Cynthia D. Bertelsen's Gherkins & Tomatoes
A Writer's Musings on Nature and Culture, Since 2008
I dream of returning to Catalonia. The last time I was there, in 2010, I crossed the border between France and Spain, and ended up about 30 miles northwest of Barcelona. I stopped for lunch at a small family-run place in a town whose name I can't remember. The waitress wouldn't speak Spanish, and all…
Continue reading ➞ Cooking Like a Catalan, No Matter Where You Are
Standing on the edge of the cliffs in the merciless wind, I struggled to keep my unruly hair out of my eyes. A losing battle it was, for I could barely see the roiling blue water below. No trees, scrubby grass, an old whitewashed church, and a modern lighthouse. Nothing else. Sagres,* perched on the…
Continue reading ➞ For Me, All Roads Lead to Spain
Eleven years ago, I decided to poke a toe into the world of food blogging. I settled on the name, "Gherkins & Tomatoes," based on a painting by Luis Meléndez, a tribute to the period of history known as "The Age of Exploration." Faced with a blank screen demanding something, anything, the first words that…
Continue reading ➞ 11 Years of Writing About Food and Culinary History – A Blog Anniversary!!!
Yer may talk of yer flummadiddlers and fiddlepad- dies, but when it comes down to gen-u-ine grub, there ain't nothing like good old salt hoss that yer kin eat afore yer turns in and feel it all night a-Iaying in yer stummick and a-nourishin' of yen.* Think of the seaside on a windy day, waves…
Continue reading ➞ Oh, it’s a Sailor’s Life for Me! Lobscouse and Dandyfunk
I used to read Ernest "Papa" Hemingway's novels. Clean, spare prose, mixed up with some keen observations about human nature, his writing - and his adventurous life - took me places I yearned to go. But, later on, even more enticing to me was his nonfiction. I can't tell you how many times I read…
Continue reading ➞ Being Ernest: On ” Writing One True Sentence”
When I think of the writer Ernest Hemingway, for some reason I think of fish and whiskey and meat dripping fat onto an open fire. Hemingway ate all those things, and more. Proof lies in The Hemingway Cookbook (Boreth, 1998), on sale in the wonderful gift shop behind the Hemingway House in Key West. There's…
Continue reading ➞ In Ernest Hemingway’s Key West Kitchen
Sarah Rutledge's cookbook, The Carolina Housewife, surprised me the other day. Try as I might, I could only find one recipe for pork in the whole book! "Ham Toast," on page 75. I kid you not. "Meat" seems to be beef or veal. That's it. Ms. Rutledge's book did include a number of vegetable recipes,…
Continue reading ➞ “To Fry Tomatoes”: Sarah Rutledge Mixes Up a Few New World Foods
With a name like that, of course, I couldn't resist the recipe. "Mulacolong." What on earth did that mean? It seems that no one else knew either, thanks to a Google search and more. So I decided to split up the word, to look at components rather the whole. One tantalizing bit of information kept…
Continue reading ➞ Mulacolong, from Sarah Rutledge’s The Carolina Housewife:
Fans of the popular TV series “Game of Thrones” must be feeling bereft. And why shouldn’t they? The curtain finally fell on the last episode of that long-running megahit. Unless they love reruns, that’s it for those fans. I, on the other hand, have barely made it through the first episode so far, “Winter is…
Continue reading ➞ Keep on Feasting! For Lovers of “Game of Thrones”
As I mentioned, albeit briefly, in “A Hastiness of Cooks”: A Practical Handbook for Use in Deciphering the Mysteries of Historic Recipes and Cookbooks, For Living-History Reenactors, Historians, Writers, Chefs, Archaeologists, and, of Course, Cooks, transcription is one of those things that makes all the difference when you're trying to recreate historic recipes or analyzing…
Continue reading ➞ Transcription of Medieval Documents, or, What an Online Resource!
"A picture is worth a thousand words!" Yes. And no. In one image, art, like photography, can present something that could take a thousand words to describe. Or more, depending upon what's being shown. I think of the raw files that come out of my Nikon D7100 as being more like rough drafts than the…
Continue reading ➞ 12 Months of the Year, or, Medieval Liturgical Calendars
In my latest book, "A Hastiness of Cooks", I deliberately skimmed over France and her culinary heritage. Not because I thought her culinary heritage not worth acknowledging, but because I wanted to savor that heritage in a different medium or venue. With that sentiment in mind, I pulled Terence Scully's treatise - The Vivendier -…
Continue reading ➞ Pignagoscé sur chapons (Pignagoscé on Capons), Plus Some Words on Paleography
Martha Bradley's The British Housewife (1756) has long fascinated me, for all her detail and precise instructions. And, most of all, for her emphasis on local foods, long before Alice Waters or Michael Pollan were gleams in the eye of God. Of course, the other point I want to make here is this: the English were quite…
Continue reading ➞ Before There was Martha S., There was Martha B.*
Yesterday, I crossed into Nogales, Mexico, and saw a bit of Nogales, Arizona, too. It's a story that repeats itself every day of the year. At Ed's Border Lot, my car fits nicely between two others - the one on the left with an Arizona plate, the one on the right with a Sonoran plate.…
Continue reading ➞ A Day on the Border: Nogales, Mexico
You're probably wondering what "A Hastiness of Cooks" means. Read the following definition and you'll see why the phrase inspired me in writing my new book, "A Hastiness of Cooks": A word game, popular in the great households of late medieval England, had at its heart the creation of collective nouns. In the lists of…
Desert. From ecclesiastical Latin. Dēsertum. "Abandoned place." The word conjures up images of vast sand dunes, blurred footsteps leading to the top. There, some poor soul lies prostrate, skin parched and blistered from the ray guns of a merciless sun. Lands of little rain, uninhabited, lifeless. That, I must admit, covered my initial definition of…
Continue reading ➞ Going to the Desert
You're not supposed to begin a piece of writing with a question. Why not? No idea, except that the "experts" seem to think that it's an easy way out. "You can do better," they say. So what was my question? Oh yes. Why is traditional French food so terribly unpopular at the moment? Many authors…
Continue reading ➞ Speaking of France …
“Don't bow down to critics who have not themselves written great masterpieces.” ― Lawrence Ferlinghetti, City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology I've been assailed by several critics this last week. Never mind why and for what. Not that I've written anything resembling "great masterpieces," but I find it amusing how quickly people come running when a troll on…
A recipe analyzed in my upcoming book, A Hastiness of Cooks.
Just an example of the type of recipes you will be able to recreate with the help of my upcoming book, A Hastiness of Cooks. Recipe reconstructed and recreated from archaic language. An example of what's in my upcoming book, "A Hastiness of Cooks." Chicken in a saffron-infused sauce, flavored with Poudre Forte, or "Strong Powder."…
Continue reading ➞ Capouns In Councys, from The Forme of Cury (1390)
I am thrilled to announce that my new book will be out and available for purchase on November 15, 2018. For more information, please go to Turquoise Moon Press. (Working on the pre-order set-up on Amazon)
I stood in front of her, the dim buzzing of children’s voices fading behind me. Her glowing face stared out at me, a wisp of a smile on her perfect lips, a vast verdant landscape stretching out behind her. Leaning close to the tiny sign to the right of the painting, I read “Mrs. Davies…
Continue reading ➞ The Threads of Time, or, Who is that Woman in the Painting?
I binge watch cooking shows. Instead of reading intellect-stimulating tomes such as Homer's The Iliad (who amongst you can say that you have???), lately I've been spending my precious time on earth transfixed by Paul Hollywood's piercing blue eyes, calmed by Mary Berry's soothing voice, cheering on the indomitable bakers of "The Great British Bake…
Continue reading ➞ Lessons from “The Great British Bake Off”
Artists and writers often depict society in ways that raise eyebrows and curl lips with disdain. The artist Judy Chicago and her massive installation – “The Dinner Party” – turned the tables on the art world back in 1979. She chose the powerful motif of a dinner party to make her statement. With all the…
Continue reading ➞ Come to Dinner: A Meditation on Judy Chicago’s Art
Driving through Texas, thinking of my 9-year-old grandmother, of the tale she told me so many years ago. Her father decreed that they would all move to Globe, AZ, along with his brothers, driving cattle, who knows, to the new ranch, from the old one in Fredericksburg, Texas, German enclave. To Globe, Arizona. How long…
Continue reading ➞ Musings on the Road West
"Anyone can cook anything and make it delicious." That's what chef/teacher Samin Nosrat promises, right up front, page 5, in her stunning debut - Salt Fat Acid Heat. Everybody loves an optimist. And I count Ms. Nosrat among that merry band of people, those who amble through the world with a smile on their faces, their…
Continue reading ➞ A Pinch of Alchemy: Samin Nosrat’s Salt Fat Acid Heat
Nope. I can just see your neurons pointing fingers, your eyes sending signals to your brain, with a little interior voice saying, "Oh, yes, those are biscuits, just like my grandma used to make." But don't be mistaken when you look at that photo. Nope. Those are scones. Which I baked the other day from a…
Continue reading ➞ Biscuits or Scones: British Origins of an American Favorite!
Just a note - life's busy - to share the shortlist for The Gourmand Awards. "What is that," you might ask? Here's their take on it: "The Gourmand Awards are the major Food Culture event in the world. They started in 1995 for cookbooks and wine books, at Frankfurt Book Fair. They now include all…
Continue reading ➞ THE GOURMAND AWARDS
Haiti is NOT a shithole, Mr. Trump. I should know about that. I lived in Haiti for nearly three years. And you, you've never even been there. And yet, here you are again, saying something insulting and derogatory, knowing nothing about what you're talking about. Yes, I'm talking about your woefully ignorant comments about "shithole…
Continue reading ➞ Haiti is NOT a Shithole, Mr. Trump
Curry. I can't live without it. And thus it was only natural that I used some of my Santa Claus money to buy myself a copy of Dan Toombs's clever cookbook, The Curry Guy: Recreate Over 100 of the Best British Indian Restaurant Recipes at Home (2017). The cooking found in British Indian Restaurants. Or BIRs.…
Continue reading ➞ The Curry Guy
