Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed

Japanese Pocky

It turns out National Tea Day falls on Easter this year and this week the noble Geoffrey invited me to a local Tea Festival (or FesTeaVal) at Tobacco Dock, which reminded me that I had yet to write an entry for these Matcha Green Tea Pocky from Japan. My friend Nancy originally brought me a packet of them via South Korea but happily you can now find them in Sainsbury’s also. On opening it my first thought was how much they resembled a box of cigarettes or long-stemmed matches.

IMG_0398It’s testament to the narrowness of the life I’ve lived that this is the first time I’ve come across a biscuit stick or been actively encouraged to admit the existence of biscuits that don’t fit in your hand, with the honourable exception of the giant cookie. Before calling up the information from the world’s largest corpus, I had no idea how many flavours of Pocky existed or how popular they were in Japan. Apparently they’re a particular hit with the youth, and perhaps my knowledge of this had some bearing on my decision to take them down to the park (or the nearest thing to a park) at the Library yesterday: the little oasis of green in St James’ Square. In my defence Pocky have a good claim to being the ultimate biscuit for on-the-go consumption, as both their shape and packaging makes them enviably slim and portable. Still, they do look more than a bit like Joss sticks to me and not everyone I offered them to was brave enough to try one…

IMG_0403 I wasn’t sure whether the green tea element would prove anything but a curiosity at first, but after sampling the first Pocky I was convinced or at least intrigued enough to reach for another, and another, and another, until a quarter of the packet had gone. It might be the calming properties of the Matcha, but to me the coating tastes more like yoghurt than chocolate. The influence of the green tea can certainly be felt, taking me back in memory to the green-tea ice-cream I’d once eaten at a Japanese restaurant in California – very calm and sweet and cool on the tip of the tongue.

photo-1528164344705-47542687000d.jpegWith the cigarette-style packaging in mind I had originally intended to riff a bit on St James’ warnings about the wild fire of the tongue for this biscuit’s moral, but the Pocky’s unusual appearance and combination of ingredients gave me pause for thought, reminding me again of incense for burning. Incense in the Bible is often used as a metaphor for prayer: David in the Psalms asks that his prayer would be set before the Lord ‘like incense’ and for the lifting of his hands to be ‘like the evening sacrifice’, and in the Book of Revelation the prayers of the saints are imagined as golden bowls of incense rising before the throne of God. In times of great trial and turbulence – in the times that we are going through now – it is a comfort to think that behind the scenes, in churches, homes and wherever people of faith gather, that incense carries on rising.

Further Delectation

Celebrate National Tea Day this year by making your own Green Tea Pocky or visiting the London FesTeaVal.

Learn more about the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony and medieval Japan.

The season of pilgrimage is upon us! The British Pilgrimage Trust have some excellent resources if you fancy a little peregrination, but if you can’t go yourself you can at least enjoy the inspired ramblings of that other noble Geoffrey or the adventures of our Mann on the Camino Trail.

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If you would like to see more entries more regularly and help keep this bestiary free of ads, you are welcome to contribute to the Biscuit Jar. 

Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed

Hamantaschen

These three-cornered Hamantaschen cookies are eaten every year around this time for Purim: a festival celebrating the deliverance of the Jews in the ancient Persian empire from the plot of their enemy Haman, a high-ranking official at the palace in Susa who succeeded in persuading King Ahasuerus to authorise their massacre on a certain day by royal decree. Popularly known as Haman’s pockets (or sometimes his ears or hat) these sweet pastry biscuits developed centuries later as a treat associated with the festival. You could say the biscuits themselves are a nice illustration of the venahafoch hu motif in the idea of the villain out to make mincemeat of others symbolically made mincemeat himself. If not quite medieval in origin, they probably date from 1500s Italy (as Oznei Haman) or the 1700s when the name Hamantaschen (‘Haman’s Pockets’) began to be used in Jewish communities in Germany and Eastern Europe.

IMG_0354These biscuits are made from a dairy-free pastry recipe infused with a hint of orange and filled with light spoonfuls of apricot and blackcurrant jam. It took me a while to get the hang of the folding process but the results aren’t bad for a first attempt. If you haven’t tried them before it’s fair to say they look and taste a lot like novelty jam tarts, but with a sweeter flavour.

For the moral we must look more deeply at the story that inspired them: a story not first and foremost about Haman and his wickedness but the bravery of a young Jewish girl called Esther. Essentially as a result of winning the fifth century equivalent of a national beauty pageant, Esther is elevated to the rank of queen and proves herself to have courage and wisdom as well as beauty in pitting her prayers and wits against Haman’s. In the end she manages to change the story by interceding for her people, a risky thing to do in an age when even approaching a king without permission could cost you your life. One of the tensest moments in the book occurs when she walks into the inner courtyard, a lone figure in her royal robes, hoping against hope that the king will receive her.

6a017ee66ba427970d01b7c8dee014970b.pngThe words of Mordecai, Esther’s cousin, are often quoted as a crucial part this story, intended as they are to prompt her into speaking out despite the danger: ‘if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?‘ There are wonderful stories in the Jewish Bible of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies fighting for his people, but here their deliverance is brought about in a very different way through the workings of human history and human choices.

It is a sad and shameful fact that the majority of the early Church fathers from Iraneus to Augustine were deeply anti-semitic, a legacy of medieval Christianity which must be recognised and repented of today if we are really to honour the roots of our faith going forward. And even in our own age it has become depressingly clear that religious and ethnic persecution of all kinds is still ongoing and in some cases increasing. We may all have our own choices to make in such a time as this. Let us pray we make them well and wisely.

Further Reflection

Have a go at making your own Hamantaschen with pastry recipes (and a helpful tutorial) from Tori Avey.

It’s traditional to read the Book of Esther again when celebrating Purim. Here’s a lovely joyous take on her story from the Maccabeats and a thoughtful exploration of the meaning of it by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed

Stroopwafels

Beautiful, isn’t it? And to think it’s been only a few weeks since I discovered the Stroopwafel was a biscuit! (If you don’t believe me, visit Holland’s leading tourism site which describes it as a ‘combination of two cookies with a caramel centre’). With its rounded shape and syrupy goodness, it’s the closest thing I can think of to a pancake in biscuit form so this seems like a good day to catalogue it here…

img_0234.jpgI’ve been a dedicated consumer of Stroopwafels for years now and they’re about the only food I might be tempted to stockpile in the event of a no-deal Brexit. You can find them in coffee shops, but for my money the best – and best value – ones are made by the Dutch company Daelmans and available to buy in supermarkets in larger packs. The recommended way to eat them is to balance them on a mug of hot tea or coffee for a minute until the outer waffle warms through and the caramel becomes soft and gooey. Alas, these delightful creatures are pretty much spun from sugar, but arguably this makes them the perfect indulgence for Pancake Day.

Shrove Tuesday is known as Vastenavond in the Netherlands, and, as the name suggests, marks the final evening before Lent’s 40-day fast. As in many other parts of Europe, Lent was preceded by three days of Carnival in medieval Holland: a season of license and celebration where music, entertainment and civic processions – and even uproar in the streets on occasion – was the order of the day (and night). In the medieval imagination, Lent and Carnival were often depicted as slugging it out in an imaginary battle, as in this famous painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder in which you can see King Carnival (with a pie on his head) brandishing a spit of meat at Lady Lent (in a habit and bee-hive):

Pieter_Bruegel_d._Ä._066.jpgI’m afraid any honied waffles in the vicinity would almost certainly be rooting for King Carnival as it’s hard to imagine many biscuits being eaten on Ash Wednesday except charcoal ones. For medieval Christians, Carnival probably represented a welcome letting off of steam before the fast began, or, more philosophically, a counterbalance to Lent’s mood of contrition and renunciation. Both the Dutch Vastenavond and the English word Shrove carry the suggestion of preparation for Lent more than Mardi Gras, although Shrovetide in England was also a season of license. As the final day before the long fast, Shrove Tuesday combined elements of both as Christians prepared by being shriven (making confession) and celebrating with treats that were meat-less.

IMG_0191 But what has all this to do with Stroopwafels, you may ask? Particularly when the point of Lent – and of fasting in general – is to focus on things that are more important than material satisfactions, since people cannot live on bread (or even biscuits) alone? As a season of renunciation and reflection, Lent offers us a sober but ultimately healing space to sift our goals and priorities, to humble ourselves where we need humbling, and soften our hearts where they are stiff and cold.

And this is where the example of the Stroopwafel comes in, for just as the caramel needs to be softened by the warmth of the tea below it, so our hearts can’t be changed except by the work of the holy spirit in our lives. ‘I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart,’ says the famous passage in Ezekiel – a promise I’ve grown to treasure as I’ve watched it working in my own life, little by little, in ways I never thought it could.

Further Delectation

Show the Bake-off contestants how it’s done and make your own Stroopwafels for Shrove Tuesday.

Celebrate the last night of Carnival with a dance from medieval Gelderland (or something) with bonus glowering from Rufus Sewell:

If you would like to see more entries more regularly and help keep this bestiary free of ads, you are welcome to contribute to the Biscuit Jar. 

Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed

The Dog Biscuit

Today is International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day. God wot, I hear you say. How come this August feast does not appear on the calendar as a red, gold or black letter day? Surely it cannot be a high holy day or any kind of day at all? Nay, but insomuch as the Lord himself dwelleth in a high and holy place, yet also with those who are humble and lowly in spirit, so this singular feast is celebrated by that less choosy tribe of biscuit-eaters who live closer to the ground than we do, wherefore I have made a little post about their biscuits and their history…

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Hounds have long been employed as hoovers from antiquity. You may recall the story of the gentile woman in the gospels who reminds Jesus that the dogs were allowed to eat the crumbs of bread that fell from their master’s table, and tender-hearted owners of a medieval stripe frequently conceded far far more by way of tasty snacks. Perhaps the most famous example is that Prioress of Master Chaucer’s acquaintance who kept ‘smal houndes / that she fedde, / With rosted flessh, or milk and wastel-breed’ (trans. the nice bits of the turkey on feast days, and milk and brioche inbetween times.) Hunting dogs in particular were given special care on the advice of authorities like Gaston Phoebus and fed with meat or milk and eggs if sick. For the less pampered pooch, the usual diet of stray crumbs could be supplemented by hardtack and ‘dog-bread’, basically the tougher, staler ends of loaf no-one else could use.

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It’s dog-bread that comes closest to the dog biscuits we know today, mass-produced in all shapes and sizes since the nineteenth century. As you can see from the picture above, the classic bone-shaped biscuits are designed for heavy jaw action in a way most human biscuits aren’t. (Imagine the offspring of a water biscuit and a rusk, drenched in turkey fat and shaped like a dental stick. Now chew on that…) Feeling a strange reluctance to sample the biscuits for this particular entry, I begged the assistance of Sir Leofric and Sir Bertram, two Scottish terriers from the Court of King Carados. Here’s how they responded to these bony little treats:

As you can see, the white-haired Sir Bertram seized upon his biscuit almost as soon as it was proffered, while the daintier, dark-haired Sir Leofric employed a gentle caution before wolfing his. Alas, it was no use asking them to describe the taste, but from the amount of tail-wagging that followed I hope it was satisfactory.

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The Largesse of Sir Bertram
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The Byronesse of Sir Leofric

From brave Gelert to faithful Argos, beasts and their biscuits may prove tough cookies at a pinch, but their devotion is not to be sniffed at; indeed, the friendship of animals often takes its noblest forms in our darkest hours. Dogs especially are one of the closest friends we have in the animal kingdom, and yet like all species have a life and consciousness different from ours. If we may dare to draw a moral from all this, I would say that just as the delights of the dog biscuit remain remote to humans who do not share a dog’s olfactory and gustatory palate, so we must respect the fact that the lives of animals will always remain remote to us on some level as well. These our ‘brothers from other mothers’ have their own joys and sorrows, and perhaps even their own hymns to God, which we disregard at our peril. Learning how to love and support them must be the work of many lifetimes, but one increasingly necessary for us all to survive and flourish.

Further Delectation

More about how dogs around the world are celebrating Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day and how you can support great doggy causes and loyal partnerships near the ground.

Listen to poet Malcolm Guite’s beautiful Song for Creation set to music by Ian Stephens.

Not delectation exactly, but Master Twyti’s farewell to brave Beaumont in T H White’s Sword in the Stone has to be one of the most moving pieces of writing on medieval dogs I’ve come across (although strictly speaking this is medievalism, like The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter, not medieval literature per se). And – just because I like it too – here’s some lovely writing on King Arthur and the animals from The Beast and the Book by Ursula Le Guin.

If you would like to see more entries more regularly and help keep this bestiary free of ads, you are welcome to contribute to the Biscuit Jar. 

Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed

Doris Tryffeli

I was indeed blessed to start this year of our Lord with a great backlog of biscuits, a number of generous patrons having sent me new specimens over the last few weeks. Special mention must be made of the hand-iced ‘bee’ biscuit procured by my sister from an artisanal baker and some home-baked mint chocolate chip cookies courtesy of my friend Dana in the Golden State. Our biscuit today comes from even further North as a gift from my friend Gareth in Latvia. These Doris Tryffeli (Doris Truffles) hail from Finland and are popular there and in the surrounding countries of the Baltic region. Described by its manufacturer, Fazer, as ‘the classic biscuit at feasts’, Doris promises to ‘win your heart over with its soft truffle flavoured filling and delicious cocoa on the sides’, so it seemed a good choice to mark the Feast of St Valentine…

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There’s no denying that little Doris is a bit of a show-stopper, from its decorative base of gently cocoa-flavoured biscuit to the exciting icing centre which somehow manages to appear perfectly set on the outside and perfectly gooey when you bite into it. The random speckling gives it a naturalistic look and the ornate chocolatey edging an elegance I can only describe as Rococoa. To be honest I’ve never seen or sampled a biscuit like it; the tartlet casing is reminiscent of a Chocolate Bourbon, but the filling could be straight out of a Mr Kipling’s Festive Bakewell.

Whether or not it has the capacity to win hearts, Doris has certainly won the admiration of the friends I’ve introduced it to so far and is a rather intriguing emissary from a country I know very little about. I know still less about Finland’s medieval history, but the way Finns mark this red letter day is rather wonderful: Ystävänpäivä, as they call it, means Friends’ Day in Finnish and is marked by celebrating one’s friends with little cards and gifts. Forget the Romantic Valentine’s Day or even Galentine’s Day, Ystävänpäivä is a feast for everyone who has ever been a friend to anyone, and how better to celebrate it than with a Doris?

But shouldn’t this be a feast for lovers, you say? Isn’t the whole concept of True Love medieval? Well, yes and no… Of course we have Master Chaucer to thank for the association of romantic pairing with this feast and many fine (and foolish) traditions associated with it, but Valentine’s Day itself was celebrated long before Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls in commemoration of a Roman martyr. An elusive figure historically, we don’t know much about Valentine except that he died helping others to live, which leads us back to Finland, biscuits and the sacred offices of friendship as, as Jesus himself put it, ‘Greater love hath no-one than that he lay down his life for his friends.’

Further Delectation

Learn more about the different ways Valentine’s Day is celebrated across Scandinavia.

Despite his Roman origins, Valentine has some interesting links with medieval England and North Europe. Read more about the medieval Valentine’s Day – or mine some poetry to help you celebrate with your sweetheart – courtesy of the Clerk of Oxford.

Bored with all this talk of courtly love? Read Master Aristotle on friendship.

Feast your friends in the manner of Bodleian Library MS Bodley 264:

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If you would like to see more entries more regularly and help keep this bestiary free of ads, you are welcome to contribute to the Biscuit Jar. 

Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed

Linecké Cukroví

In the Fourth Week of Advent my Czech friend gave to me… six beautiful handmade biscuits. At first glance they appear to be a daintier kind of Jammy Dodger – a delicate little jam and shortbread sandwich that would look quite at home in Alice’s Wonderland – but a little research reveals that they are in fact a special type of biscuit called Linecké Cukroví traditionally eaten in the Czech Republic at Christmas time. Katka assures me that the ones her mother makes are better, but I think these are perfect and very yummy indeed with a cup of coffee.

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The vivid colour and translucency of the jam reminded me of stained glass, and glass-making too belongs to a tradition of Czech craftsmanship dating back to at least the thirteenth century when it was part of the Kingdom of Bohemia.  It’s also the home of a medieval king long distinguished for his charity at Christmas: Good King Wenceslas, or Vaclav the Good as he is known in Central Europe. The English carol about him taking food to peasants is very new-fangled, but like Britain’s King Arthur it is said that if the Republic is ever in peril his statue in Wenceslaus Square will come to life and lead an army to victory with a legendary sword, bringing peace to the land.

With this in mind, it didn’t take me long to find a spiritual significance for the Linecké Cukroví. In one of the most famous passages of the New Testament St Paul talks about life in this world as an existence in which we only ever apprehend the real nature of things dimly, as if through a glass. ‘For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known…’ This note of longing to know more fully and see better than we do at present is also a guiding theme of the ‘O’ Antiphons which the Catholic and Anglican church pray during this last week of Advent. Today’s Antiphon ‘O Oriens’ speaks of the longing of those walking in darkness looking for the light to come, and tomorrow’s ‘O Rex Gentium’ of the longing for the coming of the king of all nations and the peace he brings: a good sentence for the closing of Advent and these lovely Christmas gifts.

Further Delectation

Take a virtual tour of the stained glass in St Vitus Cathedral, where Wenceslas I is buried.

Have a go at whipping up your own Feast of Stephen with this Linecke Cukrovi recipe or some more Christmas biscuit recipes from around the world.

Enjoy these Advent Antiphon poems by Malcolm Guite or listen to Will Todd’s The Call of Wisdom a particularly beautiful album for Advent recorded by Tenebrae choir.

Music-making was a large part of Christmas celebrations in the Middle Ages. This beautiful Bohemian nativity scene is tucked away in a Cistercian book of liturgical music (image via Switzerland’s Central Library in Lucerne).

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If you would like to see more entries more regularly and help keep this bestiary free of ads, you are welcome to contribute to the Biscuit Jar. 

 

Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed

Zuccherini al Caffe

IMG_5172These little ‘Zuccherini’ biscuits hail from Romagna and are another donation from my friend Olivia who went on holiday to Ravenna a few weeks back. The makers, Modigliantica, have a rather nice selection of biscuits in their product range, and – tidings of great joy for the lactose-intolerant – they all seem to be dairy-free. Like most Italian biscuits I’ve had the pleasure of sampling, these are drier than their British counterparts but sweet and subtly flavoured and an excellent accompaniment to your morning coffee. In fact these biscuits are partly made of coffee (the decorative ‘eye’ on top is a coffee bean and the specks in the mixture coffee grounds). Altogether a lovely little biscuit then.

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Octopus marginalia, 15th-c Italy

The name ‘Zuccherini’ suggests sugary treats rather than the usual Italian word ‘biscotti’. (Incidentally, a lot of coffee chains in Britain use the plural ‘biscotti’ as singular, causing amusement to Italian speakers across the board.) I particularly loved the fact that no two of the Zuccherini look exactly the same in the packet, some of their ‘arms’ are evenly shaped and some aren’t but together they fill the gaps on the plate ingeniously, as you can see in the photo above. The biscuits themselves look a little like starfish or even octopuses given their vaguely octangular structure. And this in turn reminded me of Ave, Maris Stella, the popular medieval invocation to Mary as the Star of the Sea: an invocation which feels touchingly poetic, even if it may originally have come about through scribal error.

Still a keystone of Catholic prayers today, the Hail Mary is the opening of the angel’s greeting to the mother of Jesus in Luke’s gospel so I think it appropriate to borrow those words as the moral sentence for this biscuit. In this lovely post on the medieval poetry and imagery of the Annunciation, one of today’s clerks of Oxford reminds us how such art ‘tends to emphasise the quiet, private, gentle nature of this encounter’ and that the stillness of such images is a good antidote to the noisy chatter of the internet. Mary’s trusting response also reminds me of the wisdom of Isaiah, who provides another whisper of Christmas in Advent’s Waiting Room: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.’

Further Delectation

Reclaim a bit of calm in the Christmas rush with Monteverdi’s Ave Maris Stella, ideally with coffee and biscuits…

Feast your eyes on the vibrant stillness of one of Fra Angelico’s beautiful Annunciations:

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Fed up of all this Christmas nonsense? Find yourself a solid Parliamentarian paper for all the latest on England’s Civil War (warning: contains early modernism and politics.)

Increase your capacity for wonder by befriending an Octopus. If you would like to see more entries more regularly and help keep this bestiary free of ads, you are welcome to contribute to the Biscuit Jar. 
Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed

The Chocolate Hobnob

If I had a favourite commercially mass-produced biscuit it might just be the chocolate hobnob. Not that there’s anything wrong with an unvarnished hobnob per se, but the only way to improve on a biscuit this satisfying is to enrobe it in a reservoir of chocolate. Despite McVitie’s controversial assertion that true cognoscenti will serve a chocolate hobnob oat-side up, most people I’ve spoken to prefer to keep the chocolate uppermost. Here’s a rare glimpse of an uneaten specimen warming itself in the late autumn sun:

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Unsurprisingly, the upgraded hobnob performs well in the biscuit leagues, regularly beating the bourbon and vying with the chocolate digestive for the top spot in the UK charts. Taste is key when it’s down to the wire and this biscuit is so moreish it’s quite possible to eat three in one sitting without discomfort.

The plain hobnob we looked at in the previous entry; in pondering the deeper meaning of the chocolate hobnob the first question is what, if anything, is the spiritual significance of the chocolate part? Chocolate isn’t mentioned in any of the bestiaries I’ve come across, but from a consumer’s perspective I feel confident in suggesting it can only signify love as the richest, most magically transformative and generally satisfying ingredient in the cupboard. Chocolate makes everything taste better and covers over a multitude of errors in the oven. And while it would be a sin to call a plain hobnob an error there’s no doubt that without the chocolate it would be a lot rougher and scratchier round the edges. It’s the chocolate that smooths all that over – like love. 

To extend the parallel further, it’s usually when we come into contact with others for any significant amount of time that we also come into contact with our own ‘scratchy’ places: hidden resentments, irritations and lack of love. It’s where the difference between real and imaginary love becomes painfully apparent: how we treat the actual, flawed specimens of humanity we’re forced to hobnob with in everyday life is so often the real measure of the heart. There’s a reason it’s easier to be kind to people at a distance, where kindness doesn’t have to be sustained for as long and doesn’t cost as much. Want to check your love? Have a hobnob. 

Further Delectation

Hold your breath, make a wish… If you don’t have a ticket to see McVities’ reservoir of chocolate, you can at least get a glimpse of Willy Wonka’s:

And for medievalists especially, a splendidly colourful patchwork of bestiary-like images from Amiens MS 399, courtesy of Damien Kempf: 

If you would like to see more entries more regularly and help keep this bestiary free of ads, you are welcome to contribute to the Biscuit Jar. 

Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed · 3 Comments

The Hobnob

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A plain hobnob at half moon

“Enjoy the oaty rough and tumble of the nation’s crunchiest companion.” To me, McVitie’s promotional tagline for the plain or ‘original’ hobnob describes the experience of this biscuit rather well. Opinions differ as to whether it really is the crunchiest on the market, but there can be few more satisfyingly homely, unpretentious accompaniments to a strong cup of cha. Granted it may be a little rough around the edges with a tendency to crumble at the slightest touch, but there’s just something very satisfying about the way it nonetheless conveys a sense of substance. An aura of wholesomeness, too, is a large part of the hobnob’s appeal. It must be something about the oats and the way they pack them…

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Alfred, the Legend

While it may not score that highly on visual aesthetics, most consumers agree that this is a nice-tasting biscuit, despite looking like something King Alfred might have burned. Although its use isn’t recorded until the early seventeenth century, the word has at least one medieval association: in old Sarum (Salisbury for twenty-first-century readers) the hobnob was the name of the mischievous hobby-horse used to scatter the crowd before the giant in the Midsummer’s Day Procession. Contextually, to hobnob meant to give and take a blow in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, where the riotous Sir Toby uses it to describe the (imaginary) fights of the drunk and disorderly Sir Andrew. It isn’t until the next century it comes to mean socialising or chinking glasses with pals, perhaps because of its association with Shakespeare’s bon viveurs. 

Today, the idea of hobnobbing carries faintly disparaging allusions of social-climbing (‘hobnobbing with the top brass’), a shift of meaning that seems peculiar given the hobnob’s obvious lack of pretension. You might expect this sort of behaviour from a Ferrero Rocher, but a hobnob? It’s hard to imagine a biscuit less snobbish. Which brings me to the moral… St Paul in his letter to the Romans warns his church against this kind of elitism. This isn’t about bad versus good company per se, but all the other (spurious) ways in which we mentally divide people by class or culture or profession or social standing. The conclusion? ‘Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position.’ If you don’t have any friends in ‘low’ places, you might just be hobnobbing with the wrong people.

Further Delectation

Try smuggling a hobnob into the Ambassador’s Reception, or maybe just enjoy one at home with Builders’ tea and Francis Bryan’s Dispraise of the Life of a Courtier if you’re sick of all this hobnobbing.

Impressed by Alfred’s cooking skills? Learn more about his legacy at the British Library’s Anglo Saxon Kingdoms exhibition (on till February 2019). Later medieval readers may wish to read more about hobnob and the Salisbury Giant.

Take in a view of hundreds of paper doves at Salisbury Cathedral, an installation by Michael Pendry to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the end of the First World War (photo credit: Howard Darvil). When the news of the Armistice reached the trenches many British soldiers reported they were ‘too far gone, too exhausted’ to enjoy it. One summed up the mood rather tellingly in remarking ‘There was nothing with which we could celebrate, except cookies.’

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If you would like to see more entries more regularly and help keep this bestiary free of ads, you are welcome to contribute to the Biscuit Jar. 

Posted on by Elizabeth Evershed · 2 Comments

Cookies of Joy

It has come to my attention that today is National Biscuit Day and while I sympathise with the sentiments of those who argue that esteem for this excellent creature should not be restricted to a single 24 hours, it does beg the question of which saint ought to preside over this august feast. Is there such a thing as a patron saint of biscuits?

macaroon-1680701__340I did a little googling to find out, but the results were singularly disappointing. St. Macarius of Alexandria seemed a likely candidate at first: a hermit who became a recluse after a career as a vendor of sweetmeats and is thought to have some connection with macaroons. But alas, the more I read about his unusual life the more I perceived a marked trend towards the renunciation of biscuits: a doctrine I find most unpalatable. (Wouldn’t you?)

Next on the list was St. Lucy, who wins gratitude for inspiring many delicious-looking specimens. However on closer inspection I was a little concerned by the stories put about on the tins. Apparently the poor girl had her peepers gauged out — or, in some accounts, removed them herself — in the fourth century, and while I’m pretty sure all the biscuits made in honour of this grisly affair don’t contain real eye-balls, the thought of wolfing down a plate of Occhi di Santa Lucia suddenly became less appealing…

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Hildegard and friends

Thank God for Hildegard of Bingen. My last ditch attempt to find a biscuit-loving patron was rewarded with a saint who enjoyed a good biscuit so much she actually designed her own recipe. A pioneering thinker in a range of fields, Hildegard would have been an exceptional woman whichever age she lived in, but it’s particularly wonderful to find her tucked away in the twelfth century making biscuits (and lovely music as well). There are a number of versions of Hildegard’s ‘cookies of joy’ recipe online, but all agree that they should contain spelt flour and some combination of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg for the spice part. Here’s the recipe and commentary in her own (translated) words:

“The nutmeg has a greath warmth and a good mixture in its powers. When a human being eats nutmeg it opens his heart, and his sense is pure, and it puts him in a good state of mind. Take nutmeg and (in the same amount) cinnamon and some cloves and grind them up. And then, from this powder and some water, make flour – and roll out some little tarts. Eat these often and it will lower the bitterness of your heart and your mind and open your heart and your numbed senses. It will make your spirit happy, purify and cleanse your mind, lower all bad fluids in you, give your blood a good tonic, and make you strong.”

(Physica, I, 21)

With a press like that, how could I not have a go at making such doctors of grace myself? (Confession: this is the first time I have made biscuits to a medieval recipe and though I followed it to the letter, I may have baked them a teensy bit too long). Despite their dense appearance, the taste and texture feels light. You can taste the spice, but it’s a lot fainter than gingerbread spices – still warm, but not overpowering – leaving you with a gentle, happy, subtly piquant kind of biscuit. A very welcome treat on a dismal day like this. And the moral? I find it comforting to reflect that a woman as phenomenally intelligent and creative as Hildegard knew that there would be times when we simply feel bitter, or numb, or sad. And in those times, treating yourself as well as you can manage (the body included) is a necessary kindness. Medicine for the soul comes in many forms, and may even include the odd biscuit…

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Further Delectation

You can find some online versions of Hildegard’s recipe (with suggested quantities  of ingredients) here or here.

Proof that John Donne found St. Lucy’s Day a trial as well.

A fun, scholarly post from a linguist at Stanford which makes a helpful distinction between macaroons, macarons, macaroni (and the Macarena).

Happy National Biscuit Day, everyone!

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