Not Just Surviving, But Thriving

Not Just Surviving, But Thriving

      Is this supposed to be a daily journal, like in the days of MacKenzie and Perot?  I didn’t walk twenty miles through the woods in snowshoes today, but I did work a ten hour day at a job that’s physically demanding.  Would weekly work better, or just whenever I feel like it?  As long as I have something decent to say tonight, I will write. 

      Tonight was the night I actually have three different shows I like to watch – NCIS night.  They kept having commercials for that stupid show Survivor.  Although the show must be popular, otherwise it wouldn’t still be on the air after all these years, I personally know no one who actually likes it. 

      When the show was first advertized I had hopes it would really be a survival show.  You know, they hyped it up talking about people having to live in the jungle and eat bugs, build shelters, and stuff.  I expected them to be thrown onto an island with only a rusty gun and a knife, like my dad’s Uncle Eddy did on Iwo Jima during WWII.  I thought it would be a reenactor’s dream – BUT NO!!  The only thing they have to survive is some new, warped form of high school all over again.  From what I’ve seen on the commercials for it, the show is full of backstabbing biotches, and prudish primadonnas.  It’s just like a high school where everyone dresses like Robinson Crusoe.  I guess the thing is all based upon being in some kind of popularity contest with a few weird relay races thrown in.   Praise God that when it first came on I was too busy at the time to watch it.  When the successive commercials for it came out I knew that watching it would cause irreversible brain damage, and I’m glad that with a clear conscience I can say that I have never once watched the show. 

      It was yet another disappointment for reenactors.  Just like those “_____ House” series they had on PBS, CBC, and BBC – “1900 House, Frontier House, and Colonial House.”  I remember the bomb of them all (pardon the pun) was “Air Raid House” based in WWII London.  I don’t know if anyone watched it.  Being a blacksmith, with a vast knowledge of history (with an expertise in the 17^th Century) and survival skills I applied to join in with Colonial House (at the urging of a fellow reenactor friend).  The reply I got was that with my experience I would not make a good fit.  Then I saw the yutzes they chose for the project.  They slept till noon, and quit work at 2:00 pm.  They ate all their peas and only planted a little bit of them.  They never hunted.  They never used the natural clay there to make anything.  They only cut down a couple dozen trees to sell for masts and spars, and the guy they had there for a preacher didn’t believe the Bible, and wasn’t even sure if he believed in God – and there was no blacksmith.  The scenario they used was that he “died at sea.”  They were set up to fail. 

      My sister who at that time was an anthropology major (among the various things she majored in) explained it like this: The purpose of the show was to see if people from the modern world could have survived back then.  I told her that I would have survived back then.  She replied that I don’t count, because anthropologically speaking, I am not really a part of this modern world – I just live here.  They couldn’t have someone like me on the project.  Why would people tune in week after week just to watch us doing good – how boring.  It was much more exciting to tune in and see that everyone is going to die (I would have really ruined things when they went to trade with the Pasamaquaddy.  I not only would have pushed for a trade and a “gift exchange” first, in that Pasmaquaddy is an Annishinaabe language I would have spoken to them in Ojibwe).  My sister’s anthropological viewpoint helped me understand it.  The answer is no.  If those people would be thrown back in a time machine they wouldn’t survive long enough to produce offspring, so they themselves would have never have been born.  Sounds like a great idea to me. 

      And as important and common as a blacksmith was to every community, there was no way they could have had one on the show.  That’s because almost anyone who is a blacksmith is also a reenactor, and it would have ruined the concept of the project.  Therefore they had no choice but to say “the blacksmith is dead.” 

      Speaking of surviving and even thriving in the woods, it is time now for something useful: 

Wild Rice Raspberry Custard 

     I have made this several times, and it's really tasty.  I have ever only made this though over an open fire and in a Dutch oven, but I’m sure it could be made in a conventional oven too.  It makes as much as you want it to (use your judgement based on how many you’re trying to feed).  
 

Boil up some wild rice (manoomin).  Let it cool. 

Stir in enough maple sugar (zinzibaakwad) or brown sugar to make it really sweet. 

Mix some corn starch in with some milk, a little vanilla, a pinch of salt, and one beaten egg – stir that mixture in with the manoomin and sugar. 

Fold in a bunch of raspberries (if you want you could use blueberries instead, or apples, or whatever). 

Bake it in a medium oven or Dutch oven for about 45 – 50 minutes till a light to medium brown crust forms on the top. 

Enjoy it. 

When serving it you can pour cream or milk over it if you want.  IF there’s any leftovers it makes a great and healthy breakfast.