Sourful Is Powerful

The Joy of Making Olliver's Sour Lemonade

Source: Courtesy of Julian Clauss-Ehlers

If there’s any taste that has movement, it’s sour. “Oooooooooohh, sour,” we say as we pucker our mouths.

Sour brings its own sensation: Sometimes it builds in our mouths, sometimes it leaves us breathless. It’s not hot. It’s not burning. It’s tart and puckery. A sensation that makes you click your tongue like an intense spark igniting our taste buds.

My 7-year-old son Olliver loves sour. It is by far, his favorite taste sensation. In a way it’s no surprise that Olliver, who loves dinosaurs, big hugs, and constant motion, reacts so positively to the movement of the big taste of sour.

He delights in the sneaky way that sour can surprise us. “Try this,” he says, giving me a long gummy strip of candy with sugar glistening on it. “It’s super sour.”

“OK,” I say, more as a question. I don’t like sour as much as Olliver does.

We each put the candy strip in our mouths and start to chew its gumminess. “It’s not so sour,” I think to myself, relieved.

Olliver starts to bounce up and down in sheer exuberance. “Do you see how it’s getting more sour? Do you see how the sourness is growing?!”

It’s true. The more I chew the more sour it gets. And I must admit, it’s kind of a fun surprise, like turning a street corner and unexpectedly running into an old friend.

“See mama, see mama,” Olliver delights. He’s so proud at being able to share his joy of all things sour.

In the midst of his glee, it strikes me that sour can mean many things. When we think of a relationship that’s gone sour, we think of bitterness, the sharpness of a biting loss: Why didn’t we see the red flags sooner? How could we have been betrayed in this way?

But Olliver’s joy of sour invites us to view it in a different way. Just as I was hesitant to experience the big taste of sour, there are many ways that sourful can be powerful. What if we didn’t move away from sour, and instead, moved into it as Olliver does?

It’s so often the case that we step back from what we want. Maybe we let our classmate speak up in class, remaining silent with our idea. Perhaps we spend our time focusing on someone else, to the detriment of embracing what we want to do for ourselves. Maybe we even feel guilty about asserting ourselves and saying what we want—the sour of a wilted lemon slice forgotten at the back of our fridge. This kind of sour is sad, maybe even irritable, or self-blaming—because we didn’t assert ourselves in the way we needed to—again!

But Olliver’s type of sourful is powerful. It invites us to go with the biting kick and move with the acidity. To be fully present in sharing our true selves with others.

Whoa. This is not an easy task. It takes confidence, support, and trust. Trust of others but even more so, trust of our own process—the process Olliver knew would happen as we chewed the gummy candies and the sourness started to soar.

How can we incorporate sour as our power? Some thoughts come to mind as I chew on my gummy:

• We can say no to something we don’t really want to do that we’ve said yes to for a long time.
• We can move away from self-blame to be kind to ourselves in an effort to discover the path ahead.
• We can set limits in ways that feel healthful and helpful so that we can preserve a relationship or perhaps move away from it.
• We can confront someone who’s shared something that feels hurtful or confusing.
• We can make a decision to end a relationship that continues to leave us thirsty for wanting more or exhausted from giving so much.

Pow! That tastes good!

Olliver’s Sour Lemonade is a recipe from our book, Eating Together, Being Together (Clauss-Ehlers & Clauss-Ehlers, 2022). Making sour lemonade literally and metaphorically provides an avenue to quench the sour we need in our lives. The fact that the amount of sugar added to our recipe is based on what tastes right, instead of a defined amount, highlights how we can make decisions about the sour power we want in our daily lives.

Just like eating the sour gummies together led Olliver and I on a tasting path that led from sweet to sour, the beauty of this simple lemonade recipe is that it's healthy and accessible with amounts of ingredients decided by you: That’s your sour power!

Source: Courtesy of Julian Clauss-Ehlers

Olliver’s Sour Lemonade

Ingredients

1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus more as needed

2 cups hot water

2 cups ice

1-1/2 cups fresh lemon juice (from 8 lemons),

1 lemon for decoration (optional)

2 cups cold water

Serves 6 (4 on a very hot day).

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the granulated sugar and hot water and whisk well to melt the sugar. Add the ice and stir. It’s fun to watch as the ice melts. Add the lemon juice and cold water and stir.

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Test your lemonade to see how it tastes. Discover if you like it sour or sweet, adding more sugar as needed.

Pour your lemonade into a pitcher and put it in the fridge. Make sure you don’t add ice at this point, as you don’t want to dilute the lemonade. When ready to serve, pour your lemonade into a glass over a little ice and slip a lemon slice on the side of the glass for decoration. Refreshing!

Concluding Activity: Quench Your Sour

There’s a lot of noise out there: Ulterior agendas placed on our goals, a lack of support for self-expression, being riddled with perfectionism to the point that it’s hard to take a calculated risk toward success. This post is all about quenching our sour in a way that brings us back to the forefront of our lives. Consider the following activities for all ages.

Develop Your Sour Power

Young Helpers (toddlerhood through school-age children): This recipe lets you make decisions about how much sugar you want to add in a way that makes your lemonade taste right for you. That’s your sour power!

Listen for the Crack

Preteen and Teen Helpers: Put your whisk on the bottom of the bowl and listen. If you hear a cracking sound, your sugar hasn’t dissolved yet. Keep stirring with your whisk until there’s no crack. In daily life, listening for the crack is like hearing the background noise that distracts us from being who we are. Dissolve the cracking sound to reach your sour power and be more fully yourself.

Drink It In

Grown-Up Helpers: Often we get so caught up in all that life demands that our sense of self and purpose becomes muted. One strategy is to start to be aware of how the dulling of who we are shows up in our daily lives. Through this awareness we can work to be intentional about fully being ourselves, inviting the sour to be powerful in the moment.