Education, Secondary education and schools
What does "birch porridge" mean?
Birch porridge ... The meaning of this winged expression evokes a slight smile, because in our days it is hopelessly outdated. But in the old days, the promise of the parent to feed his child with this "dish" gave the mischief many unpleasant minutes. The phrase "to give birch porridge" meant a kind of corporal punishment, that is, the usual whipping with a bunch of twigs cut from a white-stemmed tree. With the adjective "birch" everything is more or less clear, but where did the word "porridge" come from? There are several interesting versions on this score.
"Special cooking" rods
The phraseology "birch porridge" arose among seminarians trained in the spiritual schools - bursa. In the dictionaries of Dahl, Ushakov and other connoisseurs of Russian speech, this expression is synonymous with the word "rods". Teachers punished negligent students for any pranks and faults. They could pull it by the hair, hang it in the face, and whip it down with a ruler. If, however, all these measures did not produce a proper impact on the bursak, he was given a punishment by rods. The violator of the order was put on a wide bench, ordered to strip the soft spot just below the back, along which the birch whiskers were struck.
Mashanka from damp bark and fallen leaves
The path to knowledge for a medieval schoolboy was not easy. A rare lucky man managed to escape from an individual or general flogging. The latter was conducted for all students without exception, a couple of times a month in educational and preventive purposes. Corporal punishment by rods in most European countries has been used since ancient times for the adult population as a disciplinary sanction for petty offenses. In Russia, this method was abolished a little over a hundred years ago - in 1903.
Treat for the elect
Another version of the emergence of verbal turnover leads modern linguist Olga Aleksandrovna Anishchenko. In the study "Types of punishments and their names in the spiritual school of the XIX century", the candidate of philology explains in detail the meaning of phraseology "birch porridge". In the educational institutions of that time, there was a custom in honor of the transition to the next educational stage to arrange for seminarians a large festive dinner, where the main course was a porridge. Those students who did not excel at school were not invited to the festival. Teachers gloated, referring to the guilty: "And you have a porridge special, birch." This was a direct hint at the traditional flogging in such cases.
Punishment is severe, senseless and cruel
Execution with the help of rods was also called birch tea, a birch bath, a seminar porridge. According to the testimony of people who have passed courses of spiritual academies, pupils have been mercilessly slain for not only negligence, but also for innocent children's pranks, inflicting 100 or more blows.
Was the punishment effective? Probably not. Its main goal is to keep students in fear and obedience. It was hardly possible to drive the necessary knowledge into the head of an unfortunate obtus with birch rods, but you could easily leave it to the end of days crippled or even take your life.
The dish is hearty, sweet and buttery
But let's not talk about sad things. Finally, finding out what is the significance of phraseology "birch porridge", let us turn to the recipes of modern Russian cuisine. Apparently, some culinary so fond of a sonorous phrase that they summed up the technology for making delicious dishes.
Birch porridge can be cooked from half a glass of rice, taking twice as much liquid, seasoning with a pinch of salt. Ready meal is flavored with dried fruits, sugar, butter. Then give 10 minutes to stand under the lid, when served on the table decorate with nuts. It's very simple, but the main secret is that instead of water or milk, birch juice is used to make porridge.
Buckwheat in the pot for the second
Approximately the same way as rice porridge, cooks a dish of buckwheat. Groats and birch sap should be taken in the same proportions 1: 2. Porridge, placed in a clay potato pot and slightly podvoliv, are cooked until cooked in the oven at 180 degrees. Before serving, a hot dish is mixed with a finely chopped pickled cucumber, seasoned with vegetable onion and a piece of butter. Fast, tasty and original.
Porridge from birch bark
Previous recipes, of course, are good. But you will not be surprised by the true gourmets. They will certainly want to taste real birch porridge. It turns out that this also exists, and it is prepared from the bark of a tree. No, we do not eat birch bark. How many do not cook it, it still will not do anything good. But if this very birch bark is removed, a less dense vascular tissue of brown color, called a brow or a phloem, is found beneath it.
Birch buds and young leaves scalded with boiling water are quite edible. Of these, salads are prepared in combination with various greenery, added as flavorings to soups, broths, grilled meat.
How the main ingredient is mined
We hope that some time will pass and phraseology "birch porridge" will cease to be associated with corporal punishment. And in order to cook a delicious cereal dish, we have to go to the forest for birch juice. To collect sweetish vitamin nectar follows in the early spring with the onset of the first thaw, before the swelling of the kidneys.
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