Archives

Banishing the Mustiness: What Cleaning Out My Spice Cupboard Told Me about My Life

April 15, 2013 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I reached into my spice cupboard for cinnamon and came up with cumin instead. As I pulled out a bag of white peppercorns and an empty jar that once contained coriander seeds, I knew I needed to do it. Clean out the bags, boxes, and bottles that hampered my cooking and my life more and more every day. My spice cupboard needed a thorough scrubbing and weeding out. And so I sat down on the floor – my spice cupboard […]

Categories: Cooking, Food writing, Photography, Spices • Tags: Food and Related Products, Herbs, Seasonings, Spices

Where Rosemary Flourished, the Woman Ruled*

August 12, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I cut the rosemary this morning, the lack of love and attention these past few weeks plainly written in its leggy tendrils, reaching too far for the sun, like arms longing for something to hug. Rosemary, the herb of remembrance. What do I remember when the piney, resinous odor of rosemary sticks to my fingers and leaves a lingering perfume on everything I touch? I remember Morocco, where I lived in a very modern house, its kitchen festooned with orange and […]

Categories: Africa, Beef, Cooking, France, French Cooking, Moroccan Cooking, Morocco, Photography • Tags: France, French Cooking, Herbs, Remembrance, Rosemary

Lavender, France’s Balm for the Soul

September 26, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The lavender lingers on my sloping hillside, autumn rain running in rivulets between the dying leaves. At summer’s peak, the purple flowers tantalized the bees and butterflies and me, the glorious scent perfuming the air of evening and morning both. No lambs frolicked in the lavender this year, but maybe someday a friend’s weanlings will lie in the hot sun, their tails flicking, noses pressed to the mauve blossoms, savoring the taste of this ancient nard. Like the lambs, I […]

Categories: France, French Cooking, Herbs, Photography, Poetry • Tags: Flowers, France, French Cooking, Herbs, Lavender, Photography

The Herbs in Spain Grow Mainly on the Plain

May 21, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Many times when I walk through the nearby woods, I marvel at all the plants hiding under rotting logs and peeking out from the boulders. These plants, sharing the same earth and respiring the same air as we do, live and die nameless to most of us. How far away we’ve traveled from the days when we could walk out the door, into the forests and fields, and confidently pick a plant, knowing its name, its properties, and how to […]

Categories: Cookbooks, Cooking, Spain • Tags: Cookbooks, Ferenc Maté, Herbal Medicine, Herbals, Herbs, Llibre del Coch, Manual de Mugeres, Robert de Nola, Sent Sovi, The Hills of Tuscany

Idylls of Cuisine, #62

May 16, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

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

Categories: China, Herbs, Photography • Tags: Ba Bao Cha, China, Chinese Herbs, Eight Treasures Tea, Food Photography, Herbal Tea, Herbs

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

Idylls of Cuisine, #61

May 2, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

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

Categories: Europe, France, Photography • Tags: Food Photography, Herbs, Lavender, St-Guilhem-le-Désert

Lavender Fields Forever

April 30, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

No smell of cow patties flitted through the air, thank goodness. After all, just before lunch who wants to contemplate biting into a sandwich perfumed with the stench of manure? We stood on the knoll about the Maison Beliveau and watched the black-furred cattle, including two hefty bulls, running down the hill, hell-bent on cozying up to some people foolish enough to walk into the pasture. The animals no doubt hoped for a morsel of food other than the grass […]

Categories: Cattle, Cookbooks, Cooking, Gardens, Herbs • Tags: Gardens, Herbs, Lavender, Madame de Sévigné

Aleing Herbs: Costmary

September 8, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Ale making in medieval and Renaissance England depended upon a number of herbal flavorings, especially before hops became the predominant taste. While doing a bit of research for another project, I came upon many mentions of Costmary, hence today’s post. An aleing herb (and a medicinal one, too), Costmary (Tanacetum balsamita, also Chrysanthemum balsamita), a cousin to Tansy, appears in the literature in the 16th century, mentioned in Green’s Universal Herbal (1532). Markham in The Countrie Farmer (1616) refers specifically […]

Categories: Beer, Cooking, England, English Cooking, Europe • Tags: Ale, Breweries, Brewing, Costmary, England, Herbs

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

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

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

Flavor Principles Out of Africa: The Basics

June 3, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

What Flavor Principles Exist in the Cooking Found in Africa? Africa consists of 53 countries, all with their own culinary cultures. Certainly some similarities exist, but – for the most part – each country, and certainly each region, prepares its own trademark taste. What defines the cuisines of Africa?[1] And what flavor principles highlight those cuisines? Flavor principles signify more than just spicing a dish or adding herbs. Flavor comes from things other than just seasonings. Cooking techniques also change […]

Categories: Africa, Herbs, Spices • Tags: Africa, Cooking, Elisabeth Rozin, Flavor Principles, Herbs, Spices

Idylls of Cuisine #15

May 24, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A picture, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.] And a Web site on medieval herb gardens, for the perennially curious …

Categories: France, Gardens, Herbs, Photography • Tags: Abbeys, France, Gardens, Herbs, Monasteries, Mont St. Michel

Gherkins & Tomatoes

Meditations and Photographs about Food, Cooking, and Life