Sep 292016



































Then we get the less famous:




Duelos y Quebrantos


2 tablespoons lard (or butter)
1 slice stale bread, diced
8 eggs, beaten
red chile flakes, to taste (optional)
paprika to taste (optional)
salt and pepper






Serve immediately with some fresh crusty bread.

Serves 2 – 4 (depending on appetite)


Jan 152016


The British Museum first opened to the public on this date in 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. It is a museum dedicated to human history, art, and culture. Its permanent collection, numbering about 8 million works, is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence and originates from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.

The museum’s expansion over two and a half centuries was largely a result of an expanding British colonial footprint and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum (Natural History) in South Kensington in 1881. In 1997, the British Library (previously centered on the Round Reading Room and known as the British Museum Library) moved to a new site. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all other national museums in the United Kingdom it charges no admission fee, except for loan exhibitions.


Although today principally a museum of cultural objects and antiquities, the British Museum was founded as a “universal museum”. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician and naturalist Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753). During the course of his lifetime Sloane gathered an enviable collection of curiosities and, not wishing to see his collection broken up after death, he bequeathed it to King George II, for the nation.

At that time, Sloane’s collection consisted of around 71,000 objects of all kinds including around 40,000 printed books, 7,000 manuscripts, extensive natural history specimens including 337 volumes of dried plants, prints and drawings including those by Albrecht Dürer and antiquities from Sudan, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Ancient Near and Far East and the Americas. On 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. The British Museum Act 1753 also added two other libraries to the Sloane collection, namely the Cottonian Library, assembled by Sir Robert Cotton, dated back to Elizabethan times, and the Harleian library, the collection of the Earls of Oxford. They were joined in 1757 by the Royal Library, assembled by various British monarchs. Together these four “foundation collections” included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf.

The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum: a national museum, belonging to neither the church nor the king, freely open to the public and aiming to collect EVERYTHING – very British !! Sloane’s collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary and antiquarian element and meant that the British Museum now became both national museum and library.


The body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the site now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost and the unsuitability of its location. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. In 1757 King George II gave the Old Royal Library and with it the right to a copy of every book published in the country, thereby ensuring that the Museum’s library would expand indefinitely. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several further gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts and David Garrick’s library of 1,000 printed plays. The predominance of natural history, books and manuscripts began to lessen when in 1772 the Museum acquired for £8,400 its first significant antiquities in Sir William Hamilton’s collection of Greek vases.




The museum’s first notable addition towards its collection of antiquities, since its foundation, was by Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803), British Ambassador to Naples, who sold his collection of Greek and Roman artifacts to the museum in 1784 together with a number of other antiquities and natural history specimens. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784 refers to the Hamilton bequest of a “Colossal Foot of an Apollo in Marble,” one of two antiquities of Hamilton’s collection drawn for him by Francesco Progenie, a pupil of Pietro Fabris, who also contributed a number of drawings of Mount Vesuvius sent by Hamilton to the Royal Society in London.


Ever since that time the museum has grown and grown to the point that it is one of the largest collections of antiquities in the world with ever-expanding facilities. I have very mixed feelings about the whole affair. On the whole, I’m not too troubled by art collections. I’d rather have works of art on display for the general public than tucked away in private homes. As far as I am concerned, art should be available to all. Cultural artifacts are a different matter. Here I have two concerns. First, when I see functional objects on display, I am troubled. They have been pulled out of context. How would you feel if someone raided your kitchen and put all your pots and pans in an exhibit? Yes, I understand that the British Museum’s exhibits are OLD. So what? They are still devoid of CONTEXT. Take American quilts as a prime example. I’ve been to one or two museum exhibits of quilts in my time. There are all these beautiful objects hung on walls. They were not made to be hung on walls; they were designed for beds. So . . . if you must exhibit them, put them on beds where you can see them as they were meant to be seen.


Second, the British Museum stands, in my humble opinion, as a testament to British colonialism, which I find despicable. Discoverers and colonists journeyed the world taking what they valued and, if it was portable, bringing it back home as “treasure” (never mind the fact that many of the lands they traveled to they decided to “keep,” even though they were already owned by other people). It is a point of general controversy whether museums should be allowed to possess artifacts taken from other countries, and the British Museum is a notable target for criticism. The Elgin Marbles, Benin Bronzes and the Rosetta Stone are among the most disputed objects in its collections, and organizations have been formed demanding the return of these artifacts to their native countries of Greece, Nigeria and Egypt respectively. The Parthenon marbles claimed by Greece were also designated by UNESCO among others for restitution. From 1801 to 1812, Elgin’s agents took about half of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon, as well as sculptures from the Propylaea and Erechtheum.

bm1 bm12 bm11 bm10

In recent years, controversies pertaining to reparation of looted artifacts taken from the Old Summer Palace in China during the Anglo-French invasion in 1860 have also begun to surface. The ransacking and destruction of Chinese palaces in the 19th century has lead to deep resentment in China. The British Museum has been asked repeatedly since 2009 to open their collections for examination by a team of Chinese investigators as a part of an international mission to document lost national treasures.

There have been fears that the United Kingdom may be asked to return various treasures. Most controversial are:

The Elgin Marbles – claimed by Greece and backed by UNESCO, among others, for restitution.

The Benin Bronzes – claimed by Nigeria.

The Ethiopian Tabots – claimed by Ethiopia.

Achaemenid empire gold and silver artifacts from the Oxus Treasure – claimed by Tajikistan.

The Rosetta Stone – claimed by Egypt.

Over 24,000 scrolls, manuscripts, paintings, scriptures, and relics from the Mogao Caves, including the Diamond Sutra – claimed by the People’s Republic of China.

The Anahit goddess statue – claimed by Armenia.

The British Museum has refused to return these artifacts, stating that the “restitutionist premise, that whatever was made in a country must return to an original geographical site, would empty both the British Museum and the other great museums of the world.”  And ???? The Museum has also argued that the British Museum Act of 1963 legally prevents any object from leaving its collection once it has entered it. Nevertheless, it has returned items such as the Tasmanian Ashes (human remains) after a 20-year-long battle with Australia. The British Museum continues to assert that it is an appropriate custodian and has an inalienable right to its disputed artifacts under British law. Very convenient. This is typical colonial thinking – “I took it, so it is mine. And to prove it I passed a law asserting it is mine.”

The whole issue is complicated, of course. There is a good argument to be made that some artifacts were fairly purchased. No dispute on my part. But, many were not. It’s also true that some of the Chinese antiquities, for example, might have been destroyed if they were in Chinese hands during the Cultural Revolution. Here things get murky. There have been many instances in the recent past of the destruction of antiquities by religious and political zealots. Would they have been better off in the hands of paternalistic, but outsider, conservators? There’s no easy answer here, although many Westerners think there is. To the dubious claim, “I stole it, so it is mine,” can be added “I can take care of it better than you can.” There’s also, “I took it because you were not using it at the time.” I tend to favor giving things back to their rightful owners.


Given the scope of the collections in the British Museum it’s hard to settle on ONE recipe from one time period. So, I have decided to be a bit randomly quirky (no surprise !!) The Deipnosophistae professes to be an account given by an individual named Athenaeus to his friend Timocrates of a banquet held at the house of Larensius (Λαρήνσιος; in Latin: Larensis), a wealthy book-collector and patron of the arts. It is thus a dialogue within a dialogue, after the manner of Plato, but the conversation extends to enormous length. The topics for discussion generally arise from the course of the dinner itself, but extend to literary and historical matters of every description, including abstruse points of grammar. The guests supposedly quote from memory. The actual sources of the material preserved in the Deipnosophistae remain obscure, but much of it probably comes second-hand from early scholars.

The twenty-four named guests include individuals called Galen and Ulpian, but they are all probably fictitious personages, and the majority take no part in the conversation. If the character Ulpian is identical with the famous Roman jurist, the Deipnosophistae may have been written after his death in 223 CE; but the jurist was murdered by the Praetorian Guard, whereas Ulpian in Athenaeus dies a natural death. A nearly complete version of the text is preserved in only one manuscript. Here’s an extract from Book IX in translation:

Lachares stripped Athene naked, who caused him no inconvenience; but I will now strip you who are inconveniencing me, said Aemilianus, unless you show me what you have got with you. And he said at last, rather unwillingly, I call this dish the Dish of Roses. And it is prepared in such a way, that you may not only have the ornament of a garland on your head, but also in yourself, and so feast your whole body with a luxurious banquet. Having pounded a quantity of the most fragrant roses in a mortar, I put in the brains of birds and pigs boiled and thoroughly cleansed of all the sinews, and also the yolks of eggs, and with them oil, and pickle-juice, and pepper, and wine. And having pounded all these things carefully together, I put them into a new dish, applying a gentle and steady fire to them. And while saying this, he uncovered the dish, and diffused such a sweet perfume over the whole party, that one of the guests present said with great truth [quoting Homer]:

The winds perfumed the balmy gale convey

Through heaven, through earth, and all the aerial way;

So excessive was the fragrance which was diffused from the roses.


I don’t know if you’d want to make this dish. It seems very simple. Grind up pig’s (and bird’s) brains with egg yolk, oil, vinegar, wine, and pepper, plus essence of rose petals. Then bake in a moderate oven. You’d get a kind of soft meatloaf with a pungent rose aroma. I’m not averse to such a dish in principle; I have cooked brains many times. My mum used to make fried lamb’s brains on toast once in a while when I was a kid for a quick Saturday evening meal. They’re a bit like grey scrambled eggs. Nowadays I prefer to mix the brains with some other meat to firm up the texture, because I’m not a huge fan of squishy things. On the other hand, this dish is reminiscent of eggs and brains which was at one time popular in Portugal, Germany, and the Philippines (and diasporic ethnic communities in the American Mid-West). Add a dose of rosewater and a little wine, and I’d say you’d have a fair replica of the Roman original.

Jan 032016


Today is the birthday of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order (lower than patricians, but not plebeians), and is widely considered one of Rome’s greatest orators and prose stylists.


When I was studying for the Advanced-Level exam in Latin in the sixth form in England I was required to write a Latin prose piece every week (which I hated), and it always had to be in the style of Cicero. Emulation of Cicero was so exacting that if I needed to use a new word, I had to look it up in an historical Latin dictionary and could use it ONLY if Cicero had (an ideal dating back to the humanist scholars of the Renaissance). All Latin, both before and after Cicero, was considered inferior by my teachers and the examiners. To tell the truth, I found Cicero dull and pedantic, and still do. I was happier with the likes of Virgil and Juvenal, because they dealt with battles and farming and feasting, not politics and rhetoric. I was even happier with Greek poetry and literature which just seemed to have more flow than their Latin counterparts. But I’ll give Cicero his due. He took an extremely workaday language and added some sparkles to enliven it – in the end, a lost cause in my humble and ignorant opinion.


Petrarch’s rediscovery of Cicero’s letters is often credited with initiating the 14th-century Renaissance in public affairs, humanism, and classical Roman culture. Polish historian Tadeusz Zieliński wrote, “Renaissance was above all things a revival of Cicero, and only after him and through him of the rest of Classical antiquity.” We need to be measured here, though. The philosophy of Plato and Aristotle were of much greater importance than that of Cicero, but Cicero opened the window through which his betters could be viewed. The peak of Cicero’s authority and prestige came during the 18th century, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, and Montesquieu was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for Roman history, especially the last days of the Roman Republic.


Though he was an accomplished orator and successful lawyer, Cicero believed his political career was his most important achievement. It was during his consulship that Catiline (Lucius Sergius Catilina) and his co-conspirators attempted to overthrow the government through an attack on the city by outside forces. Cicero suppressed the revolt by executing five conspirators without due process (commonplace in Rome).

During the chaotic latter half of the 1st century BCE, marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to traditional republican government. Following Julius Caesar’s death Cicero became an enemy of Mark Antony in the ensuing power struggle, attacking him in a series of speeches. He was proscribed as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and consequently executed by soldiers operating on their behalf in 43 BCE after having been intercepted during attempted flight from the Italian peninsula. His severed hands and head were then, as a final act of revenge by Mark Antony, displayed in the Roman Forum. Octavian, Caesar’s heir and later the first emperor, Augustus, is believed to have argued vehemently against the proscription, but ultimately conceded to Mark Antony’s wishes. However when Octavian subsequently turned on, and defeated, Mark Antony, he showed deep remorse for his part in Cicero’s death, and tried to make amends by protecting and supporting his son (Marcus Minor) despite the latter’s ever-changing political views.


My assessment here of Cicero’s legacy, while derivative, is fair, I believe, although perhaps tainted slightly by the years I spent laboring over his speeches as a teenager. Cicero has been traditionally considered the master of Latin prose, with Quintilian declaring that Cicero was “not the name of a man, but of eloquence itself.” Julius Caesar praised Cicero’s achievement by saying “it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit (ingenium) than the frontiers of the Roman empire.” According to John William Mackail, “Cicero’s unique and imperishable glory is that he created the language of the civilized world, and used that language to create a style which nineteen centuries have not replaced, and in some respects have hardly altered.”

Cicero wrote a great deal on a variety of subjects. His writing was readily available and widely used in schools in classical antiquity, and, because of its fame, survived into the modern world with a relatively small percentage lost. A graffito found at Pompeii states, “You will like Cicero, or you will be whipped” – work of a disgruntled student, no doubt. Cicero was greatly admired by influential Church Fathers such as Augustine of Hippo, who credited Cicero’s lost Hortensius for his eventual conversion to Christianity, and St. Jerome, who had a feverish vision in which he was accused of being “follower of Cicero and not of Christ” before the judgment seat. This influence further increased after the Early Middle Ages in Europe, which more of his writings survived than any other Latin author. Medieval philosophers were influenced by Cicero’s writings on natural law and innate rights. Petrarch’s rediscovery of Cicero’s letters provided impetus for searches for ancient Greek and Latin writings scattered throughout European monasteries, and the subsequent rediscovery of Classical Antiquity led, in part, to the Renaissance.

His voluminous correspondence, much of it addressed to his friend Atticus, has been especially influential, introducing the art of refined letter writing to European culture. Cornelius Nepos, the 1st century BCE biographer of Atticus, remarked that Cicero’s letters contained such a wealth of detail “concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals, and the revolutions in the government” that their reader had little need for a history of the period. Following the invention of the printing press, De Officiis was the second book to be printed, after the Gutenberg Bible. Historians also note Cicero’s influence on the rebirth of religious toleration in the 17th century.


While Cicero the humanist deeply influenced the culture of the Renaissance, Cicero the republican inspired the Founding Fathers of the United States and the revolutionaries of the French Revolution. John Adams said of him “As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united than Cicero, his authority should have great weight.” Jefferson names Cicero as one of a handful of major figures who contributed to a tradition “of public right” that informed his draft of the Declaration of Independence and shaped American understandings of “the common sense” basis for the right of revolution. Camille Desmoulins said of the French republicans in 1789 that they were “mostly young people who, nourished by the reading of Cicero at school, had become passionate enthusiasts for liberty.”

On the other hand, no other ancient personality has inspired as much venomous dislike as Cicero, especially in more modern times. His commitment to the values of the Republic accommodated a hatred of the poor and persistent opposition to the advocates and mechanisms of popular representation. Friedrich Engels referred to him as “the most contemptible scoundrel in history” for upholding republican “democracy” while at the same time denouncing land and class reforms. Cicero has faced criticism for exaggerating the democratic qualities of republican Rome, and for defending the Roman oligarchy against the popular reforms of Caesar. Michael Parenti admits Cicero’s abilities as an orator, but finds him a vain, pompous and hypocritical personality who, when it suited him, could show public support for popular causes that he privately despised. Parenti presents Cicero’s prosecution of the Catiline conspiracy as legally flawed at the very least, and possibly unlawful. I have no trouble seeing Cicero as vain, arrogant and self serving. The First Catiline Oration is a model of pompous self-aggrandizement. He suffered the fate that all politicians deserve who switch allegiance based on self interest rather than principle. No doubt his defenders will disagree.


By default I turn, as always, to Apicius’ De re coquinaria for a Roman recipe. No doubt Cicero would shudder at the Latin in this cookbook written several centuries after his death in what is basically street Latin of the 4th or 5th century. You can get the gist without much trouble (assuming you read Latin), but there are obscure words in the text, and the precise nature of some ingredients is obscure. Here are a couple of recipes for sausages that could easily fit into the modern Italian kitchen. Modern cooks use SE Asian fermented fish sauce as a substitute for liquamen. Laser is an unknown ingredient although it is conjectured that it was asafoetida. From Apicius we know that laser was extremely expensive, but prized in cooking. I’d go with asafoetida as a substitute. My translations here are not terribly literal, but I hope they get the point across. Sausage making has not changed a whole lot in two millenia.

First is a recipe for brain sausage. Brains continue to be used for stuffed pastas in Italy, and I have made such quite often. Using brains as a stuffing, rather than “as is,” tends to soften the outcries of the squeamish. I parboil the brains when I use them, and prefer a meat grinder or food processor to a mortar. The method of boiling then frying sausages is one I use.


Ova et cerebella teres, nucleos pineos, piper, liquamen, laser modicum, et his intestinum implebis. Elixas, postea assas et inferes.


Pound eggs and brains, pine nuts, pepper, liquamen and a little laser, and use this mix to fill your casings (intestines). Boil the sausages, then fry them and serve.

Lucanian sausages are highly seasoned and then smoked. Use of ground fatty pork as the main ingredient has to be inferred because the text is not clear. Here’s an image of one of my efforts (using a big casing).




Lucanian sausages

Lucanian sausages are made in the same way as above: grind up pepper, cumin, savory, rue, parsley, condiment [condimentum], laurel berries and liquamen. Make sure the paste [pulpa] is thoroughly mixed and blended [with minced pork]. To this mixture add whole peppercorns and nuts, fill your casings, and hang the sausages to smoke.