Photo credit: Tracy Hunter
[A picture, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]
St. Catherine's College, Oxford, 2009 (Photo credit: Nick Atkins Photography)
The Oxford Food Symposium 2009, from an article by Corby Kummer of The Atlantic.
The 2010 Symposium will take place in July 9 – 11, at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, England; the conference topic is very timely — “Cured, Fermented, and Smoked Foods.” January 15, 2010 marks the deadline for proposals for talks.
Guess what I want for my birthday? (Hint: It involves silver wings and Guinness.)
Photo credit: Annie Schlechter
Marco Polo returned to Italy from his Chinese travels in 1296. The myth, legend, what have you, credits him with introducing pasta into Italy’s culinary repertoire. But Marco Polo did NOT bring pasta to Italy. And 73-year-old Italian author Oretta Zanini de Vita wants you to know that, immediately, upfront and center.
Zanini de Vita says,
Dried pasta, the kind made with durum wheat, is found in Italy from about A.D. 800. It was in fact the Muslim occupiers of Sicily who spread the manufacturing and drying technique.
But the Chinese beg to differ, and that’s another story …*
In the ongoing search for the roots of cuisine comes another branch: Oretta Zanini de Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta (California Studies in Food and Culture series, 2009). Translated from the original Italian by Maureen B. Fant, this particular offering far surpasses previous efforts like The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Pasta and so forth.
Photo credit: Alexander von Halem
Ostensibly a catalog of pasta shapes, because — as Zanini de Vita says “Pasta may be the unchallenged symbol of Italian food, yet no in-depth research as ever been done on its many shapes [she found over 1300 names for pastas].” — Encyclopedia of Pasta comes in part from oral history, adding a dimension to food studies research that is usually missing. After all, unless time travel turns out to be part of the new technology, no one can go back and talk to the peasants standing outside the manor house, watching the sides of beef and haunches of venison being carried in for great feasts.
4000-Year-old Chinese Pasta (Photo credit: K.B.K. Teo, E. Minoux et al.)
Most scholars rely on early printed texts, but knowing that an important historical source would soon disappear, Zanini de Vita chose another route. In her own journey, not unlike the wanderlust-infected Marco Polo, she traveled across Italy for ten years, talking
with samplings of very old people, trying to jog their memories about the pasta-making traditions and rituals of the past. … Their stories vividly confirmed … until just after World War II, the country had eaten ‘green,’ that is, only vegetable soup, with pasta a s a rule reserved for the tables of the middle and upper classes in towns and cities and only occasionally for the feast-day tables of the poor.
In addition to the bibliography, bilingual indices, and glossary, the result is 290 pages of alphabetically arranged entries, giving the name of the pasta shape and its type, ingredients, alternative names, how served, where found, and remarks about the pasta made by the informants. No pretty colorful pictures gloss the text, but lovely hand-drawn illustrations by Luciana Marini grace many entries. An ample bibliography of Italian-language works, as well as notes and a glossary, provide the necessary scholarly touch to a work that a reader will actually want to read while burning the midnight oil. Like all good literature, Encyclopedia of Pasta tells a good story, or rather, many great stories about a food that symbolizes, frankly, a collective nostalgic myth surrounding Italian cuisine.
Regarding a stuffed pasta called Ofelle, Zanini de Vita writes:
The word offa used to mean the Roman spelt cake that was offered to the gods. Aeneas himself, when he came face to face with Cerberus at the gates to the underworld, managed to put the terrible dog to sleep by giving him an ‘offa made sleepy with honey and drugged meal.’
And in the many names and shapes of pasta lie a lot of history. Just one example serves to illustrate this aspect of pasta shapes: Cappellacci dei Briganti:
The name, literally ‘brigands’ hats, refers to the conical hat with upturned brim that was part of the everyday uniform of the briganti, from brigantaggio, a bloody and disorderly social and political movement active in the Mezzogiorno during the unification of Italy and the first decade of the Kingdom of Italy.
Among the complaints a reader might have about Encyclopedia of Pasta is that there are no numerically detailed recipes, much like many old cookbooks. However, the enterprising cook could take the list of ingredients and the notes in the “How Made” section and attempt to reproduce the tastes of the past. Another question concerns the reliability of her informants, but the copious bibliography indicates that much textual research went into Encyclopedia of Pasta as well as oral history. Yet more needs to be done, as Oretta Zanini de Vita suggests:
[T]his is a first, hesitant attempt to catalog an unalienable heritage that belongs to all Italians. Perhaps there are some courageous and willing souls to carry it on.
Food of the gods. Maybe.
*The Marco Polo legend, according to Zanini de Vita, began in 1938 in Minneapolis, a “marketing gimmick,” thanks to L. B. Maxwell, for a trade publication, Macaroni Journal. For more about the Chinese/pasta connection, see Houyuan Lu et al. “Culinary archaeology: Millet noodles in Late Neolithic China“. Nature 437: 967–968, October 13, 2005.
© 2009 C. Bertelsen
Painting by Elizabeth Floyd
Guarded treasure, honeycomb partitions,
Richness of flavour,
Pentagonal architecture.
The rind splits; seeds fall–
Crimson seeds in azure bowls,
Or drops of gold in dishes of enamelled bronze.
–André Gide in Les Nourritures Terrestres (trans. Dorothy Bussy)
Like the pomegranate itself, so ripe and bursting with seeds, the history of this berry-like fruit reveals more and more the deeper one looks into it.
The myths, the legends, and the journeys of the pomegranate serve as an archetypal case of plant migration, illustrating how humans took a species and created variations of it.
Madonna of the Pomegranate, by Botticelli (1487)
Long associated with Christianity, the pomegranate represented fertility and faith. Artists painted pomegranates along with religious figures like the Virgin Mary and Christ. In Spain, this seed-rich fruit inspired Queen Isabella, perhaps apocryphally, to say “Just like the pomegranate, I will take over Andalusia seed by seed.” The city name of Granada in Spain derives from the Latin for pomegranate and Granada’s coat of arms to this day contains a depiction of a pomegranate. The pomegranate appeared in California when Spanish Franciscan missionaries began planting orchards of pomegranates at the long string of missions up and down the coast.
Ginger Pot with Pomegranate and Pears, by Paul Cézanne
Take some of the names of pomegranate varieties currently grown in California:
Balegal, Cloud, Crab, Francis, Granada, King, Phoenicia (Fenecia), Wonderful …
Almost a poem, a haiku …
Appropriately, given the pomegranate’s association with fertility and its probable origins in Iran, my first encounter with the pomegranate took place at a spectacular wedding. My brother married into an Iranian family and one of the dishes featured in the vast repast prepared for that day was Khoresh-e Fessenjan, a rich Persian stew traditionally made with duck or pheasant and permeated with pomegranate syrup. (See my previous post — “Iran: the Beauty of an Ancient Cuisine“)
Photo credit: Chris Chen
Khoresh-e Fessenjan (Poultry in Pomegranate Sauce) (Adapted from Food of Life: A Book of Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, by Najmieh Batmanglij)
6 servings
2 large onions, chopped, divided
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
¼ cup oil
2 cups walnuts, finely ground in a food processor
1 t. salt
¼ t. freshly ground black pepper
½ t. ground cinnamon
½ t. freshly ground nutmeg
1 cup fresh orange juice
2/3 cup pomegranate syrup or molasses
1 T. sugar
¼ t. saffron, dissolved in 1 T. hot water
1 large frying chicken, cut into serving pieces
Sauté half the onion in 3 T. of the oil in a large heavy pot. Add the walnuts and fry for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in salt, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cover with 1 ½ cup water.
Mix together the orange juice, pomegranate syrup, sugar, and saffron. Add this to the onion/walnut mixture. Cover, and simmer 20 minutes over low heat. Check taste and add more sugar if sauce is too sour.
Place chicken in another large pot with the remaining onion. Cover the pot and simmer for 30 minutes (1 hour if you use duck). DO NOT ADD WATER. Debone chicken when tender.
Add chicken to the pomegranate sauce mixture. Cook another 30 minutes. Stir occasionally, careful not to break up the chicken too much.
Check seasoning and place sauce/chicken in a covered casserole dish until serving. Serve with rice (chelo).
Note: You may use pomegranate juice as well. To make your own, just cut open the pomegranate like your would an orange or a grapefruit and squeeze out the juice or use a juicer.
How to Open a Pomegranate:
Pomegranates may seem intimidating, but they are easy to open. This efficient procedure for opening a pomegranate has six simple steps:
Cut – With a sharp paring knife, cut off the top about a half inch below the crown.
Score – Once the top has been removed, four to six sections of the pomegranate divided by white membrane will be visible. With the knife’s point, score the skin along each section.
Open – Using both hands, carefully pull the pomegranate apart, breaking it into smaller sections.
Loosen – Over a bowl of water, loosen the arils and allow them to drop freely into the bowl. The arils will sink to the bottom of the bowl and the membrane will float to the top.
Scoop – Use a spoon to scoop out the pieces of white membrane that have floated to the top of the water.
Strain – Pour the arils and remaining liquid through a strainer.
For more on cooking with pomegranates, see Pomegranates: 70 Celebratory Recipes, by Ann Kleinberg (2004). Another interesting source is Pomegranates: Ancient Roots to Modern Medicine (Medicinal and Aromatic Plants – Industrial Profiles), by Navindra P. Seeram, Risa N. Schulman, and David Heber (CRC, 2006).
© 2009 C. Bertelsen
Photo credit: C. Bertelsen
Our sense of the ancientness of the pomegranate comes not just from words, but also from the earth.
Words do provide clues to the incredible journey of the pomegranate, such as this little ditty inscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphics — said to be translated by Ezra Pound and Noel Stock, from an Italian rendition by Boris de Rachewiltz, based on papyrus and pottery preserved from 1567 – 1085 BC.
The Pomegranate speaks:
My leaves are like your teeth
My fruit like your breasts.
I, the most beautiful of fruits,
Am present in all weathers, all seasons
As the lover stays forever with the beloved,
Drunk on shedeh* and wine.
All the trees lose their leaves, all
Trees but the Pomegranate.
I alone in all the garden lose not my beauty,
I remain straight.
When my leaves fall,
New leaves are budding.
First among fruits
I demand that my position be acknowledged,
I will not take second place.
And if I receive such an insult again
You will never hear the end of it….
Papyrus and the pottery point to other sources, as do myths like that of Persephone and Demeter,** passed down in almost universally in one sense or another. In a parallel with Persephone, evidence comes from the earth, and at times, from the sea.
Pomegranate artifact from Israel
In Iraq, a vase found in Uruk dating back to 4000 BC suggests that pomegranates enjoyed lively popularity, while in Iran small pomegranate tokens dated to 3300 BC surfaced in Susa.
The Torah, specifically Exodus 28:33-34, expounds on the pomegranate, one of the Seven Species — the others being barley, dates, figs, grapes, olives, and wheat. This list represents a good profile of the important plants growing at the time and which eventually formed the basis of much of the cuisine of the Middle East. Today, Jews traditionally eat pomegranates on Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot, for they regard the pomegranate as an important symbol of righteousness. Legend has it that the pomegranate contains 613 seeds, one for each of the 613 mitzvot (commandments) of the Torah. Archaeological evidence for the presence of pomegranates in what is now modern-day Israel comes from a 1600 BC Hyksos tomb in Jericho — the find consisted of a box shaped like a pomegranate, with six whole fruits. A recent find in the City of David generated some controversy over the interpretation of the meaning and significance of the object:
Ivory Pomegranate with Dove
January 9, 2009 Ha’aretz Hebrew online edition has an illustrated report about the discovery in the City of David excavations led by Dr. Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron of a miniature ivory pomegranate …
That the pomegranate moved with the trade routes is indisputable, as archaeologists found thousands of seeds in a 13th-century BC shipwreck off the coast of Turkey, at Ulu Burun (Kas). The ship carried goods originally from all over the Mediterranean.***
The fact that part of the pomegranate’s scientific name — Punica — comes from “Phoenician” hints at the pomegranate’s restless travels.
*Shedeh: a drink from ancient Egypt, suspected to have been made form pomegranates, but recent research suggests that people used grapes instead. See Maria Rosa Guasch-Jané, Cristina Andrés-Lacueva, Olga Jáuregui and Rosa M. Lamuela-Raventós, The origin of the ancient Egyptian drink Shedeh revealed using LC/MS/MS, Journal of Archaeological Science, 33 (1): 98-101, January 2006.
**For an in-depth analysis of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, see The Narcissus and the Pomegranate: An Archaeology of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, by Ann Suter, 2003. See also Nightly She Sings on Yon Pomegranate-Tree.
***Cheryl Ward, Pomegranates in Eastern Mediterranean Contexts during the Late Bronze Age. World Archaeology 34(3):529-541, 2003.
To be continued …
© 2009 C. Bertelsen
Magic and myth wind through the history of many foods.
At the crux of these stories the very mysteries of life clamor for explanation.
In the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, for example, it’s possible to feel the foreboding of ancient humans when the first chill kissed the air and darkness descended over leafless trees and barren fields.
Demeter and Persephone. Mother and daughter. Goddesses of Earth. Fertility. Loss. Hope. A very human story, actually.
Frederic Leighton: The Return of Persephone (1891)
But first let’s gather around the fire pit and let the old storytellers speak:
And when Demeter saw them, she rushed forth as does a Maenad down some thick-wooded mountain, while Persephone on the other side, when she saw her mother’s sweet eyes, left the chariot and horses, and leaped down to run to her, and falling upon her neck, embraced her. But while Demeter was still holding her dear child in her arms, her heart suddenly misgave her for some snare, so that she feared greatly and ceased fondling her daughter and asked of her at once: “My child, tell me, surely you have not tasted any food while you were below? Speak out and hide nothing, but let us both know. For if you have not, you shall come back from loathly Hades and live with me and your father, the dark-clouded Son of Cronos and be honoured by all the deathless gods; but if you have tasted food, you must go back again beneath the secret places of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons every year: yet for the two parts you shall be with me and the other deathless gods. But when the earth
shall bloom with the fragrant flowers of spring in every kind, then from the realm of darkness and gloom thou shalt come up once more to be a wonder for gods and mortal men. And now tell me how he rapt you away to the realm of darkness and gloom, and by what trick did the strong Host of Many beguile you?”*
Persephone answered her mother by saying
… he secretly put in my mouth sweet food, a pomegranate seed, and forced me to taste against my will.*
Pomegranate.
Punica granatum or “seedy apple.”
Perhaps the “apple” of Eden, the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Paradise? “I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranates….” (Song of Songs 8:2)
Photo credit: Judy Baxter
Now languishing in food markets, scarlet mounds of womb-shaped pomegranates still shroud the seeds of that ancient myth. And yet the tough skin and multitude of seeds of this fruit gave birth to more than myth.
Art. Religion Literature. Cuisine. Through these, it’s possible to trace the journey of the pomegranate from Iran, where it may have originated, to the Mediterranean-like soil of California.
To be continued …
*From the Homeric hymns, Hymn to Demeter, 7th century BC.
For more about myth, see Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth.
© 2009 C. Bertelsen
A novel about an arrogant food critic could only happen in France. Bien sûr!
Some time ago, I set myself the challenging and Sisyphean task of reading Muriel Barbery’s first novel, Une gourmandise, in French. (Barbery’s reputation rests on her extremely philosophical second novel — The Elegance of the Hedgehog [what a title!], which took France by storm. The heavy larding of the text with academic philosophical bits proved to be the downfall of many American readers. But not all.)
Un peu every day. Slog, slog, but of the pleasurable sort. But, finally, in September 2009, the English translation — Gourmet Rhapsody (with its lousy translation of the title, Une gourmandise, IMO) — appeared and, with relief, I read un peu of both versions every day, in little chunks to assure myself that my twisted French à l’ancienne still worked, un peu at least.
Several of the same characters in Hedgehog appear in cameo in Une gourmandise. But center stage belongs to the insufferable food critic and food writer, Pierre Arthens, dead as a plucked pheasant in Hedgehog, but vibrant as a crowing peacock in Gourmet Rhapsody.
Right off the bat, Pierre Arthens calls himself “the greatest food critic in the world.” (Je suis le plus grand critique gastronomique du monde.)
Uh, OK. A little ego thing going there, a big attitude with no adjustment in sight, but people apparently can live with that sort of thing. I mean, stand in any grocery store checkout lane, and scan the headlines of the tabloids and fan magazines displayed oh so subtly for one’s ready pleasure, conveniently placed within an eye’s reach and an arm’s length. We’re a culture that worships large egos.
And so, faced with his impending death, the egotistical Arthens recounts his frantic attempt to recall a certain great taste during his last 48 hours.
Une gourmandise/Gourmet Rhapsody really nails it when it comes to descriptions of food. Arthens, through Barbery’s pen, captures one taste memory after another in seductive, almost pornographic, prose:
The grilled sardines filled the entire neighborhood with their ashy marine aroma. … In the flesh of grilled fish, from the humblest of mackerel to the most refined salmon, there is something that defies culture. Early man, in learning to cook fish, must have felt his humanity for the first time, in this substance where fire revealed both essential purity and wildness. (Les sardines grillées embaumaient tout le quartier de leur fumet océanique et cendré. … Il y a dans la chair du poisson grillé, du plus humble des maquereaux au plus raffiné des saumons, quelque chose qui échappe à la culture. C’est ainsi que les hommes, apprenant à cuire leur poisson, durent éprouver pour la première fois leur humanité, dans cette matière dont le feu révélait conjointement la pureté et la sauvagerie essentielles.)
And so it goes, for pages, different foods, buried memories, dishes bordering on the divine, more vignettes than traditional story telling, a calling up of last suppers and large regrets. Barbery certainly grasps the power of critics and writers to make and break lives.
Nevertheless, when the last pages fall together, at THE END, images of other unforgettable (but real) food writers and food critics emerge out of the mental stew served up by Barbery.
Take a moment to reflect on this Day of all Souls (La Toussaint). In tribute, remember those saintly souls of the food world who went before, leaving us with profound pleasure on the page and in the pan, those who wrote seductively and winningly of food and the kitchen.
The following are just some of the souls who “preserve” me on the page and in the kitchen. Arthens they’re not …
Elizabeth Pennell
Elizabeth David
M. F. K. Fisher
Roy Andries de Groot
Photo credit Nancy Crampton
Laurie Colwin
And a nod to all the late food-besotted personalities included in Culinary Biographies, as well as those found in the series edited by Holly Hughes, Best Food Writing … even if the writers from the latter still wield their pens.
*As All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are called in France.
© 2009 C. Bertelsen
[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
For more on the Day of the Dead in Mexico, see my previous post: Día de los Muertos (Todos Santos)/ Day of the Dead Food-Laden Altars .
About All Souls’ Day (November 2), Sir James George Frazer wrote detailed notes in The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion, a classic in anthropology. Notice the mention of marigolds, also common in Mexico.
In Lechrain, a district of Southern Bavaria which All Souls in existence along the valley of the Lech from its source to near the point where the river flows into the Danube, the two festivals of All Saints and All Souls, on the first and second of November, have significantly fused in popular usage into a single festival of the dead. In fact, the people pay little or no heed to the saints and give all their thoughts to the souls of their departed kinsfolk. The Feast of All Souls begins immediately after vespers on All Saints’ Day. Even on the eve of All Saints’ Day, that is, on the thirty-first of October, which we call Hallowe’en, the graveyard is cleaned and every grave adorned. The decoration consists in weeding the mounds, sprinkling a layer of charcoal on the bare earth, and marking out patterns on it in red service-berries. The marigold, too, is still in bloom at that season in cottage gardens, and garlands of its orange blooms, mingled with other late flowers left by the departing summer, are twined about the grey mossgrown tombstones.
The basin of holy water is filled with fresh water and a branch of box-wood put into it ; for box-wood in the popular mind is associated with death and the dead. On the eve of All Souls’ Day the people begin to visit the graves and to offer the soul-cakes to the hungry souls. Next morning, before eight o’clock, commence the vigil, the requiem, and the solemn visitation of the graves. On that day every household offers a plate of meal, oats, and spelt on a side-altar in the church ; while in the middle of the sacred edifice a bier is set, covered with a pall, and surrounded by lighted tapers and vessels of holy water. The tapers burnt on that day and indeed generally in services for the departed are red. In the evening people go, whenever they can do so, to their native village, where their dear ones lie in the churchyard ; and there at the graves they pray for the poor souls, and leave an offering of soul-cakes also on a side-altar in the church. The soul-cakes are baked of dough in the shape of a coil of hair and are made of all sizes up to three feet long. They form a perquisite of the sexton.
In Britain, children sang this song while “souling”:
“Soul Cake, soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake.
An apple, a plum, a peach, or a cherry,
Anything good thing to make us merry.
One for Peter, one for Paul, & three for Him who made us all.”
Note: I’d like to thank all the readers of “Gherkins & Tomatoes” for tuning in to my various posts about the Halloween season. The most popular post — with daily hits of over 1500 per day for the last week — was More Than Meets the Pie!
Soul Cake
Trick-or-treating may well have originated in the old custom of “souling,” as people went from house to house, begging ( “mumming”) for “soul cakes,” actually prayers — in sweet form. Sir James George Frazer wrote about this practice in The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion, a classic in anthropology, first published in 1890:
In Bruges, Dinant, and other towns of Belgium holy candles burn all night in the houses on the Eve of All Souls, and the bells toll till midnight, or even till morning. People, too, often set lighted candles on the graves. At Scherpenheuvel the houses are illuminated, and the people walk in procession carrying lighted candles in their hands. A very common custom in Belgium is to eat ” soul-cakes” or ” soul-bread ” on the eve or the day of All Souls. The eating of them is believed to benefit the dead in some way. Perhaps originally, as among the Esquimaux of Alaska to this day, the ghosts were thought to enter into the bodies of their relatives and so to share the victuals which the survivors consumed. Similarly at festivals in honour of the dead in Northern India it is customary to feed Brahmans, and the food which these holy men partake of is believed to pass to the deceased and to refresh their languid spirits.3 The same idea of eating and drinking by proxy may perhaps partly explain many other funeral feasts. Be that as it may, at Dixmude and elsewhere in
Saffron -- The Flames of Purgatory? (Photo credit: David Hawkins-Weeks)
Belgium they say that you deliver a soul from Purgatory for every cake you eat. At Antwerp they give a local colour to the soul-cakes by baking them with plenty of saffron, the deep yellow tinge being suggestive of the flames of Purgatory. People in Antwerp at the same season are careful not to slam doors or windows for fear of hurting the ghosts.
Click HERE for a modern recipe for soul cakes.
Note: for the next few days, I’m working on a couple of intensive writing projects, so “Gherkins & Tomatoes” will of necessity be brief, with a look at “Saints, Souls, and Haints” in honor of the ancient traditions of Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day. “Haints” comes from a slang term used for “ghost” in the American South.
Photo credit: Tom Goskar
About All Souls’ Day (November 2), Sir James George Frazer wrote in The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion, a classic in anthropology:
The day of the dead or of All Souls, and other as we call it, is commonly the second of November. Thus in Lower Brittany the souls of the departed come to visit the living on the eve of that day. After vespers are over, the priests and choir walk in procession, ” the procession of the charnel-house,” chanting a weird dirge in the Breton tongue. Then the people go home, gather round the fire, and talk of the departed. The housewife covers the kitchen table with a white cloth, sets out cider, curds, and hot pancakes on it, and retires with the family to rest. The fire on the hearth is kept up by a huge log known as ” the log of the dead” (hef ann Anaon). Soon doleful voices outside in the darkness break the stillness of night. It is the ” singers of death ” who go about the streets waking the sleepers by a wild and melancholy song, in which they remind the living in their comfortable beds to pray for the poor souls in pain. All that night the dead warm themselves at the hearth and feast on the viands prepared for them. Sometimes the awe-struck listeners hear the stools creaking in the kitchen, or the
Curds (Photo credit: M. F. Corwin)
dead leaves outside rustling under the ghostly footsteps. In the Vosges Mountains on All Souls’ Eve the solemn sound of the church bells invites good Christians to pray for the repose of the dead. While the bells are ringing, it is customary in some families to uncover the beds and open the windows, doubtless in order to let the poor souls enter and rest. No one that evening would dare to remain deaf to the appeal of the bells. The prayers are prolonged to a late hour of the night. When the last De profundis has been uttered, the head of the family gently covers up the beds, sprinkles them with holy water, and shuts the windows. In some villages fire is kept up on the hearth and a basket of nuts is placed beside it for the use of the ghosts.
Note: for the next few days, I’m working on a couple of intensive writing projects, so “Gherkins & Tomatoes” will of necessity be brief, with a look at “Saints, Souls, and Haints” in honor of the ancient traditions of Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day. “Haints” comes from a slang term used for “ghost” in the American South.
Some interesting comments from 1845 about All Souls’ Day, by Charles Knight in Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (!), Volume 14, p. 441:
To do a Tarentella as it ought to be done requires room, and although the palaces of the nobility and gentry be large (in ninety cases out of a hundred far too large for their shrunken fortunes), the lodgings of the poor and humble, especially in Naples [Italy] and in the neighbouring towns, are mostly very narrow. Now and then in walking through the poorer and more peopled part of Naples on a winter’s night, the sounds of the Tarentella might be heard. But this was rare. With the first festa or Saint’s day occurring in the spring time of the year the Tarentellari began to be seen and heard in the streets and roadsides, and they generally disappeared with the day of Ogni Santi or All Saints, early in the month of November ; though at times we have seen them performing on the day of the Dead or All Souls, and dancing, in what seemed to us an unfeeling and heathenish fashion, from the public cemetery outside of the town where their relations and friends were interred, to their own dark abodes within the city. Our old Roman, clerical, and archaeological friend, though bound as a priest to condemn some evident relics of Paganism, could find, on these occasions, fine scope for indulging in his classical
comparisons, prototypes, and derivations. “The ancients,” he would say, ” tried to turn the valley of the shadow of Death into a pleasant place. Go to Pompeii, and you will find that the pleasantest and gayest street in it is the street of the Tombs, and that the tombs therein are carved with fruits and flowers, and all cheerful emblems. These Lazzaroni are only doing the same manner of thing in their way. They are dancing over the dead, and singing over the dead, and eating and drinking over the dead ; and what are these sweet cakes, made, for the Day of the Dead, of meal and honey, but the type of the honey which the ancients put upon the tongue and lips of the dying ?”
For human beings, no matter how sophisticated or modern they think they are, some things never change, do they,?
Note: for the next several days, I’m working on a couple of intensive writing projects, so “Gherkins & Tomatoes” will of necessity be brief, with a look at “Saints, Souls, and Haints” in honor of the ancient traditions of Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day. “Haints” comes from a slang term used for “ghost” in the American South.
Some pumpkin-laden advice from Janet McKenzie Hill, sounding like the Martha Stewart of a much earlier generation in her Practical Cooking and Serving: a Complete Manual of How to Select, Prepare, and Serve Food (1902, p. 566):
CENTREPIECE OF FRUIT FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER OR HARVEST FESTIVAL [Halloween]
Select a golden-colored, medium-sized, well-shaped pumpkin. With a sharp knife fashion into the shape of a basket with an old-fashioned tub handle on each side. Carefully scoop out the seeds and pulp, leaving a thin shell. Polish the rind and line the inside neatly with white paper. The paper may be held in place with pins.
Fill the basket with apples, pears, and grapes of various hues. A mat of autumn leaves, maple or sumac, gives the finishing touch to this table ornament. A fruit basket, fashioned from a cabbage, is appropriate for halloween [sic].
Note: for the next two weeks, I’m working on a couple of intensive writing projects, so “Gherkins & Tomatoes” will of necessity be brief, with a look at “Saints, Souls, and Haints” in honor of the ancient traditions of Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day. “Haints” comes from a slang term used for “ghost” in the American South.
