Changes

After some time, this foam would trickle down from the bush, producing the illusion of thaw. Winter was gone, spring and summer were here. The foam would also uncover a dark forest made of fruit preserves, fields of buckwheat made from chocolate, apple and pear trees made from, I don't know, some apple-and-pear mousse? And saffron wheat fields, which I suppose doesn't mean naked saffron threads imitating ears of wheat, but rather some kind of paste dyed yellow with saffron. And if soon afterwards "the grain, painted gold, slowly melt[ed] while absorbing the warmth of the hall",<ref>A. Mickiewicz, ''op. cit.'', Book XII, verses 174–175</ref> then it surely must have been saffron ice cream. That would have been a truly Baroque twist: snow imitated by lukewarm cream "foam" followed by summer crops made from ice cream! Sadly, Czerniecki provides no ice cream recipë in his book. But I do know that you can get delicious saffron ice cream (with ground orchid tubers, which give it a peculiar fudgy texture) at [https://gothic.com.pl/ Gothic Restaurant] in the Malbork Castle. <ref>''Update:'' Sadly, the restuarant didn't survive the covid-19 pandemic and closed down in 2020.</ref> I'd say this treat alone would be a good enough reason to visit Malbork, even if the largest brick Gothic castle in the world wasn't in itself a worthy tourist destination.