Reflections on a Green-Grape Tart

September 28, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Sugary milky sweetness, that first delicious taste, imprints itself on a baby’s tiny tongue, and seals forever a great love. From the very beginning of life, then, a yearning for that nectar haunts us forever and never leaves us in peace. This primal urge for sweetness led to the scourge of slavery and fuels the modern obesity epidemic. Imagine, for a moment, vast fields of sugar cane, saber-sharp green blades swaying under gentle tropical breezes, fed by the merciless sun […]

Categories: Africa, France, French Cooking, Grapes, Middle Ages, Science of cooking • Tags: Grapes, Paula Wolfert, Sidney Mintz, Slavery, Sweetness and Power

Begging the Question: Les Quatre Mendiants and Provence’s Thirteen Christmas Desserts

December 7, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The truth is, the dishes associated with Provence’s Thirteen Desserts abound with religious symbolism. Take the Four Beggars, or Les Quatre Mendiants, which symbolize something that we in the secular West have basically lost, a sense of awe and fear about the natural world and all that is in it. The Thirteen Desserts likely represented a way to ensure a righteous, blessed life, free from the challenges of living in times of strife and great uncertainty.  Although today we might […]

Categories: Christmas, Cooking, France, French Cooking, Monasteries, Nuts • Tags: Christmas, Cuisine Francaise, France, French Cooking, Monasteries, Monks, Provence, Quatre Mendiants, Thirteen Desserts, Treize Desserts

Peregrinations and Pilgrimages: Medieval Benedictine Hospitality

October 11, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

If your idea of hospitality is having good friends over for stimulating talk and take-out pizza and beer (good beer, mind you), you may just be a Benedictine at heart. That is, Benedictine as in monk, not liqueur. In the Benedictine charism, true hospitality is a “holy event”, not just a social happening where only people’s bodies are nourished. No, Benedictine hospitality requires much more than feeding people and sending them on their way. Chapter 53 of The Rule of […]

Categories: Europe, Middle Ages, Monasteries • Tags: Apples, Benedictine order, Catholic Church, Cluny, Hospitality, Joan Chittister, Kirk Ambrose, Marc Meneau, Pilgrimages, Reinettes, Religion and Spirituality, Rule of Saint Benedict

Hildegard von Bingen, First Female Food Writer in the West?

September 23, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

You may have come a long way, baby, but it’s taken a while. Food historians generally agree that Sabina Welserin of Augsburg, Germany wrote the first cookbook penned by a woman in the West (Europe) in 1553, Kochbuch.  Anna Weckerin’s Ein Küstlich new Köchbuch von allerhand Speisen (A Delicious New Cookbook) appeared in 1598 in published form. Like the English writer Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, Ann Weckerin’s (later Keller) book went through many reprints. But it seems to […]

Categories: Cookbooks, Germany, Middle Ages, Milk • Tags: Anna Weckerin, Food, Food in Medicine, Hildegard von Bingen, Medieval Women, Middle Ages, Physica, Sabina Welserin

Sugar, Saffron, Spices — The Arab Influence on Spanish Cuisine, a Brief Meditation

June 2, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Spanish food enjoys some quite heady popularity right now. Trendy magazines and the international food punditry (for example,  Matt Preston in Australia) say “Si” to Spanish cuisine and predict a continuing surge of enthusiasm for the food of the land of Don Quixote. Just about every grocery store, mundane as well as high-end, displays wedges of Manchego cheese placed temptingly near wrinkly chorizo sausages. And in case you can’t find it locally, an online store, La Tienda, sells everything you […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Beef, Cookbooks, Latin America, Middle Ages, Morocco, Spain, Spanish cooking • Tags: Al-Andalus, ArabCooking, Estremadura, Fudalat al-khiwan fi tayybat et-ta'am Wa-I-alwan, Laila Benkirane, Matt Preston, Mohamed Mezzine, Rachel Laudan, Spain, Spanish Cooking

Of Herbs and Other Country Messes

May 11, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

When the  sage comes to life again, after its long, lonely slumber in the freezing winter, I always just stop for a moment and marvel. How could this happen? Left outside the kitchen door, the sage bows before the relentless blasts of icy winds and heavy snow. Its leaves and branches shrivel to skeletal silhouettes, as the soil in the cracked terracotta pot contracts into something better suited for building material than for sustaining life. And yet, come April, tiny […]

Categories: Art, Books, Cookbooks, England, Europe, Greece, Middle Ages, Paintings • Tags: De materia Medica, Dioscorides, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, Herbals, Herbs

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme … and Lavender

May 5, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

First, a pinch of etymology. The Greeks called lavender nardus after the Syrian city of Naardus, from which comes the word “spikenard.” (More on spikenard in a second.) As for our word, “lavender,” we must once again thank the Latin language for lavare, meaning, “to wash.” A member of the mint family, and cousin to rosemary, lavender can be used like rosemary in many dishes. Its blossoms form little spiked shoots sprouting flowers of many hues, not just purple. Cooking […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Cookbooks, England, Europe, Middle Ages, Middle East, Monasteries, Spain • Tags: Al-Andalus cookbook, Arab cooking, Charles Perry, Hildegard of Bingen, Lavender, Mary Magdalene, Mukhallal, Scarborough Fair, Spikenard

The Black Fast, a Mortification of the Appetite

February 10, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

With Lent fast approaching (February 17, 2010), an examination of fasting and other fleshly challenges seems apropos. Religious-based fasting, in the history of English speakers anyway, belies its importance in the commonly used word for the first meal of the day: breakfast or “break fast.” After all, for much of Western European history, almost half the days of the year counted as times of fasting. Locavores and vegetarians today will find much to inspire them in the dishes created to […]

Categories: Bread, England, English Cooking, France, French Cooking, Lent, Middle Ages, Monasteries, Soup • Tags: Bread Soup, Brian M. Fagan, Cod: A Biography, Fasting, Fish on Friday, Lent, Marc Meneau, Mark Kurlansky, Roman Catholic Church

Cooking One’s Goose

December 24, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The traditional English Christmas goose didn’t really make it over here on the other side of the Atlantic, chiefly because the native (and meatier) turkey prevailed. Neither did the other traditional dish of the English Christmas  season — roasted boar — with its tusked furry head, mouth filled with an apple. [That's a pagan custom, incidentally, handed down since the Druids, or so some authors claim. We'll delve into that one later. After all, we have until January 6th, 2010 […]

Categories: Christmas, Cookbooks, Cooking, England, English Cooking, Middle Ages, Poultry, Recipes • Tags: Christmas, Cookbooks, Curye on Inglysch, Goose, Recipes

Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition

September 19, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition (Medieval History and Archaeology), by C. M. Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson, and Tony Waldron (paperback, 2009) In the unending quest to find models for culinary historiography, here’s another fairly up-to-date addition to the growing list: This book draws on the latest research across different disciplines to present the most up-to-date picture of English diet from the early Saxon period up to c.1540. It draws on a wide range of sources, from the historical records […]

Categories: Agriculture, Archaeology, England, English Cooking, Local foods, Middle Ages • Tags: Archaeology, C. M. Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson, England, English cookery, Food History, Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition, Middle Ages, Tony Waldron

Weihenstephan, the Oldest Brewery in the World (?)

August 26, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Make that the oldest brewery still standing (and producing) in the world, never mind that the oldest brewery is actually a smashed clay pot [no pun intended] someplace yet to be dug up by an intrepid and curious archaeologist. Given my deep interest in fermentation, as well as the impact of monks and monasteries on the foods and beverages of Europe,  plus the fact that I just adore European beer, imagine my delight yesterday when I looked at all the […]

Categories: Europe, Fermentation, Food News, Germany, Monasteries • Tags: Bavaria, Beer, Breweries, Monasteries, Monks, Weihenstephan

The Random Herbalist: Into the Setting Sun

August 5, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

For the moment, the end of the series of notes on monks and their gardens.

Categories: Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries • Tags: Gardens, Herb Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries

The Random Herbalist: The Church as Farmer

August 4, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The Catholic Church influenced many things, even (especially?) agriculture, as this passage from History of the English Landed Interest: Its Customs, Laws, and Agriculture, by Russell Montague Garnier (1908) 2nd. ed, vol. 1, implies. The monastery libraries also held much treasure, opening up the monks to the wonders of old knowledge and enabling them to forgo reinventing the wheel, so to speak: The agriculture of the neighbouring Church lands would be closely watched and imitated by the lay farmers. Advice […]

Categories: Agriculture, Herbs, Middle Ages, Monasteries • Tags: Agriculture, Farming, Herbs, Middle Ages, Monasteries, Monastic Gardens, Monks

The Random Herbalist: Charlemagne, St. Gall, and the History of Medicine

August 3, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The history of medicine, a fascinating subject, shows how people began to understand more and more about the corporeal body. Herbs played a big role in the evolution of this understanding, and medieval monasteries encapsulated this knowledge: The curriculum of these cathedral schools embraced originally the Trivium, (arithmetic, grammar, music), and the Quadrivium (dialectics, rhetoric, geometry, astronomy). Charlemagne, in the Capitulary of Thionvillc (805), ordained, however, that medicine also should be taught (as already stated) under the name of Physic. […]

Categories: Gardens, Herbs, Middle Ages, Monasteries • Tags: Charlemagne, Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries, Monks, St. Gall

Idylls of Cuisine #24

August 2, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Gardens, Monasteries, Photography • Tags: Gardens, Monasteries, Monastic Gardens, Monks

The Random Herbalist: Libraries and Monastic Gardens

August 1, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Another reason why the Internet is so fantastic — here is a catalog of the manuscripts available in the monastery at St. Gall in Switzerland. (You need to be able to read German, or at least have a good dictionary at hand!) In 1875, the Catholic Administration (Katholische Konfessionsteil) of the Canton of St. Gall commissioned Gustav Scherrer (1816-1892), a scholar and professor from St. Gall, to draw up the first printed catalogue of the manuscripts kept at the Abbey […]

Categories: Libraries, Monasteries • Tags: Libraries, manuscripts, Monasteries, Monks

The Random Herbalist: Monks and Plant Migration

July 31, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Along with dill, which we’ve briefly brushed by, other plants also traveled with the monks as they made their way across Europe: To the monks, who in their way were great gardeners, we are indebted for the introduction of several plants ; and since in many cases the ancient monastery has disappeared, the flowers which were wont to grow in its garden are often taken for wild ones. Among others, the Snowdrop was a favourite flower in a monastic garden, […]

Categories: Gardens, Herbs, Middle Ages, Monasteries • Tags: Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries, Monks, Snowdrop

The Random Herbalist: The Roman Influence on Monastic Gardens

July 30, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

With this post, I celebrate a year of writing “Gherkins & Tomatoes!” Thank you so much to everyone who visits the blog. I look forward to the coming year! The Romans wielded profound influence on the architecture and organization of monasteries … and, hence, on us … centuries later. According to Viollet-le-Duc : —* ” It is probable that the first cloisters were porticoes of the same kind as those of antiquity, that is to say;— origin, a sloping roof […]

Categories: Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries • Tags: Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries, Monks, Roman Empire, Romans

The Random Herbalist: St. Gall, A Model Garden Plan?

July 29, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[NOTE: I'd like to thank the readers of Gherkins & Tomatoes for their patience this summer --- in the last few weeks I've moved from a house where I've lived for fourteen years, my favorite cat died, and I've been writing under deadline for an article for an encyclopedia as well as for a local magazine.  And now I'm currently attending a family reunion. I promise to be more fully "present" to the blog and all reader comments soon.  Meaning […]

Categories: Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries • Tags: Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries, Monastic Gardens, Monks

The Random Herbalist: The Hortus Eremitje

July 28, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Charlemagne had a shovel in every monastic garden, or so it seems:* As early as the days of Charles the Great (Charlemagne) the cloister owned outside property, and just as at Canterbury we must conclude that the plan of St. Gall meant the orchards and vineyards to be outside. The whole time of Charles the Great— and the St. Gall plan may be supposed to belong to it — was of great importance for horticulture. Charles himself encouraged personally the […]

Categories: Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries • Tags: Capitulare de Villis, Charlemagne, Gardens, Herbs, History of Garden Art, Marie-Luise Gothein, Medieval Gardens, Monasteries, Monastic Gardens, Monks, Purslane

The Random Herbalist: Books About Monastic and Medieval Gardens

July 27, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I find the following books enlightening, soothing, and motivating. My plan is to create/design a medieval/monastic herb garden over the upcoming winter and plant it starting next spring.* Monastic Gardens, by Mick Hales (2000) Private worlds glimpsed by a privileged few, monasteries have long maintained an aura of mystery. Outsiders imagine the silent seclusion, the austere settings, the rigorous routines of a religious life. But these sacred places share a common bond with the secular realm. Monks and nuns, too, […]

Categories: Bibliographies, Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries • Tags: Bibliographies, Brother Cadfael, Chicken, Fennel, Gardens, Herbs, Hildegard of Bingen, Medieval Gardens, Monasteries, Monastic Gardens, Monks

Idylls of Cuisine #23

July 26, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Gardens, Monasteries, Photography • Tags: Gardens, Monasteries, Monastic Gardens, Photography

The Random Herbalist: Gregor Mendel

July 25, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Medieval monks knew a great deal about plants and their characteristics. And so did monks of later times. Take the example of Gregor Mendel, as does this article discussed in a March 2009 Journal of Biology article: Why Didn’t Darwin Discover Mendel’s Laws? Mendel solved the logic of inheritance in his monastery garden with no more technology than Darwin had in his garden at Down House. So why couldn’t Darwin have done it too? A Journal of Biology article argues […]

Categories: Gardens, Monasteries, Peas, Recipes • Tags: Gardens, Genetics, Gregor Mendel, Mint, Monasteries, Monastic Gardens, Peas

The Random Herbalist: The Monastic Physic Garden

July 24, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Most of the gardens originally associated with monasteries contained numerous plants used for medicinal purposes. And, if nothing else,  at least these gardens provided the background for mystery novelist Ellis Peters’s sailor-turned monk and herbalist, Brother Cadfael. The cloister-garth was a square, planted with grass and possibly shrubs, divided by two intersecting paths into four equal quarters. In the centre was a savina, supplying water for drinking and washing purposes. These cloisters were south of the church, and surrounded by […]

Categories: English Cooking, Gardens, Monasteries • Tags: England, Gardens, Monasteries, Monastic Gardens

The Random Herbalist: An Introduction to Early Monastic Gardens

July 23, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

A series on monastery cooks (“At the Tables of the Monks“)*, and a recent comment on the impact of medieval monks on the spread of dill throughout Europe, led me to reflect in more detail on the influence of monks on early European agricultural practices. For the next several days, I will be sharing notes from my reading. Thus within the walls of the Benedictine monasteries were large gardens cultivated by the monks in common, and often smaller ones assigned […]

Categories: English Cooking, Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries • Tags: Gardens, Monasteries, Monks

The Random Herbalist: Dill

July 21, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

“I think pickles are cucumbers that sold out. They sold their soul to the devil, and the devil is dill…” Unknown Ethel always grabbed the dill plants by the lower stems and yanked hard, shaking off the clumps of dirt clinging to the roots. “You need the seedy kind,” she’d say, intent on making those cucumber pickles so necessary for the dishes she cooked for my Danish father-in-law.  And her garden in town, so small compared to her farm garden, […]

Categories: Herbs, Middle Ages, Norway, Scandinavian Cooking • Tags: Dill, Herbs, John Gerard, Scandinavian Cooking

Idylls of Cuisine #18

June 21, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Castles, English Cooking, Festivals, Photography • Tags: Banquets, Castles, England, Food Photography

Cooking Equipment, Mostly Old, Beautiful, and Functional

June 12, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Cooking equipment dates back to the first stick holding skewered meat over a hot fire after days of hunting. All of these photos show items that could be written about in tomes. But let’s settle for the old adage — “A picture is worth a thousand words” — and leave it at that for the moment. And we’ll end with a bowl of bean soup, thank you very much:

Categories: Castles, Cooking equipment, Photography • Tags: Antique cooking utensils, Food Photography

At the Tables of the Monks: The Infirmary Cook

June 1, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

THE COOK FOR THE INFIRMARY (p. 204-205) [Note: The Abbey paid the infirmary cook for his services, since this person did not belong to the cloistered community.] For the infirmary, and especially for the use of those who had been subjected to the periodical blood-letting, there was a special cook skilled in the preparation of strengthening broths and soups. He was the chief or meat-cook of the establishment, and had under him two boys, one as a general helper, the […]

Categories: English Cooking, Middle Ages • Tags: Cooking, Cooks, England, Food, Middle Ages, Monasteries, Monks

At the Tables of the Monks: The Refectorian

May 26, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

THE REFECTORIAN (p. 76-77) The refectorian had charge of the refectory, or as it is sometimes called, the frater, and had to see that all things were in order for the meals of the brethren. He should be “strong in bodily health,” says one Custumal, “unbending in his determination to have order and method, a true religious, respected by all, determined to prevent anything tending to disorder, and loving all brethren without favour.” If duties of this office required it, […]

Categories: English Cooking, Middle Ages • Tags: Cooks, Middle Ages, Monasteries, Monks, Refectory

Monastery Kitchens

May 23, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Abbatia quae vocitatur Bellus Locus Monasteries in the Middle Ages tended to follow similar layouts. Beaulieu Abbey, a Cistercian abbey in Hampshire, England, now in ruins, once supported a large number of people. It started out with 120 cows and 20 bulls, all very conducive to cheese-making. Beaulieu Abbey’s floor plan shows a tiny kitchen some distance away from the “frater” or dining area (go HERE to see a large picture):

Categories: Archaeology, English Cooking, Middle Ages • Tags: Beaulieu Abbey, Cooking, Kitchens, Middle Ages, Monasteries, Monks

At the Table of the Monks: Cheese, Of Course (Part V)

May 22, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Smelling like something dead, washed-rind cheeses* with their soft non-acidic centers offered a taste of animal protein to medieval monks prohibited from eating meat for over 100 days in the average liturgical year. The fact that these cloistered souls liked the results of their odiferous labor ought to cause us to wonder something: what did their meat taste like when they ate that? But we’re thinking of cheese, not the perfectly wrapped and labeled cheese available today from various Trappist […]

Categories: Cheese, Middle Ages • Tags: Cheese, Cheese-making, Cistercians, Middle Agess, Monasteries, Monks, Paul Kinstedt, Washed-rind Cheese

At the Tables of the Monks: In the Beginning (Part II)

May 19, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

You’d never know a hermit started it all. St. Benedict of Norcia (ca. 480-547 A.D.), called the Father of Western Monasticism and the Patron of Europe, never intended to form a religious order. He just wanted to get away from it all, “all” in this case being Rome, where his noble Umbrian family sent him for literary studies, and what he perceived to be the decadence of his upper-class noble friends and their families. So, like many young people, Benedict […]

Categories: Italian Cooking, Italy, Middle Ages • Tags: Ancient Roman Cuisine, Apicius, Medieval Monasteries, Menus, Middle Ages, Monte Cassino, Rule of St. Benedict, St. Benedict

Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq: The Tenth-Century’s Answer to Jamie Oliver?

April 23, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Sit at dinner tables as long as you can, and converse to your hearts’ desire, for these are the bonus times of your lives. (Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens, p. x) Talk about a window into the past and a mirror to the present! A thousand years plus some separate us from the author and recipes of Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Tabīkh. In the words of the translator, Nawal Nasrallah,* al-Warrāq’s purpose “was to ‘anthologize’ the celebrated Abbasid cuisine.” […]

Categories: Cookbooks, Middle Ages, Middle East • Tags: Arab Cookery, Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq, Iraq, Nawal Nasrallah

Dame Alice de Bryene’s Household Book: Easter 1413

April 8, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

One of the most spectacular “finds” related to English medieval history, The Household Book of Dame Alice de Bryene (1931 edition) provides a detailed glimpse into the daily life of an English gentry household over the period 1412 – 1413, down to the exact food purchases and the price paid. It tells of widowed Dame Alice de Bryene during one of her seventy-five years. That year Easter fell on April 23, a late date, and Dame Alice served the following […]

Categories: Chicken, Easter, English Cooking, Middle Ages, Recipes • Tags: Chicken, Cooking, Curye on Inglish, Dame Alice de Bryene, Easter, Food, Forme of Cury, Middle Ages