In the kitchen

Mais Jamais! A Second Good Friday Story

                                     

Ils m'ont dit, que, tu connais longtemps passé les femmes raboulait aussi, ç'après rabouler on Good Friday avec un mulet sur la charrue. Et le prète, lui il a été ride around in the country, il a vu la femme après rabouler on Good Friday, ça fait, il a arrêtté, il dit, "Madame," il dit "Vous connais pas, il dit, aujourd'hui c'est vendredi saint?" 

A dit "Aw?" "C'est aujourd'hui c'est ç'a le jour àyou Jésu Christ est mort?!" "Oh!! Bon Dieu." a dit, "Père," a dit, "Moi j'ai jamais quitté connait qu'il était malade, cher. 

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They say, you know, a long time ago, that women labored in the fields also. There was one plowing on Good Friday with a mule and cart. And the priest, him, he was out riding around in the country, and he saw the woman plowing on Good Friday, so he stopped and he said "Madame," he says, "Don't you know that it's Good Friday?"

She said, "Aw?"

"Today is the day that Jesus Christ died!"

"Oh, Good God!" she said, "Father," she said, "Me I never knew that he was sick, dear."  

A Good Friday Story: Wild Mint

We had been working in the garden all of Holy Week as usual last year, but I kept on reminding my family not to dig on Good Friday. There is a belief that the ground will bleed the blood of Christ if you dig on the day he was crucified. The urge is strong as gravity to garden in the spring, but, resolved not to dig, so as not to disturb the sleeping blood of Jesus that lurks just below the surface on that day only, lest it burst forth under our toils and ruin our Easter completely, we abstained.

So, on Good Friday, we went to Pilette, a place between Lafayette and Broussard, to the newly emptied homestead of our grandparents who had just passed, both in the spring, less than a year apart. We went to see the empty house for the last time. There was certainty that the land would be sold and developed, as it was open land on a major thoroughfare in Lafayette. We did one last walk through the pasture to pick blackberries, gathering honeysuckle and dodging the other uncle's horses who were stalled at the barn. We reminisced about the drive-in theater that was on the property in the 1950's, and the Cajun bands who played there at the Bayou Jamboree. While we were walking, Nonc Dav guided us to the shady spot near the road where they used to find a wild mint growing. Mint is so hardy, it survived in rank competition of the blackberry bushes and tall goldenrod for all these years. We found it in many little patches, very small plants, a lovely spearmint. I imagined that it was in the yard of some homestead off of Pinhook Road 100 years ago, which was then open country, or else that Granny herself had planted it when she was a young bride. We decided to bring some home. So one of us ran back to the house to get a spoon and cup and we dug it up right there. It wasn't until late that night that, shocked, I realized what we had done. And though you think it would have, the ancestral land did not bleed.

Granny's Wild Pilette Mint

Update: After three years of encouragement, I could not get this mint to survive more than one season and it was lost in the garden.

Vendredi Saint

It is said that one must not dig in the earth on Good Friday because it will make the ground bleed the Blood of Jesus, but there is another belief around here that says that it is good to plant your parsley on Good Friday so that it will not bolt. Mister J.D. Soileau of Point Blue, Louisiana has information about how to plant anyway, and kill trees if you want to do that, too.

  Les Remarques de Vendredi Saint

Vendredi Saint tu plantais ton persil. Tu travaillais ta terre le jeudi bien et là le vendredi tu mettais la graine sur la terre et tu 'trappais un sac de peat et tu mettais ça dessus. Là ton persil té planté et j'crois ça dit il entrait pas en graine aussi vite...

Là si tu voulais tuer les arbres qui tu voulais pas, tu cernais tout le tour.
Tu cernais sur un jour special, J?
Mais sur vendredi saint!
Sur vendredi saint, alright!
Alors, tu cernais les arbres sur vendredi saint et ça ça les tué.
Ouais, mon grand-père faisait ça. C'était juste que j'voulais dire les vieux rémarques sur le vendredi saint.
Comment tu crois, hein?
Ouais.
Ça c'est beaucoup intéressant!
Ok, Thank you Jim.
Merci Beaucoup, J.
Alright.
Mister J.D. Soileau of L'anse Bleue Louisiana!

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On Good Friday you planted your parsley. you worked the soil on Thursday and then on Friday, you put the seed on the ground and you got a sack of peat and you would put that on it. Then your parsley would be planted, and it would not go to seed too quickly.

Then if you wanted to kill some trees, you had some trees that you didn't want, you'd ring them.
You would ring them on a special day?
On Good Friday!
So you would ring the trees on Good Friday and that would kill them.
Yes, my grandfather did that. It's just that I wanted to say some old comments on Good Friday.
How about that, eh?
Yeah.
That is very interesting!
....