Sometime last week, I shared with osprey_archer this image of Fergus the Forager, in his suit made of burdock leaves:



(osprey_archer, someone asked him in comments how he made it, and he said he did it by glueing the leaves to a preexisting cloth suit--so it's not like those leaves had to hold up on their own!)

His whole entry on burdock is fascinating. I knew about burdock root as a food, because I prepared it all the time in Japan. My favorite recipe is kimpira gobo, which I'll share before this entry's done. But he has many other recipes, including candied burdock.

But most interesting to me is his photo of the Burry Man of Queensferry (photo comes from Wikipedia via Fergus's blog)



The Burry Man's suit is made of burrs! He makes his suit and walks a circuit of Queensferry, Scotland, on the second Friday in August. Here's what Fergus shared from Richard Mabey's Flora Britannica

At 9am the Burry Man emerges into Queensferry High Street, carrying two staves bedecked with flowers. He walks slowly and awkwardly with his arms outstretched sideways, carrying the two staves, and two attendants, one on each side, help him to keep his balance by also holding on to the staves. Led by a boy ringing a bell, the Burry Man and his supporters begin their nine-hour perambulation of South Queensferry.
The first stop is traditionally outside the Provost’s house, where the Burry Man receives a drink of whisky through a straw.

The perambulating and the drinking go on all day long, and around 6 pm, he returns to the town hall.

Fergus links to the Wikipedia article about the Burry Man, which includes information about making the suit from one guy who served as the Burry Man for twelve years. The entry also includes speculation about the origins and purposes of the ritual. I just like that it's part of something called the Ferry Fair, which I will now think of as the Fairy Fair, since, come on: this has Fairy Folk written all over it.

Here's a picture of the Burry Man from last year's Fairy Fair:


[Edit from 2018: some of the photos have disappeared in the intervening years...]

And here he is getting his tipple:

Source: 2013 Ferry Fair

Oh! And now that recipe, so this entry isn't entirely cribbing from other sources, or at least not other online sources:


That's cut out from a magazine from which I used to order stuff for delivery from a food coop I belonged with, with my neighbors when I lived in Japan. You got approximately 300 grams of gobo (burdock root) for 298 yen--about $3.00, at the time.


Here's the translation:

Ingredients:
300 grams of gobo
100 grams of carrot
2 tablespoons of salad oil
2 tablespoons of sugar
3 tablespoons of soy sauce
3 tablespoons of sake
1 dried red hot pepper
1 teaspoon sesame oil
a pinch of white sesame seeds

Directions:

Peel the gobo, cut it into matchsticks about 5 cm long, and rinse it in water. Cut the carrots into matchsticks as well. Leaving the seeds out, cut the dried red pepper into tiny rings. Heat the cooking oil, add the well-drained gobo and the red pepper, then add the carrot. When everything is well coated with oil, add the sake. When it comes to a boil, add the sugar, and cook for 3–4 minutes, then add the soy sauce and cook until the fluid is gone. Then add the sesame oil and the sesame seeds.

So. Delicious.