0.1 l Riesling, 150 g forest honey (or another, aromatic, not too sweet honey); 3 tbsp sugar, 1/2 vanilla pod, 5 egg yolks, 1/2 l cream.
Dissolve the honey in the wine. Mix the egg yolks with the sugar, wine, and honey; add the sliced vanilla bean. Whisk in a bowl over a saucepan of hot water until the mixture is pale and frothy. Remove from the heat, scrape out and remove the vanilla pod; place the bowl in cold water and stir the contents until cold. Whip the cream until stiff, fold it in, and put the parfait in the icebox overnight. Latwerge or pickled plums go well with it.
At the beekeeper Schießer in Grävenwiesbach
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A cool and wet spring pleases beekeepers the least, because the bees stay in the hive in this weather and prefer to be fed. Heinz Schießer gives them honey instead of the usual sugar syrup, which is expensive, but this way he can be sure that the harvest, which is still to come, consists only of pure flower nectar. Other than that, he is not idle, in fact he is busy with his programs for school classes.
For the former elementary school teacher has turned his hobby into a profession. Always, he says, he enjoyed farming, and when he found discarded bee boxes in the trash in 1977, he began beekeeping. Today, the now full-time beekeeper manages an impressive 170 bee colonies. The business is self-sustaining; the sale of homemade wax candles does its part, not to mention the lectures to school classes, which he gives around seventy times a year.
But what do you mean by "lectures". Although everything is quite frontal, as the trained pedagogue self-critically notes, the accompanying teachers are amazed at the ability of the otherwise so fidgety children to concentrate. Because at Schießer they are not only allowed to draw their own candles, but there is also theatre at the end. With hand puppets impersonating insects and, of course, bees, this captivates the children. Perhaps the wonderfully homely scent of beeswax permeating the rooms also has its calming effect.
Schießer, who also gained his experience as a museum educator in the Hessenpark, tells of the biology of bees and their great, irreplaceable importance for the pollination of flowering plants. All this is told in the almost enviably calm manner that is so typical of beekeepers. But that does not protect you from bee stings. In summer, estimates Schießer, when the bees defended their honey committed, he comes to a good thirty stings per day.
All the same: without bees no fruit - and no honey, of course. The beekeeping has many different kinds to offer, starting with fruit blossoms and rape, summer blossoms, sweet chestnuts (which the bees collect in the Kronberg area) and sunflower honey; only for fir honey does the beekeeper travel with his colonies as far as the Black Forest. Then there are honeys from colleagues, e.g. cornflowers, acacia, lime, heather and dandelion; particularly aromatic comes from lavender from the Provençe.
Which tastes best and is recommended for honey parfait, for example, is best determined with a honey sample, twenty varieties are available for comparison. You can also learn how candles are made in the traditional way.
Emy
Heinz Schießer
Am Tunnel 11
61279 Grävenwiesbach/Taunus
Tel: 06086-1353
from Waldemar Thomas