint’ es treu!
Dann Blümlein alle,
Heraus, heraus!
Der Mai ist kommen,
Der Winter ist aus.
— Wilhelm Müller, music by Franz Schubert
“The question here was, “That’s the punchline?””
And the answer is “well,… yes?”
Is there something wrong with that punchline?
Germans don’t “push up daisies”, instead, they “watch the radishes from below”.
The French “eat dandelions from the root up”.
Olivier, do the French normally eat them the other way? I once put a dandelion in my mouth as a kid, and it was disgusting. Then again, I say that about blue cheese too.
Anyway, do the French eat dandelions?
The French… and everybody else: use the leaves for salad.
If you are going to try them, it’s important to pick only very young (light green) dandelion leaves. Older ones are tough and very bitter (as opposed to the young ones, which are only somewhat bitter).
P.S. Back when I read a few books by Bradbury, I looked up “dandelion wine”. The recipe I found was so unbelievably complex that I wondered why anyone would bother trying (about as difficult as the steps and materials required to turn “eggplant” into an edible substance).
There’s also the gag where you convince somebody to pose as if they’re about the blow all the seeds away from a dandelion puffball, and then you get them to hold still with their mouth open, and then an accomplice pushes the puffball into the victim’s mouth. Hilarity ensues (assuming you are not the victim).
My wife used to make dandelion wine, and has a recipe for same in her book on home winemaking (shameless plug): https://joyofwine.net/book.htm
I just looked at it and Kilby is right — it does sound rather more complicated than most home/country winemaking varieties. As I recall, I didn’t care that much for it either (preferring her cherry, blueberry, and watermelon options).
“The French… and everybody else: use the leaves for salad.”
Not me. First I’ve heard of it. But I’m quite uncultured…if it’s an ‘haute couture’ thing rather than a provincial kind of thing. Or both. Or somewhere in between. In any case, it’s news to me.
So, if you’re dead in France, you eat dandelions from the root up, but if you’re alive in France (and everywhere else), you eat them sideways. Gotcha’.
And if you’re the victim of JP’s practical joker, you eat them from the top. And no, it was not hilarious.
I dug up some dandelions the other day. Today when I looked at the pile, I saw that many of the blossoms had managed to go to seed. I guess there was enough stored food in the roots and leaves.
Stan: it’s both. When food is scarce, anything edible will be considered: nettle soup, dandelion salad. Then, people will ditch the stuff as soon as better food is available; but sooner or later, some hype cooks will offer it as “authentic”, because unsophisticated, food.
“And if you’re the victim of JP’s practical joker”
I would like to establish that I have never participated in such a stunt. I saw it on YouTube.
“people will ditch the stuff as soon as better food is available”
I hear you. My grandfather-in-law who grew up in a fishing village loved to tell the story of how all the rich kids in school had peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, while the rest of them had to make do with lobster.
Stan, there’s an interesting story I heard about lobster. Yes, it originally was poor people’s food. In the 18th century, a poorhouse near Boston served it to the inmates so often that they went on a hunger strike in protest. But the interesting story is that the railroads turned it into a delicacy. It was very cheap, but very available to the railroads that could pick it up in Maine or Boston. It was also practically unknown in the hinterlands, but the train could pick it up in the early morning in Boston and serve it for lunch in the Central time zone. But how did they get people to order it? They invented “Surf and Turf”. For the price of a big piece of steak you could get a small piece of steak and a lobster. By making it expensive they made it acceptable, and they sold it to people who had never heard of it and didn’t know how cheap it really was.
Of course it really is expensive NOW, because you can’t just scoop up all the 1-pound-and-up lobsters in the ocean this year and expect them all to be replaced by next year. They do not grow fast.
Mark – supposedly in your corner of the country there was a limit on how often servants could be given lobster to eat – don’t know if that if that is true or not.
We had an education program for members this past Sunday from our reenactment unit. It was information about our HQ (a home and business of a craftsman in period) and how to give tours of it, while several fellows practiced drilling out back (mostly newer members).
Robert and I were giving the info about the house and giving tours After the main part of the discussions on same were winding down, we were taking questions from the few members that were there and the talk turned to education and then education of women. We were talking about the things that girls would learn for when they marry – the usual cooking, sewing, cleaning… Then the talk to turned to doctors and the need for women in particular as the one in charge of the family and house to know about how to deal with common illnesses, injuries etc. One of the women who demonstrates spices and herbs at events was telling us that there are some plants which are poisonous which were used to treat illnesses back then. (I admit I forget which she told us about.) So plants may have been killing people back then too – and by the hand of the person trying to make them better – or it just made them ill enough to make them better possibly.
Comics I Don't Understand 
As in the phrase “He’s pushing up daisies” referring to a dead man.
If you didn’t understand this one, you get an anti-geezer tag.
I understood the reference, Mary, hence the subject line. The question here was, “That’s the punchline?”
Und wenn sie wandelt
Am Hügel vorbei,
Und denkt im Herzen:
Der meint’ es treu!
Dann Blümlein alle,
Heraus, heraus!
Der Mai ist kommen,
Der Winter ist aus.
— Wilhelm Müller, music by Franz Schubert
“The question here was, “That’s the punchline?””
And the answer is “well,… yes?”
Is there something wrong with that punchline?
Germans don’t “push up daisies”, instead, they “watch the radishes from below”.
The French “eat dandelions from the root up”.
Olivier, do the French normally eat them the other way? I once put a dandelion in my mouth as a kid, and it was disgusting. Then again, I say that about blue cheese too.
Anyway, do the French eat dandelions?
The French… and everybody else: use the leaves for salad.
If you are going to try them, it’s important to pick only very young (light green) dandelion leaves. Older ones are tough and very bitter (as opposed to the young ones, which are only somewhat bitter).
P.S. Back when I read a few books by Bradbury, I looked up “dandelion wine”. The recipe I found was so unbelievably complex that I wondered why anyone would bother trying (about as difficult as the steps and materials required to turn “eggplant” into an edible substance).
There’s also the gag where you convince somebody to pose as if they’re about the blow all the seeds away from a dandelion puffball, and then you get them to hold still with their mouth open, and then an accomplice pushes the puffball into the victim’s mouth. Hilarity ensues (assuming you are not the victim).
My wife used to make dandelion wine, and has a recipe for same in her book on home winemaking (shameless plug):
https://joyofwine.net/book.htm
I just looked at it and Kilby is right — it does sound rather more complicated than most home/country winemaking varieties. As I recall, I didn’t care that much for it either (preferring her cherry, blueberry, and watermelon options).
“The French… and everybody else: use the leaves for salad.”
Not me. First I’ve heard of it. But I’m quite uncultured…if it’s an ‘haute couture’ thing rather than a provincial kind of thing. Or both. Or somewhere in between. In any case, it’s news to me.
So, if you’re dead in France, you eat dandelions from the root up, but if you’re alive in France (and everywhere else), you eat them sideways. Gotcha’.
And if you’re the victim of JP’s practical joker, you eat them from the top. And no, it was not hilarious.
I dug up some dandelions the other day. Today when I looked at the pile, I saw that many of the blossoms had managed to go to seed. I guess there was enough stored food in the roots and leaves.
Stan: it’s both. When food is scarce, anything edible will be considered: nettle soup, dandelion salad. Then, people will ditch the stuff as soon as better food is available; but sooner or later, some hype cooks will offer it as “authentic”, because unsophisticated, food.
“And if you’re the victim of JP’s practical joker”
I would like to establish that I have never participated in such a stunt. I saw it on YouTube.
“people will ditch the stuff as soon as better food is available”
I hear you. My grandfather-in-law who grew up in a fishing village loved to tell the story of how all the rich kids in school had peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, while the rest of them had to make do with lobster.
Stan, there’s an interesting story I heard about lobster. Yes, it originally was poor people’s food. In the 18th century, a poorhouse near Boston served it to the inmates so often that they went on a hunger strike in protest. But the interesting story is that the railroads turned it into a delicacy. It was very cheap, but very available to the railroads that could pick it up in Maine or Boston. It was also practically unknown in the hinterlands, but the train could pick it up in the early morning in Boston and serve it for lunch in the Central time zone. But how did they get people to order it? They invented “Surf and Turf”. For the price of a big piece of steak you could get a small piece of steak and a lobster. By making it expensive they made it acceptable, and they sold it to people who had never heard of it and didn’t know how cheap it really was.
Of course it really is expensive NOW, because you can’t just scoop up all the 1-pound-and-up lobsters in the ocean this year and expect them all to be replaced by next year. They do not grow fast.
Mark – supposedly in your corner of the country there was a limit on how often servants could be given lobster to eat – don’t know if that if that is true or not.
We had an education program for members this past Sunday from our reenactment unit. It was information about our HQ (a home and business of a craftsman in period) and how to give tours of it, while several fellows practiced drilling out back (mostly newer members).
Robert and I were giving the info about the house and giving tours After the main part of the discussions on same were winding down, we were taking questions from the few members that were there and the talk turned to education and then education of women. We were talking about the things that girls would learn for when they marry – the usual cooking, sewing, cleaning… Then the talk to turned to doctors and the need for women in particular as the one in charge of the family and house to know about how to deal with common illnesses, injuries etc. One of the women who demonstrates spices and herbs at events was telling us that there are some plants which are poisonous which were used to treat illnesses back then. (I admit I forget which she told us about.) So plants may have been killing people back then too – and by the hand of the person trying to make them better – or it just made them ill enough to make them better possibly.