Gardener's Anthem (and more)

[Rachel Rugelach]

Last night at my synagogue we celebrated the Jewish holiday of Tu B'Shvat with a special seder that included the fruits of various trees. Some of these fruits we ate last night were ones I'd never even heard of before, such as an Asian fruit call durian which smells bad but tastes so sweet. Ours was an early celebration of the holiday, as Tu B'Shvat this year actually falls at sundown tomorrow (Feb. 5th) and will end at sundown on Monday (Feb. 6th).

Anyway, the congregation sang a number of old and new songs in both Hebrew and English in praise of trees and gardens that give us food, and one of these songs was the American folksong "Inch by Inch." A lot of folksingers have recorded this song, but I was reminded of my favorite: Arlo Guthrie.

Here, for your listening pleasure, is an old video that I found on YouTube of Arlo singing this song.

Stick around for the entire video, as Arlo goes into one of his very funny monologues -- much like his famous "Alice's Restaurant."

Whatever your religion or whether you are atheist, whether you are a gardener or not, whether you use the metric system or are a stubborn American holdout for measurement in inches and miles... Regardless of all our many differences, may you always be nurtured with fresh fruit on your table and find inspiration in Arlo's words.

Edited to add: For anyone who didn't catch all the words in the song, and would like to know the lyrics, here's a link for you: Garden Song Lyrics by Arlo Guthrie

 

[exchemist]

Last night at my synagogue we celebrated the Jewish holiday of Tu B'Shvat with a special seder that included the fruits of various trees. Some of these fruits we ate last night were ones I'd never even heard of before, such as an Asian fruit call durian which smells bad but tastes so sweet. Ours was an early celebration of the holiday, as Tu B'Shvat this year actually falls at sundown tomorrow (Feb. 5th) and will end at sundown on Monday (Feb. 6th).

Anyway, the congregation sang a number of old and new songs in both Hebrew and English in praise of trees and gardens that give us food, and one of these songs was the American folksong "Inch by Inch." A lot of folksingers have recorded this song, but I was reminded of my favorite: Arlo Guthrie.

Here, for your listening pleasure, is an old video that I found on YouTube of Arlo singing this song.

Stick around for the entire video, as Arlo goes into one of his very funny monologues -- much like his famous "Alice's Restaurant."

Whatever your religion or whether you are atheist, whether you are a gardener or not, whether you use the metric system or are a stubborn American holdout for measurement in inches and miles... Regardless of all our many differences, may you always be nurtured with fresh fruit on your table and find inspiration in Arlo's words.

In Singapore, eating durians in public, or taking them on public transport is, or was, forbidden because of the smell.

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

In Singapore, eating durians in public, or taking them on public transport is, or was, forbidden because of the smell.

The president of our synagogue's board of trustees had gone shopping for all these kinds of fruits for our seder (I don't know where he got them all from), and he told us about the unusual ones -- mentioning what you said about durian not being allowed to be eaten on public transport in many Asian cities because of its smell.

I was really surprised, because I've smelled worse things being eaten on New York City subways.