Bog Man

Today my wife and I went to a small local Celtic Music festival. They had pipers and fluters (yes that is a word because I say so) and fiddlers and drummers.

There was Haggis in a can, ice cream being sold by the bikecream man (he had a bike welded to an icebox). We saw it all in the wonderful little Bethabara Park, a historical preservation park.

There are small buildings and other historical landmarks. Our favorite is the medicine garden in which we were lucky enough to buy seeds from to plant at home.

I have to say the absolute pinnacle of the day besides the Irish Car bomb Cupcakes we ate, was the man selling peat logs. He had a grill burning peat on a day that it was close to 95 degrees. It was hot and smelled like he was burning green peppers to ash.

I am an open minded person and my wife was interested in peat as a church back in her native Iowa sold peat logs as a fund raiser every year. It is supposed to recreate the smell of a little cottage on the Moors.

So Kate decided to buy a little bag of peat pieces. This is where things went really badly. The man in full kilted attire challenged her about how she intended to use it.

She replied she wanted to burn a little in our fire place on the bricks. Peat won’t burn itself, it will only smolder. It creates a definitive vegetable smell that people like to smell and add a smoke flavor to their foods.

This kilted bog man began to convince her that she was not buying the right peat. He began chewing on a 500 year old peat log and then continued to chew on a 1200 year old peat log. This was to demonstrate it was made of vegetable matter.

He then said that he way of using peat would not allow the volatile oils to be released and it would burn black. He then licked the black sludge off a metal bowl he was using in the cooking barbeque.

This was not enough because he then scraped more black sludge from the inside of the barbeque lid to show more volatile oils and then stuck it in his mouth. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever eat barbeque again.

He handed Kate a peat log and then walked away as he told her to think about it. We quickly left when his back was turned, ate cupcakes and went home with no peat for our trouble.

The thing that I walked with today is an untapped way to get more oils and fiber into your diet.