New Recipes of Spring

The longest days of the year are finally here. The last of the light fades from the sky at nearly 11pm. It's glorious.

I started posting about trying new recipes during the pandemic. Not only do these posts satisfy my love of list-making, they also allow me to recommend cookbooks or food blogs. I try to put out one of these posts whenever the season changes, so here are the recipes I tried for the first time this spring!

Mamushka by Olia Hercules and Masala by Mallika Basu continue to be two of my favourite cookbooks. I highly recommend them both. (Try the Griddled Aubergine Rolls and Dahi Baingana! So good.)  A Splash of Soy by Lara Lee, which I borrowed from my public library, is worth checking out if you want to try Indonesian food. I had to go two stores to find tamarind but Tamarind Millionaire Shortbread was worth it.

A Splash of Soy by Lara Lee

March

• Sticky-Glazed Tempeh and Chili Stir-Fry from A Splash of Soy by Lara Lee
• Apple and caraway loaf cake (Chec cu mere si chimen) from Tava by Irina Georgescu
• Potato and Lentil Soup with Bacon and Herbs from Big Heart, Little Stove by Erin French

April

• Vermicelli Tofu Salad with Peanut Sauce from A Splash of Soy by Lara Lee
• Cypriot Chickpea Stew from World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey
• Summer Rolls, Cookie and Kale
• Tamarind Millionaire Shortbread from A Splash of Soy by Lara Lee
• Cherry and Almond Baked French Toast from Big Heart, Little Stove by Erin French
• Peanut butter, seasame, and maple slaw from A Splash of Soy by Lara Lee
• Asian mushroom and mangetout stir fry from A Splash of Soy by Lara Lee

May

• String Bean Chicken from Woks of Life 
• Dahi Baingana (Crispy Aubergine and Shallot Raita) from Masala by Mallika Basu
• Oriya Dalma (Temple-Style Lentil and Vegetable Stew) from Masala by Mallika Basu
• Chicken and Artichoke Salad with Yogurt Dressing from Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour 

June

• Armenian beans with eggs and herbs (Lobi tipakatz), from Mamushka by Olia Hercules
• Spring radish and tomato salad from Mamushka by Olia Hercules
• Stir-fried Eggplant, Potatoes & Peppers (Di San Xian) from Woks of Life
• Griddled Aubergine Rolls from Mamushka by Olia Hercules
• Varenyky z kartopleu (potato filling with crispy pork) from Mamushka by Olia Hercules
• Shirazi Salad from Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour 
• Barley Salad with Grilled Broccoli and Za'atar from Persiana by Sabrina Ghayour
• Palak Chana (Chickpeas in Garlicky Spinach) from Masala by Mallika Basu
• Khichdi from Masala by Mallika Basu

Les fourriers d'Eaté sont venus

A beautiful poem for the longest day of the year. May the servants of Summer find you wherever you are.

Les fourriers d'Eaté sont venus

pour appareillier son logis

et ont fait tendre ses tapis

de fleurs et verdure tissus,

 

En estendant tapis valus,

de vart herbs par le páis,

les fourriers d'Eaté sont venus.

 

Cueurs d'annuy pisca morfondus,

Disu mercy, sont sains et jolis;

Allez vous en, presnez pais,

Hiver, vous ne demeurez plus;

les fourriers d'Eaté sont venus!

 

 

The servants of Summer have come

to prepare his residence

and have hung his tapestries

woven from flowers and green leaves.

 

Spreading thick carpets

of green grass over the land,

The servants of Summer have come.

 

Hearts long sunken in misery,

Thank God, are now healed and gay.

Go away, find another realm,

Winter, you live here no longer,

The servants of Summer have come!

 

~ Charles d'Orléans, translated in In a Dark Wood Wandering by Hella S. Haase, translated by Lewis C. Kaplan (edited and revised by Anita Lewis) (London, 2023)

Learning New Words with Lymond: B is for Butter-Tooth

Welcome back to Learning New Words with Lymond, in which I blog my way through the Lymond Chronicles with a specific focus on Dorothy Dunnett's use of rare and obscure words. When I reread The Game of Kings in December 2023, I made a note of every unfamiliar word or reference. In these posts, I will work my way through the alphabet, looking up each new word and reflecting on what it means in context. I hope this practice will improve my own vocabulary and provide opportunities to bask in the beauty and complexity of Dunnett's writing.

We continue with words beginning with the letter 'b'...

barghest

 

Lymond flushed. "Instead of surviving to bellow like a barghest?" (p. 459)

One of most interesting things about tracing a writer's use of rare words is the way it shows what they have been reading. For instance, the use of the word "barghest" suggests that Dorothy Dunnett had been reading Sir Walter Scott, who is one of the earliest writers to use the word in print. The OED defines a barghest as "a goblin, fabled to appear in the form of a large dog, with various horrible characteristics, and to portend imminent death or misfortune."

 

barmecide

 

The procession next time along the top corridor was formidable: a kind of barmecide feast of invalid diet as well as jugs, bowls, bandages and clothes, towels, ointment and a small wooden bathtub bound in brass. (p. 369)

 

The word derives from the patronymic of a character in the Arabian Nights, a prince who provided a beggar with a series of empty dishes, pretending it was a feast. The beggar went along with the joke. The word can be used as an adjective, meaning illusory or imaginary, or a noun, describing someone who offers imaginary or illusory food or benefits. (OED)

 

Bateleur

 

He had the World and the Bateleur in his hand. (p. 534)

The dictionary says a bateleur is a species of short-tailed eagle (Terathopius (Helotarsus) ecaudatus), found in Africa and Arabia. Given that The Game of Kings begins in 1547 and the word is used to describe different kinds of tarot cards, an eagle clearly isn't the right definition. In the tarot deck, the Bateleur is a wild card, or a low-ranked card that can also be worth a lot of points (Wikipedia). The fact that Will Scott has it in his last hand before winning his game of tarocco confirms his skill and his luck as a card player. Again, when I think about the level of research that went into that single card playing scene, I want to applaud. There are academic articles that are less well-researched.

bauchly

 

You'll solve nothing planted there like a couple of bauchly tenors at a glee. (p. 306)

 

An adverb, described from a Scots adjective meaning "weak, poor, pithless, without substance or stamina"; it the adjective can also mean "indifferent," "sorry," or "shaky." (OED). A glee, of course, is an old, old word for a musical entertainment. I do enjoy how Dunnett seems to put older words in the mouths of her characters (the dictionary claims the earliest attested use of bauch is from 1575), and uses more modern, eighteenth and nineteenth century words, in description and narration.

bêtise

 

He retorted instantly. "Oh, nothing better--in the right place. 'It's only right you should know'--I wonder how many that classic bêtise has driven to the river and the dagger and the pillow in a quiet corner." (p. 157)

 

A borrowing from French, meaning stupidity (coming from the French word, bête, foolish, from the Old French word, beste, meaning beast.  In English, "a foolish, ill-timed remark or action; a piece of folly." (OED). A word I would like to adopt into my own vocabulary, once I learn to pronounce it correctly.

bog-orchis

 

Plump clouds like amoretti hung in a blue sky; shining rooks cawed among shining leaves and an otter with a half-eaten fish shivered the bog orchis with his shoulder as he passed. (p. 360)

An older spelling for a bog orchid, which is exactly what it sounds like, a species of orchid that grows in a bog (Malaxis paludosa). (OED) It looks like this:

Bog orchis (Malaxis paludosa). Wikimedia Commons.

bonzelike

 

His expression altered from the grave to the bonzelike. (p. 327)

 

I have to say, I miss the internet before the age of artificial intelligence, when one could look up a weirdly spelled word and not have it automatically corrected to a more common spelling. If I meant bronze-like, I would have looked for that! Ugh. Eventually, I was able to disgorge a match, bonze-like, in James Hueneker's Mezzotints in Modern Music (New York, 1899). In any event, this particular word isn't in the OED, but the word bonze is--it means a Buddhist religious teacher or priest, particularly in China or Japan. (OED) We might thus picture Johnnie Bullo's expression moving from serious to serene. 

burin

 

His gaze never left Lymond: inexorable, ruthless, dissecting, hygienic as a burin or a scalpel. And there was a change in his brother's face: a fissure, the first break. p. 447

 

A burin is a tool used by artisans. It is used to work marble or engrave copper. A burin can also be a flint tool with a point like a chisel. (OED). The oldest usage seems to be in reference to copper engraving so I would guess this what Dunnett has in mind particularly since she pairs it with a fine cutting tool (a scalpel). On the other hand, we have fissures and breaks in the next clause, which would suggest stone carving. Isn't it beautiful?

butter-tooth

 

The point was made. Sir Thomas, butter-tooth veiled, seized a pigeon and said no more until the end of the meal. (p. 464) 

 

Where did Dorothy Dunnett acquire her early modern vocabulary, I wonder? Extensive reading was obviously part of it but some of her word choice seems so idiosyncratic as to make me deeply curious what reference books she had at her disposal. The imagery here is just so, so fantastic--Thomas Palmer, at dinner, tweaking the beards of his fellow guests, and then sitting back to enjoy his handiwork. Butter-tooth is first used in the sixteenth century (the earliest use is about 1566), and refers either to the incisors (front teeth); later, especially as a plural, to yellowing or poorly cared-for teeth. (OED)

A Note on Links

 

Through my university, I'm incredibly lucky to have access to the Oxford English Dictionary, and indeed the entire Oxford Reference series of dictionaries and encyclopedias. It is a principle of this blog to try to use and link to sources that anyone can access, but the OED has features--like the ability to explore the etymology, frequency, history of use, and meanings of words, that free online dictionaries simply don't have. My plan is to quote relevant bits of entries, and to include open access links wherever possible, so that anyone who wants to do so can geek out with me, paywalls be damned.

#AHA Reads 2023: The Gates of Europe

One of the things I enjoy most about this blog is the annual traditions I've come to observe here. It's the end of one year and the beginning of the next? Time for a list of books I finished and a digest of those I would recommend to others! It's the first week of January? New Years' Resolutions ahoy. Summertime? #AHAReads, the summer reading challenge sponsored by the American Historical Association.

I set the following goals for my participation in #AHAReads 2023:

1. read a history that's been on your shelf too long: Karen Harvey's The Impostress Rabbit Breeder
2. read a history of a place you know little about: Serhii Plokhy's The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine
3. read a graphic history: The Illustrated History of Football by David Squires
   

I add two elements to the challenge: writing about what I read and reading only books I own or borrow. In the first annual challenge, I managed to finish all three books between the first of June and Labor Day 2022. (Labor Day, for non-Americans, is the first Monday of September, which many people working in US universities regard as the end of summer because it usually marks the start of the new academic year.) I didn't get around to finishing my blog posts until June 2023. In the second year of the challenge, I read and blogged about only one book between June and September. Finished a second book required borrowing copies from three different libraries in two countries. (What can I say? I take my self-imposed "borrow don't buy" rule seriously.) Continuing my trend of taking a year to finish the challenge, as #AHAReads 2024 begins, here is my final post about what I read last year. 

Hopefully what follows will inspire you to consider reading the Gates of Europe for yourself.

#AHA Reads: 2023 Summer Reading Challenge Bingo Card

 

When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, The Gates of Europe regularly appeared on lists of accessible yet scholarly histories which illuminate the historical background of the current conflict. In fact, the book has been popular for about a decade, having been published in the context of the 2014 Ukraine Crisis. (I read the older edition but it's worth noting that a revised edition of the book was issued in 2021.)

 

This context colours Plokhy's choice to foreground Ukraine's complex history as one of connection, and explains the book's title. If The Gates of Europe has a thesis that can be briefly summarised, it is that the history and fates of Eastern and Western Europe are inseparably connected.

"Whatever the outcome of the current Ukraine Crisis, on its resolution depends not only the future of Ukraine but also that of relations between Europe's east and west--Russia and the European Union--and thus the future of Europe as a whole." (p. 354)

This theme of interconnection is also apparent in Plokhy's  account of Ukraine's relationship with its neighbours. I was particularly struck by the richness and complexity of connections between Ukraine and Poland, briefly captured in a wonderful discussion of the relationship between the two countries' national anthems.

"The Ukrainian national anthem begins with the words "Ukraine has not yet perished", hardly an optimistic beginning for any kind of song. But this is not the only anthem whose words do not inspire optimism. The Polish national anthem starts with the familiar line "Poland has not yet perished." The words of the Polish anthem were written in 1797 and those of the Ukrainian one penned in 1862, so it is quite clear who influenced whom. But why such pessimism? In both cases, the idea of the death of the nation stemmed from the experience of the late eighteenth century--the partitions of Poland and the liquidation of the Hetmanate." (p. 147)

 The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy, Penguin Cover

Having picked up this book knowing nothing about the history of Ukraine, I was amazed and delighted by the sheer scope of this book, which starts with prehistory and ends with the Revolution of Dignity. It begins as a fairly standard survey of dates and dynasties. It broadens into a dense yet rewarding overview of Ukraine's history as the narrative enters the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. I was particularly fascinated by the history of medieval and early modern Ukraine: the complex legacy of Yaroslav the Wise in education (p. 37); the early history of Ukrainian printing (p. 70); the Cave Monastery and its role in shaping public opinion (p. 83); the challenges of creating the first maps of Ukraine (p. 85); and the Right Bank as both a place and a historical period (p. 117), are all the sorts of historical moments that could fill entire books themselves. So too with Plokhy's observation about the duality of the Age of Enlightenment:

 "The idea of liberty and the protection of individual rights took centre stage in the writings of the period, but so too did notions of rational governance and monarchical absolution. The modern republic and the modern monarchy both have deep roots in the ideas of the French philosophers. Both the founding fathers of the United States and the absolute rulers of eighteenth-century Europe were disciples of the Enlightenment." (p. 134)

The subject of the book does not readily led itself to jokes, which made the few moments of wry humor very enjoyable. Remarking on complex political and religious landscape of eighteenth century Ukraine and its relationship with the Russian Empire, Plokhy comments:

"The Catholic rebels wanted a Catholic state without Russian interference, while the Orthodox wanted a Cossack state under the jurisdiction of Russia. The Jews wanted to be left alone. None of the groups got what it wanted." (p. 139)

In addition to following the shifting tensions and fortunes of various groups in Ukrainian society, The Gates of Europe also traces cultural and economic developments. The former is nicely encapsulated by Plokhy's account of nineteenth-century battles over which alphabet should be used to write Ukrainian. During the alphabet war of 1859-1861, Ukrainians in Galicia fought with Austrian authorities and Polish elites (and amongst themselves) about whether to use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet for written Ukrainian. Under the rule of the Russian Empire, the use of the Latin alphabet for Ukrainian or Belorussian texts, even imported ones, was banned, lest it bring them under Polish influence. The complex dynamics of Ukraine's relationship with Poland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries seem, yet again, to be a subject which could be its own book.

 

In terms of economic developments, the industrial history of the Donbas and Donetsk stands out as a case in point. The latter city was in part the creation of a Welsh mining baron, John James Hughes. 

"In January 1872, his newly built ironworks produced its first pig iron. In the course of the 1870s, he added more blast furnaces. The works employed close to 1,800 people, becoming the largest metal producer in the empire. The places were the workers lived became known as Yuzivka after the founder's surname ("Hughesivka"). The steel and mining town would be renamed Staline in 1924 and Donetsk in 1961." (p. 180)

One of the pleasures of reading this book is how smoothly Plokhy follows chains of causation. It would be easy for the events of the twentieth century to dominate the book, but these events are always traced back to their earlier roots. For instance, the political divisions of early-twentieth century Ukraine are connected to their roots in the cultural revival of the 1830s and 1840s (p. 193). The foundation of Ukraine's national library, archive, academy of sciences, universities, and even the use of Ukrainian as a national language, are presented not just as a response to events such as the Russian Revolution, but as part of a much longer arc of historical change (p. 211). 

The heart of the book is twentieth-century history: the immense and devastating consequences of collectivization and Ukrainian uprisings in response (p. 249); the beginning of the Holodomor in 1932, and Stalin’s complete denial it was happening (p. 251-3); and the devastating impact of the German occupation of Ukraine during the Second World War (p. 260). Fun medievalist fact: the German invasion of the Soviet Union was named after a twelfth-century Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. As Plokhy points out, that was certainly a choice.

"[Barbarossa] had drowned while trying to cross a river in heavy armor instead of taking the bridge used by his troops. It was certainly a bad omen, but at the time those in the know paid no attention to historical precedent." (p. 263)

One thing I hadn't known or appreciated before reading this book is the depth and complexity of Ukrainian Jewish history. From the rich history of Ukraine's early modern Jewish communities to the twentieth century history's history of revolutions, this was yet another subject that could be a book of its own. As often happens to me when getting to grips with a totally unfamiliar history, what sticks in my memory is not the broad outlines of historical development, but anecdotes, such as a haunting story about the recapture of Kyiv from the Germans during the Second World War. A Jewish man, who had been hidden by his Ukrainian wife, ran screaming towards Nikita Kruschchev, shouting about being the only Jew left in the city. (p. 277) The book's first (and only) reference to Ukrainian Muslims also occurs in the context of WWII history (p. 268).

The shadow of the second world war in twentieth-century Ukrainian history could itself be yet another book. Plokhy comments:

"As in the camps, the line between resistance and collaboration, victimhood and criminal complicity in the regime became blurred but by no means indistinguishable. Everyone made a personal choice, and those who survived had to live with their decisions after the war, many in harmony, some in unending anguish. But almost everyone suffered survivor’s guilt." (p. 269)

Until the 1980s, Soviet citizens were required to disclose if they or their relatives had lived under German occupation (p. 275). The complex legacies of the Second World War also explain controversies over the reception of figures like Stepan Bandera (p. 335).

The sections of the book that cover Soviet and post-Soviet history are the ones for which I have the fewest notes, possibly a reflection of the points at which I had to put the book down for extended periods. One thing I did notice is the relative lack of references to women. The revolutionary teacher and leader Agafya "Halyna" Andriivna Kuzmenko is covered in a half sentence: "the Ukrainian national agenda was not entirely foreign to Makhno—his teacher wife promoted it" (p. 225). Women feature as significant figures in discussion wider historical developments (see for example pp. 284-5), but often feel surprisingly absent from the wider narrative, which seems a missed opportunity to further strength the book's thesis of complexity and interconnection.

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy, Basic Books Cover 

 

Aside from arguing that Eastern and Western Europe are inseparably linked, Plokhy also seeks to showcase the complexity of the entanglement of Ukrainian and Russian history and identities, and to combat simple stories about the relationship between the two countries. Explaining why history matters for understanding the conflict between the two countries, he writes: 

The Russo-Ukrainian conflict, while arising unexpectedly and taking many of those involved by surprise, has deep historical roots and its replete with historical references and allusions. Leaving aside the propagandistic use of historical arguments, at least three parallel processes rooted in the past are now going on in Ukraine: Russia's attempts to reestablish political, economic, and military control in the former imperial space acquired by Moscow since the mid-seventeenth century; the formation of modern national identities, which concerns both Russians and Ukrainians (the latter often divided along regional lines); and the struggle over historical and cultural fault lines that allow participants in the conflict to imagine it as a contest between East and West, Europe and the Russian World. (p. 348)

In 2014, Plokhy concluded his book with measured optimism. "Ukraine faces the enormously difficult task of reforming its economic, political, and legal systems while defending its integrity and sovereignty, but there is growing hope that it can succeed. That hope is based above all on the ingenuity and determination of the Ukrainian people." (p. 345). Reading the book in 2023, and writing about it in 2024, I cannot help but hope he is right.

 

Further Reading 

• Інна Березніцька, Іра Шепетко, translated by Hanna Leliv. (2023). "I wanted to become a good historian." The Ukrainians. https://theukrainians.org/i-wanted-to-become-a-good-historian/  
• Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak's Feminists Despite Themselves: Women in Ukrainian Community Life, 1894-1838 (1988). 
  
• Charlotte Higgins (2023). "Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy: ‘This may not be the last chapter of the Russian empire, but it’s an important one'". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/12/historian-serhii-plokhy-the-russo-ukrainian-war
• House of Commons Library, Conflict in Urkraine: A Timeline (2014-eve of the 2022 invasion),  https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9476/ 
  
• Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine
  
• Serhii Plokhy, (2023). The Russo-Ukrainian War: the Return of History. London: Penguin Books.
  
• Serhii Plokhy, (2023). "Serhii Plokhy's Diary: the trains are still running in Ukraine." Prospect Magazine. Available from: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/views/63720/serhii-plokhys-diary-the-trains-are-still-running-in-ukraine

One thing this book definitely gave me is a list of people whose work or lives I want to learn more about including:

• Ivan Velychkovsky, Lazar Baranovych, and Simeon Polotsky, all late 17th century writers
• Ivan Kotliarevsky's, Eneïda (1798), a re-imagining of the Aeneid with Cossack characters, regarded as the first major poem in the Ukrainian vernacular
• Mykola Tsettelev, who published the first collection of Ukrainian folk songs
• Oleksii Pavlosky, who wrote the first grammar of the Ukrainian language
• Mykhailo Hrushevsky, a significant Ukrainian historian 
• Taras Shevcenko, an important writer and poet, whose life is worth of a historical novel
  
• Afanasy Matushenko, a revolutionary socialist who led the Potemkin mutiny and another figure whose life could be a novel 
•  Olha Kobylianska, a modernist writer and feminist
• Anne of Kiev, whose letter to her father complaining about the barbarous lack of civilization in eleventh century France makes me want to find a good historical novel about her
• Roxolana, the consort and wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent
  

A note on spelling: Plokhy's name is  spelled differently on his Harvard faculty page and on the covers of his books. Both spellings seem to be used in recent articles and spellings so I have used Plokhy here.