In the Devil's Garden

Informationen zum Autor Stewart Lee Allen is also author of The Devil's Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee , which was published in more than six countries. He was born in California and has lived in Calcutta, Paris, Katmandu, and Sydney. He lives in Brooklyn. Klappentext Written with the same humor and quirky world view Allen displayed in "The Devil's Cup! " this new book on good and evil foods! through the author's extraordinary and exhaustive research! will appeal to food lovers! culinary historians! history buffs! amateur anthropologists! and armchair travelers alike. LUST And when Eve saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eye, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. . . . Genesis, 3:812 LUST MENU APÉRITIF Blue Chocolate (recipe page 38) salade Salade de Jardin Late-harvest Eden apples tossed with fig leaves. Served with Paradise vinaigrette. entrée Fruits des Homme Cold, poached sea cucumber served with Sambian mayonnaise. PLAT PRINCIPAUX Pâté aux Mon Petit Chou Homemade lingamini smothered in love apple and screaming basil. DESSERT Chocolat du Barry Louis XV pastry topped with well-whipped cream. Eaten with the left hand. Three Penis liqueur will be served in the library. First Bite It was still dark out when we left the monastery. Dawn was breaking a midnight blue etched with icy rain. Ocean waves crashed against the cliffs below. To the left and farther up the trail loomed the solitary Mount Athos. Some Christmas, I grumbled when George and I finally found a sheltering cave. I handed him a soggy cracker. It is the twenty-fifth, right? Yes, he said. George was a Greek fellow I'd met in a refuge run by an exceptionally grumpy monk. But don't wish any of the monks here a good Christmas! The people of Mount Athos believe Christmas doesn't come until January, and they don't like to be reminded that the rest of the world is celebrating it on the wrong day. Mount Athos is a six-thousand-foot tall mountain that stands at the tip of a peninsula near the Greek-Turkish border. Surrounded on three sides by the Aegean Sea and on the fourth by roadless forests, it's controlled and run by the Greek Orthodox Church, which has kept out almost all foreign and modern influences since the eleventh century. Military patrols search all visitors. Non-Greek males are allowed in on a strictly limited basis, and there have been no females, human or animal, allowed on the mountain for a thousand years. The only inhabitants are hundreds of robed monks who live in cliff-hugging monasteries exactly as their predecessors did twelve hundred years ago. There's no electricity, no roads, no cars. Foods not specifically mentioned in Christian writings are avoided. Even time is different on Mount Athos because the monks follow the ancient Julian calendar, which, among other things, places the birth of Christ in mid-January instead of on December 25. Aside from farming, which is done by hand, the main activities are chanting, prayer, and creating illuminated manuscripts. It's a perfectly preserved slice of medieval Europe, the ideal place to find out how the apple came to grow in the Garden of Eden. The Old Testament does not reveal the exact identity of the Fruit of Forbidden Knowledge, and how the apple came to be identified with the evil fruit remains a mystery. George and I were trying to reach a monastery on the other side of the mountain where I'd been told there was a monk with opinions on the subject. After our breakfast, George and I continued up and over the sea cliff, then headed toward the mountain. The rain turned to snow, and soon we found ourselves hiking through a landscape covered in silver ermine. Bunches of crimson holly berries encased in ice glittered on the ...

Autorentext

Stewart Lee Allen is also author of The Devil’s Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee, which was published in more than six countries. He was born in California and has lived in Calcutta, Paris, Katmandu, and Sydney. He lives in Brooklyn.

Klappentext

Written with the same humor and quirky world view Allen displayed in "The Devil's Cup, " this new book on good and evil foods, through the author's extraordinary and exhaustive research, will appeal to food lovers, culinary historians, history buffs, amateur anthropologists, and armchair travelers alike.

Zusammenfassung
**Deliciously organized by the Seven Deadly Sins, here is a scintillating history of forbidden foods through the ages—and how these mouth-watering taboos have defined cultures around the world.

*From the lusciously tempting fruit in the Garden of Eden to the divine *foie gras, Stewart Lee Allen engagingly illustrates that when a pleasure as primal as eating is criminalized, there is often an astonishing tale to tell. Among the foods thought to encourage Lust, the love apple (now known as the tomato) was thought to possess demonic spirits until the nineteenth century. The Gluttony “course” invites the reader to an ancient Roman dinner party where nearly every dish served—from poppy-crusted rodents to “Trojan Pork”—was considered a crime against the state. While the vice known as Sloth introduces the sad story of “The Lazy Root” (the potato), whose popularity in Ireland led British moralists to claim that the Great Famine was God’s way of punishing the Irish for eating a food that bred degeneracy and idleness.

Filled with incredible food history and the author’s travels to many of these exotic locales, In the Devil’s Garden also features recipes like the matzo-ball stews outlawed by the Spanish Inquisition and the forbidden “chocolate champagnes” of the Aztecs. This is truly a delectable book that will be consumed by food lovers, culinary historians, amateur anthropologists, and armchair travelers alike. *Bon appétit!

Leseprobe
LUST “And when Eve saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eye, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. . . . Genesis, 3:8–12

LUST MENU APÉRITIF Blue Chocolate (recipe page 38) salade Salade de Jardin Late-harvest Eden apples tossed with fig leaves. Served with Paradise vinaigrette. entrée Fruits des Homme Cold, poached sea cucumber served with Sambian mayonnaise. PLAT PRINCIPAUX Pâté aux Mon Petit Chou Homemade lingamini smothered in love apple and screaming basil. DESSERT Chocolat du Barry Louis XV pastry topped with well-whipped cream. Eaten with the left hand. Three Penis liqueur will be served in the library.

First Bite

It was still dark out when we left the monastery. Dawn was breaking a midnight blue etched with icy rain. Ocean waves crashed against the cliffs below. To the left and farther up the trail loomed the solitary Mount Athos.

“Some Christmas,” I grumbled when George and I finally found a sheltering cave. I handed him a soggy cracker. “It is the twenty-fifth, right?”

“Yes,” he said. George was a Greek fellow I’d met in a refuge run by an exceptionally grumpy monk. “But don’t wish any of the monks here a good Christmas! The people of Mount Athos believe Christmas doesn’t come until January, and they don’t like to be reminded that the rest of the world is celebrating it on the wrong day.”

Mount Athos is a six-thousand-foot tall mountain that stands at the tip of a peninsula near the Greek-Turkish border. Surrounded on three sides by the Aegean Sea and on the fourth by roadless forests, it’s controlled and run by the Greek Orthodox Church, which has kept ou…