Cynthia D. Bertelsen's Gherkins & Tomatoes
A Writer's Musings on Nature and Culture, Since 2008
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)
Photo credit: C. BertelsenLiving today’s hurry-up-run-run-run-faster-faster-text-text lifestyle tends to blunt contact with more earthy things, like cooking. The act of cooking offers something that the stiffest drink or most potent tranquilizer cannot. Dare I say it out loud? It’s even better than sex, in a way. Especially when chocolate is involved, but that’s another story…
Continue reading ➞ Transform Your Aching Soul with Cooking
I've never had to kill for my dinner, unless you count the time I mangled a lobster at the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, crying silently as I tried to plunge the knife in the right place but failing to quickly put the creature out of its misery. I doubt I would have known…
Continue reading ➞ Long Ago, When Chickens had Teeth …*
In his timely Arab France: Islam and the Making of Modern Europe, 1798-1831 (2011), Ian Coller writes of the Arab families associated with Ya'qub Hanna, an Egyptian, a Copt and first non-French general who'd served with Napoleon Bonaparte in his military campaigns in Egypt. The cover, I believe, was chosen to highlight the idea of…
Continue reading ➞ The Lost Arabs of Marseille: Food, Family, and France
I went wild over the cheap chicken thighs at my local Kroger, dumping package after package into my grocery cart. And as I sniffed the seductive odor of pumpkin pies emanating from the bakery, I composed a menu in my head that shouted "It's FALL, finally!" Mushrooms, walnuts, shallots joined the chicken in the paper…
Continue reading ➞ Cooking with Mushrooms: Chicken and Walnuts and Baby Bellas, Oh My!
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…
Continue reading ➞ The Random Herbalist: Books About Monastic and Medieval Gardens
From the back cover of Herrick Kimball's book, Anyone Can Build a Whizbang Chicken Scalder: Every small-farm and backyard poultry producer needs a good scalder to quickly and efficiently scald their homegrown poultry prior to plucking. Precise scalding translates to fast, complete, and easy plucking of feathers. But high-performance ready-made scalding equipment is much too…
Continue reading ➞ Anyone Can Build a Whizbang Chicken Scalder (Even You!)
Réunion is a country. About 800 kms. east of Madagascar. Off the coast of Africa. A former fueling/supply station for ships on their way to Asia for spices. A bit "out there," yes. But the food there ... tastes and flavors marry each in ways only possible when people from different cultures meet each other…
Continue reading ➞ Chicken Curry, From Réunion (the Country)
Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe once wrote that proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten. A recipe for chicken in red palm oil: CHICKEN IN RED PALM OIL Serves 4-6 ¼ c. red palm oil 1 chicken, cut up for frying ½ t. ground coriander 1 t. sea salt 1 t. dried orange…
Continue reading ➞ Palm Oil, Chicken In
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…
Continue reading ➞ Dame Alice de Bryene’s Household Book: Easter 1413
Writing about 3-star French chef Marc Meneau is, in a way, like trying to write about Leonardo Da Vinci. Geniuses really need geniuses to write about them, to interpret them, to salute them, like buck privates in the presence of 5-star generals. It's a little bit like meeting God - you're afraid to look at…
Continue reading ➞ Can a 3-Star French Chef Be a Regular Guy? Marc Meneau Tries
