For Purim: Hamantaschen Meets Cancel Culture

More on the 'cancelling' of recipes, which I posted about here. Is there no end to the insanity!? Please, make it stop! It hurts my mind!

From Neo

An alert reader sent me this, and I have to say it’s one of the more depressing and yet funny things I’ve read in a long time. It’s not the Babylon Bee, either. It seems that Orwell’s Minitrue has taken on the task of rewriting recipe history.

Yes, food articles about recipes. The particular example given is a recipe for hamantaschen, the Purim cookie (the Jewish holiday starts tomorrow evening) that has symbolic meaning but basically tends to sound better than it is. The original article was entertaining; the expurgated culturally-approved one reads like the boring history textbooks I recall from my youth.

Here’s an excerpt from the original, now apparently disappeared down Winston Smith’s memory hole:

Full disclosure: I am not Jewish. But as someone who attended roughly three Bar or Bat Mitzvahs a weekend during 1992, and as someone who cooks professionally, I thought I could at least weigh in on the Jewish cookie department.

Hamantaschen are a triangular-shaped cookie made to commemorate the Jewish celebration of Purim. The story of Purim involves a bad guy, Haman, a nice Jewish lady, Esther, and her ultimate victory over his plot to destroy the Jewish people. Hamantaschen are shaped to resemble Haman’s 3-cornered hat and traditionally stuffed with sweet fillings made of poppy seeds, dried fruits, or fruit preserves (among others). Sounds tasty, right? But upon reflection, Jews and non-Jews alike on the BA staff could only call up childhood memories of dry and sandy hamantaschen that left your mouth coated with a weird film. “The filling was the thing that you thought might save it, but there was never enough,” says assistant editor Amiel Stanek. “And when you did get to the center, it was jam all the way up to the top,” senior editor Meryl Rothstein chimes in. Point being, it was an imbalanced cookie experience.

So I set out to convert the haters.

The new approved version, whisked away by Winston’s pneumatic tube to be placed in the archives (until displaced in the next purge):

Editor’s note 2/10/2021: The original version of this article included language that was insensitive toward Jewish food traditions and does not align with our brand’s standards. As part of our Archive Repair Project, we have edited the headline, dek, and content to better convey the history of Purim and the goals of this particular recipe. We apologize for the previous version’s flippant tone and stereotypical characterizations of Jewish culture.

Hamantaschen are a triangle-shaped cookie made during the Jewish festival of Purim, a holiday that commemorates Esther’s victory over Haman and his plot to destroy the Jewish people. Hamantaschen are shaped to resemble Haman’s 3-cornered hat and traditionally stuffed with sweet fillings made of poppy seeds, dried fruits, or fruit preserves (among others). Sounds tasty, right? But achieving the right balance is not always easy to pull off.

These literary and cultural revisionists are crazy, and they’re everywhere these days.

Don’t let them know it – but Purim is a holiday that might trigger some Iranians into feeling bad.

[NOTE: By the way, what’s with the constant use of the word “pneumatic” in dystopian novels of the first half of the 20th Century? The Minitrue of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four used a transport system described that way, and Huxley’s Brave New World kept describing well-endowed women and cushiony chairs as “pneumatic.”]

[NOTE II: I actually haven’t had much traditionally Jewish food in my lifetime. But “dry and sandy” actually does describe nearly every Jewish dessert I’ve ever had, with the exception of this yummy stuff – particularly the version made at Rein’s Deli in Vernon, Connecticut.]

Feasts of the First Part of March

 

Good Popes and Bad Popes

Given the situation in the Church today, this is a timely reminder that not all Popes are Saints. Indeed, some of them have been very wicked men.

From Tumblar House

By Charles A. Coulombe

(Taken from the book Vicars of Christ: A History of the Popes)

The Pope of Rome is the best known and most influential moral and religious leader in the world. Pick up the paper, turn on the T.V., and there he is. Every government in the world has to deal with him somehow. Love him or hate him, there is no denying his importance. It’s this way today, and it’s been this way since Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the 4th century.

In all that time, there have been wonder-working saints, lecherous murderers, and many, many, mediocrities on the Papal throne—every kind of human being imaginable. Most books about the Popes have either tried to whitewash every sin any Pope has committed, or else to make them all out to be anti-Christs. On this emotional topic, writers seem to have left very little middle ground.

But the truth is that there have been obviously good and obviously evil Popes, controversial Popes and forgotten Popes. In this book, they will all have their day in court. One by one, each Pope will be profiled, and their rich history, with all its pageantry, intrigue, holiness, and crime, will be unveiled. Formosus was so hated by his successor, the corrupt Stephen VI, that his rotting corpse was disinterred and subjected to a court trial. St. Leo the Great frightened Attila the Hun into sparing Rome, while St. Gregory the Great banished the plague from the Eternal City by holding a procession. St. Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor by surprise on Christmas Day, but John XII (himself the son of a Pope) was killed by his mistress’ lover, and died in her arms. St. John Paul II raised the popularity of the Papacy to incredible heights, played a huge role in bringing down Communism—and exorcised the Devil from a girl during a public audience.

"Formosus was so hated by his successor, the corrupt Stephen VI, that his rotting corpse was disinterred and subjected to a court trial."

The history of the Popes is the history of Christianity, still the dominant religion in Europe and the Americas. Understanding the Papacy in its historical setting is key to understanding the modern world.

Unfortunately, this is a difficult task for the modern English speaker. A major problem is cultural. In Great Britain, as in much of northern Europe, the secular authorities threw off Papal control of their churches during the Protestant revolt of the 16th century. Hatred of the Papacy and of still-Catholic nations became a part of the British national religion; from England this hatred was exported to and became part of the foundation of the United States, Anglo-Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In the English-speaking world, Catholicism was worse than an enemy: it was a defeated enemy. On the one hand, this attitude produced the much written-of “Black Legend” school of history, wherein anything the Spanish ever did was evil. On the other, it produced in popular histories an ingrained view of the Papacy which veered from suspicion and contempt to pure loathing.

In the United States, this was further aggravated by the perception of Catholics as “foreigners.” One remembers the elegant quatrain coined by a Klansman in 1920’s Michigan:

I’d rather be a Klansman, in robes of snowy white, 
than be a Roman Catholic, in robes as black as night. 
For a Klansman is an American, and America is his home, 
But a Catholic owes allegiance to the Dago Pope of Rome.

In a word, Catholicism, since the Reformation, has been, to a greater or lesser degree, the enemy in English-speaking lands, despite the great numbers of Catholics who have made their homes in such places since the 19th century. Thus anti-Catholicism becomes the one form of bigotry still acceptable in polite society.

In the sphere of history writing, this means that it is often as hard to find a fair portrayal of things Catholic in American books written today as it was to find even-handed treatment of Capitalism in Soviet-era Russian histories. Thus we have the “Popes-can-do-no-good” school of history.

A second genre of writing about Popes is that of people—priests or lay—who, although of Catholic origins, echo slavishly the wildest charges of anti-Catholics. These are able to claim some extra knowledge of the topic because of their supposed faith.

As erroneous as the first two schools is that of well-intentioned Catholics who, in their zeal to defend their Church, whitewash the worst of Popes in the manner mentioned above.

On a purely ideological level, moreover, the Papacy is out of step with the deepest belief of the past two centuries: the cult of change. “Change is good,” we repeat as a mantra. But the role of the Popes from the beginning has been that of conservator or preservationist. The Coronation Oath of the Popes, administered since the Renaissance, declares that the new Pontiff vows “to change nothing of the received tradition, and nothing thereof, I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors, to encroach, to alter, or to permit any innovation therein; To the contrary: with glowing affection as their truly faithful student and successor, to reverently safeguard the passed-on good, with my whole strength and utmost effort….” This shows a mentality entirely different from that of most of us.

"St. Gregory the Great banished the plague from the Eternal City by holding a procession."

The reason for this mindset is to be found in the very notion of Catholic tradition. The Church teaches that Divine Revelation, that body of knowledge necessary to be believed if one is to be saved (such doctrines as the Trinity, the Incarnation, Transubstantiation, and so forth), ceased with the death of St. John the Evangelist, about A.D. 104. These teachings are considered to be factual things, as true of themselves as the laws of science—or more so. The Pope’s primary mission is to safeguard this deposit of Faith from change, which would be error; when doctrinal disputes arise, he must determine what the Church has always taught on the matter. While many are under the impression that “Papal Infallibility” and “defining dogma” mean that the Pope can alter or originate doctrines as he pleases, the reality is just the opposite. These terms actually mean that, when the Pope speaks at the highest level of his authority, the Holy Ghost will prevent him from defining untruths. Thus, before the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of the Virgin Mary could be defined, the Pope of the day had to be satisfied that, despite later denials by prominent theologians (including, in the case of the Immaculate Conception, St. Thomas Aquinas), the teachings had been held by the earliest Christians.

It is this wildly different concept of truth which has most often led modern Popes into conflict with the media and governments of our age. As guardians rather than owners of the Church’s doctrines, the Popes are simply unable to alter the Church’s stand on such topics as abortion, contraception, divorce, or women’s ordination. This inability to change doctrine has not merely brought them conflict in our day; where many modern women demand the right to abort their children, in times past certain monarchs and noblemen similarly wished barren wives killed or put aside in favor of fertile ones. New Queens were easy to obtain—not so Princes. Many a Pope ran into conflict over this question.

Another important part of the Papal conservatorship is that of safeguarding the Sacraments—in the Catholic view as necessary to salvation as right belief—and the various liturgies which embody them. J.R.R. Tolkien, for one, understood this very clearly. As he informs his son on p. 339 of his Collected Letters:

I myself am convinced by the Petrine [Papal] claims, nor looking around the world does there seem much doubt which (if Christianity is true) is the True Church, the temple of the Spirit dying but living, corrupt but holy, self-reforming and re-arising. But for me that Church of which the Pope is the acknowledged head on earth has as chief claim that it is the one that has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament, and given it most honor, and put it (as Christ plainly intended) in the prime place. “Feed my sheep” was His last charge to St. Peter; and since His words are always first to be understood literally, I suppose them to refer primarily to the Bread of Life. It was against this that the W. European revolt (or Reformation) was really launched—“the blasphemous fable of the Mass”—and faith/works a mere red herring.

JRRT’s historical conception of the Papacy was reflected, oddly enough, in his Lord of the Rings, by the figure of Gandalf, the great wizard. He belongs to not one of the nations of Middle Earth, and in a very real sense he is leader of all the free and faithful. This is so because his power is magical rather than temporal, just as the Pope’s is sacramental. To one character’s statement “there is no purpose higher in the world as it now stands than the good of Gondor,” Gandalf replies, “the rule of no realm is mine, neither Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care...for I also am a steward.” Thus might Boniface VIII have spoken to French King Philip the Fair, or Gregory VII to Emperor Henry IV, or Innocent III to King John. Gandalf also reminds one of the Fisher-King in the Grail legends, who himself is a symbol of Peter-in-the-Boat, one of the earliest logos of the Papacy.

Of course, this ideal view certainly did not and does not apply to all Popes, by any means. As stewards or vicars of Christ, they have often failed. Infallibility does not, in Catholic teaching, protect most Papal statements, nor any Papal actions (save beatification and canonization of saints). It will prevent a Pope from defining heresy as dogma. But beyond that, the Pope is prisoner of his personality, his upbringing, and his circumstances, as are we all. It is interesting to note that before Vatican II, each night before retiring the reigning Pontiff went to confession and signed a renunciation of any liturgical mistakes he might have made during the day’s numerous ceremonies. This last was essential if any of his clerical flock were not to seize on such an error as a precedent for his own Masses.

Since the Pope’s flock lives in the world, and since the most pressing outside influence on any individual is that of his government, from the time of Constantine Popes have been concerned with politics. Of course, before Catholicism became legal there were such questions as whether the faithful could serve in the Imperial legions. But for the most part, Papal concern with civil rule was primarily in terms of being martyred under it.

With legalization, however, came responsibility. In a period when land meant power, property and then temporal sovereignty were seen as essential if the Papacy was to pursue an independent course in dealing with the great ones of this world. But these things had also the effect of sometimes diverting the Popes from or even blinding them to their spiritual duties. Yet, at least as often, temporal power has allowed them to exercise their spiritual interests freely in the face of powerful and unfriendly potentates.

All of this background is essential for a fair evaluation of the Popes we are going to meet. It is manifestly unfair to judge any religious leader by one’s own spiritual views or lack thereof. If the Dalai Lama does not impose Jewish or Muslim Dietary laws on his flock, we cannot blame him; for that matter, we ought not to be upset with the Islamic Caliphs for permitting polygamy, enjoined in the Koran. Indeed, if either had done differently, we would have to say he was a poor Buddhist or Muslim. Unless we are willing to claim that our own religion is right and that of the leader under discussion wrong (as un-modern a view as one could have), we can only judge him according to how well he safeguards his own faith, however odd it might appear to us.

So it is with the Popes. If we are to be fair with them, the only evaluation we can make of each of them is whether they did well by the Church’s own lights. If, in pursuit of this, many have done things which outrage our sensibilities, it should be borne in mind that our society allows many things which would have done the same for them.

It ought to be noted that there is a tremendous paradox at work in the Papacy. For in it we see flawed human beings attempting to exercise a position which Catholics believe partakes of and demands spiritual perfection. This creates an unending internal conflict. As Bela Lugosi observed of people at large in Glen or Glenda?, “One does wrong because he is right, another does right because he is wrong.” Some of the holiest Popes have made horrible decisions; some of the worst have, often unwittingly, done wonderful things.

This paradox continues unto our own day. As noted earlier, St. John Paul II was an internationally known figure. Due to his trips, his role in the fall of Communism, and the activities of Vatican delegations, the Holy See has never, perhaps, loomed so large in foreign affairs since the end of World War II.

 

 Within the Church, however, the Papacy has probably never wielded so little control since the French Revolution. As exemplified by former Archbishop Weakland of Milwaukee’s rejection of Roman attempts to preserve his cathedral from radical interior alteration, and by former Cardinal Mahonyof Los Angeles’ discounting of Vatican regulations limiting the use of lay distributors of communion, many, if not most, Bishops today are “titularists;” accepting Papal authority in theory, they deny it in practice—as was seen by the attempts of so many of them to impede Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum; the Tridentine Mass is still far from being freely available to all and used as an example for the new liturgy, as the Pope clearly mandated.

There are, of course, historical reasons for this. One is the auto-demolition of Vatican control over dioceses initiated by Paul VI and continued by Benedict XVI—but there is another. Just as in Medieval Europe, similar situations developed when Bishops who were wealthy feudal lords—reflecting the civil power structure of the day—had the power to snap their fingers at the Pope. Today, reflecting the patterns of control in contemporary society, Bishops of larger dioceses are in effect CEO’s of major corporations. Some, such as Chicago or Los Angeles, are, in terms of disposable income, much bigger operations than the Vatican. Add to these two the widespread unbelief of Catholicism among the clergy and corresponding ignorance of it among the laity, and it would be hard to see how things can be other than they are.

Whether this is a good or bad thing depends largely upon one’s point of view. But it is important to remember, as we shall see in the lives of the Popes, that the Church has known such times before, and doubtless will again. By the same token she will doubtless know further periods of revival and strength. At her heart lies what she considers to be a mystery: the change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. It must surprise no one that her cyclical history, with its themes of death and resurrection, is likewise a mystery.

The famed 1950s-60s television psychic Criswell, as un-Papal a man as one is ever likely to meet, was wont to say, “We are all lighted candles in a darkened room, weary travelers on the road of life.” It is the contention of the Catholic Church that she and her Popes continue the work of Christ, that she is the Mystical Body of Christ; through this body alone, she maintains, can such travelers find the way to Salvation. To Catholics, she is “the light that shineth in darkness,” although the darkness does not comprehend it. To her enemies she is the most successful means of enslaving the mind of humanity that there has ever been. Whichever the reader believes, we will show the Popes as they were and are: wielders of great power on the one hand, and weary fellow travelers of us all on the other.

The Medieval (Military) Theory of John of Salisbury

Who knew? I have, of course, read the political parts of Policraticus, but I had no idea that he also discusses military matters.

From Medievalist.net

A paper by John Hosler

Given at Fort Leavenworth, on January 7, 2021

John of Salisbury (died 1180) was a prolific and erudite English writer. Dubbed “the best classical scholar of his age,” he was clerk to St. Thomas Becket of Canterbury and, later, became the bishop of Chartres. Among his numerous works is the book Policraticus, which, despite its fame as a political and moral treatise, has been virtually ignored by military historians. More’s the pity: Policraticus was read by military commanders and strategists into the 18th century and contained concepts on generalship, logistics, pay, discipline, training, and the military-state relationship that appeared in later–and purportedly innovative–treatises by such later writers as Thomas Aquinas, Christine de Pizan, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Justus Lipsius.

In this talk, Professor John D. Hosler will survey the martial content in John of Salisbury’s writings and explain how he serves as the medieval bridge between ancient and early-modern military theory.

A Brief History of Ketchup and Mustard

I'm sorry, but tomato ketchup belongs ONLY on cold roast beef. Mustard, now that's a different story! I put it on fried eggs along with many other foods.

From Mental Floss

By Michele Debczak

Around 300 BC, people in China were experimenting with making pungent pastes out of fermented fish guts. A few centuries later, the Greek historian Pliny shared a method to treat scorpion stings using the ground-up seeds of a common plant. These are the unlikely origin stories of ketchup and mustard, two condiments that people in the United States spend over $1 billion on annually. How did two condiments with thousands of years of history between them become associated with hot dogs and hamburgers?

MUSTARD: FROM MEDICINE TO TASTY TREAT

Mustard has been around for a while—in fact, the plant the condiment comes from may have been among the first crops ever cultivated.

There are multiple species of mustard—most are members of the Brassica or Sinapis genera—and the plant (which is closely related to broccoli and cabbage) and its seeds first appear in the archaeological record in China around 6800 years ago. Before they became a condiment, the seeds harvested from the plant were used as a spice and a medicine; Indian and Sumerian texts from around 2000 BCE mention them in this context.

The paste-like form of mustard showed up roughly 2500 years ago. The Greeks and Romans blended ground-up mustard seeds with unfermented grape juice, or must, to make a smooth mixture. The first version of this concoction wasn’t necessarily food—it may have been used more for its medicinal properties, and not completely without reason: Mustard seeds are rich in compounds called glucosinolates, and when these particles get broken down, they produce isothiocyanates, powerful antioxidants that fight inflammation and give mustard its nose-tingling kick.

The Greeks and Romans applied mustard’s medicinal properties to almost every ailment imaginable—Hippocrates even praised its ability to soothe aches and pains. Many of mustard’s historical uses don’t hold up to modern science—for instance, it’s not a cure for epilepsy, as the Romans once believed—but it’s still used as a holistic treatment for arthritis, back pain, and even sore throats.

While experimenting with mustard as medicine, the Greeks and Romans discovered that pulverized mustard seeds were pretty tasty. In the first century CE, Roman agriculture writer Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella published the first recorded recipe for mustard as a condiment in his tome De Re Rustica. It called for an acid and ground mustard seeds—the same basic formula that's used to make mustard today.

KETCHUP: FROM FISH SAUCE TO PLUM PASTE

Meanwhile, the evolution of another popular condiment was underway halfway across the world.

Ketchup first appeared in China around 300 BCE. In the Amoy dialect of Chinese, kôe-chiap means "the brine of pickled fish," according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Nineteenth century ethnologist Terrien de Lacouperie thought the word might have come from a Chinese community living outside of China. In any case, the name is pretty much the only thing that version of ketchup had in common with the bottle of red stuff in your fridge. It was actually much more like garum, a Mediterranean fish sauce that was once wildly popular in Ancient Roman cuisine. (Modern versions of garum can actually be found today in high-end restaurants like Denmark’s Noma.) Some have even suggested that Asian fish sauce is a descendant of garum.

The Chinese fish sauce known as ketchup was likely made by fermenting ingredients like fish entrails, soybeans, and meat byproducts. Fermentation creates byproducts that can be of great interest to human beings. One such byproduct is the ethanol that gives us beer and wine through alcohol fermentation. Another is monosodium glutamate, also known as MSG. A lot of theories fly around about MSG, but it’s worth pointing out that glutamates appear naturally in all sorts of foods, from tomatoes to beef to parmesan cheese. Our own bodies produce glutamates. And MSG can give foods a savory, hard-to-define flavor called umami.

The fish paste that was created by fermentation possessed this umami, and was used to add a salty, savory depth of flavor to a variety of dishes. And because fermentation can breed so-called “good” microorganisms while inhibiting the growth of the bad bacteria that cause foods to rot, this version of ketchup could be stored on ships for months without spoiling, an important factor at a time when trade routes could take months to traverse.

As ketchup spread to different parts of the globe, it went through a few transformations. Trade routes carried it to Indonesia and the Philippines, and it was likely around this part of the world that British traders discovered and fell in love with the funky seasoning. And as soon as ketchup landed in Great Britain in the early 1700s, Western cooks found ways to make it their own. One of the first English recipes for ketchup, published in Eliza Smith’s 1727 book The Compleat Housewife, calls for anchovies, shallots, ginger, cloves, and horseradish.

Some recipes used oysters as the seafood component, while others cut the fish out of the fish sauce completely. Popular bases for ketchup around this time included peaches, plums, celery seed, mushrooms, nuts, lemon, and beer. Like their predecessor, these sauces were often salty, flavorful, and had a long shelf-life, but beyond that, they could vary greatly. The word ketchup evolved into a catch-all term for any spiced condiment served with a meal—"spiced" referring to ingredients like cinnamon or nutmeg rather than heat level. Walnut is said to have been Jane Austen's preferred ketchup variety.

A MUSTARD MAKEOVER

Mustard received its own makeover when it was imported to different parts of Europe. The Romans invaded the land now known as France in the 1st century BCE, and the mustard seeds they brought with them thrived in the region’s fertile soil. Locals, including the monks living in the French countryside, loved the new condiment, and by the 9th century, monasteries had turned mustard production into a major source of income.

Mustard found its way into less humble settings as well. Pope John XXII was said to be such a fan that he appointed a Grand Moutardier du Pape, or “Grand Mustard-Maker to the Pope.” John XXII was one of the Avignon popes, who lived in what is now France rather than Rome, and he created the mustard-making position specially for his unemployed nephew who lived in Dijon, which was already the mustard capital of France by the 14th century.

Even French royalty developed a taste for mustard. King Louis XI made it an essential part of his diet, going so far as to travel with a personal pot of the sauce so he’d never have to eat a meal without it.

DIJON'S SECRET INGREDIENT

There are many types of mustard—yellow, spicy brown, English, Chinese, and German, to name a few. But to some condiment connoisseurs, mustard is still synonymous with the creamy Dijon variety that first took hold of France centuries ago.

In 1634, it was declared that true French mustard could only be made in Dijon. The recipe was an important part of French cuisine, but as one innovator proved, there was still room left for improvement.

Dijon native Jean Naigeon tinkered with the formula in 1752, swapping the traditional vinegar with verjuice, or the sour juice of unripened grapes. The simple change gave dijon the smooth taste and creamy texture that’s associated with the product today. Most modern dijon uses white wine or wine vinegar to imitate that original verjuice flavor. And most of it isn’t made in Dijon. Unlike champagne or Parmigiano-Reggiano, which must come from the areas who lend their names to the products, dijon no longer enjoys “protected designation of origin” status.

The dijon you’re most likely to find in your local supermarket is probably Grey Poupon. In 1866, inventor Maurice Grey teamed up with financier Auguste Poupon to revolutionize the mustard world. Grey’s automated mustard-making machine brought the artisan product into the Industrial Age. Today, most Grey-Poupon mustard is made in American factories.

KETCHUP AND "LOVE APPLES"

While mustard was flourishing, ketchup was still figuring out how it would leave its mark on the white T-shirt of history. And after arriving in America by way of British colonization, the sauce joined forces with the ingredient that would define it for decades to come: the tomato.

The British had experimented with turning nearly everything they could find into ketchup, but tomatoes were the exception—at least in part because the New World fruit was believed, by some, to be poisonous when it was first introduced to Europe by explorers in the 16th century. It’s possible that some wealthy English people did get sick from eating tomatoes, though not for the reasons they suspected. If they were eating off lead and pewter plates, the acid from the tomatoes may have leached lead into their food, thus giving them a case of lead poisoning they might have mistaken for tomato poisoning. A lot of food historians doubt how much influence this could have had on public perception, though, arguing that lead poisoning takes too long to develop to get connected to any single dish. Instead, it could just be that tomatoes looked like plants that Europeans knew were poisonous, and so were branded with guilt by association. The bottom line is, the reasons are contested, but by the late 16th century, you can definitely find anti-tomato texts in English.

This misconception about the risks of tomatoes may have persisted among English Americans if it weren’t for the efforts of some passionate tomato advocates. One of these crusaders was Philadelphia scientist and horticulturist James Mease. He referred to tomatoes as “love apples,” and in 1812, he published the first known recipe for tomato ketchup.

Sadly, the name love apples didn’t stick, but tomato ketchup did. People with fears about tomatoes felt safer eating them in processed form. And ketchup may have gotten an assist from a bit of old-fashioned quackery. Dr. John Cook Bennett touted tomatoes as a cure for maladies ranging from diarrhea to indigestion. He published his own recipes for tomato ketchup, and eventually the product was being sold in pill form as patent medicine, helping to sway public perception about the benefits of tomatoes.

In reality, though, early tomato ketchup was actually less safe than tomatoes from the vine. The first commercial products were poorly preserved, resulting in jars that were teeming with bacteria—and not the good kind. Some manufacturers cut corners by pumping the condiment with dangerous levels of artificial preservatives. Coal tar was also added to ketchup to give it its red color.

It was the Heinz company that was largely responsible for elevating ketchup from potential botulism-in-a-bottle to staple condiment.

HEINZ'S KETCHUP INNOVATION

Pennsylvania entrepreneur Henry J. Heinz got his start in the condiment business in 1869 by making and selling his mother’s horseradish recipe. Seven years later, he saw an opportunity to bring some must-needed quality to the ketchup market. The first bottles of Heinz ketchup hit stores in 1876, and in the years that followed, they would do several things to set themselves apart from the competition.

For starters, Heinz got rid of the coal tar. Instead, he blended distilled vinegar with ripe, fresh tomatoes. His formula was shelf-stable and it tasted good, but that alone may not have been enough to make Heinz a household name. Arguably the biggest change he made was packaging his products in clear, glass bottles. Before that, ketchup had been sold in brown bottles to hide its poor quality. With Heinz, customers knew exactly what they were getting.

The Heinz ketchup bottle is one of the most iconic pieces of food packaging ever created, and it’s likely shaped your perception of the product. This extends even to the spelling of the word. If you write C-A-T-S-U-P you may get funny looks, but it’s a perfectly valid old spelling for the word, and for years was actually the preferred spelling in America. Heinz labeled his condiment ketchup with a K as another way to differentiate it from its catsup with a C counterparts. Today Heinz’s version is widely regarded as the correct spelling.

YELLOW MUSTARD AND THE HOT DOG: A MATCH MADE IN CULINARY HEAVEN

Mustard also arrived in America shortly after the first European settlers did, but All-American yellow mustard didn’t appear until much later—at the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1904, when the R.T. French Company debuted its new “cream salad mustard.”

Distracted fairgoers may have overlooked the product if it wasn’t for a special new ingredient. Mustard is naturally brown or beige, but Brothers George and Francis French added turmeric to their mustard to give it a neon yellow look.

For a canvas to showcase their condiment, the Frenches chose the hot dog—a dish that was fairly new to Americans at the time. The R.T. French Company’s cream salad mustard, or French’s yellow mustard, is still a classic hot dog topping more than century later.

Ketchup and mustard have no doubt secured their positions as culinary heavyweights. Surprisingly, though, neither product is the top-selling condiment in the U.S. That distinction belongs to ranch dressing, which is a $1 billion industry as of 2019.

CONTRA GENTILES - BOOK TWO: CREATION - Chapter 79 THAT THE HUMAN SOUL DOES NOT PERISH WHEN THE BODY IS CORRUPTED

[1] From what has been said, therefore, it can be clearly shown that the human soul is not corrupted when the body is corrupted.

[2] For it was proved above that every intellectual substance is incorruptible. But man’s soul is an intellectual substance, as was shown. It therefore follows that the human soul is incorruptible.

[3] Again, no thing is corrupted with respect to that wherein its perfection consists, for mutations in regard to perfection and corruption are contrary to one another. The perfection of the human soul, however, consists in a certain abstraction from the body. For the soul is perfected by knowledge and virtue, and it is perfected in knowledge the more it considers immaterial things, the perfection of virtue consisting in man’s not submitting to the passions of the body, but moderating and controlling them in accordance with reason. Consequently, the soul is not corrupted by being separated from the body.

[4] Now, it may be said that the soul’s perfection lies in its operational separation from the body, and its corruption in its existential separation therefrom. Such an argument misses the mark, for a thing’s operation manifests its substance and its being, since a thing operates according as it is a being, and its proper operation follows upon its proper nature. The operation of a thing, therefore, can be perfected only so far as its substance is perfected. Thus, if the soul, in leaving the body, is perfected operationally, its incorporeal substance will not fail in its being through separation from the body.

[5] Likewise, that which properly perfects the soul of man is something incorruptible; for the proper operation of man, as man, is understanding, since it is in this that he differs from brutes, plants, and inanimate things. Now, it properly pertains to this act to apprehend objects universal and incorruptible as such. But perfections must be proportionate to things perfectible. Therefore, the human soul is incorruptible.

[6] Moreover, it is impossible that natural appetite should be in vain. But man naturally desires to exist forever. This is evidenced by the fact that being is that which all desire; and man by his intellect apprehends being not merely in the present, as brute animals do, but unqualifiedly. Therefore, man attains perpetual existence as regards his soul, whereby he apprehends being unqualifiedly and in respect of every time.

[7] Also, the reception of one thing in another accords with the recipient’s manner of being. But the forms of things are received in the possible intellect according as they are actually intelligible; and they are actually intelligible according as they are immaterial, universal, and consequently incorruptible. Therefore, the possible intellect is incorruptible. The possible intellect, however, is part of the human soul, as we proved above. Hence, the human soul is incorruptible.

[8] Then, too, intelligible being is more permanent than sensible being. But in sensible things that which has the role of first recipient, namely, prime matter, is incorruptible in its substance; much more so, therefore, is the possible intellect, which is receptive of intelligible forms. Therefore, the human soul, of which the possible intellect is a part, is also incorruptible.

[9] Moreover, the maker is superior to the thing made, as Aristotle says. But the agent intellect actualizes intelligibles, as was shown above. Therefore, since intelligibles in act, as such, are incorruptible, much more will the agent intellect be incorruptible. So, too, then, is the human soul, whose light is the agent intellect, as we have previously made clear.

[10] Again, a form is corrupted by three things only: the action of its contrary, the corruption of its subject, the failure of its cause; by the action of a contrary, as when beat is destroyed by the action of cold; by the corruption of its subject, as when the power of sight is destroyed through the destruction of the eye; by the failure of its cause, as when the air’s illumination fails through the failure of its cause, the sun, to be present. But the human soul cannot be corrupted by the action of a contrary, for nothing is contrary to it; since, through the possible intellect, it is cognizant and receptive of all contraries. Nor can the human soul be destroyed through the corruption of its subject, for we have already shown that it is a form independent of the body in its being. Nor, again, can the soul be destroyed through the failure of its cause, since it can have no cause except an eternal one, as we shall prove later on. Therefore, in no way can the human soul be corrupted.

[11] Furthermore, if the soul perishes as the result of the body’s corruption, then its being must be weakened through the debility of the body. But if a power of the soul is weakened for that reason, this occurs only by accident, namely, in so far as that power has need of a bodily organ. Thus, the power of sight is debilitated through the weakening of its organ-accidentally, however. The following considerations will make this point clear. If some weakness were attached to the power through itself, it would never be restored as the result of the organ’s being restored; yet it is a fact of observation that, however much the power of sight may seem to be weakened, if the organ is restored, then the power is restored. That is why Aristotle says, in De anima I [4], “that if an old man were to recover the eye of a youth, he would see just as well as the youth does.” Since, then, the intellect is a power of the soul that needs no organ—as we proved above—it is not weakened, either through itself or accidentally, by old age or any other bodily weakness. Now, if in the operation of the intellect fatigue occurs, or some impediment because of a bodily infirmity, this is due not to any weakness on the part of the intellect itself, but to the weakness of the powers which the intellect needs, namely, of the imagination, the memory, and the cogitative power. Clearly, therefore, the intellect is incorruptible. And since it is an intellective substance, the human soul likewise is incorruptible.

[12] This conclusion also comes to light through the authority of Aristotle. For he says in De anima I [4] that the intellect is evidently a substance and is incapable of being destroyed. And it can be inferred from what has been said already that remark of Aristotle’s cannot apply to a separate substance that is either the possible or the agent intellect.

[13] The same conclusion also follows from what Aristotle says in Metaphysics XI [3], speaking against Plato, namely, “that moving causes exist prior to their effects, whereas formal causes are simultaneous with their effects; thus when a man is healed, then health exists,” and not before—Plato’s position, that the forms of things exist prior to the things themselves, to the contrary notwithstanding. Having said this, Aristotle adds: But we must examine whether anything also survives afterwards. “For in some cases there is nothing to prevent this—the soul, for example, may be of this sort, not every soul, but the intellect.” Since Aristotle is speaking of forms, he clearly means that the intellect, which is the form of man, remains after the matter, which is the body.

[14] It is also clear from these texts of Aristotle that, while he maintains that the soul is a form, he does not say it is non-subsistent and therefore corruptible—an interpretation which Gregory of Nyssa attributes to him. For Aristotle excludes the intellective soul from the generality of other forms, in saying that it remains after the body, and is a certain substance.

[15] The doctrine of the Catholic faith is in agreement on these matters. For in the work On the Teachings of the Church there is this statement: “We believe that man alone is possessed of a subsistent soul, which continues to live even after divesting itself of the body, and is the animating principle of the senses and powers; nor does the soul die with the body, as the Arabian asserts, nor after a short period of time, as Zeno would have it, because it is a living substance.”

[16] This eliminates the error of the ungodly, in whose person Solomon says: “We are born of nothing, and after this we shall be as if we had not been” (Wis. 2:2); and in whose person again Solomon says: “The death of man and of beasts is one, and the condition of them both is equal: as man dies, so they also die: all things breathe alike, and man has nothing more than beast” (Eccle. 3:19). For Solomon clearly is not speaking in his own person but in that of the godless, since at the end of the book he adds in a decisive manner: “Before the dusts return into its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit returns to Him Who gave it” (Eccle. 17:6-7).

[17] Furthermore, there are myriad passages of sacred Scripture which proclaim the immortality of the soul.

Next - CONTRA GENTILES - BOOK TWO: CREATION - Chapters 80 and 81 ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THAT THE CORRUPTION OF THE BODY ENTAILS THAT OF THE SOUL [AND THEIR SOLUTION]

Man Dies on His Knees in Front of Altar in Mexico City Church

I can think of no better way to die than on one's knees before the Altar of God. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them. Memory Eternal!

From the National Catholic Register

By Diego Lopez Marina/ACI Prensa

Father Lozano said, “Juan had the strength and the courage to come to the house of God to take his last breath."

MEXICO CITY, Mexico — A church in Mexico City was the scene on Sunday of the death of Juan, a man in his sixties who got down on his knees to pray at the entrance of the church, made his way up the main aisle still on his knees, passed out, and died within minutes in front of the altar.

The same afternoon the parish priest celebrated Juan’s funeral Mass accompanied by several parishioners.

The official report states that Juan entered Jesus the Priest parish church, around noon on Feb. 21, and died shortly thereafter on his knees in front of the altar, about 45 minutes before the start of the afternoon Mass.

The sacristan, who witnessed the man’s collapse, quickly informed the pastor, Fr. Sajid Lozano, who called an ambulance, but “there were several signs indicating there was no more we could do because he had already died,” the priest said.

Speaking to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner, Fr. Lozano said that “Juan came on his own two feet to his funeral Mass with his body present there, which is the death of the just, a death without suffering.”

“Juan had the strength and the courage to come to the house of God to take his last breath,” he added.

According to the magazine Desde la Fe, a publication of the Archdiocese of Mexico City, very few people knew Juan, but moved by the way he died, many participated in the funeral Mass.

Police and paramedics “told us that the death had occurred due to a sudden heart attack and that there were no signs of violence,” the priest told the archdiocesan magazine. The authorities also gave the priest permission to go ahead with the Mass and suggested that he find one of Juan's relatives.

Mexican law states that when a person dies outside of a hospital, the body cannot be removed until the coroner and local prosecutor come to examine the body to verify there was no foul play.

Consequently, Juan’s body had to be left right where he died. As the Sunday Mass was scheduled to begin shortly at 1 p.m., Lozano made the impromptu decision to make it the funeral Mass for the deceased.

A young man who was passing by near the church was able to identify the body and then accompanied the authorities to the family's residence. The son of the deceased was at home, and shocked by the news, went to the church to participate in the funeral Mass.

As a sign of respect, Juan’s body was covered with a white sheet brought by one of the faithful and a candle was placed at his feet.

Fr. Lozano told ACI Prensa that “death is still a painful and unexpected event”, and it is “only through faith that we have the hope that it is not the end of everything, but the beginning of eternal life."

The pastor told Desde la Fe that the faithful “prayed for a person they did not know, but that he was a member of the community.”

The dramatic turn of events “made a big impact on the people,” surprised by what had happened, and “together we reflected that death is only the end of our pilgrimage in this world, but the beginning of eternal life," he concluded.

Betting on Heaven! Using Pascal’s Wager to Evangelize Others

I was lucky. I couldn't NOT believe even wen I tried, but this is a fascinating method of evangelisation.

From New Liturgical Movement

By David Clayton

“Try this for 30 days, and if you don’t like it, we'll return your misery with interest!”

More than thirty years ago, I met by chance a man called David Birtwistle, who asked me this question: Are you as happy as you can be? It was an easy one for me to answer: “No.” “Would you like that to change?” “Yes.” “Let me show you how,” David said. I am using the image of the Prodigal Son as featured in yesterday’s post to represent myself in this scenario.

The Prodigal Son, by John Macallan Swann, English, 19th century

David was older than me - I was 26 and he was in his sixties - and I was introduced to him by a mutual friend whom he had helped and in whom I had seen great change.

What David offered me was the chance to discover a fulfilling role in life through a series of spiritual exercises. I didn’t have to believe in God, he said, I just had to be willing to act as though He existed. I was a bitter and unhappy atheist at this point, and would have run a mile if I had been asked to believe in Christ. But being willing to take actions consistent with the idea of God, this seemed possible. I had seen the effect that this process had had on my friend, so was willing to give it a try.

David gave me a daily routine of prayer, meditation and good works that took up about 10-15 minutes of my day. “Try it for 30 days,’ he said, ‘and if you don’t like it, we’ll return your misery with interest!”

Pascal studying the cycloid, by Augustin Pajou, 1785

What I didn’t know was that David was a devout Catholic, and he was presenting to me his own version of Pascal’s Wager. Pascal, the 17th century French philosopher and mathematician, was a Catholic, and used his ‘wager’ as a rational argument to draw people into the Faith. He proposed that people bet with their lives that God either exists or does not. A rational person, he suggested, should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).

I remember hearing this argument when I was a high school, and had always though that it didn’t work because, it seemed to me, it wasn’t enough for me to live a life consistent with faith in God. If I wanted to go to heaven, I had to believe in God as well, and that was, I thought not possible. ‘I can’t flick a switch and believe,’ I thought.

The difference with David’s approach as it was presented to me was that he knew, I think, that he could persuade me to take the actions, knowing that I would feel different as a result, and would become a believer, provided I was open to the possibility at the outset. This is exactly what happened to me. Within just one day of trying a routine that included praying to be cared for by a God that I thought might exist, saying thank you at night (‘it’s good manners to say thank you’) and writing a gratitude list of good things that occurred in the day, I was feeling noticeably different. This encouraged me initially to keep doing it and look for psychological explanations for why it worked, based upon the assumption that God doesn’t exist. Very quickly - well before the 30 days were up - I had concluded that these simple actions work for the reason that David said they did: God does exist and He is helping me. I was now a believer. Simple as that.

Blaise Pascal, a contemporary portrait

I suspect that David’s presentation was what Pascal intended as well. Pascal is also credited with saying, “If you are looking for God, then rejoice you have found Him.”

It was a long way from a generic faith in God to being received in the Church, but because I had started on a foundation of truth, continued practice of the principles that David had passed on led inexorably to my conversion. I was received into the Church about four years later at Farm Street Catholic Church in London, and David was my sponsor!

The only condition that David attached to passing this on to me was that I should be ready to hand on to others what he had given to me. This is what drove me to write the two books about the process, The Vision for You - How to Discover the Life You Were Made For, and a condensed presentation of the same process, The Vision for You - A Short Summary of the Spiritual Exercises & a Manual to Accompany Workshops. A group of us who have been through this process have now started to run video-conference workshops that explain the process to inquirers, and allow you to meet mentors who can guide you through the Vision for You Process one-to-one. Anyone who is interested and would like guidance is free to contact me. We endeavor to pass on to others freely what was freely given to us.

The process leads me first to establish a deep relationship with God and then to the discernment process. Under David’s guidance, from this first foundation of a daily routine, he took me through a series of thorough spiritual exercises, in the manner of Ignatian Spiritual Exercises or perhaps the 12-Steps. It culminated in a discernment process by which I discovered God’s plan for me and how to follow it. At no point was I required to be a believing Christian, but everything David asked me to do was consistent with and informed by David’s Catholicism. David seemed content to allow God to call me to Him on that one!

After completing the first part of the process by which I found a deep connection with God, David asked me a question: “If you inherited so much money that you never again had to work for the money, what activity would you choose to do, nine to five, five days a week?” One thing that he said he was certain about, he said, was that God wanted me to be happy. Provided that what I wanted to do wasn’t inherently bad (such as drug dealing!) then there was every reason to suppose that my answer to this question was what God wanted me to do. This process did not involve ever being reckless or foolish, or abandoning my everyday responsibilities, but I would always need faith to stave off fear. He couldn’t guarantee that my dreams would happen exactly as imagined, although it was certainly possible. What he did guarantee though was that by following this call and taking small and sensible steps towards it, I would be fulfilled and discover what God wanted me to do because it would materialize in my life. As He put it to me, “Thy will be done,” is a fact, not an aspiration.

I answered this question immediately. I wanted to be an artist.

In response David told me that there were two reasons why I wouldn’t achieve my dream: the first was if I didn’t try to follow the call; the second was that, assuming that I did try, en route I would find myself doing something even better, perhaps something previously unimagined. When this happens, he said, you will be enjoying it so much you stop looking further.

David also stressed how important it was always to be grateful for what I have today. He said that unless I could cultivate gratitude for the gifts that God is giving me today, right here, right now, then I would be in a permanent state of dissatisfaction. In which case, even if I got what I wanted I wouldn't be happy. This gratitude should start right now, he said, with the life you have today. Aside from living the sacramental life, he told me to write a daily list of things to be grateful for and to thank God daily for them. Even if things weren’t going my way there were always things to be grateful for, and I should develop the habit of looking for them and giving praise to God for his gifts. He also stressed strongly that I should constantly look to help others along their way.

Blaise Pascal’s death mask

My experience is this. Most important first, I became Catholic. Next, I was offered a job at a Catholic liberal arts college in New Hampshire as Artist in Residence which brought me to the United States from the UK. Then my goal developed into more - I wanted to create of offer a formation for Catholic artists. This was created in my next job, when I designed a Master of Sacred Arts program for Pontifex University, where I am now Provost. This also the home of the wonderful Masters program offered in conjunction with Dr Christopher West and the Theology of the Body Institute on the Theology of the Body and the New Evangelization.

Some years after meeting David, and before I came to the US, I was offered the chance to study portrait painting in Florence (I couldn’t believe it!). While I was there, I went to see a priest who was an expert in Renaissance art, an American living at the Duomo. I wanted to know if my developing ideas regarding the principles for an art school were sound. He listened and encouraged me in what I was doing. Then he remarked in passing, even though I hadn’t asked him this, that he thought that it was my personal vocation to try to establish this school.

The Duomo, Florence, Italy

I don’t know what I had said that had made him think this, but I was pleased to hear it and he seemed pretty certain. Then he said something else that I found interesting. He warned me that I couldn’t be sure that I would ever get this school off the ground but he was certain that I should try. As I did so, he said, my activities along the way would attract people to the Faith (most likely in ways unknown to me). This, he said, is what a vocation is really about, drawing people to Christ.

Dice players, Roman fresco, Pompeii, 1st century AD

Off the Menu: Episode 177 - Blessed Charles of Austria

Topics from Charles' Name Day on the Feast on Bld Charlemagne's Feast and the other Blessed Charles the Emperor to Jus Exclusivae and Chancellor Dollfuß.

agne

0:00​ Intro 0:10​ Name Day 3:30​ Charlemagne 7:00​ Midwest Joe 9:40​ Blessed Charles Book 11:38​ Jus Exclusivae 19:23​ Away From Rome Movement 21:04​ Tolerance in a Catholic State 27:26​ Lenin What-If 36:43​ Gebetsliga 42:18​ Legacy Passage 45:33​ Chancellor Dolfuss 49:12​ Patron Saint 51:55​ Long Life What-If 55:55​ Morality of Subterfuge 58:10​ Pius X, Mystic 1:01:50​ Marian Devotion 1:04:20​ Closing Thoughts