February 14th
Eat your chickpeas.
The History
St. Valentine’s official title is St. Valentinus of Rome. He was buried in the Via Flaminia near Rome on February 14th. It was officially declared St. Valentine’s day by King Henry II of England.
Will the Real Valentinus Please Stand Up?
The information about his life is fairly vague, so much so that in 1969, the Roman Catholic Church removed his name from their celebrations calendar (the General Roman Calendar).
There were in fact three martyrs from the same era that all had the same name, “Valentinus.” So, it’s not surprising there is some confusion over who St. Valentine really was, which led to many tall tales and legends.
It is most likely that the story of St. Valentine was based on two men who were executed around the same time. The legends have combined into one theory that Valentinus was a priest that defied Emperor Claudius II, who had banned marriage as a way to keep the men in his army focused on their military missions. The young priest was caught secretly marrying couples and was sentenced to beheading for breaking the law. Children passed notes to him in prison, which may have started the concept of sending love letters. He was martyred for giving up his life to perform a holy sacrament—essentially, for loving God. The soon-to-be-without-a-head priest also cured a blind girl from behind bars and left her a message signed, “your Valentine.”
This all led up to what we now celebrate on February 14th . . . love. However, St. Valentine is also the patron saint of beekeepers, epilepsy, lovers, plague, fainting, traveling, engaged couples, and happy marriages. Busy man.
The practice of sending Valentine’s Day cards dates back to 1477. The love letter from Margery Brews to her fiancé, John Paston, now sits in a British museum. It is riddled with very mushy, lovey-dovey lines like, “My heart me bids evermore to love you truly over all earthly things.”
Literary Love
It was most likely Chaucer who associated the feast day with love. In 1381, he wrote a poem about the engagement of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia. “For this was on St. Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”
Shakespeare nods to this day in both Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, mentioning the custom of single women sitting at their windows on February 14 with the belief that the first man who walked by would be their true love.
As with any feast, St. Valentine’s Day is all about the food. In medieval times, young women would eat strange foods to induce dreams of their future husbands. Love spells were developed and sold in the sixteenth century. Some of these foods and spells involved eating a mixture of leeks and earthworms to strengthen a relationship, pinning bay leaves around your pillow, and throwing marigolds along your desired lover’s path. With this in mind, we can see that medieval people truly believed that food could influence their love life and virility. Certain foods could provoke lust and desire, which leads us to aphrodisiacs.
Shakespeare mentioned food and drink quite a bit in his writing. In Romeo and Juliet, a servant in the play asks to “save me a piece of marchpane.” As you could probably guess, this was the medieval version of marzipan. It was made with ground almonds, sugar, and rosewater. The marchpane was formed into elaborate shapes and used as a centerpiece for fancy dinners.
“Doctors” advised those looking to improve their sex lives to consume a combination of foods that nourished and caused flatulence (described as “windy”), as well as to use ingredients that were “warm and moist.” The one food having all three descriptors was chickpeas. However, goat meat, sparrow brains, and wine were also thought to have the same effect. We’re sticking with chickpeas and wine, thanks.
So, back to Chaucer: original medieval Valentine’s Day recipes for game bird were very popular because of the Chaucerian link between lovebirds and Valentine’s Day. According to his poem “The Parliament of Foules,” birds, like humans, could choose their mates. Swallows, hummingbirds, larks, pigeons, etc., were thus prepared in many ways, though mostly in pies.
As we mentioned previously, when cooking authentic medieval recipes, one must keep in mind that many of the ingredients we have readily available were not, in fact, in existence during that time or had not yet been discovered. For example, chocolate was not popular in the United Kingdom until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so although this holiday is marked today by gifts of chocolates in heart-shaped boxes, this practice did not come about until the 1890s.
No Fruit for You!
Fresh fruit was considered to be peasant food, so the nobles rarely ate any of it unless it was in a pie or pudding. However, cherries (and dates) were considered exotic and highly sought after. Henry VIII introduced cherries to his Kingdom after tasting them (and we’re guessing he ate a lot of them) during a trip to Flanders.
The “X” or “kiss” we currently write at the bottom of our cards to indicate a kiss (for example, XOXO) comes from the Middle Ages—those who couldn’t write their names would often sign documents with an X and kissed it to show sincerity.
Bold and manly, though a bit ironic that they are called “chick” peas.
Ingredients
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, minced
Zest (1 Tbsp) and juice of one lemon (¼ cup)
2 15-oz. cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
2 cups baby spinach, chopped
1 cup chicken stock
1 tsp pepper
½ tsp salt
½ cup shredded cheddar
¼ cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
Directions
Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan on medium heat. Add the garlic and rosemary to the hot pan until fragrant and then add the lemon zest (it smells so good).
Stir and add the chickpeas to the mixture. Incorporate all the ingredients and cook for 3–5 minutes.
Stir in the lemon juice, spinach, chicken stock, pepper, and salt. Cook until the liquid is gone.
Remove from heat, add to a serving plate, and finish with the cheddar and parsley.
“No Blackbirds” Cherry Bread Pudding
With a wee bit of booze to sweeten the deal.
Ingredients for Bread Pudding
2 cups whole milk
12 cups heavy cream
1 loaf French bread, at least a day old, cut into 1-inch squares (about 6–7 cups)
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 Tbsp almond extract
¼ tsp allspice
½ tsp cinnamon
1 cup currants (soaked an hour or two in ½ cup Drambuie)
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
11 cups cherries, chopped (please, people—not maraschino)
Ingredients for Drambuie Sauce
½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1½ cups Drambuie
½ cup heavy cream
Directions for Bread Pudding
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Place milk and cream in a large mixing bowl. Add the sliced bread to the milk mixture. Using your hands, press the bread into the milk and leave aside until milk is absorbed (or pretty close to being absorbed).
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, and then add the sugar, almond extract, allspice, and cinnamon. Add the soaked currants to the egg mixture along with the remaining liquid from the Drambuie. Stir all to combine.
Pour the melted butter into the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking pan. Tilt the pan to ensure that the butter gets onto the sides and in the corners. Pour the bread mixture into the pan first, followed by the milk mixture. This is when we add the cherries (the cherries go in at the end to avoid turning everything red). Ever so gently, stir the mixture together. Bake for 45 minutes, or whenever the liquid has set and the edges start to brown.
Directions for the Drambuie Sauce
This is a simple wow recipe, but you will need to take your time. It’s all about technique. On low heat, melt the butter. We prefer breaking up the butter into pats, allowing for quicker even melting. In a separate bowl, mix the sugar and eggs together. Once the butter has melted, slowly add the sugar and egg mix, and whisk gently.
This is where you want to take your time. You are adding eggs to hot butter . . . you know what that means right? Cooked eggs. By cooking on low heat and slowly adding the eggs to the butter, you will hopefully avoid the “cooked egg” look. Do not let the mixture simmer or boil. You will surely have a mess on your hands.
Once the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon, remove from heat. Add the Drambuie and heavy cream. Stir well. Pour into a pretty jar. You are going to want to make this in advance, at least a few hours, so that the sauce will thicken up in the refrigerator.
Not So Much Lovebirds, But . . .
In 1549, an Italian cookbook contained a recipe for a pie in which live birds would fly out when the pie was cut. Shakespeare hints at the famous nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence” in Twelfth Night (1602), but the actual rhyme is credited to George Stevens (1736–1800) and was published in 1744.
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn’t that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?
The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.
“Drunk on Love” Veal with Cherries
Love, Drambuie . . . same thing.
Ingredients
4 veal cutlets
1 Tbsp unsalted butter, plus ½ stick (chilled)
1 large shallot, diced
¾ cup chicken or veal stock
¼ cup Drambuie
1 cup cherries
1 tsp allspice
Beautiful dark cherries are seasonal. If you cannot find them in your produce aisle, do not hesitate to look in the frozen food aisle. Just make sure your selection is not sugared. Plain cherries are what you are looking for.
Directions
Salt and pepper the veal cutlets.
Add one tablespoon of butter to a sauté pan and melt over medium heat. Sauté the veal for 3 minutes on each side. Veal cutlets can cook very quickly, resulting in toughness. We would recommend slightly undercooking and finishing the process in the cherry sauce at the end.
Remove the veal from the hot pan and set aside. Add the shallot and sauté for a moment, then add the stock and Drambuie. Scrape up all the lovely bits. Cook for 5 minutes.
Add the cherries and the allspice. Cook for another 10 minutes until the mixture is reduced by half.
Remove the remaining chilled butter and cut into pats. While whisking the cherry mixture, add one pat of butter at a time. Once the butter has melted, lower the heat to medium low and add the veal back into the pan. Cook for 3–5 minutes.
Remove the veal to the serving plates; pour cherry mixture over the veal.
