MEAD

 Mead 

Who remembers Mead? 

When I was a kid it was a Pesach tradition to serve mead at the seder table. For some reason we never had it at any other time of the year and I assumed that it had something to do with Pesach, which is not correct. It was supplied by the local kosher delicatessens and in spite of the fact that it had a low alcohol content, it was regarded as a “kids drink”, although obviously everyone enjoyed it. If you don’t know what it is and and want to know more, you can go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead_in_Poland. Suffice to say that most non-Jews refer to it as “Honey Beer” when they don’t call it Mead. 

A quick reference to the Wikipedia article makes it clear that mead originated in Eastern Europe – mostly Poland and Ukraine, the European Jewish heartland before WWII – which is why European Jews were familiar with it. 

But mead used to be very difficult to store because it came in big glass screw-cap bottles, it was highly volatile and if you managed to get through a whole 8-day Pesach without at least one bottle exploding in your liquour cabinet, you were lucky. Of course, an explosion like that would leave the interior of your liquour cabinet (and everything in it) covered with a sticky, syrupy-sweet coating which gave off a most heavenly smell but was hard to clean off.

Nevertheless, it was a known and accepted risk. 

One night after we were all a-bed – let's say 2.00 a.m. - we were woken by a muffled “bang” from the front end of the darkened house (lounge, dining room, who knows?). You don’t really hear the bang itself, because you’re asleep: what you do get is the memory of the “bang” after it’s happened. So you lie there, in your still-awakening state, and you ask yourself, “Did I just hear a bang? Am I dreaming? Was that real?” and you lie still and wait to see if you can sense anything else happening. But you are worried, because you don’t know what it signifies and you’re pretty sure that something just happened inside the house (if it wasn’t a dream, that is – and you’re still not sure about that).  

I was thirteen, so although I felt a certain amount of fear, it really wasn’t my place to do anything about it, such as go and investigate – that was my parents’ job. I could hear movement in my parents’ bedroom – they were talking in stage whispers – then footsteps. They’d obviously decided that whatever it was, deserved investigation. 

“Dad!” my brother called from his bedroom further down the passage 

“Go back to sleep boy – nothing's wrong” Dad responded, with absolutely no evidence to support him and not much conviction in his voice either. 

I assumed that mum and dad hadn’t left their bedroom, because none of the lights were on, but I had a sudden urge to go to the bathroom, got up, and decided to go there without the lights. It did not occur to me that that might actually not be a safe thing to do right then. As I stepped over the threshold of my bedroom door I got the fright of my life. In the dark passage beyond, a shadowy figure was moving towards me, with what looked like a club held out ahead of it. I nearly collapsed with fright. 

“Go back to your room, boy” hissed mom.

Oh, jeez, thank God, I thought – but what was she holding out ahead of her like that? 

Just then, dad appeared in the doorway of their bedroom, bleary-eyed and pretty much blind as a bat without his spectacles – and then I understood why mum was walking in front – of course – he couldn’t see anything! So there they go then, the intrepid twosome, down the passage, big mum in front with some sort of a club and little dad behind, trying to look strong and resolute – all to the inadequate light of a half-moon coming in through an uncurtained window. 

There was no way that I could just go back to bed now and pretend that nothing was happening – when, very clearly, everything was happening – so I joined the tail end of this little battle group, tiptoeing down the passage. 

They had to pass my brother’s bedroom to get to the lounge and dining room (there seemed to be an assumption that that was where the noise had come from), but no-one had actually anticipated any movement on my brother's part (this wasn't a carefully thought-out plan, you understand).  

As they drew level with his door, he suddenly threw it open and put on his room light, thereby blinding us all and adding to the confusion. God knows what he was thinking. What he would have seen in the sudden blaze of light would have been three figures arranged from the largest to the smallest, and the biggest one, that is the one closest to him, wielding a club. He let out a terrified yell, fell backwards into his bedroom and slammed the door shut in mum's face. 

It was all too much for a thirteen-year-old bladder to cope with. I felt a warm flood going down my legs and covering my bare feet. The sound which escaped my lips was a sort of despairing, woebegone cry that said, "Oh, Harry, look what you've gone and done! I'm so disappointed in you! What a shameful display of craven cowardice! Oh, how the Scion of Friedland is cast low, ye, even unto the dust …"etc., etc. But, there you are, I'd gone and pissed myself, and there was nothing to be done for it now. 

And just at that moment, we heard the second "bang!" 

This "bang" was much louder than the first, and we were much closer to it. 

And then there was a tinkling sound … like … glass … broken glass … 

But for reasons unexplained, the momentum of our little procession was unbroken and in spite of that explosion we continued to drift forward into the dark dining room until we were standing right in front of the big old oakwood sideboard, not noticing that one door of the sideboard was hanging open. 

And then came the third and most spectacular explosion. We caught the full force of it, spraying mead and flying glass all around. And being the shortest member of the procession, I got the fullest benefit of the dispersion. 

Dear readers, those of you who are of a scientific disposition will now appreciate my analysis of this curious course of events: 

1. The house is dark and quiet 
2. A stock of mead is stored in a sideboard in the dining room 
3. The stock consists of a single purchase transaction, which makes it likely that those three bottles were all part of the same manufacturing batch 
4. Being of the same batch, they had identical levels of fermentation and were at the same stage of fermentation 
5. Stored under identical conditions, they would be likely to "blow”at the same time 
6. When bottle 1 blows, the sideboard door is closed, hence the "bang" is muffled. But the explosion does blow the door open. 
7. So when bottle 2 blows, its louder – and 
8. If you happen to be standing right in front of the open door when bottle 3 blows, you get covered in it – and 
9. If you are already soaked in urine before bottle 3 blows, then after it blows, you will be covered in urine and mead and little pieces of glass. 

And, finally, what was that club? 

Well, my mother had a brother who had tried just about every career under the sun and at one stage he had been a policeman. In those days, police did not carry rubber truncheons – they carried wooden batons – ugly, hard, heavy, black-painted skull-crackers with a leather thong for securing it to your wrist – and for some reason she had inherited his baton, but she kept it well concealed in her cupboard and none of us had ever seen it before. I got hit by one of those during a student protest outside St Georges’ Cathedral in 1972 and it wasn't pretty. I can't bloody believe that my mother had one! 

I haven’t had mead at all in my adult life. Damn, I miss it. 

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© Harry Friedland, MARIMBA 2022