Gran Torino

The Celtic Sage has long complained about the endless popcorn movies emanating from the US of A and the stranglehold on movie distribution in the UK which means non-mainstream offerings find it impossible to find a screen. So our wide choice multiplexes fill up with derivative offerings designed by committees of cynical marketing wallahs. Therefore Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino” is proof that America can still make great movies which have something to say, and the fact that the 78 year old leading actor is also the Director and turns in a wonderful performance is a bonus. Say what you like but at 78 Clint is still the Man!

Gran Torino is a 2008 American drama film directed by, produced by and starring Clint Eastwood. The film marks Eastwood's return to a lead acting role after four years - his last leading role being Million Dollar Baby. The film features a predominantly Hmong cast, as well as Eastwood's younger son, Scott Eastwood. Eastwood's older son, Kyle Eastwood, provided the score.

Considering that Clint Eastwood's most iconic roles have been serious ones, it's easy to forget that he can be funny — that he possesses terrific timing with his sly sense of humour. He grumbles and growls his way through his most entertaining performance in years in Gran Torino as Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran and lifelong auto worker who's disgusted with the changes in his blue-collar, suburban Detroit neighbourhood. There are unshakable shades of Dirty Harry here, as well as Frankie Dunn, the curmudgeonly character he played in 2004's Million Dollar Baby, his most recent screen appearance. At 78, Eastwood combines both the tough and playful sides of his personality — in front of and behind the camera as star and director — with "Gran Torino," which begins in broadly entertaining fashion but ultimately reveals that it has weightier matters on its mind.


The Man!

Having just buried his saintly wife, all the retired Walt wants to do is be left alone with his dog, his guns and his beer — a seemingly never-ending supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which he drinks with an old-school earnestness rather than a kitschy, hip way. The film opens at her funeral service in the local church, and we immediately see that Walt has little patience for other human beings, even those in his own family. He literally snarls at anyone who pisses him off...which is pretty much everyone. He's mad at two people whispering and smiling during the service; he's mad at the way his granddaughter dresses for the event; he's mad at the young priest (Christopher Carley) who was friendly with Walt's wife and who promised her before she died that he'd check in on Walt to make sure the crotchety bastard was doing alright. Every offer for help, every attempt by his grown kids to move Walt out of the terrible neighbourhood where he lives (he is apparently the only white guy still living in the crime-ridden area) is met with something that goes beyond resistance. Walt hates the world and the world responds in kind.

As a sharp-tongued bigot, he certainly doesn't want to be bothered by the growing Asian population all around him, and especially not the Hmong family living next door. Despite hurling every imaginable epithet at these people - Nick Schenk's script is unabashed in its political incorrectness - Walt can't seem to avoid them.

First, he catches shy teenage son Thao (Bee Vang) trying to steal his mint-condition 1972 Ford Gran Torino as part of a gang initiation he's forced into by his thug cousin. Then, cultural tradition dictates that Thao must make up for the transgression by working for Walt for free. (This is basically an excuse for Walt to force the boy, whom he nicknames "Toad," into doing chores around the house in some of the movie's more amusing scenes.)

But the old man also finds an unexpected connection with Thao's older sister Sue (Ahney Her), who shares his blunt-talking attitude. And when he orders a group of gang members at gunpoint to "Get off my lawn" - with echoes of Eastwood's classic "Go ahead, make my day," - he's perceived as a vigilante hero among the Hmong community.


Get off my lawn!

Sure, the premise is predictable. You know from the beginning that Walt's contact with his neighbour’s will soften him. And maybe the performances are a bit stiff from his young actors, all untrained first-timers. But "Gran Torino" becomes more intriguing as the journey its takes us on evolves and grows darker, albeit with Eastwood's trademark, no-nonsense aesthetic.

In the early 1990s, Schenk discovered the history and culture of the Hmong while working in a factory in Minnesota. He also learned how they had sided with the South Vietnamese authorities and its U.S. allies in the Vietnam War, only to wind up in refugee camps, at the mercy of communist forces, when American troops pulled out and the government forces were defeated. Years later, he was deciding how to develop a story involving a widowed Korean War veteran trying to handle the changes in his neighbourhood when he decided to place a Hmong family next door and create a culture clash.

In the 60’s and 70’s Detroit was a wealthy city as the world capital of the automobile industry and its subsequent decline has been dramatic, even Motown Records left the Motor City for LA. The “Gran Torino” is a metaphor for this decline in the manufacturing rust belt areas of America. The name is in itself strange because it was the “muscle car” development of the Ford Fairlane but GT is an abbreviation for “Gran Turismo” or Grand Tourer. However the marketing men at Ford created the name Gran Torino with the latter word referring to Turin, the centre of the Italian auto industry.

(http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/08/bella-torino.html )


1972 Ford Gran Torino

Furthermore, the 1972 model, which is Walt Kowalski’s pride and joy as an ex-Ford worker, heralded the sad end of the muscle-car era, and of Detroit's unquestioned dominance of the automotive market. Motown's high-horsepower big-block beasts were suddenly a dying breed, thanks to new emissions regulations, spiralling insurance costs, and a changing social climate. The '72 Gran Torino's highest-horsepower engine option was a lukewarm 248-horsepower 351 V8 - a far cry from the 370 horsepower-plus big blocks of just two years prior. And the road ahead for Detroit held depressing developments like 5-mph bumpers that wreaked havoc on sleek styling, an OPEC oil embargo, and sinking quality control standards. Foreign car manufacturers gained a foothold in the U.S. as American buyers began moving to import cars in larger numbers. Clearly, the makers of Gran Torino didn't just happen upon this car... they chose it very carefully for its symbolic value. Both Walt and his car are products of another time--they don't make 'em like that anymore.

The setting for the movie is not Detroit but its suburb (and separate city) of Highland Park. Henry Ford and his collaborators, the Dodge Brothers, created the modern world and with their mass production methods both unleashed the most strident era of wealth creation and technical innovation in history and changed the lives of millions. Detroit’s very name betrays the French influence as this was an important trading post on Lake St. Clair where the Great Lakes and rivers led into the interior of the continent. The French history can be heard in the names of the cars from here; Buick, Cadillac, Chrysler, de Ville, Chevrolet, Sedan, Limousine, Pontiac.


Henry Ford poses on his 78th birthday,in a suit made from soybeans


Rising on a bank of the Rouge River in Dearborn is Henry Ford's Fairlane Mansion

What is less well known is that Henry Ford never built a single car in Detroit itself but started off in Dearborn before moving his factory to Highland Park. He lived in a Mansion on Lake St. Clair named, like the precursor to the Grand Torino, after the Fair Lane in Cork City, Ireland where his parents lived before they emigrated to America to escape grinding poverty. The Henry Ford Fairlane Estate in Dearborn, MI. sits on 1300 acres. In addition to the residence and its powerhouse, the estate included a summer house, man-made lake, staff cottages, gatehouse, pony barn, skating house, greenhouse, root cellar, vegetable garden, thousand-plant peony garden, ten thousand plant rose garden, a "Santa's Workshop" for Christmas celebrations, maple sugar shack, working farm for the Ford grandchildren built to their scale, agricultural research facilities, and five hundred birdhouses to satisfy Mr. Ford's interest in ornithology. Henry Ford was an interesting person of strong opinions including disgraceful racist and ant-Semitic views and an evangelical belief in the health giving properties of Soybeans! It is ironic given how much the motor car have contributed to the destruction of rural life that he saw his Model-T as helping to preserve rural America and its way of life.

While Gran Torino is entirely of a piece with Eastwood's other work, it also stands apart from his artful films of the past six years in its completely straightforward, unstudied style. There are underlying themes and understated points of view, most fundamentally about the need to get beyond racial and ethnic prejudice, the changing face of the nation and the future resting in the hands of today's immigrants. In a way that clearly could not have been intended, Eastwood could be said to have inadvertently made the first film of the Obama era.

Eastwood has dealt very intelligently and matter-of-factly with race throughout his career -- in Bird, Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, among others - and in this respect, the key scene here is one in which Kowalski takes Thao to an Italian barber and, with the intention of making him “man up," teaches him the relevant ethnic insults, which, in his world, everyone should be able to withstand and humorously throw back at the perpetrator. For the two older adults, it's a game - a rite of passage that incorporates a healthy, if superficially abrasive, acknowledgment of their differences.

So here we have a movie which speaks of important issues in America. The decline of neighbourhood and traditional industries in a town where a car is today worth more than a house. It deals with an aging America and the alienation of youth, with immigration and racism, with gang culture and gun crime (“Hmong girls go to college, Hmong boys go to prison.”). And how does the American movie industry respond to this movie which deals with themes important to contemporary society?

Well the film was snubbed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the 81st Academy Awards, and thus was not nominated for a single Oscar, leading to heated criticism from critics and moviegoers alike. Take this as an inverse endorsement and strike a blow against popcorn dross by seeing “Gran Torino” and The Man for yourself!

For St. George and England?

Engerland - where that?



The 23rd of April is St. Georges’s Day and a campaign is afoot to have it celebrated as a National Holiday in England in the words of the Stgeorgesday.com “A site for England":

“As you may know, other countries all over the world celebrate their patron saint or have other days, the closest to us and probably the most well known is Saint Patrick's Day for Ireland! This day is celebrated all over the UK and also widely in the USA, what about Burns night for Scotland, for a well celebrated Scottish poet where the toasting of his words culminates in the eating of haggis, why then can we not have our own patron saint's day?”

In tandem with this the Government quango, English Heritage has launched a campaign to dispel the apathy surrounding St George's Day and encourage more people to celebrate the country's patron saint. A survey by the government agency revealed that fewer than one in five people mark St George's Day on April 23rd, suggesting that the English feel less national pride than the Welsh, Irish and Scottish. In an attempt to rectify the situation, English Heritage has produced a St George's Day Guide, which suggests recipes and traditional games with a St George and the Dragon theme. For those of you unfamiliar with English Heritage it is the Quango which took over historic public properties and sites from the Board of Works and by pretending to be separate from Government now charges to go into these sites which we already paid for and own as taxpayers. Nice work if you can get it!



Lady Godiva didn't need all this gear!

Now, those of you who have read The Paddy’s Day Blog

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/03/st-paddys-day-blog.html

will know that I compare unfavourably the very real connection St. Patrick has with Ireland with the situation of George of Cappadocia who may or may not be the St. George of England, who didn’t even know England existed and who was foisted on England by Richard the Lionheart, a French Plantagenet who spent less than six months in England during his reign. Or St. Andrew, crucified on a saltire in Patras and whose bones are now in Patras and the Duomo in Amalfi who had absolutely no connection with Scotland, unless you believe a cock and bull storey about his bones (he must have had a lot of bones as they also claim to have his arm in Kephalonia!) being brought under “divine guidance” to St. Andrews in Scotland!





What can be said with certainty about George is that he is a very busy saint. St. George's Day is celebrated by several nations of which Saint George is the patron saint, including Catalonia (Spain), England, Portugal, Georgia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Macedonia. For England, St. George's Day also marks its National Day. Most countries who observe St. George's Day celebrate it on 23rd. April, the traditionally accepted date of Saint George's death in 303 AD. St. George's Day is a provincial government holiday in Newfoundland, Canada. All very well and all very busy but none of this answers the question of what does he mean to England and how can you identify with a saint who didn’t really care about you because he never knew you even existed? St. George's Day is not celebrated as much in England as other National Days are around the world. The celebration of St. George's Day was once a major feast in England on a par with Christmas from the early 15th century. However, this tradition had waned by the end of the 18th century. On the other hand, there have also been calls to replace St. George as patron saint of England, on the grounds that he was an obscure figure who had no direct connection with the country. However there is no obvious consensus as to whom to replace him with, though names suggested include St. Edmund, St. Cuthbert, or St. Alban, with the latter having topped a BBC Radio 4 poll on the subject.


St. George attacking Ali Baba?

There is very little known in reality about Saint George. He's popularly identified with England and English ideals of honour, bravery and gallantry - but actually he wasn't English at all. Pope Gelasius said that George is one of the saints "whose names are rightly reverenced among us, but whose actions are known only to God." The little we do know is from accounts written well after the fact. What we believe to be the truth is that George was born in the Cappadocia region of central Turkey in the 3rd century; that his parents were Christians; and that when his father died, George's mother returned to her native Palestine, taking George with her. George became a soldier in the Roman army and rose to the rank of Tribune. The Emperor of the day, Diocletian (245-313 AD), began a campaign against Christians at the very beginning of the 4th century. In about 303 AD George is said to have objected to this persecution and resigned his military post in protest. George tore up the Emperor's order against Christians. This infuriated Diocletian, and George was imprisoned and tortured - but he refused to deny his faith. Eventually he was dragged through the streets of Diospolis (now Lydda) in Palestine and beheaded.



As was common there were many fanciful accounts of Saints and their wonderful deeds and a whole cult of veneration of their relics. After (with a gap) the Emperor Diocletian, Constantine the Great became Emperor and the position of Christianity was transformed when it became the state religion of the empire. It is possible the tale of St. George was played up to cast Diocletian in an evil light and draw a contrast between his vigorous persecutions of Christians and Constantine’s endorsement of Christianity.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/fall-of-byzantium.html

What is clear is that Richard the Lionheart, a French Plantagenet, who actually spoke English badly and spent less than six months in England as King endorsed St. George as Patron Saint because the Crusaders identified with his being martyred in land which they held as part of The Kingdom of Jerusalem and then of Acre in the 13th Century. George's reputation grew with the returning crusaders. A miracle appearance, when it was claimed that he appeared to lead crusaders into battle, is recorded in stone over the south door of a church at Fordington in Dorset. This still exists and is the earliest known church in England to be dedicated to Saint George. The Council of Oxford in 1222 named 23rd April as Saint George's Day.


Of course I'm a Dragon!

The story of Saint George and the Dragon only achieved mass circulation when it was printed in 1483 by Caxton in a book called The Golden Legend. This was a translation of a book by Jacques de Voragine, a French bishop, which incorporated fantastic details of Saints' lives.





Part of the efforts to promote St. George’s Day is to promote a concept of Englishness and the difficulty and confusion can be seen in the statement from Gordon Brown’s office announcing that Downing Street would be flying the flag of St. George on the day; "The Prime Minister's view is that of course we should celebrate our Britishness, but celebrating our Britishness does not mean we cannot also celebrate our Englishness, Scottishness, Welshness or Northern Irishness." Well leaving aside the last one there are more Ness’s there than in the highlands of Scotland!

It is time to face up to two important facts: St George has nothing to do with England and there are and never were creatures called Dragons. Oh, and while I’m at it there are probably no fairies at the end of the garden.

Having said that, have a happy St. Georges Day!


St. George's Day in Ye Olde Luton Towne

The Naked Taoiseach

The real Brian Cowen?


Since he took over as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland in May 2008 Brian Cowen has looked even more hapless than, well, his hapless predecessor, Bertie Ahern.
( http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/12/bertie-ahern-and-poverty-in-ireland.html ) This is in itself quiet a considerable achievement for the politician from Clara, Co. Offaly (where my mother’s family hail from) but the Celtic Tiger is now looking like a very sick Celtic Pussycat as the economy spirals downwards, tax receipts go though the floor, public spending is out of control and unemployment heads inexorably towards 15%. On top of that Ireland has shot itself in the foot by nationalising Anglo-Irish Bank with its toxic debt mainly on overvalued (or in some cases non-existent) property assets abroad owned in many instances by speculators linked to Brian Cowen’s Fianna Fail political party. As stories of waste, extravagance and corruption abound the public perception of Irish Politicians has hit an all time low and none has looked more impotent and naked in the face of the economic maelstrom than Brian Cowen.

Well one talented artist has taken this perception further and hung (sic) two naked portraits of the Naked Taoiseach unnoticed in empty spaces in art galleries. Two unorthodox portraits — one in the National Gallery showing the Taoiseach on the toilet, and another in the Royal Hibernian Gallery showing him holding his Y-fronts — appeared mysteriously in Dublin among paintings of the country’s other famous citizens in more decorous poses. So just who did hang the unflattering paintings of a naked Brian Cowen, the Irish Prime Minister, in the country’s most prestigious art galleries?



The Irish media speculated that the prankster had created the artworks in an attempt to lift the nation’s spirits at a time of deep economic gloom. Judging by the chuckles of visitors and comments inundating the blogosphere, the stunt worked.

“Biffo on the bog”, was one gleeful response, referring to the Taoiseach by his nickname, which stands for “Big Ignorant F***er from Offaly”. The artist reportedly walked calmly into the National Gallery carrying a shoulder bag. He then affixed a prepared caption for the picture to a free space among portraits of Michael Collins, William Butler Yeats and Bono, before hanging his canvas, undisturbed by security.

The caption read: “Brian Cowen, Politician 1960-2008. This portrait, acquired uncommissioned by the National Gallery, celebrates one of the finest politicians produced by Ireland since the foundation of the state. Following a spell at the helm of the Department of Finance during a period of unprecedented prosperity, Brian Cowen inherited the office of Taoiseach in 2008. Balancing a public image that ranges from fantastically intelligent analytical thinker to Big Ignorant F***er from Offaly, the Taoiseach proves to be a challenging subject to represent.”



One woman who saw the National Gallery portrait of the Taoiseach, pictured gripping a toilet roll in one hand, commented: “Well at least that is one mess he has been able to clear up.” The Sunday Tribune reported that the portrait of Mr Cowen wearing nothing but his glasses hung for more than an hour, with hundreds of patrons believing it to be a genuine part of the collection. After security guards removed it, police were called to examine the portrait and CCTV evidence.

The guerrilla artist, emboldened by his success, went on to hang a second portrait of the Taoiseach in the Royal Hibernian Gallery. The second naked portrait depicted a portly Mr Cowen, still in his glasses, holding a pair of blue and white pants in his left hand. One woman who saw the work was impressed enough to make an offer.

Dublin is rife with rumour about the identity of the artist. Ian Whyte, of Whyte’s Gallery, said: “It was certainly a professional job; the two paintings were both very well executed. They are actually better than the work of a few artists I thought it might be. Everyone will be talking about it until the identity is revealed.




National Gallery of Ireland

“No crime was committed; whoever it was didn’t take anything. In fact, he donated something.”

The real news however is not that this picture was hung, but the censorship afterwards. After a story was ran about it on RTE, the Irish state broadcaster, Prime Minister Cowen and his political party rang the TV Station and demanded the story be removed from the RTE website, and it was, demanded the clip of the news item be removed, and demanded an apology, which they got on air! This is a display of blatant censorship, the Irish government putting political pressure on a television station to avoid embarrassment.


A happy Irish Voter

Consider the weasel words of this verbatim report from today’s Irish Independent;

Last night, it broadcast an apology for its story about the illegal (sic)hanging of hoax nude portraits of Mr Cowen in the National Gallery and the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin.

"RTE News would like to apologise for any personal offence caused to Mr Cowen or his family for any disrespect shown to the office of the Taoiseach," it said. A spokesman for Mr Cowen confirmed that he had made a complaint about the story, which he said "went beyond the news values of RTE". The report described how Police were investigating who was responsible for leaving the nude paintings of Mr Cowen in the two galleries. Last night, Fianna Fail Dublin-North TD Michael Kennedy called on RTE director general Cathal Goan to "consider his position".

What a wonderful description which confirms that Ireland is still a Nation of Master Debaters; “"went beyond the news values of RTE" and showed “disrespect for the Office of Taoiseach”. This is of course the Office which Brian Cowen’s predecessor resigned from after revelations of receiving “brown envelopes” of money in pubs because his friends felt “sorry for him”, where another Fianna Fail Taoiseach Charles Haughey received £8.5 m in untaxed “gifts” which we know about. This is a country which has had 21 “tax amnesties” in 30 years and where the planning system has been shown to be systemically corrupt with back handers the order of the day. Where there are open gang shootouts most weeks with the hapless Police force reduced to bystanders and which maintains 832 free spending Quangos which squander public funds without accountability for a country with the population of say, Greater Manchester.

Never have a Taoiseach and a discredited political party looked more hapless than when engaging in this sad attempt to control the state owned News Media in a way which is more redolent of Ceausescu’s Romania towards the end. All praise indeed to the Hero Artist who has wonderfully exposed not just this blundering Taoiseach but that the entire self serving Irish Political and Economic elite are former emperors who have been exposed as wearing no clothes!


The happy Irish electorate

Grand Slam

Brian O'Driscoll and Ronan O'Gara celebrate after Ireland's Grand Slam win over Wales yesterday

The Celtic Sage is not the best person to comment on Ireland’s historic victory yesterday in Rugby Footballs Six Nations Trophy. For one thing, despite enjoying many wonderful rugby weekends in Dublin, he has never gone to a rugby match! A combination of an aversion to field sports when marched off to GAA pitches when at school and then in his early teens having a friend end up as a quadriplegic after he broke his neck in a rugby match saw to that. Indeed I was a member of Railway Union Rugby and Cricket Club in Dublin but strictly a “Pavillion” member enjoying the late night social facilities and alternative banking facility it offered. I even worked with the person who became the late and legendary Irish Rugby coach Mick Doyle’s sister-in-law and could have obtained top match tickets but was not interested!



However even to a Rugger Agnostic like myself yesterday was a momentous occasion. A squad of men from north and south showed a resolution and unity of will that cannot but inspire yesterday in Cardiff, Wales. The triumph of this all-Ireland team was proof how much can be achieved if Irish people put aside petty differences and sectional squabbles and pull together. However, a new year has entered Irish sporting folklore - 2009. This is the year that Ireland proved the doubters wrong and won the Triple Crown, Six Nations Championship and the Grand Slam, a clean sweep of the Rugby Union football trophies.


An Irish supporter

Irish rugby fans are still celebrating the dramatic 17-15 win over Wales yesterday which captured a Six Nations first Grand Slam for 61 years in a victory which united the nation and revived flagging public spirits. Many people in Ireland are waking up not just with a huge hangover but a genuine feeling of shock. It has been a depressing time north and south of the border in recent weeks, and when Wales were awarded a last-minute penalty in the Six Nations decider in Cardiff, the mood was one of resignation.


Brian O'Driscoll in action

So much so that when the kick fell short, there was a moment of stunned disbelief before the euphoria broke out. The joy was then felt in bars and living rooms from Lisburn to Limerick, from Coleraine to Cork.

Thousands of people turned out today (Sunday) in Dublin to greet Ireland's rugby squad after their Six Nations win in which they clinched their first Grand Slam in 61 years. The team, which completed a clean sweep after beating Wales 17-15, were given a rapturous welcome at the Mansion House in Dublin. Captain Brian O'Driscoll, who scored Ireland's first try, said it was a "fantastic feeling. You're not as sore as you would have been if you had lost," he said.


Mansion House reception, Dublin

A little background for my overseas Blogistas on Rugby Union football and the “Six Nations” championship. Played annually, the format of the Championship is simple: each team plays every other team once, with home field advantage alternating from one year to the next. Two points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. Unlike most other rugby union competitions the bonus point system is not used. Victory in every game results in a 'Grand Slam'. Victory by any Home Nation over the other three Home Nations is a 'Triple Crown'. The “Six Nations” taking part in the trophy are England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland (collectively referred to as the “Home nations”) France and Italy. Rugby union is a competitive outdoor contact sport, played with an oval ball, by two teams of 15 players. It is one of the two codes of rugby football, the other being rugby league.


Ireland receiving the trophy from Prince William and President Mary Mc Aleese

Polish Recipes

With the influx over the last few years of Poles into the UK and Ireland Polish food has made it onto the displays at the major supermarkets and is not just confined to specialist retailers. This is a good development because the cuisine provides nutritious no nonsense comfort food which belies the stereotypes by being highly tasty and rewarding.









Daquise



In the past in London I’ve patronised two Eastern European establishments. Daquise in Thurloe Place around the corner from South Kensington Underground Station is the oldest Polish restaurant in London (established 1947), the place where the Polish government-in-exile would meet to plan campaigns against the Communist regime. It was refurbished after a fire and reopened looking just the same as before in 2006! Upstairs there is a cosy restaurant which is happy to serve you Polish staples like pirogi (ravioli-like dumplings stuffed with mushrooms or cheese), golabki (cabbage rolls), platski (potato pancakes) and bigos (meat and cabbage hunter's stew), all of which just happen to feature on Daquise's special Polish platter. Or they are equally happy to serve you good coffee and excellent dark chocolate cake. Downstairs the deal is the same with a small bar serving 15 vodkas! I It is an oasis of comfort food, sensible prices and continuity in an area not noted for these qualities. There are certainly Polish cafes with better food but you will enjoy the Polish beer and the Polish vodka, the small prices, the kasha, the sense of history and continuity, and the no-nonsense-but-with-a-heart-of-gold waitresses.





Borshtch N'tears



Borshtch N'tears not far away in Beauchamp Street is in fact Russian (or more accurately from over the border in Ukraine, but some of this was Polish until WW11, it’s complicated!) but enjoys a far less sedate reputation for it was once a good, if somewhat rowdy, place to go for a drink late at night. This place sells Russian food as it should be. The borscht tastes exactly as it should, the piroski are soft & tasty. They sell salo, holodec and shuba. The plmeni and shashlik are authentic, the food is plentiful, Ukrainian size portions and their selections of vodkas are the real deal. Oh, and more importantly, the atmosphere is exactly as it should be, free & boisterous. The musicians play great Russian music, really creating an unbeatable atmosphere.



So I was looking forward to sampling Polish cuisine on its home turf and because Poland had its “special friends” from Russian there until 1989 there is also a selection of Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Georgian and Armenian restaurants in Kraków. So these days there is plenty of variety even if first time visitors might get the impression that the Polish National dish is something called a “Kebabsky” with a “Chessburgy” a close second! Ignoring such delights when I was in Kraków a few days ago I enjoyed spending time reading at Massolit, drinking warm beer (alarmingly good!) at Alchemia, wandering through Kazimierz and staving off the cold by drinking cups of Grzaniec Galicyjski (Galicia is the old name for Southern Poland) - a mulled wine served from street stands in Rynek Glowny.





A Kraków cafe forever in Mittel Europa



Going through the seat of the Polish Kings, Wavel Castle overlooking Kraków, on a cold day we appreciated the high standard in the spotless visitor’s restaurant where we refuelled and warmed up with two staples, bowls of Borshtch served with potato croquettes and White Borshtch with sausage. They were both accompanied with very good bread and a pottery mug of traditional Polish mulled wine. More than enough to reinvigorate the body and soul before setting forth to explore the fascinating spiritual, cultural and educational capital of Free Poland and the actual capital and seat of the Polish Kings for over 400 years. Here are the recipes for a typical Polish winter warmer experience.





Wavel Castle







White Borshtch with sausage



Makes 5/6 generous portions of this guaranteed winter warmer.



Ingredients:



450 g. Polish sausage

1 litre buttermilk

1 cup milk

1 egg

3 tablespoons flour

Salt to taste

Boiled potatoes, optional

Hard boiled egg, optional

Prepared horseradish, optional



Method:



Place .75 litres of water in a large pan. Add sausage and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low-simmer and cook, covered, for 30 minutes. Remove sausage, reserving cooking liquid, and set sausage aside to cool.



Add buttermilk to cooking liquid and return to boil, reduce heat to low and simmer.



In a medium bowl, combine milk and egg. Gradually whisk in flour and stir until smooth. Add 3 tablespoons of the simmering soup base to the milk-egg mixture and stir to combine (this tempers the egg so it doesn't curdle when added to the soup base). Slowly drizzle milk-egg mixture into the simmering soup, whisking continuously until all has been added, continue to simmer until soup has thickened. Add salt to taste.



Serve with reserved Polish sausage. This may also be served with boiled potatoes, slices of hard boiled egg and a dollop of prepared horseradish.



Borshtch (Beetroot Soup)





Borshtch with potato croquettes



Makes approximately 6 servings.



Ingredients:



1 large onion

450 g. beetroot

450 g. potatoes

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp oil

1 litre vegetable stock or beetroot cooking liquid (you can get this from canned or bottled beetroot)

Salt and Pepper

2 tbsp lemon Juice

Pinch of chopped chives

0.175 litre thick plain yoghurt or soured cream



Method:



Cook the beetroot in a saucepan of salted water, bring to the boil and then simmer until tender. Allow to cool, peel and chop.



Peel and chop the onion and potatoes and sauté in the oil, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes.



Crush the garlic cloves and add to the sautéed onions and potatoes and continue cooking for 5 minutes.



Add the vegetable stock, chopped beetroot, lemon juice and salt and pepper, bring back to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes.



Allow to cool slightly and then put through a liquidiser until smooth. Reheat before serving, pour into bowls and garnish with a swirl of the yoghurt or sour cream and the chopped chives.



This is normally accompanied by cylindrical potato croquettes. Croquettes in Poland are basically made from a thin rolled pancake stuffed with potato, mushrooms, meat, cabbage, sauerkraut or combinations of those ingredients. They are then covered in breadcrumbs, fried in a pan and usually served usually with the clear soup. If you use mashed potato made the day before it improves the taste.





Grzaniec Galicyjski



GRZANIEC – Polish mulled wine



In pot combine 1 litre dry red wine, 5-6 Teaspoons of sugar, a grating of nutmeg and a pinch or two of cinnamon and ground cloves and heat to boiling. You can also use a sweet red wine, in which case omit or decrease the amount of sugar.



For more on Kraków, the heart of Polonia see;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/krakow-heart-of-poland.html

St. Paddy's Day Blog

Round Tower, Glendalough

The St. Patrick's Festival is Ireland's official celebration for its national holiday - St. Patrick's Day on Tuesday 17th March 2009. St. Patrick and St. Bridgid are the patron saints of Ireland but the former is better known due to the world wide Paddy Whackery which takes place on his feast day and indeed over a number of days. In my hometown of Dublin the festival now lasts 4 days – a far cry from many years ago when I used to stand with my Scout Group as part of the “Guard of Honour” in front of the reviewing stand at the GPO in Dublin's main thoroughfare, O’Connell Street, and watch a succession of commercial floats, Irish Dancing schools and over excitable American majorettes go by in a parade of dismal banality.


Ist Dublin (LHO) Scout Group Guard of Honour G.P.O. Dublin

However, behind the drinks industry sponsored excesses and politicians climbing on the original Green bandwagon there is a serious argument in favour of St. Patrick on a number of counts – firstly he actually visited and has a real connection with Ireland and secondly he left a body of work which gives us a lot of information and understanding about him. Contrast that with the situation of George of Cappodacia who may or may not be the St. George of England, who didn’t even know England existed and who was foisted on England by Richard the Lionheart, a French Plantagenet who spent less than six months in England during his reign.
( http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/for-st-george-and-england.html )

Or St. Andrew, crucified on a saltire in Patras and whose bones are now in Patras and the Duomo in Amalfi who had absolutely no connection with Scotland, unless you believe a cock and bull storey about his bones (he must have had a lot of bones as they also claim to have his arm in Kephalonia!) being brought under “divine guidance” to St. Andrews in Scotland! ( http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/02/amalfi-coast.html ) Compared to these Patrick is real in body, thought and most importantly, connection to Ireland.




Statue of St.Patrick



Saint Patrick is believed to have been born in the late fourth century, and is often confused with Palladius, a bishop who was sent by Pope Celestine in 431 A.D. to be the first bishop to the Irish believers in Christ. Saint Patrick is the patron saint and national apostle of Ireland who is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. Most of what is known about him comes from his two works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Epistola, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians. Saint Patrick described himself as a "most humble-minded man, pouring forth a continuous paean of thanks to his Maker for having chosen him as the instrument whereby multitudes who had worshipped idols and unclean things had become the people of God."

In his Confessio he describes how he came to Ireland:

“I, Patrick, a sinner, am a most uncultivated man, and the least of all the faithful, and I am greatly despised by many.

My father was the deacon Calpornius, son of the late Potitus, a priest of the town of Banna Venta Berniae (probably near Carlisle) He had a small estate nearby, where I was taken captive. I was barely sixteen. I had neglected the true God, and when I was carried off into captivity in Ireland, along with a great number of people, it was well deserved. For we cut ourselves off from God and did not keep his commandments, and we disobeyed our bishops who were reminding us of our salvation. God revealed himself to us through his wrath: He scattered us among foreign peoples, even to the end of the earth, where, appropriately, I have my own small existence among strangers.”

The Sage in an Ancient St. Patrick Day's Parade, Dublin




St. Patrick's Day Parade, Dublin

Saint Patrick is best known for driving the snakes from Ireland. It is true there are no snakes in Ireland, but there probably never have been - the island was separated from the rest of the continent at the end of the Ice Age. As in many old pagan religions, serpent symbols were common and often worshipped. Driving the snakes from Ireland was probably symbolic of putting an end to that pagan practice. While not the first to bring Christianity to Ireland, it is Patrick who is said to have encountered the Druids at Tara and abolished their pagan rites. The story holds that he converted the warrior chiefs and princes, baptising them and thousands of their subjects in the "Holy Wells" that still bear this name.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/12/hill-of-tara.html


The Chicago River dyed green for St. Patrick's Day

The association with Ireland’s symbol the Shamrock come from him using this 3 leaved plant to explain the Christian concept formulated by the Council of Nicea of the Trinity, of there being one God but having three manifestations, The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit. It has to be said that despite the Shamrock this is not a concept recognised by many Rabbis, Imans or indeed some other Christians such as the Coptic Church.

There are several accounts of Saint Patrick's death. One says that Patrick died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland, on March 17, 460 A.D. His jawbone was preserved in a silver shrine and was often requested in times of childbirth, epileptic fits, and as a preservative against the "evil eye." Another account says that St. Patrick ended his days at Glastonbury, England and was buried there. The Chapel of St. Patrick still exists as part of Glastonbury Abbey. Today, many Catholic places of worship all around the world are named after St. Patrick, including cathedrals in New York, Dublin and my own favourite, Bridgetown, Barbados.


St. Patrick's Grave,Downpatrick

At his putative burial place in Downpatrick, near Armagh in Ulster there is now an excellent St. Patrick’s Centre with an informative website:

www.saintpatrickcentre.com


Pilgramage to Croagh Patrick

However to my mind there is far more fun to be had with the saint forever associated with the hauntingly beautiful valley of Glendalough (“Valley of the two lakes”) in Co. Wicklow and its monastic settlement of which many remains can be seen still today including a Round Tower where the monastery’s treasures were kept to protect them from marauders. St Kevin is celebrated not just for his piety but also for his misogyny being celebrated in a famous ballad by the Irish folk group The Dubliner’s for killing a woman who tried to lead him astray!

Glendalough from a postcard c. 1890




Glendalough

He was Abbot of Glendalough, Ireland, born about 498 A.D., the date being very obscure and died on 3rd. June, 618 A.D; son of Coemlog and Coemell. His name signifies fair-begotten. He was baptized by St. Cronan and educated by St. Petroc, a Briton. From his twelfth year he studied under monks, and eventually embraced the monastic state. Subsequently he founded the famous monastery of Glendalough the parent of several other monastic foundations. After visiting Sts. Columba, Comgall, and Canice at Usneach (Usny Hill) in Westmeath, he proceeded to Clonmacnoise, where St. Cieran had died three days before, in 544 A.D. Having firmly established his community, he retired into solitude for four years, and only returned to Glendalough at the earnest entreaty of his monks. He belonged to the second order of Irish saints and probably was never a bishop. So numerous were his followers that Glendalough became a veritable monastic city. Glendalough became an episcopal see, but is now incorporated with Dublin. St. Kevin's house and St. Kevin's bed of rock are still to be seen: and the Seven Churches of Glendalough have for centuries been visited by tourists and antiquarians. The misogyny points to the fact that the monastic tradition in the Irish Church owed more to the Eastern Church and it was only early in the 19th Century with Catholic Emancipation that Rome brought the Irish church back into the fold in more ways than one. So here is the Dubliner’s lyrical commemoration of the “old saint”.

In Glendalough lived an old saint,
Renowned for his learning and piety.
His manners were curious and quaint,
And he looked upon girls with disparity.

But as he was fishin' one day,
A-catchin' some kind of trout, sir,
Young Kathleen was walkin' that way
Just to see what the saint was about, sir.

'You're a mighty fine fisher, says Kate,
'Tis yourself is the boy that can hook them,
But when you have caught them so nate,
Don't you want some young woman to cook them?

"Be gone out of that", said the saint,
"For I am a man of great piety,
Me character I wouldn't taint,
By keeping such class of society.

But Kathleen wasn't goin' to give in,
For when he got home to his rockery,
He found her sitting therein,
A-polishing all of his crockery.

He gave the poor creature a shake,
Oh, I wish that the peelers had caught him:
He threw her right into the lake,
And of course she sank down to the bottom.

It is rumoured from that very day,
Kathleen's ghost can be seen on the river;
And the saint never raised up his hand,
For he died of the right kind of fever.

Until the rest of the world agrees with me that St. Kevin, with his outstanding record and enlightened attitude to women, is far more worthy of our national affections on Tuesday next wish your friends and colleagues a Happy St. Patrick’s Day in Gaelic:

“Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!”