Botanica Fabula

The taste of memory

Amanda Edmiston

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. (Vincent van Gogh)

To remember is to hand on— to teach, share, create, treasure. Memories create value in everyday or overlooked items, made priceless by the stories they hold. Those relating love and wisdom facilitate change and carry us onwards, beyond transitional times. They are held in tastes, glimpsed amongst leaves. They bring back what has come before, to teach, share, create, treasure.

As November blows in, its dark evenings beckoning us to light fires and recall happy times, I think of the Ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba) and immediately recall the place where my storytelling journey began over ten years ago: Glasgow's Hidden Gardens.

As a new mum, the multicultural toddler group was my lifeline. In a group of grandparents, parents and children from an array of cultures and backgrounds, a sense of deep connection developed. On dry days we gathered beneath the Ginkgo tree in the centre of the garden. It offered shade on sunny days, a trunk to lean against, a golden carpet of lobed leaves in the Autumn which seemed to beg the children to arrange them in patterns across the lawn. It offered the perfect place to sit and tell stories.

Our various uses of plants for food and healing, and the legends and magical tales we had heard as children, gifted us a sense of common ground. I started to see the connecting threads between plants and stories, and spotted that the medicinal and therapeutic nuances of herbs were often hinted at in the stories we remembered. I started to gather the tales and to collect people’s memories of plant-use; I wove the strands together.

Becoming the group’s resident storyteller took me from volunteer to professional artist. One of the first tales I re-wove from fragments of folklore and the mythologies of the countries my friends came from, was inspired by the idea of travelling to live elsewhere— as many of these families had done —and bringing with you a favourite food to retain a sensory link to the countries of your past.

My story takes a girl— Orpita, an Indian name meaning ‘offering’ —on a journey from Bangladesh, riding on the tail of a shooting star. She glimpses the star at the start of Winter, and travels to find a baby she has dreamt of, far away in Scotland. As she travels across the night sky, she begins collecting precious spices and ingredients from her aunties across the world. The ingredients come together as the story progresses, to create a delicious seasonal pie.

I shared the story as Winter encroached, leaving the branches of the Ginkgo bare, to a group of parents from six different countries. It had started with research into the history of mince pies, a seasonal treat that held ingredients from across the world. Full of nourishing dried fruit and warming spices, this is the kind of food that evokes memory with every mouthful. The story grew from the Geminids— shooting stars I barely glimpsed through city lights, which became the magical mode of transport for Orpita. Star-drawn from aunty to aunty, she brings Banda spices from the Bay of Bengal; she collects Cinnamon (C. verum) from Bangladesh, to warm and ease the stomach, and warming Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) from the Maluku islands. She travels over the Red Sea up to Greece for ironrich Black Corinth Currants (Vitis vinifera), gathering on her way Oranges (Citrus x sinensis) from Morocco. My heroine continues on the tails of the meteor shower to Portugal, to gather Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) taken from Bandu— once worth its weight in gold, redolent of sleep. Finally, she finds her way to Scotland and adds sweet heather honey, mixes the ingredients together, and makes a delicious pie for the new mother of the baby she had dreamt of— a pie filled with the taste of every country she travelled through, a sweet treat to evoke memories and nourish. A pie with an immune-boosting story; a pie to share and eat as we recall our own stories around the fire as Winter draws in.

Amanda's current project 'Handing On' can be found here: www.botanicafabula.co.uk/handing-on

For information about this year’s Geminids meteor shower: www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/meteorshower/gemini