Monthly Archives: August 2015

Aug 28 2015
St. Augustine's Day

Don’t Drink the Water; Drink Beer

Beschauliche Ruhe

St. Augustine of Hippo is a patron saint of brewers and of printers. Of printers because of his prolific writings, which probably kept a lot of early printers in business. Of brewers because, St. Augustine is one of those saints who did not start out exactly “saintly.” He liked a good time, at least early on in his life, and he had a good time for a long, long time before his conversion. His patronage of brewers is related to this early fun loving Augustine.

Once he did get right with God, Augustine wrote extensively. His most famous book is probably his Confessions. His writings influenced the teachings of the Church as well as theological philosophers that followed him, like Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. He was born in Northern Africa in 354, the son of St. Monica, who prayed for his conversion. He was long considered a Doctor of the Church and was canonized around the turn of the 14th century. It is said that on a wall of his room St. Augustine had written these words, in large letters: “Here we do not speak evil of anyone.” Words to live by for this age as well as his own.

But here it is a hot day in August, a Friday at that, the end of the week, and we are celebrating the feast day of a patron saint of brewers and printers. Most printers I have known (and I’ve known a lot of them) like their beer. And of course we know that on a day that celebrates a patron saint of brewers there’s only one thing to consider drinking, even if the saint himself would discourage us. But the fact is that back in St. Augustine’s Day the beer was a lot safer to drink than the water. (“Don’t drink the water, drink beer!” said St. Arnold of Metz, another patron saint of brewers who believed (rightly so) that impure water was a source of disease.) It’s hard to imagine that even after his conversion St. Augustine didn’t enjoy at least a bit of beer or wine as part of a rich and full life. Or for basic sustenance.

We began the week raising our glasses to the printers and papermakers and bookbinders with the Bartlemas Wayzgoose. It is fitting to raise them once more to the printers as the week closes. Huzzah and cheers to us all!

 

Image: Beschauliche Ruhe by Eduard Von Grützner. Oil on canvas, 1897. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons. The title translates to “Contemplative Peace,” which I think the older St. Augustine would appreciate.

Locals: Join Seth & me tonight at the Armory in West Palm Beach for the opening of “New & Now,” an exhibition of works by new faculty. Three Convivio Bookworks prints will be on exhibit along with works by other new faculty at the Armory. My first book arts workshop there, “Map of the World,” is scheduled for October 17 and 18. Armory Art Center, 1700 Parker Avenue, West Palm Beach, 6 to 8 PM. The show runs through September 26.

 

Aug 24 2015
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Bartlemas, St. Bartholomew's Day, Wayzgoose

The Bartlemas Wayzgoose

Wayzgoose

As a printer and a book artist who writes about the quirkier side of seasonal traditions, I can get a bit giddy about a day like today. It’s St. Bartholomew’s Day, also known as Bartlemas, or Bartlemy’s Day. It is a lesser known feast day of a lesser known saint, to be sure… but this saint is a patron saint of bookbinders and book artists, and his day has long held great significance to printers and papermakers, too. It is the day of the great printers’ celebration known as the Wayzgoose. If you’re a book person, this is it: THIS is your day.

Very few professions get to claim a saint just for themselves, and this is the case with St. Bart, too. Aside from looking after all these bookish artisans, he is also a patron saint of butchers and tanners and cheesemakers. Usually in these matters there is some bizarre connection to a gruesome story and that is the case here: St. Bartholomew was one of the original Twelve Apostles and his martyrdom is said to have been delivered upon him in Armenia in the First Century, where he was flayed alive for his Christian beliefs and crucified upside down. (I told you it was gruesome.) The flaying is our connection to butchers and tanners and by extension to bookbinders, for one of their traditional materials for binding books is leather. (How the cheesemakers hopped on board the St. Bart train, I do not know.)

The Bartlemas connection for the rest of the bookish professions seems to come in more as a matter of practical timing and here we come to a common Book of Days theme: summer is waning, winter is approaching, let’s prepare and let’s celebrate. Since the Midsummer solstice in June, we’ve been losing a little bit of daylight each day. Very soon, with the autumnal equinox in just four weeks, day and night will be balanced. This progression toward darkness in the Northern Hemisphere will continue, day by day, until we get to the Midwinter solstice in December. In the days before electrical light, by this time each summer in print shops across England it would become apparent that there was not enough daylight to set type by hand. Usually by St. Bartholomew’s Day, daylight had to be supplemented by lamplight and candlelight in order to get the job done of minding all those Ps and Qs.

As for the papermakers, their Bartlemas connection comes from the dual nature of their profession early on: Paper was used not just for books and printing, but also for windows. Glass windows were not very common back then, especially in homes. What folks could afford was paper. Around Bartlemas Day, papermakers traditionally made this waxed window paper, which would be needed now that winter was on its way. After they had made all they could, they emptied their vats and began making paper again for the printers using rags that had been retting all summer. For the papermakers, St. Bartholomew’s Day was marked in this “Out with the old, in with the new” fashion.

It is the printers, however, who really made the day a celebration. We can be a rowdy and celebratory bunch, to be sure. A good printshop proprietor (I like to think of someone along the lines of a Mr. Fezziwig from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol) would close up shop for the day, give his printers the day off and line their pockets with a little extra pay. The extra pay was meant to help them procure a goose for their dinner table (which is one idea as to the origin of the name Wayzgoose). Where there is good food there is generally good drink, and healthy amounts of ale were poured out at a typical Wayzgoose, too. If you were in Cornwall, it might be mead instead of ale. Even to this day there is a Blessing of the Mead ceremony in Cornwall on St. Bartholomew’s Day. Oh and guess who is a patron saint of beekeepers, too? Yes, St. Bartholomew. As we continue to gather our stores for the coming winter, it is traditional, too, to bring in the honey crop on his feast day.

Hopefully this past weekend you read the previous chapter of the Convivio Book of Days blog, which supplied a recipe, first published in 1664, for a rare Bartlemas Beef. It is Sunday night as I write this, and our Bartlemas Beef is in the fridge, covered over in white wine and vinegar, as it has been all day and night. In the morning it will be dried, rubbed with nutmeg, ginger, mace, cinnamon and cloves. It is a recipe that requires some time. Since I have to go to work in the morning, I’m putting it in the slow cooker with potatoes and parsnips and carrots, and come evening, we shall see what we shall see. It will be served hot, not cold, which is not what Hannah Wolley dictates in her recipe, but I think Hannah would be okay with that. There will be ale and we will raise our glasses and the roof a bit in honor of all the printers, all the papermakers, all the bookbinders. It is a noble craft. Huzzah and cheers to us all.

 

Image: The wonderful word WAYZGOOSE set in historic wood type from our collection, ready for printing in the bed of the newly refurbished Nolan tabletop press that our pal Terrence Chouinard recently delivered to us from Chattanooga. He painted it Fire Engine Red for us. The goal for the Nolan is to help make our printing more portable, allowing Seth & me to print at workshops and events… like at the Maker Meet coming up at Social House in Downtown Lake Worth on Wednesday evening, September 2, 2015, from 6 to 9 PM. You should come see us there.

Did you miss our 1664 recipe for Bartlemas Beef? Subscribers to the Convivio Book of Days blog did not. Click on a SUBSCRIBE or FOLLOW link and you’ll never miss another chapter.

 

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Aug 22 2015
7 Comments
Bartlemas, St. Bartholomew's Day, Wayzgoose

To Make a Rare Bartlemas Beef

MrsBeetonsMeatCuts

Monday next will bring St. Bartholomew’s Day, the day of the traditional printer’s wayzgoose, this is a big day for book artists like me: St. Bartholomew is a patron saint of bookbinders and book artists and his day has been of significance to printers and papermakers, as well, for centuries. Goose is one traditional meal for the day, as is cheese, for St. Bart is also a patron saint of cheesemakers. But so is Bartlemas Beef, which takes some time to prepare… hence today’s post, designed to give you the time necessary to prepare a proper meal for your Wayzgoose Monday.

This recipe for a Rare Bartlemas Beef is taken from The Cook’s Guide by Hannah Wolley, printed in London in 1664. (The book’s full title is quite long: The Cook’s Guide: or, Rare receipts for cookery Published and set forth particularly for ladies and gentlewomen; being very beneficial for all those that desire the true way of dressing all sorts of flesh, fowles, and fish; the best directions for all manner of kickshaws, and the most ho-good sawces: whereby noble persons and others in their hospitalities may be gratified in their gusto’s. Phew. Perhaps the first celebratory printer’s wayzgoose came about once the typesetter triumphantly finished setting the type for this long-winded title.)

Lady Wolley calls this beef “rare” meaning fine or good. It does not refer to the cooking temperature. Judging by the three days soaking, she means for us to use salted beef, but that was 1664 and this is not and I think we can begin with fresh beef at the second step of her recipe, where the vinegar and wine is introduced. Be that as it may, here is her full 1664 recipe for a Rare Bartlemas Beef:

Take a fat Brisket piece of beef and bone it, put it into so much water as will cover it, shifting it three times a day for three dayes together, then put it into as much white wine and vinegar as will cover it, and when it hath lyen twenty-four hours take it out and drye it in a cloth, then take nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and mace, of each a like quantity, beaten small and mingled with a good handful of salt, strew both sides of the Beef with this, and roul it up as you do Brawn, tye it as close as you can; then put it into an earthen pot, and cover it with some paste; set it in the Oven with household bread, and when it is cold, eat it with mustard and sugar.

There you have it: an old old recipe for celebrating an old old holiday. The St. Bart’s Wayzgoose is not widely celebrated today, but, considering the current boom of interest in letterpress printing and book arts, perhaps it should be. Pass the mustard, please.

The image of several fancy cuts of meat is from another old cookbook (though not nearly as old as Hannah Wolley’s): Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery Book, 1901. Thank you to the University of Michigan Digital Library for the online version of The Cook’s Guide.

 

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