In the Labyrinth

Botte Piccola Fa Vino Buono

A lovely Italian phrase that translates as " A small cask makes good wine"  is an Italian compliment to a short person.  I reply by stretching to my 5' 1" height, Grazie! 

 

 

 

(Art: Philippe Mercier 1689 -- 1760)

Plank'd and Research

One of the greatest pleasures is reading Sicilian folktales midday while drunk on a dense-full-bodied beer (16.2 percent) produced locally in Boulder. Like the beer, the stories are rowdy, naughty, mythic, and full of gullible and wise fools who make donkeys appear to shit gold, drive menial men to do self-destructive things and conspire to make foolish heroes into better men as they chase after fantastic brides. Is there any better Sunday to spend than drunk researching the new novel?

Death and Dinner, Mais Oui.

I am a wee bit past Bastille Day, but in the spirit of that revolutionary and rather bloody event, I would like to offer a meal fit for Death. The Old Foodie, is a brilliant blog devoted to providing readers with 400 words a day on a historical food topic, along with recipes. This offering was a splendid piece on the infamous "mortuary dinner" given by eccentric French gourmand Grimod de la Reynière in 1783. Here's the first paragraph of the article:

"The eighteenth century French gourmand Grimod de la Reynière hosted a most unusual dinner party in 1783 which has gone down in history as 'the Mortuary Dinner’. Grimod was known to be eccentric, but even for him, this dinner was a little over-the-top. The invitation to a 'collation-supper' was in the form of an obituary notice, and guest were advised 'The arrival is fixed for 9 o'clock and supper will take place at 10 o'clock. You are requested not to bring neither dog nor lackey as there will be enough servants. Neither pig nor oil will be missing from the supper. You are requested to bring this invitation, without which admittance will be refused.' ”

The whole event is terrifically weird and worthy of a Tim Burton cinematic moment (who could forget the shrimp cocktail in Beetle Juice?) -- plenty of black crepe on the walls, coffins to lounge in, and a silent audience in the balcony to observe the spectacle. The Old Foodie also provides a tasty recipe for Ragout of Pork Chops -- just in case you, like me, have no idea what "plenty of pig and oil" might actually mean. You can read the whole piece here.

And better yet, here is a wonderful video of a "Black Meal" from the British show "Supersize Eaters" that examines the eating habits of different historical periods and then spend a week living, cooking, and eating in a version of that period. The results are very funny, and very fascinating. In this video -- a celebration of Grimod's "Mortuary Dinner" -- you get a clear, first hand look at this peculiar feast.

And while the article is from 2009, this piece "Liberty, Equality, Gastronomy, Paris via the 19th Century Guide" is a hoot to read.

The Feast Day of St. Brigid Who Loved Beer

I am so happy to celebrate St. Brigid's Feast Day -- especially as I have learned that in addition to being an excellent dairy maid (and therefore patron saint of farmers), she was especially fond of beer. We have been learning how to home brew beer (first batch was a successful dark beer with a mild head and not too bitter.) So as we begin our next batch (a lager this time) I will make my prayers to St. Brigid for a good brew and share this delicious poem she wrote -- she does make it sound like my kind of party. A great lake of beer!

The Heavenly Banquet
Ascribed to St. Brigid of Ireland

I would like to have the men of Heaven
in my own house;
with vats of good cheer
laid out for them.

I would like to have the three Marys,
their fame is so great.
I would like people
from every corner of Heaven.

I would like them to be cheerful
in their drinking.
I would like to have Jesus, too,
here amongst them.

I would like a great lake of beer
for the King of Kings.
I would like to be watching Heaven’s family
Drinking it through all eternity.

 

Art: John McKirdy Duncan, "St. Brigid of Kildare." Go here to see a very, very large file of this gorgeous and detailed painting.

A Return to How They Drank In The 40s

I rejoice at finding wonderful items on the internet, but I am also pleased in being found. I recently received a terrific email from a middle school English teacher whose sixth grade class was tackling poetry with some difficulty at the start. This is what she wrote to me:

After teaching all kinds of dry literary terms to kids who are often intimidated by the misconception that all poetry is cryptic and impenetrable by nature, I presented them with Sandra Cisneros' "My Wicked, Wicked Ways". They were awakened. They were transported.  To keep them there, suspended in a state of fascination and of vulnerability, I challenged them to bring in a picture to which they are emotionally connected in some way. Some did, and some, as would be expected, forgot or ignored my request. I warned them, that in that event, I will pick a picture for them and that they would have to write as if my pick were personal to them. I googled family pictures and decided on yours. (see the original post: How They Drank in the 40s)

We wrote. I wrote one too, alongside them. We read them, we clapped, we nodded our heads, we listened. The purpose of this email is to let you know that the act of putting that picture out there changed some of us. It helped us look deeper. It forced us to connect. It made us listen to each other and see things the way we wouldtn've on our own, perhaps.

Feeling very honored (as would my grandmother in the photo have been) I asked the teacher if she would share some of the poems with me. Here's one of the poems written by a sixth grader:

They’d meet

For the greatest feast

Important women

Come to drink

Some smoke

Some don’t

They are dressed up

Like Christmas trees

Laughing and talking

Eating and drinking.

Their laughs are noisy

From a concert

As they talk like the dolphins

Drinking the wine

From their cups

Eating roasted vegetables

They leave

And have a good night.

Awesomeness! I want to thank all the students and their teacher for sharing their work with me. It has really made my day.

Pierre, Rosalea, and The Pink Adobe

When I was about five years old, (in the late-fifties) we went to Santa Fe to visit my grandfather, the artist Pierre Ménager. As well as being a wonderful painter and sculptor, he was also a fabulous cook...well he was French. But he cooked a mixture of Southwest and Creole -- especially as a portion of the Ménager family had migrated to New Orleans. Pierre took us to a lovely small restaurant, the Pink Adobe, where we had lunch. It was before the opening of the lunch hour (or maybe it was in between the end of lunch and the start of the dinner hour), so the restaurant was quiet and empty except for Pierre, my family, and the owner of the restaurant Rosalea Murphy. Even at five years old, I was smart enough to realize that Rosalea was someone very special to Pierre. I have fond memories of that day, sitting in a bright sunlit room of the restaurant, bellied up to the bar as plates of fabulous food appeared. Rosalea spoke directly to me in that way that certain adults who are genuinely charmed by small, precocious children do -- with interest and kindness. At the end of the meal, she presented me with a gift of a few cat figurines that were part of a large collection of other cat figures. I still have them and treasure them as a memory of that day.

I didn't know until later, of course, that Pierre actually worked with Rosalea, co-managing the restaurant -- sharing his own cooking ideas with hers, designing and painting menus. His art was scattered throughout the restaurant, along with hers and the works of other artist friends. I didn't know until later -- much later-- how fashionable the Pink Adobe became as a restaurant (and still is!) -- which makes that quiet afternoon spent just in the company of my family and Rosalea an even more special event.

But I didn't learn until just today that Pierre and Rosalea were actually married. Even my mother didn't know. It was assumed in my family (and even cousin Earl who is the family historian and knows the most intimate details of generations of Menagers) that it was more of a "union libre." However, Earl found two articles -- one from the Amarillo Daily News, April 3, 1947, stating: "Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Menager, operators of the Pink Adobe, and daughter Priscilla, arrived here today after being shaken up in a forced landing of the plane, 4 miles from Lubbock, Texas yesterday.  The Menagers were flying a chartered plane from Santa Fe to San Antonio and made a forced landing in a field near Lubbock. They continued by bus to San Antonio, where they were called because of an illness of Mrs. Menager's mother." (Ok, that little paragraph by itself is worth a chapter in a novel.) A second article in the Albuquerque Journal, May 18, 1952, mentions an art show of Southwest art at Ramage Book Center in Albuquerque that included "an imaginative study of Santa Fe's Oldest Church" by Rosalea Menager." (Hats off here to Earl who finds all these tiny gems tucked away in archives.)

So I took a chance and emailed Priscilla, Rosalea's daughter and a terrific artist working in native clays and minerals, and inks on handmade paper, and I asked her if they were indeed married. Yes! she wrote back, they were married. We will be getting together over the phone in the near future to talk a lot more about those days. I am especially curious to know what she remembers about Pierre. It really is like seeing a light turn on in all sorts of corners of a dark house. I keep having to readjust the narrative of my grandfather's life every time I encounter someone who knew him (and everyone seems to have favorite Pierre stories!).