A Little History of Carving

...a man who tells you gravely he cannot carve, may as well tell you he cannot blow his nose; it is both as easy and as necessary...

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Maybe I've been staring at these images too long, but does it not look like that Carver is shivving the courtier?

(Detail of an engraving from J. Thiemen,  Wunder-Buch, 1700)

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They're back!

Eusebius: “But look, here comes a fellow who has lived the celibate life, not a saintly type at all, far less one of those who castrated themselves for love of God. He was castrated, to be sure, but much against his will, to make better eating for us and so he will, while this frame of things endures. He’s a capon out of our own coop. I like boiled dishes. The sauce isn’t bad; the greens in it are our best. Let every man help himself. I won’t mislead you; after this comes the roast, then the dessert, and then the end of our discussion.”

Erasmus, "The Religious Feast," from The Colloquies (1522)

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ON MEAT AND MORTALITY

Come to the Museum of Modern Art in New York on Monday, April 22, at 12:30 pm for an interactive lunchtime discussion about meat and mortality.

Full details and (free!) tickets, here. 

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Paul Jacob Marperger defines "Sauffen"

“Sauffen: heist im Uberfluß das Getränck in sich schütten, und zwar so lang und viel, bis der Magen solches nicht mehr ertragen kann.”

  Sauffen means to pour drinks into oneself to excess, and in fact so long and so much that the stomach can no longer handle it.

  Paul Jacob Marperger, Kuch- und Keller-Dictionarium … Hamburg: Benjamin Schillers, 1716. Marperger's original spelling. English translation mine.

For more on getting shit-faced in the 17th and 18th centuries, see my earlier, slightly off-kilter and not-at-all-scholarly discussion of Adelung, Harsdörffer and the like, here.

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“For, fix’d in thought, her meditative eye / Form’d a delicious plan… that plan was Pye.”

Carolina Petty Pasty, The Mince Pye: A Heroic Epistle (London, 1800).

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I don't think I have giggled as much while reading bad poetry as I did when reading The Mince Pye. Open a bottle of wine (or perhaps a proper English porter or ale), fire up ECCO, and enjoy.

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Milky the Marvelous Milking Cow

…a snack for Gre-Gory?

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This is possibly the best thing ever.

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We must have a less exacting and freer taste. The Germans drink almost all wines with equal pleasure. Their aim is to swallow rather than to taste. They have much the better of the bargain. Their pleasure is much more plentiful and ready at hand.

Montaigne, "Of Drunkenness"

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Wool and flesh are the primitive foundations of England and the English race … From time immemorial they were a breeding and pastoral people—a race fatted on beef and mutton. Hence that freshness of tint, that beauty and strength. Their greatest man, Shakespeare, was originally a butcher.

Jules Michelet, History of France (1843), quoted from Ben Rogers, Beef and Liberty (London, 2003).

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Civility is defined: A Science in instructing how to dispose all our words and actions in their proper and true places.

Antoine de Courtin, The rules of civility, or, Certain ways of deportment observed in France (Nouveau traité de la civilité, 1671). London: J. Martyn, 1671.

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stuff you see when you are walking down the street in #nyc #meat by fishbulb on Flickr.

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Capons, another way

The piece of stale bread rubbed with garlic that the Dictionary of French Cooking recommends for the seasoning of chicory is called a capon. Where did it get this name> The most profound etymological research has cast no light on the problem. I have been obliged to cast about the probabilities, which are as follows:

The capon as poultry originated in Caux, or in the province of Maine, while the capon as a crust of bread rubbed with garlic originated in Gascony.

Now, Gascon is by nature both poor and vain. The idea must have occurred to some Gascon, perhaps to d'Artagnan, to call a crust of bread rubbed with garlic a capon, so that when anyone asked him whether he had dined well he could truthfully answer: 'Superby! I had a capon and a salad!'

Which, taken literally, is a pretty good dinner for a Gascon.

Alexandre Dumas, Dictionary of Cuisine: A Literary and Practical Guide to the Pleasures of the Table, edited and translated by Louis Colman (1873; New York, 1958).

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The horror of the amorphous.

Illustration: Mound of Butter[1] (1875–1885, U.S. National Gallery) by French artist Antoine Vollon (1833-1900).

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Gorgeous. This is pure pleasure, in paint.

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“Our forefathers said that to live in health it was necessary to get drunk once a month.”

Alexandre Dumas, Dictionary of Cuisine: A Literary and Practical Guide to the Pleasures of the Table, edited and translated by Louis Colman (1873; New York, 1958).

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To stretch sheep guts

After they are clean scowrd, lay them in water nine days, shifting them once a day, and they will be easie to fill, and when they are filled, they will come to their wonted bigness.

Hannah Wolley, The Queen-Like Closet; or, Rich Cabinet stored with all manner of Rare Receipts … London, 1670.

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We are all, like the Paris ladies; they live high without knowing the ingredients in ragouts, so we make use of bodies without knowing the composition of them.

Voltaire, The Philosophical Dictionary for the Pocket (London, 1765), s.v., "Body."

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Eating butter, they say, is a greater sin than to lie, blaspheme, or indulge in an impurity.

-- Martin Luther (1520)