Saint Valentine's Day

In England, today has been a day dedicated to romantic love at least since Chaucer's time, who wrote a poem depicting rival bird-suitors quarreling. This reflects one of the origins for customs at this time of year: the belief that February the 14th was the day birds began mating. Maybe this is an indication of seasonal change, but there's certainly been amorous activity throughout February in our garden - particularly a very keen pair of chaffinches.

Simpson and Roud make the sensible suggestion that it is a seasonal festival first and foremost, counting as the beginning of Spring in the French region in which it originated. The connection with Saint Valentine is, then, coincidental and not based on anything in his life. In the eighteenth century, during the craze for connecting Christendom's festivals to pagan antecedents, it was supposed that it was a survival of the Roman festival of Lupercalia (held on the 15th of February). There's next to no evidence for this and a very big gap full of nothing but silence until the fourteenth century.

It's a day for the young - for those youthful passions that make old gits like me wonder how we ever had the energy. There is a huge commercial machine ready to provide you with all kinds of tat to inflict on a loved one. It's also been co-opted by couples (or they have themselves become co-opted by the merchandising) as a 'special day' to celebrate their relationship. And when we were young, there was a non-romantic tradition of parents sending their children a Valentine's card and vice versa. Calling this a tradition would probably require more than two people having experienced it, mind you! And I have no idea if this still happens.

Like many seasonal festivals, it's an excuse to eat and drink something nice. In our opinion it's a better idea to put your cash towards something special, rather than buy some icky soft toy, rubbish flowers or embarrassingly inappropriate underwear. If you're getting flowers, try freesias rather than roses - given that commercial roses are grown scentless these days to help them to last longer. If you're getting champagne get a good one - the Billecart-Salmon pink champagne is the best, imo, but Laurent-Perrier rose is also very good. And don't buy teddy bears. Naff and a bit weird, we think.

Our treat is some food from Le Panier Mignon deli in Cambridge. Some lovely ciabatta that we're going to fill with red pesto, parma ham and mozarella and then bake in foil in the oven. With this we've got something pink to drink - the rather rare Drie Fonteinen 'Hommage'. This is a lambic beer infused with Payottenland raspberries and a few cherries. We've never had it before so we're very much looking forward to it.