With the scorching days and frequent afternoon thunderstorms, everything in my Brookhaven yard is growing like kudzu, which thankfully I don’t have. The lantana is overtaking the mailbox and the tops of the begonias, which began as tiny clumps of red, are skimming the windows. Still thriving are the beautiful pots planted by my goddaughter Ella in a variety of yellow flowers and greenery as my birthday gift in May.
Apparently, the same is occurring with vegetables. Some delightful
friends invited me to lunch and sent me home with a bag of their excess
cucumbers. This morning I added tomatoes, onions, garlic peppers and other ingredients
to my blender and made a large jug of gazpacho in preparation for the hot week
ahead. I tested it for seasoning and was especially delighted by the taste of
the fresh cucumbers.
For all of the downsides, the upside of the Dog Days of
summer is the profusion of fresh vegetables that lasts in the South well into
college football tailgate season.
Among my favorite childhood summer memories is walking
outside onto my family’s carport in the mornings and seeing boxes of freshly picked fruit and vegetables dropped off by friends who were sharing their gardens’
abundance. There were tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, okra, peppers of
every color, corn green beans, field peas and, if we were lucky, watermelon,
cantaloupe and other melons.
Some mornings, galvanized tubs filled with fish – still alive
and swimming in water – would be sitting on the driveway. Late summer was
considered a good time to drain ponds to remediate them. Our benefactors were
careful to give us only fish with scales and fins, which identified them as
kosher. Catfish didn’t qualify, so they either kept those for themselves or
gifted them elsewhere. (Knowledge of what Christians consider the Old Testament
was extensive and widespread where I grew up, so it was no surprise that our
friends understood some of the laws of kashrut.)
(I’m sure the amazing generosity wasn’t at all affected by
the knowledge that my mother would soon reciprocate by dropping off one of her famous
homemade cakes, maybe a mile-high chocolate layer cake with fluffy white icing
or a cheesecake dripping with fresh blueberry topping.)
All of that fresh food meant an incredible dinner that day
because we all knew that everything spoiled quickly during the Dog Days,
despite refrigeration. (We had our big meal at midday, which we called dinner,
and a light supper, at least partly because of the heat.)
It was a different time, My recollection is that school
started closer to Labor Day than it does now and that the second half of summer
vacation August had its own rhythm.
Just the other day, my childhood best friend Joyce and I were
talking about the Dog Days of Summer. Specifically, we were recalling in one of
our regular telephone calls how, when the weather heated up to torrid in our
small southeast Georgia town, our main activity nearly every morning was
swimming at the pool at the Cracker Williams Recreation Center on the “other
side of town.”
The “other side of town” is in quotes because it wasn’t
so much of a direction as a place. It required the major and risky activity of
“crossing the railroad tracks,” which split our hometown of Jesup in two. That
potentially treacherous crossing was something we weren’t allowed to do until
we were probably 10 or older. Before that, we could only go if a parent drove
us, or we could persuade one of our older siblings – most often my sister Linda
– to accompany us because she was meeting her own buddies to swim.
We would go as early in the morning as we could and swim for
hours, put our clothes on over our soaking wet bathing suits and get a Tom’s
Full Dinner candy bar from the vending machine. Then, reeking of chlorine, we
would try to get home – by foot or bicycle – before all of our clothing dried.
Otherwise, we would have to contend with the sweltering temperatures that began
shooting up by 11 a.m.
I swear I could smell the midday meal as soon as we crossed Third
Street next to our house. Potty, our much more than housekeeper, would have
made both fried and baked fish if we had some. Otherwise, she would serve fried
and broiled chicken or meatloaf or country-fried steak or stew beef, all with
three or four or even more vegetables, a plate of sliced tomatoes and usually rice and gravy,
mashed potatoes or another starch. (If the meal was non-meat, such as fish, macaroni
and cheese and a pan of biscuits usually were on the table with banana pudding for dessert.)
After a feast such as that, I was happy to find a cool spot
in the back of the air-conditioned house and read all afternoon, which I was
able to do sometimes, at least until it stormed and the AC had to be shut off. Other
times, especially when I was older, my parents wanted me to come to help them
at their clothing store. Trust me, unless you had to, going outside was to be
avoided at all costs. The average temperatures rose well into the 90s and
humidity built up until the daily late afternoon or early evening thunderstorm
occurred.
Until I was 13, our store was located in an old building that
wasn’t air-conditioned but instead had gigantic ceiling fans which did little
to moderate the heat. They also stirred up dust from the dirt road on the back
side of the L-shaped building, which faced the railroad track and always reeked
of soft tar in the summer. (The front was on the main street.) Because of that,
at the end of the day, I would help the store clerks cover the tables and racks
of clothing with massive protective dropcloths before the fans were turned off. In the
morning, the dropcloths had to be removed, shaken outside to remove the dirt and
put away until the end of the day.
And it wasn’t just the heat keeping us inside in July and
August. We youngsters were constantly admonished about the dangers of the Dog
Days – snakes were more likely to bite, dogs could turn rabid in a flash and,
of course, heat stroke was always a danger. In addition, it was considered the
gospel that any cuts or burns would never heal during that time of year.
This wasn’t some local custom found only in the piney woods
of south Georgia, however. The understanding of Dog Days is a worldwide
phenomenon with venerable roots. A period of several weeks in the heat of
summer is considered sinister in many cultures across the world.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac points out that
the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Romans believed that when Sirius, the dog
star, rose in mid-to-late summer, it played a role in the extreme weather of
the season. (An interesting tidbit from that article is that name “Sirius”
comes from the ancient Greek seírios,
meaning “scorching.”)
Based on those sources, the Dog Days
technically run from around July 3 to August 11, although others just say they
happen in mid-to-late summer.
For the Ancients, the ascent of Sirius
suggested that drought, disease, or discomfort were more likely. Virgil,
the Roman poet, wrote in the Aeneid that
“fiery Sirius, bringer of drought and plague to frail mortals, rises and
saddens the sky with sinister light.”
As it turns out, they weren’t
the only denizens of the ancient world who had concerns about unfavorable
outcomes at the height of summer. So many events occurred from the 17th
of Tammuz to the ninth day of Av, that the sad commemoration of Tisha B’av
became part of the Jewish calendar. The events primarily remembered are the
destruction of the first Temple in 538 BCE and the second Temple around 70 CE. But many other
events occurred on the ninth of Av which is a fast day, including the expulsion
of Jews from England in 1290 and Spain in 1492. To current times, the three
weeks before are considered unfavorable for many activities, with the final
nine days having even more restrictions, including against eating meat,
drinking wine and getting a haircut -- something I follow.
Guess what time of year Tisha B’av occurs? In 2023, the three
weeks began on July 6 (see the dates for Dog Days above) and ended on July 27.
Clearly, whatever it is called, historical sources found something menacing
about a 3-5 week period at the apex of summer.
Here’s the kicker: At least some of what we believed about
the Dog Days has turned out to be true.
A study came out just last month on the topic of snake bites.
The research was done in Georgia, and Emory University researchers reported
that every degree Celsius of daily temperature increase corresponds with about
a 6% increase in snake bites.
A 2009 Finnish study
reported, meanwhile, that the risk of deep surgery wound infection
during Dog Days is two times higher than at other times.
In Finnish folklore, the time from June
23 to August 23 has been called "rotten month" (another name for Dog
Days), and the Finns also have the superstition that wound healing is delayed
due to infections. (It turns out that its
neighbor, Sweden, has “rötmånad,”
translated as “rotting month” from around the 22nd of July until 30
days later. )
For me, the three weeks, nine days and Tisha B’av are
difficult times where everything seems to go wrong. As soon as the period is
over, however, life seems lighter and easier, even though the weather remains
brutally hot. A few weeks later, however, the month of Elul follows Av and the
atmosphere changes again. The tradition is that the King is in the field
beginning on the first day of Elul until the Jewish New Year a month later. The Almighty is closer during that time, and it is an especially favorable
opportunity for spiritual growth. Perhaps that is why the miasmic period is weeks
shorter in Jewish tradition than others – the calendars are different and the
preparation for the New Year intercedes.
I don’t remember feeling any kind of pall on existence in the
summers when I was young, but I was going swimming, eating candy bars and
having fabulous lunches – so why would I have complained? I do remember feeling as if everything seemed
to slow down at the end of the summer and not pick back up until the
anticipation of going back to school began.
As with so much in life, the seasons of the year have peaks and valleys. Even though the new year begins in January on the Western calendar, midsummer often is considered a downtime followed by the anticipation of some type of new beginning as summer ends and fall begins.
I still enjoy delicious fresh fruit and vegetables in summer – although usually not as fresh or good as
what I remember from childhood. In the extremely hot weather in late August,
sometimes all I can bear to eat for dinner is a cold soup like gazpacho. My
version is based on some classic recipes but offers some options to make it
easier.
Easy Gazpacho
2 pounds ripe red
tomatoes cut into chunks (I prefer to peel them) or one large can (28oz) of
whole tomatoes.
2 medium or three
small fresh cucumbers, peeled and seeded or a large English cucumber peeled.
Either way, cut them into chunks.
1 small Vidalia onion
cut into eighths
1/2 large bell pepper, any color,
cut into chunks
1/8 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 cup tomato juice,
V-8 juice or spicy V-8 juice if you like it bolder
Dash of cayenne pepper
1 tsp of celery salt
½ tsp of cumin
salt & pepper
sauce to taste
Process on liquify in
a powerful blender until it is a thick soup. Fix seasoning to your liking and chill
for several hours or overnight. You can serve with a dollop of sour cream and croutons.
You also can add chunks of avocado. If I want it to be more of a meal, I’ll
also top it with pieces of kosher fake crab (made from fish). (Obviously, if
you don’t keep kosher, you can use real crab or shrimp.)
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