My Country House

Skull shapes made of amaranth and honey for Day of the Dead in Mexico

When I was a child I lived in two homes.  One was in Cote St. Luc and I remember the address perfectly.  That was the first thing they taught me in the little prenursery school I attended.
When I was six years old my parents purchased a country house in the Laurentians.  I would go for the summer to that little house and in the winter the family would go every weekend so that we could rest and go skiing. First, we went to Belle Neiges ski hill and then La Reserve.

Every Saturday night we would have steak.  This was a very big meal. Many times during the week we did not eat well but on Saturday we had a big meal.  As I recall the family would share a steak or two and we would have hotdogs and something else as well (I believe ribs). We always had a fresh salad.  First, the meals were made on an outside bbq with charcoal.  Then my father purchased a hibachi and finally, they had the fireplace adapted for cooking the meat charcoal broiled.  This meant we could have steak in the winter because the cooking was inside safe from the bitter cold and snow.

When I went to the country house in the summer I maintained some correspondence with the children I knew in Montreal.  I would buy a selection of pretty stationery and I would write to them. And I would receive letters back.

The country house was very important to me and the family. So it is with much dim-witted surprise I cannot remember a single thing definitely about where the Country house is.  I know it was located int the municipality of Lantier. It was about seven miles from Saint Agathe.  And it was on the same lake as B'nai Brith camp for children.  It is connected to Lac Brulé. I believe I could find it if I was given a lift to the vicinity.

I am supposed to own half of it.  And yet the only document I have as proof that I own gives me an unfamiliar address.I have found without difficulty Lac Brulé on the map.  But the Name of the lake where I grew up is Grand Lac Long. the only Grand Lac Long that I have found seems to be located somewhere else. And yet the house that I grew up on had a beachfront on a lake that I was told was named Grand Lac Long.

I have a poorly photocopied paper that is supposed to give me the address of the property I lived in and now own.  It is on 251 Chemin des amarantes. I thought the word was lovers but it is not.  It looks like it but is not amantes but Amarante.

Heres what I found when I checked out what  'Amarante' means. In English it is translated to the word 'amaranth'

Here goes::
Amaranthus, collectively known as amaranth,^[1] is a cosmopolitan genus of annual or short-lived perennial plants. Some amaranth species are cultivated as leaf vegetables, pseudocereals, and ornamental plants. Most of the Amaranthus species are summer annual weeds and are commonly referred to as pigweed.^[2]  (my comment: Curious.)

Known to the Aztecs as huāuhtli,^[18] amaranth is thought to have represented up to 80% of their energy consumption before the Spanish conquest. Another important use of amaranth throughout Mesoamerica was in ritual drinks and foods. To this day, amaranth grains are toasted much like popcorn and mixed with honey, molasses, or chocolate to make a treat called alegría, meaning "joy" in Spanish. Diego Durán described the festivities for the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli (whose name means "left side of the hummingbird"; hummingbirds feed on amaranth flowers). The Aztec month of Panquetzaliztli (7 December to 26 December) was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli. People decorated their homes and trees with paper flags; ritual races, processions, dances, songs, prayers, and finally human sacrifices were held. This was one of the more important Aztec festivals, and the people prepared for the whole month. They fasted or ate very little; a statue of the god was made out of amaranth seeds and honey, and at the end of the month, it was cut into small pieces so everybody could eat a piece of the god. After the Spanish conquest, cultivation of amaranth was outlawed, while some of the festivities were subsumed into the Christmas celebration.

Amaranth is native to the New World and has been first found in the Old World as part of an archaeological excavation in Narhan, India dated to 1000-800 B.C.E.^[19]

Because of its importance as a symbol of indigenous culture, its palatability, ease of cooking, and a protein that is particularly well-suited to human nutritional needs, interest in amaranth seeds (especially A. cruentus and A. hypochondriacus) revived in the 1970s. It was recovered in Mexico from wild varieties and is now commercially cultivated. It is a popular snack in Mexico, sometimes mixed with chocolate or puffed rice, and its use has spread to Europe and parts of North America. Amaranth and quinoa are pseudocereals because of their similarities to cereals in flavor and cooking.

I find the part about human sacrifice disturbing.