Wassail

There was a young lady from Bothel
Whose lisp meant she couldn’t say fossil.
When out singing carols
She rolled out the barrels
and showed all her friends how to wassail.
There are three variations to the custom of wassailing:

Wassailing the apple trees and the barns:

A ritual performed in apple orchards to ensure a good harvest in the following year. Participants light bonfires and consume wassail. Guns are fired to make to chase away bad spirits. Toast soaked in wassail is placed in the branches of the trees.

Wassailing door to door: People go from door to door either having wassail with them or begging for it. They may be dressed in costume, singing and making merry. This is believed to be a custom of re-distribution helping the poor without placing them in the category of as a version of the song notes: “daily beggars”. It is also a way of preserving a perishable crop – apples – by turning it into something that can be preserved and takes up less weight and volume: cider, traditionally a central ingredient for wassail.

Wassailing in the hall: Wassail is consumed inside in a hall, thru a loving cup decorated with ribbons. A loving cup is a large sized wine cup with several handles, passed from person to person.

A recipe for a wassail bowl circa 1863:

• 6 bottles of Port
• 12 egg yolks
• 1 teacupful of water
• 6 egg whites
• 1 1/2 pounds sugar per 4 bottles of Port
• The following spices for each bottle:
• 10 grains mace; 46 grains cloves; 37 grains cardamom seeds; 28 grains
• cinnamon; 12 grains nutmeg; 48 grains ginger; 49 grains coriander seeds.
• 12 soft roasted apples

1. Boil on low a small quantity of the spices in a tea cupful of water.
2. Add the spice to the port along with the sugar and set on the fire in a clean saucepan; in the meantime, have yolks of 12 and the whites of 6 eggs well whisked up in it.
3. When the spiced and sugared wine is a little warm, take out one tea cupful out at a time and add to egg mixture, whisking, for about three or four cups total.
4. When remaining wine boils gradually pour in the egg-wine mixture and stir until frothy.
5. Toss in apples and send it up hot.

A more modern recipe for wassail:

• 6 cups ale
• 1 cup sugar
• pinch of cinnamon
• pinch of ginger
• pinch of cloves
• pinch of nutmeg
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 4 roasted apples

1. Heat ale in a saucepan.
2. Add sugar and spices, bring to a boil.
3. Remove from heat and gradually add a small amount of hot ale mixture to the beaten eggs.
4. Return to saucepan and cook until somewhat thickened.
5. Place apples in a heat-proof punch bowl and pour hot liquid over.

Non-alcoholic wassail:

• 4 cups apple juice
• 2 cups cranberry juice
• 2 whole cinnamon sticks
• 5 whole cloves
• 1 tablespoon allspice

1. Heat juices.
2. Tie spices in cheesecloth; add spice bag to heated juices and leave for about 10 minutes.
3. Remove spice bag and serve.