I blame making pomanders, really. And mulled wine. And lebkuchen. But there’s a certain something about cloves. Whether whole or powdered, for eating, for drinking, they shout ‘Christmas!’ as loudly as any festive food.
Back to the pomanders. 1970s, 1980s, home made presents. Where would auntie or granny be without an orange, a loop of ribbon, and a fistful of cloves? I think I made them a few different times. (The link suggests orris root too, but it keeps fine as it is.)
The point is that the cloves and the orange combine to preserve each other, making a hanging thing to perfume your wardrobe. (Older female relatives may now reenter the room.) They do eventually go off, but they can last several years, if memory serves me. Red ribbon looks good (and rather Christingle too) but green might be festive too.
Part of the fun was going shopping for whole cloves. Not all of them would have the all-important central orb where the smell resides. Some would just have the stalk and the spiky top bits. If you pushed the cloves into the orange too hard, or gripped too tightly, the orb would explore, leaving you with pungent hands.
And that was all cloves was about, for a long time. Then you get to an age where you’re allowed a go at mulled wine. Look: there’s an orange or lemon jogging about in the hot liquid, stuck with cloves. (Or of course, buy the sachet, or the made up bottle of wine – no pressure. But the cloves still need to be there.)
Later, I started making my own lebkuchen. Another aspect of grandparents who had spent time in Germany: appreciation of lebkuchen, stollen, and more.
Now you can buy them in Lidl, which makes it easy too. But it is lots of fun making your own lebkuchen aka gingerbread, particularly if you have some biscuit cutters in shapes like hearts, bells, circles (for snowballs), stars, and so on.
Part of the recipe I use involves cloves. The real thing involved much more exciting things including some form of potash (I believe) but these still feel like the real deal. Put a timer on to get you through the beating the ingredients together – 20 mins hard labour to get the black treacle, flour and spices to become one.
One year I got my quantities muddled up. So keen was I to do lots (and indeed, encouraged by various family members who rather like them), I managed to overshoot double quantities entirely, and ended up quadrupling the recipe. It made for a VERY long afternoon of baking them all. But it was worth it.
The extra fun is icing them (really just dipping them in icing sugar and water mix). The sweetness of the icing is needed to offset the spice kick of cloves, ginger and cinnamon. Despite the stronger tastes, small children still hoover them up at parties, no problem.
Three kings, three gifts. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. I’d like to think that if there’d been a fourth, he might have brought cloves – their mysterious scent is part and parcel of Christmas.
And if he’d have brought a pomander, that would have eased the smell of the manger too, no doubt. And given Mary and Joseph something to take home after.