Lundi: Recipes

Over Yuletide I had the great good fortune to receive a time machine in book form. The door stop of a book, entitled The White House Cookbook, was originally published in 1887. The authors, Hugo Ziemann and Mrs. F. L. Gillette, both cooked at the White House and the book is full to bursting with curious recipes written in old-timey paragraph form with rarely a measure in sight.

One thing that did catch my eye right away was the recipes - there are twelve of them - for catsup (or ketchup if you're my husband.) Catsup was and is a curiously American condiment that was originally made by ladies at home. It was a wonderful way to store and use tomatoes but the cookbook includes recipes for such curious variations as oyster and gooseberry. One wonders how those might turn out. I'll focus, though, on the traditional recipe for tomato catsup which, in all fairness, may be a timely thing to have handy given that Super Bowl is coming up this Sunday. Here is Mrs. Gillette's homey recipe:

Put into two quarts of tomato pulp (or two cans of canned tomatoes) one onion, cut fine, two tablespoonfuls of salt and tree tablespoonfuls of brown sugar. Boil until quite thick; then take from the fire and strain it through a sieve, working it until it is all through but the seeds. Put it back on the stove, and add tow tablespoonfuls of mustard, one of allspice, one of black pepper and one of cinnamon, one teaspoonful of ground cloves, half a teaspoonful of cayenne pepper, one grated nutmeg, one pint of good vinegar; boil it until it will just run from the mouth of a bottle. It should be watched, stirred often, that it does not burn. If sealed tight while hot, in large-mouthed bottles, it will keep good for years.

Now doesn't that sound delicious? It would certainly be more flavorful than the stuff one gets in squeeze bottles at the modern market. But it is a deal of work and surely not a task for a hot day. Since it is 0 degrees on my front porch, perhaps I should foray into catsup making this afternoon.

More from The White House Cookbook another time. Until then, you can find it online here.

Header: Family dining room at the White House c 1900 via The White House Museum website

Dimanche: Swimming

Beauty by the Sea by Henry Clive via American Gallery

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife
At midnight drain the stream of life...
Wet with thine own best blood shall drip
Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip;
Then stalking to thy sullen grave
Go - and with the ghouls and afreets rave,
Till these in horror shrink away
From spectre more accursed than they!

~ from "The Giaour" by George Gordon Lord Byron, first published in The Unbeliever, London, 1813

Header: A ring with a quote from this poem from Mostly Making Memories on Etsy

Mercredi: The Art of Beauty

Today, a picture far more powerful than any written word. "A Sea Coast Promenade Fashion" from about 1812. Probably a British fashion print. Oh to be by the sea in that lovely ensemble. Thanks to A Harlot's Progress for the original posting.

Mardi: Herbal-Wise

We're having a troublesome day here at chez Pauline. It is time to say good-bye to our very old and very sick Saint Bernard, Thor. The wait for the vet appointment at 11:30 Alaska time is like slow torture. How fortunate we are, though, to be able to stop the animal's pain and see an old friend off to a better place.

My thoughts turn to something that will help bring peace and piece of mind to me and my family as we say adieu to one of our own. I'm wishing I had a few bachelor buttons, those pretty blue blooms also known as corn flowers, to help me do the trick.

In Wicca, corn flowers are used to draw and/or prognosticate about love. Women should wear them on the lapel as a corsage to attract affection. Scott Cunningham advises that men should carry a flower in their pocket. The freshness or wilting of the flower at the end of the day is said to predict future success - or lack thereof - in love.

In hoodoo, the flowers are steeped in water along with other blue or bluish-purple blooms like periwinkle and forget-me-not. Rosemary, which is very affective at improving one's mood, is often added as well. The water is strained and used to sprinkle in the corners of the home to bring peace to those who live there, people and animals alike. You can add some of the water to your floor wash to achieve the same end.

Dried corn flowers are also sprinkled into the corners of a room where a fight has occurred. This is said to restore harmony to the environment as well as relax the tensions of those who are at odds.

As an aside, the forget-me-not, which happens to be Alaska's state flower, is said to bring peace and prosperity to a home when grown in the kitchen. I have a big yellow pot with a thriving forget-me-not in our kitchen. With luck, it will help us through this difficult process. Bonne chance ~

Header: Letters by Annie Stegg via American Gallery

Dimanche: Swimming

Joy by Jay Scott Pike via American Gallery

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

We have discussed Inanna, one of the most influential divinities of the Sumerians who took it upon herself to raid the underworld realm of her sister, Ereshkigal. The underworld queen, in her turn, exacted a terrible price for Inanna's presumption. Worshiped for at least a millennium in one form or another, Inanna has become a symbol of the goddess energy in all human beings for a new age of pagans.

In her wonderful book of the Sumerian priestess Enheduanna's poems Inanna: Lady of Largest Heart, Jungian psychoanalyst Betty De Shong Meador makes some very insightful - and, as it turns out, surprisingly timely - comments on the vast chasm that has grown between human perception of the origins of evil in the days of Inanna's worship and now. Meador's comments on the out-sourcing of evil under the modern "big three" religions should read as an indictment of our willingness to follow unthinkingly along the path of least resistance. Instead - and to her credit - Meador's writing is thoughtful, and thought provoking, and very much worth sharing.

Enheduanna's poetry can be seen as a reassertion of the religion of "the old, old gods." Her Inanna combats any attempt to call into question the primacy of nature as the body of the goddess. In the poem "Inanna and Ebih" this conflict is explicit. An Edenic paradise on the slopes of the mountain Ebih threatens to defeat Inanna. The god of heaven, An, Inanna's great supporter, bends toward Ebih's unnatural, idealized, conflict-free world. An's seduction by Ebih anticipates Yahweh's persuasion of Adam and Eve that his garden paradise could be theirs for the price of their obedience. This garden is not the nature Inanna rules at all...

At the beginning of a new millennium, humanity still suffers as a result of the separation of spirit from matter that took place in antiquity. Yahweh's split and Greek-influenced Christianity's additions to the separation of good and evil provide divine sanction for the dark/light oppositional mentality that pervades our psychology. Dominant monotheistic religions effectively taught generations that evil is outside ourselves, with Satan over there, in others. We learned to deny our own potential for evil.

In Enheduanna's time, the evil was within us all and each individual was obliged to keep that portion of him or herself in check for the good not only of his own psyche but of the civilization around him. Now the chthonian, the dark, the evil is out there somewhere else and therefor our responsibility is absolved. Or is it?

Do read Enheduanna's poems, and Meador's book, if you have a chance. You won't be disappointed.

Header: Cover of the 2000 publication of Inanna: Lady of Largest Heart from University of Texas, Austin; find the old fashioned book version here