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Alexander Curtis |
Bacchus |
Chapter 10 |
Cosseted by the earth of their tumuli, in the liver, the spirits of the Etruscans lie beneath the Processus Caudatus, straddling the boundary between the kingdom of Hades and the powers of Fate.
[77]
It was at Lernea that I descended through the cold waters down into Tartarus, to reclaim my mother from the dead. As in a Claude or Poussin, the air around the lake was uncannily still, while on the water's surface, not a ripple could be seen. As I waded in, beneath the silent mirror, I could feel the water swirling angrily around my legs, sucking me downwards. Instinctively I reached up towards the clouds to extract myself from the vile waters; but then, remembering my mother, I relinquished and allowed myself to be pulled back down. So too it was during the vogue for the neo-classical. Though on the surface the neo-classical represents life, beneath it, there is death. Not the death of torn flesh and spilt blood but the far more terrible death that comes when the classical is stripped bare of all that is rustic and pagan and reduced to a lifeless surface for the aristocracy to admire.
It had been at Lernea that Hercules had slain the hydra and it was during the age of neo-classicism that one Marie-Antonine Carême established the principles of what was to become known as the classic cuisine. But in slaying the hydra of a hundred unrelated dishes, cluttered meaninglessly upon a banqueting table, Carême inevitably replaced it with a neo-classical formula. Appropriately enough he had begun his career as a pastry cook, making pieces montées. Fashioned out of glue, wax, pastry, sugar and anything else that came to hand, the classical columns, temples and grottoes he created gradually begun to replace the by now vulgar automated models that jostled with the plates upon over-crowded tables. Once he had left the pastry shop, Carême was able to organise the arranging of the tables himself, insisting that everything, whether dish or ornament, be balanced by a visual counterpart on the opposite side of the table.
Often decorations were laid on a sheet of mirrored glass. The clear intention of these decorations was to turn tables from the chaotic Wunderkammer of previous centuries into formal gardens of sugar and marzipan. Thus designs for tarts and cheesecakes practically duplicate those of flower beds, while many figurines of the eighteenth century were made as statuary for such table gardens. As meals were still served buffet style, to guide the waiters, each dish was coded with a number, dishes with the same numbers being served together. Instructions were also given as to the arranging of dishes with colour in them, so that they might be laid out as tastefully as possible.
Meanwhile, under Carême's instructions, the food itself was prepared according to what was to become the cardinal principle of the classic cuisine, nothing being included that was not compatible with the textures and flavours of the other ingredients. This principle was also applied to the meal as a whole, each dish being orchestrated so as to compliment the others and achieve a harmonious whole in taste as well as in appearance. And yet for me, the symmetry and order Carême created might just as well have been mirrored on the surface of Lake Lernea as on the dining tables of eighteenth century France. For beneath the moulded surfaces of his creations lay death, not death in the appreciation of the food but death in the appreciation of its meaning and the gods to whom it was sacred.
[78]
After death, the spirits of mortals are taken by Mercury to be absorbed into the cold anonymity of Tartarus, where, from the non-being of his subjects, Hades forms a world that is the antithesis of Olympus. At first the shades linger on the outskirts of Tartarus, clinging pathetically to their last vestiges of self-consciousness. As they lack blood, it is this that they crave and so they may be summoned by the living, if an offering of freshly spilled blood is poured down one of the crevices in the earth that leads to Hades' kingdom. Then the shades of the recently dead will appear and can be interrogated by their relatives as to what the future holds in store for the family. Over time however, these last flickers of self-consciousness fade away and the shades congeal into the mass of nameless subjects over which the Lord of Death holds sway.
As I was dragged down through the sticky waters of the Lernean lake, I felt my life-blood being squeezed out of me. One after the other, I was forced to abandon my vineyards, ivy berries, pine cones, figs and swaying clumps of fennel. In this way, mortals too are deprived of all that is important to them; and so it should have been with me. But on reaching the bottom of the lake I was met by Persephone, who could tell that a spark of life still remained within me. Silently I held out my hand to reveal the five-pointed myrtle leaf that Aphrodite had given me.
By persuading Persephone to eat of the food of the dead, Hades had forced Olympeans to accept the omnipresence of death. However my gift of myrtle to his wife was to coerce him into accepting the omnipotence of love. Beckoning to one of the shades cowering behind her, Persophone took the myrtle leaf and ushered forward the mother I had never seen. Fondly we embraced and from that moment on the myrtle in Persophone's hand became a symbol of both love and death.
Partridges
Garlic
Salt Pork
Butter
Sausages
Chicken Stock
Cabbage
White Wine
Turnips
1 Bay Leaf
Peas
Cloves
Celery
Pepper
Carrots
Thyme
French Beans
Salt
1 Onion
Cut the turnips and carrots into regular strips and cook for 8-10 minutes until just tender. Likewise cook the peas and beans separately for 5-6 minutes. After cooking drain the vegetables and set aside.
Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage/s and after washing cut into quarters. In a casserole, brown the salt pork before adding the partridge bones, necks, gizzards, livers; an onion, garlic, some chopped carrot, celery, thyme, cloves, a bay leaf and some peppercorns. Continue cooking until the vegetables begin to soften, add the cabbage quarters, some chicken stock, cover and braise for 1 3/4 hours. Then puncture the sausages and cook in the casserole with the pork etc. for 30 minutes. Remove the pork, sausages and cabbage quarters and strain the liquid through a sieve into a saucepan. Reduce the liquid by half and mix in with the juices from the partridges to make a sauce.
Spread softened butter generously over the inside of an oven-proof bowl and cool. Line the bottom and sides of the bowl with a mosaic of peas, beans, carrots and turnips, pushing them into the butter to secure. Spread half of the cabbage leaves out in a layer covering the vegetable arrangement. Press down gently. Cut the salt pork and into slices and arrange in a layer on top of the cabbage, keeping some to use as a garnish. Then cover with the partridge meat. Slice the sausages and place some slices on the partridge meat. Fill the bowl with the rest of the cabbage, any remaining vegetables and some sausage slices, reserving some for garnishing purposes. Cover the bowl and cook in a bain-marie at a moderate temperature for 15-20 minutes. To serve, place a heated serving dish over the bowl and invert. Then garnish with the slices of pork and sausage and any remaining vegetables. Remove any fat from the surface of the sauce and re-heat before transferring to a sauce-boat to accompany the chartreuse.
"Among all the entrées that one might serve," Carême wrote, "the chartreuse is surely queen. It is made of roots and vegetables but is only perfect in May, June, July and August, that smiling and propitious season, where everything in nature is renewed and seems to invite us to apply new care to our work." Appropriately the partridge is a symbol of fecundity and is sacred to Venus, though this was far from Carême's mind when he added it to the previously vegetarian dish invented by Carthusian monks.
[79]
Of all peoples, none understood the love/death symbolism of myrtle better than the Etruscans. Knowing they could not escape the Lord of the Underworld, they honoured him by building their hill-top towns in pairs, one town for the living, one for the dead. Like the towns built for the living, the necropoles or cities of the dead, consisted of streets and houses. But where the houses of the living were built of wood, the houses of the dead were built of stone. So that they would fall within Hades' realm they were then buried under a round tumulus of earth.
Inside the tombs, the bodies of the dead would mummify. Their livers thus preserved, the Etruscans sought to invoke the self-consciousness of the dead person by means of poetically powerful or otherwise meaningful images. Though the livers of the dead present the world in a frozen or suspended state, there is enough correspondence between them and the world for consciousness to be re-kindled when particularly potent images are placed in the same chamber as the dead person. Etruscan tombs are therefore adorned with frescos showing all that the dead person found meaningful in life. The most usual theme is that of a meal, with everything necessary for the preparation and celebration of a meal being depicted on the walls of the tomb or carved in low-relief. Birds, animals and fish are hunted and then prepared in kitchens. As diners share out the eggs which symbolise their re-birth in the world of the dead, dancers and musicians perform while slaves mix wine and wait upon their masters and mistresses.
By this means the Etruscans hoped to maintain their self-consciousness throughout eternity. However it was the practice of burying a dead person's most treasured possessions with them that was to be the Achilles' heel of this formula, for after Etruria had been destroyed, it became chic for wealthy Romans to possess Etruscan artefacts and the grave robberies began.
[80]
As Hades' world is the antithesis of the world above, for the Etruscan shades still secure in their underground tombs, the Dark Ages were a time of dancing and feasting. Even during the Renaissance they were on the whole left undisturbed. One of the first to revive the memory of the Rasenna was a Dominican friar, Annio of Viterbo, who in order to prove the town's Etruscan origins, invented documents and descriptions, which he "translated" in a book published in 1489. In the seventeenth century, the study of Etruria commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo II was still concerned only with literary references and the artefacts already in private collections. It was only when the results of the this work were published a hundred years later that the interest in things Etruscan took a practical turn and the Etruscan Academy was founded. Consisting of forty citizens of Cortona and a hundred other Italian gentlemen, twice a month the Academy would meet and at the so-called Cortona Nights, new finds were discussed. Subsequently the first museum of Etruscan artefacts was founded by a prelate in Volterra and soon tombs were being opened for visitors, with local landowners forming collections of their own from the contents. Meanwhile, interest in the Etruscans was spreading to Britain and Josiah Wedgewood called his ceramics factory at Hanley, Etruria. During the nineteenth century the first guide to Etruscan tombs was printed in English but by this time it was also becoming clear that there would always remain a fundamental enigma about the Etruscans, that their world was in some way different from the world of the Romans and all who came after them. Now, behind the glass cases of museums, the elusive Etruscan smile mocks not only the dust and the long line of scholars who have tried to decipher their language but all those who fail to grasp the simple secret that my people took with them to the tomb.
[81]
What Carême had started, Escoffier was to finish. Nevertheless it was a relatively unknown restaurateur in Rouen who invented the classic Caneton Rouenais à la Presse, that I most associate with my descent into Tartarus. The duck or preferably duckling is only partially cooked, then the breast is cut into thin slices and arranged on a platter. Once the legs have been removed and set aside for another purpose, the still hot carcass is inserted into a press and anointed with wine. As the screw is applied, the blood and fatty juices flow out with the wine through a spout at the bottom.
1 Duck, preferably young
Salt
Butter
Pepper
Cognac
In Egyptian symbolism, ducks are associated with Isis but more generally, as they swim on the surface, they are taken as representing superficiality, chatter and deceit - from which evils I have suffered more than my fair share.
[82]
As it is Mercury who guides the spirits of men down to Tartarus and as it had been he who had guided man through the Medieval Ages (by means of Capella's highly popular treatise), when he suggested that the interest in things Etruscan should be taken advantage of, we gods were easily persuaded.
During the Middle Ages, Mercury, as god of thieves and trickery, had succeeded in attributing to Cicero the authorship of the Ad Herennium and thus initiated the confusion concerning the categorising of the art of memory. This eventually lead to us gods being reinstated in men's minds, causing great excitement on earth when fragments of our statues were re-discovered among the ruins of Ancient Rome. This time, coinciding with the tide of revolutions that were sweeping over Europe we planned to return the European spiritual tradition back to its roots, not the falsely diagnosed roots of Renaissance Neoplatonism but the true roots of sacrifice, libation and ritual. Thus in circumstances similar to those in which Tages had emerged from a plough furrow, Mercury arranged for an artefact to be found by a peasant whilst ploughing a field.
This artefact was, of course, the bronze liver of Piacenza. On the under-side of the organ, below my house on the Eastern edge, there is a hole. It was from this hole that my life-blood flowed out as I descended into the depths of the Lernean lake. It had been through this hole too that, at the yearly sacrifices of the year king, my blood, representing the blood of the universe, would ebb away to reveal the five-pointed star of Venus and the promise of re-birth. During the Renaissance I had acted as a stepping-stone, enabling men to link Apollo with Christ. Now, through this hole, Mercury proposed that I should descend a second time down to Tartarus and by dying, bring the hated age of the neo-classical to an end. Instead of bearing a myrtle or the five-pointed star of Venus, I was to offer the Queen of the Dead a liver, a symbol both of myself and of the world. The death of the classical world would thereby be acknowledged, reminding Persephone of the necessity of re-birth. She would then hand the organ back to me with instructions to plant it in the soil along with the corn.
[83]
Though the gall-bladder is know as the eye of Zeus, on the bronze liver of Piacenza it is labelled as falling under the domain of Neptune. This is because it was through the agency of Neptune that I was to make my second descent down into Tartarus. As in the liver, so on Zeus's sacred oaks there are galls, or "eyes of Zeus". These are caused by the activities of an aphid, Phylloxera quercus. American vines too are host to a Phylloxera aphid, which until the nineteenth century was unknown in Europe. The Deii Consentes therefore decided that, with the help of Neptune, it would be this aphid that would force me down into Tartarus.
In order to introduce Phylloxera into Europe however, it was first necessary to bring oidium from England into France. This came via Belgium and from the eighteen-fifties onwards, the powdery mildew reduced European grape harvests and deprived wines of their ability to age and travel. The problem of stability was solved by Pasteur during the eighteen-sixties with the invention of pasteurisation, while the mildew itself was tackled by spraying the vines with powdered sulphur. But by this time, trials had been undertaken with American vines to see if they might not prove more resistant to oidium than their European counterparts and with them came Phylloxera vastatrix, "the devastator." American vines had of course, been imported before but by ship and the Phylloxera insect had not survived the weeks at sea. As the strawberry flavour of the wines made from these vines was hardly something to find favour among Europeans, the experiment had not been repeated. By the eighteen-fifties though, steam ships had cut the transatlantic journey down to nine or ten days, so that the insects were able to survive. They were then taken by train to the South of France, from whence the epidemic spread.
As on oak trees, Phylloxera causes galls and swellings but with vines the relationship is far from symbiotic as in feeding, the insect in its louse stage injects a substance which causes the vine to subsequently reject the affected area. While American vines have developed varying degrees of immunity to the digestive juices of the louse, after three years a European vine will have rejected its entire root system and will die. With the eggs from a single female producing, within seven months, 25 million offspring, the march of destruction is inexorable. Where the oidium crisis was to last ten years, the Phylloxera crisis was to last forty.
At the International Phylloxera Conference, held in Bordeaux in 1881, the "sulphurists", who favoured fumigation of the soil and the "Americanists", who favoured the grafting of European vines onto American roots, presented their views. While the "sulphurists" argued that grafting would affect the flavour of their wines, the "Americanists" argued that for the long-term there was no other option. In the event neither side won and in any case both were right, for while pre-Phylloxera wines do have a density and concentration of flavour not possessed by modern wines, there is scarcely a vine in Europe that is not grafted onto American roots. Despite the merits of grafting it was to be another six years before American roots were allowed in by the French authorities, though many were smuggled in, some for grafting and some to be planted directly as a desperate measure to bolster the dwindling supplies of wine. Even once grafting had started it took several years before roots were bred that adapted well to the European soils. Then, with the massive imports of American vine wood a new form of mildew was introduced, erupting in France with a vengeance that eclipsed even Phylloxera. Like oidium, the new "downy" mildew reduced crop yields and weakened wines but this time it was only four years before a remedy was developed - the famous Bordeaux mixture.
By the eighteen-eighties, the successive scourges of oidium, Phylloxera and mildew had reduced French wine production by half and changed the country from being an exporter of wine to an importer. To satisfy demand, in addition to trading in genuine wines, merchants were obliged to trade in piquette, raisin wine, diluted wine and wines that would normally have been used for vinegar. Even where there were still grapes to pick, as growers experimented with organic and inorganic fertilisers in desperate attempts to keep yields up, inevitably they became over-generous. In addition, the sulpho-carbonates used to fumigate the soil also acted as a fertiliser so that sometimes, even in areas affected with both Phylloxera and mildew, harvests actually increased during the years of crisis, though as was noticed at the time, the wines, even those from the best vineyards, lacked quality.
Although they were right in that the grafting of European vines onto American roots would change the wine produced, the "sulphurites" were not only fighting a losing battle against Phylloxera but by inadvertently over-fertilising were failing the achieve the very quality they were trying to protect. The poignancy of their situation is therefore heightened by the fact that carbon bisulphide is not just a fungicide and fertiliser but also an explosive and the sad procession of a horse pulling a special kind of plough through the vineyards would be concluded, not by the ploughman but by a man with a fire extinguisher in case the plough struck a stone.
The gall of Zeus which had hitherto pervaded the cosmos with the sweetness of honey, had now turned bitter with the digestive juices of the Phylloxera louse and the acrid combination of sulphur, carbon bisulphide, copper sulphate and lime - but by then I was already in Tartarus.
[84]
In Italy the oidium crisis forced thousands of mezzadria farmers to abandon their farms and seek a new life in the cities or in America. For those who remained the hotch-potch of olives, vines, corn etc. meant that Phylloxera was never to take a hold as much as it did in France, rather the damage was indirect in that it encouraged the notion that any sort of wine was saleable. The slovenly practices begun in the preceding century were thus continued, having been checked only temporarily by Ricasoli, the first land-owner who, in reforming his farms did not neglect the education of his peasants.
When Baron Bettino Ricasoli inherited, in 1829, the crumbling family estate at Brolio, he moved from Florence into the heart of Chianti to begin what he called his "apostolate": the reform of his estate and the education of his wife, daughter and peasants. By the nineteenth century most mezzadria farmers were in debt to their landlords, despite the fact that the latter seldom, if ever received their full share of the crops. The olive groves that had been planted in Peter-Leopold's time were suffering from the inability of the peasants to prevent soil erosion or even manure and prune the trees. Many were incapable even of growing fodder with which to feed their animals over winter. For this, Ricasoli held the land-owners and priests responsible and on his own estate saw to it that his peasants were properly instructed in everything from the care of tools to production of manure and the feeding of animals. In his Reglomento Agrario della Fattoria di Brolio, he asserted that the administration would "take steps against" anyone who did not get up early in the morning, look after their tools, or who failed to tend to their garden. Bulletins pasted onto the walls of buildings around the estate informed his farmers when to reap, sow, plough and fertilise the soil. For those who doubted his motives came the assurance that it was "a happy thing to know that my will ought to be your will, since that which I will is to do you good in every way."
Once the agricultural practices on his farms had been reviewed, Ricasoli turned his attention to the region's wine, travelling through France and Germany so as to see at first hand all possible ways of growing vines and making wine. In the course of his trials he imported numerous varieties but eventually focused his attention on three Tuscan grapes which he felt harmonised well, to toast the earth that bore them. "Chianti wine," he wrote, "draws most of its bouquet (which is what I aim for) from Sangioveto; from Canaiolo a sweetness that tempers the harshness of the latter without distracting from its bouquet; whereas Malvasaia (which could be used less in wines that are to be aged) tends to accentuate the taste, while at the same time making it fresher and lighter and more suitable for daily use at the table."
Though this is still the basic formula for Chianti, Ricasoli himself never lived to see it accepted by the world. Moreover in 1848 his countess died and in his grief his enthusiasm for agriculture was swept away, to be replaced by an interest in politics. In the eighteen-fifties oidium struck, reducing Tuscan wine production by three-quarters in 1853. In addition the country-side became host to hoards of marauding vagabonds who would besiege landlords and terrorise peasants by threatening to destroy their crops unless they were paid off. As his peasants abandoned their farms, despite his waning interest in agriculture, Ricasoli bought them out, surviving the crises of oidium, Phylloxera and mildew by abandoning wine and farming silk worms instead. To the vagabonds, he responded by remaining on his estate, saying to a friend that he would fight it out with any vagrant who set foot on his property. When in 1866 the "Iron Duke" had progressed from being virtual dictator of Tuscany to Prime Minister of the new Italy, Florence became the capital.
Despite the fact that oidium had been defeated, fashion demanded that Burgundy and Bordeaux be served both at court and in society. By the eighteen-eighties however Phylloxera vastatrix had reached both these regions - and Chianti. Where the commune of Graveson produced 220,000 gallons in 1867, in 1873 it produced a mere 1,100 gallons.
Peaches
Sugar
Raspberries
Caster Sugar
6 Egg Yolks
2 Vanilla Pods
500 ml Double Cream
Salt
500 ml Milk
Purée the raspberries using 150g icing sugar for each 1/2 kg fruit and strain through a sieve.
Plunge the peaches into boiling water for 30 seconds, drain and remove the skins. In 1 litre of water, dissolve 500g sugar and boil for five minutes with a vanilla pod. Then add the peeled peaches and poach for 7-8 minutes on each side. When cool serve on a bed of ice-cream, with raspberry purée poured over.
Originally raspberries were a white fruit but while picking some for the young Zeus, the nymph Ida pricked her finger and they were stained red with her blood. White raspberries are therefore only rarely found, having, if well ripened, a taste resembling an aged white wine. Thorned plants represent the horns of the moon, which after the funeral symbolism of the waning moon, signify light, growth and regeneration. The full moon stands for the wholeness, completion, strength and the spiritual power attained through sacrifice. Consequently for Peach Melba, white peaches, which are more aromatic and juicy, should be used and served whole. Then if the stone inside is broken open, it will be found to contain the viscia pisces, the sacred aureole through which gods are born and through which, following sacrifice, I am reborn.
[85]
As the wine-god, embodying the vintages of the past, I was able to offer Persephone a picture of all that had gone before, while she was able to return it to me as a promise of all that was to come. Thus in Tartarus, I handed her the gravestone of the classical world and she gave it back, transformed into an emblem of renewal
[86]
"Certainly a duck may be served whole," Martial had said, "though only the breast and the neck taste; the rest send back to the cook." During the nineteenth century this was exactly what happened, except that the breast was cut into aiguillettes and "the rest" was pressed and served as a sauce. But by the end of the nineteenth century the liver of the bird had been rescued and was set aside with the aiguillettes to finish cooking in a sauce made of Maderia, duck consommé, brandy and the juices extracted by the press. This was the celebrated Caneton Tour d' Argent served at the Tour d' Argent, Paris' oldest restaurant. It was then I knew I was at last returning back to the surface of the Lernean lake after so long a spell in Tartarus. As my life blood trickled out through the cast iron spout of the press, I recognised that once again I was dying in order to live - but I also realised that in sacrificing myself to save my mother, I was saving not just myself but a whole pantheon of gods, as from the ruins of the classical the modern world emerged.
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