Without drunken, sex-crazed warriors, but only this once

[mrissa]

The more often we make Spanish rice, the more I like it. I think it's the saffron. Much of the Spanish rice I've had (made by people other than me or timprov) has turmeric in it. Turmeric is not even sorta saffron. Not even maybe. It's just not saffron. Sure, it turns things yellow. Bananas are yellow, but you can't substitute them for saffron. But saffron, white wine, fresh garlic, and Szeged paprika cooking? Oh. So good. So extremely good. I'm going to break down and learn to do the pollo any minute now so that I have an excuse to make Spanish rice more often.

I'm reading Neal Stephenson's The System of the World, which is a heck of a commitment, as books go. I may read other things in the middle of it, magazines or anthologies or something, because it's extremely large for hauling around, and also because despite having read two equally massive volumes in this series, despite being a hundred pages in, I'm still thinking, "You know, this is a little slow to get started." Which tells you that reading can make people totally irrational -- or at least me -- because I'm still reading it.

The thing about the Kalevala that's both wonderful and maddening is that things that would get an entire tale elsewhere get a line in passing in the Kalevala. "He tied an egg in a knot." Um...how? Is this a trick? a loophole? a work of magic? What happened? Well, other than that he tied an egg in a knot; we got that part. But then they sail blithely on past the knotted egg to something or another with a boat. So you can do what you like with it, on the one hand, but on the other hand, you kind of have to, because no one else is going to help you out.

I've had a dilemma for months now, because Major Children's Magazine said to me, "We'd really like to see a Finnish myth retelling from you." And you don't really say, "Oh, no, I won't be doing that today" if they say something like that, but...I know this magazine. They're not Jesusy (which limits which one it could be somewhat severely, because it's crazy hard to find children's magazines that aren't attempting to shove Jesus down kids' throats on a popsicle stick). But they also aren't keen on great gobs of violence, sex, and alcohol, and as I've said many times before, sex, blood, and booze are what mythology is all about! (At least the fun mythologies.) And I don't want to take part in the sanitizing of myth, but on the other hand, the story simply will not get published in a children's market if it has sex-crazed drunken warriors staggering around it. So I decided to retell just a part of one of the myths, a subsection of the story. I'll leave out that after the hero does these mighty deeds to win his true love (with his true love's help, of course), they both die grisly deaths in other circumstances. So then if the kids wander off and read the Kalevala, they won't get mad at me for lying to them, but the editors might still buy the story.

I keep saying that reading about Freyja whoring herself out to the dwarves, and Loki shape-and-gender-changing and getting himself pregnant by/with a horse, and dead warriors hacking each other to bits, sticking themselves back together, and drinking themselves into a stupor did not harm me when I was 5 or 6. Probably made me the person you see before you today! Then I realize that this might not be such a persuasive argument, so I'd better just shut up and tell the story.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Maybe you could get away with "turned himself into a girl horse and had a baby colt" if you omitted biological detail? Though I suppose it's a moot point anyway, since Loki isn't Finnish.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, and it wasn't as though the story is that Loki said, "You know, I'd really like to experience the miracle of childbirth, only with hooves!" It's that he turned himself into a girl horse to lure a boy horse away so that the boy horse wouldn't be able to finish his job. So the whole "he used sex as a tool" thing is pretty implicit in the story.

(And you're right, not Finnish, so not really workable.)

What I love about Norse myth, part 1B: actions have consequences even for the gods. When Greek gods go around in animal form getting it on, the humans are the ones who have to deal with rape and childbirth and all the aftermath. The Norse gods have to take their knocks like people. Also, Sleipnir is then Odin's horse, after he's grown. He's not sent off to mope and scowl in hiding somewhere, and it isn't a situation that is Never Spoken Of Again.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Still, Bugs Bunny got away with doing pretty much the same thing. They just left the sex offscreen. (Teaching kids that sex has results which must be dealt with doesn't strike me as a bad idea at all, but I don't suppose your publishers would agree.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think the pregnancy makes it a little too graphically clear to most editors that Loki had not just put on lipstick and yodeled, "Yoo hoo, boys!" in fluent horse. And that particular story is mostly the story of how Sleipnir came to be, so if you leave out the pregnancy, there's no longer any reason to tell the story.

That's how much of the Kalevala stuff is, too. The sex and death all loom too large in the story to be expurgated and still have a story without putting something insipid in their place.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I always wanted to know just what was so awesome about the brisingamen that made a beautiful goddess have sex with unattractive little dwarves. The message I got was, "Sex gets you jewelry." Which explains a lot, actually.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

...and jewelry gets you sex. Which also explains a lot. About other people, anyway. I have never once gotten sex for jewelry.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Maybe you're buying people the wrong jewelry.

Not that I'm offering to sleep with you for the right type of jewelry, you understand. I'm just sayin'.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Or buying the wrong people jewelry.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, it wasn't just Freyja who wanted it; Loki and Heimdall fought over it later. So I think it must have done something nifty, and not just girl-specific nift, either.

I would have pointed out that not everyone is averse to sex with short, hairy men, but I think the story implied that Freyja was. In the Lokasenna, though, it's all part and parcel of Freyja's implied indiscriminate tastes. (The bit I'm still marveling at from the Lokasenna is, "You slept with your brother, and then, Freyja, you farted!" Ummm. So incest is not enough, but flatulent incest, now that's something we just plain disapprove of?)

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Incest, that's understandable if deplorable, but vulgarity is right out.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

There are some circumstances under which it would take goddess-like powers to hold it in. Maybe it was seen as a kind of slacking off. :)

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Um, since nobody else seems interested: Spanish Rice Recipe, Please!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I live but to serve.

2 T olive oil
2 c. rice
4 cloves garlic
2 t. paprika (I use Szeged; you can use gener-American paprika, but it just won't be as good, and the tins of Szeged are really not more expensive)
1 1/4 c. white wine: something tasty
1 can tomatoes or 15 oz. tomatoes, peeled and chopped and slightly salted
1 3/4 c. broth (I make mine with Better Than Bouillion when timprov hasn't been well enough to make stock, but this is not nearly so key as the paprika)
3/4 t. saffron
1 bay leaf

Saute the garlic, paprika, and rice in olive oil for a minute or so.

Add wine. Boil uncovered for two minutes. Swoon around the kitchen revelling in the smell.

Stir in all other ingredients. Cook on low, covered, for fifteen minutes, or until the liquid mostly absorbed into the rice.

You may add things like onion, red bell pepper, etc., but if you're just going to dump Cuban black bean soup over it, it's already got those happy things. And the rice is pretty awesome as-is.

You want the soup, too? It's vegan, but naturally vegan rather than aggressively vegan: there's nothing in it that used to be meat and is now some other protein substitute. If you use veggie broth in the rice, the whole shebang is vegan. Makes a very good thing to serve company if you're not sure of their dietary needs.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Oh, twist my arm--soup recipe? ow, ow!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh.

1 fresh jalapeno pepper, chopped (leave the seeds out if you want it to be truly mild)
3/4 c. olive oil -- you can use less, down to 1/4 c., if you want
3 large onions, chopped
2 green bell peppers, chopped
6 cloves garlic (or more if they're small)
5 cans black beans (liquid and all)
5 c. vegetable stock (or chicken stock if you don't care about that -- but if it doesn't have cilantro in the basic stock, add some)
2 bay leaves

Saute the peppers and onions in olive oil until softened. Stir in garlic and cook a bit more. Then add everything else. Cook it until it smells done -- 20 minutes or whatever.

You can serve this with Spanish rice, sour cream for dollops, shredded cheddar, sliced avocado, grilled andouille cut into chunks if you have carnivores, additional jalapeno or onion garnish...lots of stuff, really.