by Hugh | Feb 24, 2025 | Recipes
“Carpe rutabaga folia!” – Horace, Odes 1.11 (The cruel mocking of rutabagas by carving them into Jack O’Lanterns, practiced in Ireland and Scotland) Rutabagas, and their cousins, white, red, and purple-top turnips, are a generous-hearted, kind and forgiving root...
by Hugh | Feb 24, 2025 | Recipes
Today we tell another sad tale of famous foods and vegetables left to compost. Juana was a Soladera Tamal of the Mexican Revolution, 1910 – 1920, and her Herculean strength and invincibility so frightened her enemies that they erased all memory of her – even changing...
by Hugh | Feb 24, 2025 | Recipes
The Last Cry of the Parsnips The original Beef Parsnip Parsnips, before the advent of cane sugar from the Caribbean in the 18th century, were used as a sweetener. Parsnips were so valuable Emperor Tiberius permitted Germania to provide parsnips as tribute starting in...
by Hugh | Oct 29, 2024 | Essays
The blind need a helping hand, but a disability can be a gift A maidenhair tree, or ginkgo biloba A recent article in the Spectator[1]...
by Hugh | Dec 30, 2023 | Reviews, Uncategorized
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel : A Book Review This year, 2023, has seen the publication of Michael Finkel’s The Art Thief, a riveting true account of the escapades of Stephane Breitwieser, a native of Alsace, and probably the most prolific art thief in history...