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Nothing more rewarding after a busy week at work than cooking some delicious food and enjoying it in good company. Sandrine and I asked my parents over for dinner at the start of their long-awaited holiday. In stead of going for a traditional two course meal we decided to just serve some home made appetizers with a glass of champagne, before having the main course.
APPETIZERS:
- olives and feta cheese - bruschettas with fresh tomato salsa - mini North Sea shrimp cocktails - mini quiches à la Sandrine, with Belgian endive and goat cheese - blood sausage with caramelized apple (see also Bloody Sausages and More Bloody Sausages)
MAIN COURSE:
Guilt-head sea bream à la Bart
Ingredients (serves four): 2 fresh sea breams (gutted and descaled), 1 lemon, lots of dill (on this occasion I used both fresh and dried dill), white pepper, coriander seed, sea salt (preferably course), olive oil, butter
Make two incisions on each side of the fish, rub in some olive oil and stuff the fish cavity with a mixture of dill, pepper, coriander, salt and the juice of half a lemon. You could also add a few slices of garlic. Place the fish in an oven tray with the rest of the lemon cut up. Add enough butter and season with more dill, pepper and salt. Bake in a preheated oven for 15-20 minutes at 200 °C (about 400 °F). Sprinkle with fresh dill sprigs and serve with bread, parsley potatoes, steamed broccoli and young carrots.
We drank a white 2004 Crozes-Hermitage AOC (France) with it. Bull’s-eye! They loved it. The perfect way to start your vacation. Bon appétit!
A few weeks ago a new campaign was launched to make the Belgian public more aware of the discomforts associated with Crohn’s Disease.
Crohn’s is an inflammatory bowel disease resulting in acute abdominal pain and frequent visits to the bathroom. I tell you, being a patient myself, these symptoms can have a serious impact on your social life and your self-esteem. Imagine having to deal with travelers’ diarrhea for days on end and in the meanwhile trying to lead a normal life: taking public transport (more then once I discovered that the only toilet on the train was out of order), going for a job interview (stress can even make it worse) or just a romantic stroll through the park or on the beach. Even the simplest of things, like for instance grocery shopping or walking the dog, can all of a sudden turn into hell.
On the campaign website Controleer Crohn/Controlez Crohn there’s a map showing so-called Crohn’s-friendly places, i.e. shops, restaurants, hotels, etc. where Crohn’s patients are free to use the bathroom. Apart from the public toilets, that is. This should enable patients to plan their trips in advance, making sure that wherever they are going a toilet can be found.
So far in Mechelen (B), the city where I work, there are only two Crohn’s-friendly places registered: the local Delhaize supermarket and Hotel Vé. Since our office (i.e. the municipal archaeology service) is situated in the City Park – Botanical Garden where there’s no public toilet, I would like to add our facilities to this list of Crohn’s-friendly places (provided that the board of mayor and aldermen gives its approval), creating yet another corner of the world where Crohn’s patients can forget their troubles for a while, fully relax and simply enjoy the park.
Also see Crazy Crohn’s
November of last year we (i.e. the Mechelen Archaeology Department) organised a medieval banquet, held at the 13th century Brusselpoort (city gate). The menu was inspired by the results we got from recent archaeological research on 13-14th century cesspit fillings. Sounds tasty, not? In it we found large quantities of leftovers: all kinds of animal and fish bones, stones and pips from fruit, grains of corn… even the tiniest of vegetable pollen. Along with it we dug up lots of (mostly fragmented) kitchenware: jars, ceramic pots and pans, wooden bowls, etc. These remains gave us very detailed information on the citizens’ eating habits.
The banquet was a huge success. The event was sold out more than two weeks in advance. Our cook had the almost impossible task of catering for up to 350 hungry souls in just five shifts. But he got the job done. To give you an idea of what was on the menu, here’s the recipe of one of the dishes:
Grey mullet with onions and lentils (*)
Ingredients: lentils, water, lard and butter, grey mullet, onions, chervil, salt
Allow a handful of lentils to soak in a large pan of water for several hours. Then cook the lentils until al dente and drain. Cut an onion into rings and cook in butter or lard over a very gentle heat for about 30 minutes.
Fry the grey mullet on both sides in a pan with some fat until brown. Add the onions and the lentils and allow to simmer over a gentle heat for about ten minutes. Add salt and chervil to taste.
I guess you could pimp this rather simple dish by adding some exotic flavours, taking into account that in late medieval Mechelen some spices like pepper, cloves, saffron and nutmeg were already available at the grocer’s.
Fish bones from the 13-14th century cesspits
Because of its success last year, we’re now planning a second edition of our banquet on the 14th, 15th and 16th of November 2008. So if you wanna test your taste buds and find out more about the tantalizing flavours of late medieval cuisine, you should really give it a try. When visiting Mechelen as a group, special arrangements can be made for you to be part of this special event, even on other occasions than the ones mentioned above, but only when booked well in advance. Hope to meet you there!
(*) Mechelen Archaeology Department, 2007. More than Bread and Water. A Culinary Journey through the Middle Ages, Mechelen: Stad Mechelen.
At last, they got married! Last Saturday I attended the long-awaited wedding of two of my best friends: Yves and Sofie. The intimate church ceremony was held in the 13-15th century church of Our Lady, with its cosy, almost dollhouse-like 17th century interior, set in the tiny little polder (reclaimed land) village of Meetkerke, West Flanders (B).
We’ve all been friends since university (1994-1998), when we studied archaeology together. Yves and Sofie -or [i:f] and [fi:] as we fanatically phonetically call them- were a fab couple form the very start. So, to many this marriage may seem as just the icing on their already very yummy cake. But it sure made them shine as never before!
Thanks, Sofie and Yves, for a lovely day. We really had a great time: meeting old friends, sharing memories, indulging in great food and drinks, dancing till we dropped and most of all… seeing the both of you enjoying every second of it. Godspeed in all your future endeavours!
VROAAARRR!!!
In a second hand book store I found this map of linguistic and ethnographic entities in Europe (*).
Tourists on holiday or people on a business trip visiting Belgium seem amused by the fact that in this little country about half of the population speaks French (Walloon) and the other half speaks Dutch (Flemish). On the Straka map these two communities are divided by a more or less straight line, called the Belgische taalgrens or frontière linguistique belge (Belgian language border). It’s said that it originated during the Late Roman Empire as a result of Germanic tribes invading Roman territory from the north. Clearly, Dutch is a Germanic language while French descends from Latin, the official language of the Roman Empire. The language border marks the southernmost frontier of Germanic cultural influence in this tiny part of Europe. Up until today, this centuries-old border plays an important roll in Belgian politics, fueling (and refueling) the idea of dividing the country into two separate, independent states. And let’s not forget the German speaking community in the east of Belgium!
But if you think Belgium is quite a language quilt, you should take a look at Romania.
Romania’s linguistic and ethnic entities: 20 (light purple/blue) = Romanian, 32 (pink) = German, 33-45 (green) = Slavic, 59 (yellow) = Hungarian, 61-63 (light brown and dark pink) = Altai
(*) Straka, M. 1979. Karte der Völker und Sprachen Europas unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Volksgruppen. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt.
More interesting maps on http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/
This is a follow up to Bloody Sausages.
In his book Salt. A World History (*) Mark Kurlansky gives another recipe for boudin. He got it from Ted Legnon who runs a family boucherie in the city of New Iberia, Louisiana. With the European influence still clearly present, his recipe includes ingredients that are immediately associated with Cajun style cuisine. The sausage dough mainly consists of minced pork and rice, seasoned with salt, cayenne pepper and (green) onions. Instead of using pig’s blood (because of food safety regulations?), Ted adds pig’s liver with about the same result: giving these sausages their rich, mineral flavour. Ted uses only natural sausage casings and cooks his sausages on a low heat to prevent them from bursting.
On the other side of the continent lies another place that’s famous for its blood sausages: the city of San Francisco. Recipes vary, but most of them seem to be based on an Italian version of the boudin noir, called biroldo and are made out of pork, pig’s blood, pine nuts, raisins, sugar and spices. The sweetness of the sugar, the raisins and some of the spices should act as a counterweight, creating a perfect balance with the wild, macho flavour of the pig’s blood. Yummy! Can’t wait to taste them. I’ll be in San Francisco by mid-September, spoiling my taste buds. So save some for me!
(*) Kurlansky, M. 2002. Salt. A World History. New York: Walker & Company.
Still recovering from surgery (see Crazy Crohn’s) but hoping to return to work next week, I treated myself to a night at the 18th Festival International Jazz à Liège. Although not feeling so great that day, I knew medicine was on the way. It came in the form of Abdullah Ibrahim.
I got to know South-African jazz artist Abdullah Ibrahim through the excellent documentary Abdullah Ibrahim: A Struggle for Love (cine plus, 2004) and just this one track called Zimbabwe on an eclectic compilation album of African hits. I immediately fell in love with his music, both powerful and sober, and bought his album Abdullah Ibrahim: A Celebration (enja, 2005) with recordings from 1973-1997 as a further introduction to his work. Not only his music appealed to me, but also his strong personality: spiritual, independent, generous, creative, authentic…
His performance last weekend in Liège started with a half-hour delay, giving everyone a change to find a comfortable seat. Then he stepped on stage, sat down at his piano and played non-stop for over an hour. The piece was called Senzo (the Japanese word for ancestor), an intense act of mediation and improvisation. To me it seemed as if he was creating a steady stream of musical landscapes (see Jazz à la Flamande), some as seen from a train passing at tai chi speed, others made out of pictures stitched together to form a panorama, constantly switching between purely abstract sketchings or blueprints and highly detailed, sunlit (I guess mostly South-African) sceneries.
Supremely beautiful! One of the most intense concerts (if not THE most intense concert) I have ever experienced. No need to tell you I felt really invigorated afterwards.
Introducing Émile Garreau, French, retired and widower. He now and then goes for a drink and a chat at the village café or watches a TV game show, but most of his days he spends fishing with his friend Edmond. Lately, that’s about all his life has to offer. Peaceful and predictable. But all that changes after Edmond’s unexpected death.
French comic book writer Pascal Rabaté tells the epic story of an old man on his quest, in search of a cure for his loneliness and rediscovering the pleasures of life.
When you’ve traveled through the countryside of Central France before, taking the slow and winding routes départementales instead of the faster autoroutes (motorways, toll roads), you’ll certainly recognize some of its typical ingredients in this book: green pastures, somnolent villages, big supermarkets, sand coloured houses with fenced gardens…
Our hero has to fight against the demons of conformism, embarrasment and taboo (should old people still have sex?), and the fear of staying behind, alone.
Great story! Some of the situations Émile ends up in are really hilarious. This comic book should be obligatory reading in any home for the elderly! Rabaté’s Les petits ruisseaux (Futuropolis, 2006) is translated in Dutch as Een tweede jeugd (Oog & Blik, 2007). I don’t know if there’s an English version available, but if not, they’d better get it published fast.
Another example of TIME’s true potential (see Culture Morte). Warning: not for the faint hearted!
My dad got me this book (*) on 16th century glass paintings (stained glass) and their 19th and 20th century copies. It focuses mainly on a large collection of painted glass panels residing in Leuven, Belgium. One of these glass paintings shows a scene of Petrarch’s Trionfi: the Triumph of Time.
It’s in fact a very accurate 19th century copy of the 16th century original by the Antwerp artist Pieter Coecke van Aalst. The original pen-drawing is kept at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. A mid-16th century glass original is on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Time is depicted as an old man (look at his bald head, his long beard and his walking stick) with wings attached to his shoulders and feet (tempus fugit or “time flies”). He’s in the act of devouring a little child. This rather shocking scene refers to the myth of Cronos, the Greek god of time, who ate his siblings in an attempt to stop time, only to discover that it was all in vain. There’s simply no escape from generations succeeding one another. Time is both creator (in Roman mythology he’s called Saturn, god of harvest and agriculture) and destroyer. In his Metamorphoses Ovid (43 BC-17 AD) calls time “the devourer of all things”.
The glass painting shows just one scene of a series of six described by the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch. In his Trionfi he writes about man being conquered by Love, Love in its turn is conquered by Chastity, Chastity by Death, Death by Fame, Fame by Time (in the picture the defeat of Fame is represented by the famous hero Samson -with pilar and lion’s head- being trampled by deer) and finally Eternity triumphs over Time.
I particularly like the mix of unearthly, destructive and mythic powers being unleashed in the forefront, the peaceful Italian landscape with its round Renaissance temple in the middle and the typical skyline of any Flemisch village with its gothic church tower in the back. Simply divine!
(*) Maes, P.V. 1987. Leuvens brandglas. De productie tijdens de 16de eeuw en de nabootsing van oude brandglasmedaillons in de 19de en 20ste eeuw. Leuven: Arca Lovaniensis 13.
Archaeology has inspired some poets to go lyric on lithic (or any other period for that matter). Nobel Prize laureate Seamus Heaney (The Tollund Man, Viking Dublin…) is without doubt my personal favorite.
Here’s my attempt at writing some poetry on archaeology. I wrote this one poem (RV 98) about ten years ago, just after graduating university. Originally written in Dutch, I recently translated it. The poem focuses on an archaeological excavation (my first as a full-time paid archaeologist) on the premises of my former boarding school, situated in the village of Rotselaar, Belgium. We struck upon the ruins of the late medieval Cistercian abbey Vrouwenpark and its graveyard with the remains of some 200 nuns. I worked there for about six months in 1998 and 1999.
I had stayed at this Catholic boarding school for six years (12-18 years old), finishing secondary school. Although I met some really great teachers there and the atmosphere sometimes resembled that of Dead Poets Society (Touchstone Pictures, 1989), I generally felt misunderstood, very restricted, patronized and not being able to express myself. While excavating I saw something of a parallel between the life and death of these nuns and the feeling of constraint that I had experienced while staying at this boarding school. Fortunately I got away, but they never did.
Onverstoord graven naar maagden In het jaren verboden park. Undisturbed digging for virgins In the before forbidden park. Vastgeworteld in de oksels Van hun kerk, hun kerker, hun cel. Vastgeroest in de rosse grond Verloren zij hun vlees, hun vel. Deeply rooted in the armpits Of their chapel, their gaol, their cell. Rusted down in their ruddy turf They all lost both their flesh and fur. Vastgegroeide diamanten In hun knokige idee-fixe. Vastbesloten weer te keren Met in hun hand de crucifix. Diamonds lay encrusted Within their knuckly fixed idea. Firmly bent on coming back Clutching at their crucifix. Dieper dringt de zware spade In het verjaarde bottenpark. Deeper digs the heavy spade Through the former bone yard park. Wie had toen ooit kunnen denken Dat we jaren eenzelfde lot Deelden met hen die daar liggen Gevild, ontvleesd tot op het bot. Who would have ever thought Of us sharing the same fate With those who rest in peace All skinned and thoroughly boned. Na zes of zeshonderd jaren Bevrijd uit het bevroren park. After six or six hundred years Freed from the frozen park.
