Belle Vie Reviews and More

Michael Jackson's Beer Companion - Book Review for the Gastronomy Writer Michael Jackson

2012-02-08T13:02:00.000-08:00

In Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion: The World’s Great Styles, Gastronomy, and Traditions, author Michael Jackson seeks to broaden his readers’ knowledge about beer. The proliferation of breweries, microbreweries, and restaurant/brewery establishments creates an environment for beer tasting and dining experiences that have become available to more people whether in Europe or the United States.

Wine lovers will find that Michael Jackson has taken their proclivities into consideration. He recommends different kinds of beer based on their wine preferences. The different European beers come in glasses specifically shaped for the brand of beer. These specially shaped glasses are not a marketing ploy to create customer loyalty. The different shapes enhance the aroma of the beer.

There is a Beer Lover’s Calendar in the book that does more than help readers plan parties around seasonal releases of beer. The calendar helps readers, who are restaurant/brewery entrepreneurs, know when to make and market their own brews.

Detailed descriptions concerning the fabrication and producers of the different kinds of beer varieties make up the majority of the text. Readers learn what the differences are between the following categories of beer: lambic, wheat, ale, porters and stouts, lagers, and special beers such as steam beer, smoked beer, rye beer, and black beer. Many of the establishments that make beer are centuries old and some are monasteries.

The recipe section for dishes cooked with beer is limited, but grand. Beer goes well with seafood and meat, but the game dishes that Michael Jackson has written about could be the highlight offerings in a restaurant. Faison à l’écossaise (Pheasant in Scottish Ale) and Seared Medallions of Venison with Anchor Porter, Huckleberries, and Gingersnap Pan Sauce both illustrate the grand cuisine that is possible with beer.

Recipes for leek pudding and elderflower fritters made with beer whet the appetite as well.

Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion gives it readers the knowledge they need to be informed about this millennia-old beverage along with delicious recipes to accompany specified beers.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Vino Italiano: The Regional Wines of Italy - Book Review

2012-02-06T02:57:00.000-08:00

In Vino Italiano: The Regional Wines of Italy, Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch not only share their vast knowledge of Italian wine, they present it in such a way that readers can sense and visualize the growing conditions that produce the tastes on their palates.

The authors set out to make readers more knowledgeable about regional wines and the wine culture of Italy’s regions to encourage diners and travelers alike to try something outside the clique of barolo, brunello, barberesco, and the super-Tuscans. There are more than three hundred officially delimited wine zones in Italy, which present many options for varying budgets.

Vino Italiano appears daunting to read at first glance with its 528 pages of information. However, the excellent organization of the book’s information using charts and maps in addition to traditional indexes helps readers assimilate information as well as giving them various ways to find the information they need.

Notably, Vino Italiano includes a “How to Use this Book” chapter in the beginning of the book. In this section, there is a discussion of Italian wine history in southern Italy where the latifondio system existed well into the twentieth century. This discussion on Italian wine history distinguishes Vino Italiano from many other books on the topic of Italian wine.

In the section on “Decoding Italian Wine Laws,” readers learn that there are four wine categories in Italy:

• VdT = Vino da Tavola
Table wine that can come from anywhere in Italy using any combination of grapes

• IGT = Inidicazione Geografica Tipica
A classicifaction between VdT and DOC (see following), which often carries the name of a varietal such as Chardonnay in addition to a place-name.

• DOC = Denominazione di Origine Conrollata
Denotes a place-name and production formula

• DOCG = Denominzaione di Origine Controllata e Garantita
Denotes a place-name and production formula for some of the more historic wines of Italy

Readers who would like to buy Italian wine will learn from the section on labeling how to tell the difference between a high-quality wine and a lesser-value one. A map of Italy shows where the main grape varieties are grown.

The cultural sections of Vino Italiano are what make readers feel like they are traveling through the peninsula. Wine figures in the discussions of all the regions. While many readers may view wine as a luxury product and wonder why table wines continue to be produced, it is important to remember that grapes grow in soils that would be hard to grow other crops in successfully.

For the majority of readers of Vino Italiano however, wine and its culture is something that readers would like to incorporate into their lives for its beauty. Bastianich and Lynch write about the life of the twenty-one Italian regions in nineteen chapters, making readers fee as if they have been on a trip to Italy especially if they make the foods for the recipes provided at the end of the chapters.

The cultural information readers learn in each regional chapter make it easy to retain information that affects wine production such as soil type, elevation, climate, orientation towards the sun, pruning techniques, and grape variety.

Bastianich and Lynch give readers the easy way to remember the difference between the approach towards the wines of Tuscany and Bordeaux:

Tuscany = Bordeaux
Piedmont = Burgundy

Readers will have to check out the regions to understand why they make this distinction.

Among the cultural tidbits we learn from the Italians interviewed in Vino Italiano is that while Milan may be the capital of fashion, it is Naples that is the capital of style; Neapolitans know how to detail and wear the clothes. Sicily is the capital of dessert culture; sherbet, in particular, was brought to Sicily by the Arabs via their contacts with China. Another province, Friuli-Venezia Giulia is a historical crossroads between Venetian and Hapsburg domination.

Although Vino Italiano: The Regional Wines of Italy was published in 2002, it is a wonderful starting point for novices and a reference for knowledgeable buyers of Italian wine. More than its use as a tool for purchasing wine however, Vino Italiano shares perceptive glimpses into Italian culture that might outlast the current wine buying climate.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Recipes and Reminiscences of New Orleans - Book Review

2012-02-05T00:05:00.000-08:00

Preservation of the Creole cooking traditions of New Orleans was the main objective of the Ursuline Academy Cooperative Club and the Ursuline Alumnae Association when they wrote Recipes and Reminiscences of New Orleans in 1971. The cookbook committee members noted that French Ursuline nuns brought French recipes with them to the New World and adapted them to local ingredients such as file powder as a thickener in Louisiana’s gumbo stew.

This cookbook provides a glimpse into the home life of the privileged class of New Orleans. The Ursulines educated the young ladies of New Orleans of Creole descent, meaning that they were Europeans born in the colonies of French or Spanish descent. The dishes in the cookbook reflect recipes that these young ladies might be called upon to create for gala occasions, weekday and Sabbath meals, and survival dishes for tough times at home or in the community.

Recipes to make use of the ocean’s bounty abound in recipes such as crayfish (pronounced crawfish) étouffée, les merveilles de la mer en crêpes, and crabmeat ravigote (featuring a mushroom and sherry sauce).

The Ursuline-educated ladies were masters at stretching expensive ingredients as well. One can envision these ladies visiting one another and enjoying dainties such as crab puffs, stuffed mushrooms, and shrimp dip.

The Ursuline nuns also taught their charges the survival dishes that would allow them to run restaurants, soup kitchens, or disaster-relief kitchens with recipes such as the following:

• Red beans and rice (made with ham bones from the previous Sunday’s ham dinner)

• Banana bread

• Corn soup (the recipe calls for tomatoes, but cooks with flair might add some peppers to add vitamin C to the soup as well)

• Scalloped potatoes

• Date loafs (for dessert)

The historical aspects of this cookbook make it interesting as well. The Ursuline Order was originally founded by Saint Angela Merici in 1535 in Italy for the education of young girls. The French Ursuline nuns, who came to New Orleans in 1727, had a Royal Commission from Louis XV of France to work in the Royal Hospital. This commission letter in French and English is in this convent cookbook as well as information about Sister Xavier, who worked in the herbal garden, and is the first woman pharmacist in the Americas.

Cookbooks produced by religious organizations such as Recipes and Reminiscences of New Orleans often contain historical, rite-of-passage (i.e. funeral foods), and holiday information in addition to recipes. These are all good reasons for collecting these cookbooks and caring for them; they are often spiral bound. Never lend them out from your collection, but do let people copy the recipes they seek. Writing recipes down seems to help embed them in the brain.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Cooking of Provincial France - Book Review

2012-02-04T08:18:00.000-08:00

Foods of the World: The Cooking of Provincial France by M.F.K. Fisher and the editors of Time-Life Books with photographs by Mark Kauffman honors the culinary talents that the women and men of France have honed through the centuries. The haute cuisine (high cuisine) of France exhibits artistry according to M.F.K. Fisher and finds its source in provincial kitchens without reflecting the provincial cuisine (i.e. cutting techniques, braising techniques, combining herbs and so on).

The book’s information and recipes are written for those readers, who are perhaps beginners in the kitchen, but would like to advance to high level skills and dishes quickly. M.F.K. Fisher begins her discussion with descriptions of the historic provinces of France and what kind of food and beverage one can find there.

Once the gastronomical tour of France is done, M.F.K. Fisher describes how to put together a French meal with savvy, including what kinds of wines should accompany different dishes. She promotes healthy living when she describes the family walks that the French often take after Sunday lunch.

The detailed recipes and photos in the book are written so that an absolute beginner can succeed at making them, because the photos support the written text.

M.F.K. Fisher begins her recipe for Soufflé au Fromage (Cheese Soufflé) with a list of prepped ingredients in order of use in the recipe. There are photos showing insider tricks to making the recipe work such as how stiffened egg whites should look on a whisk and how to gently fold a soufflé. The photos allow cooks to stop, ponder, analyze, practice, and master the insider techniques in the photo. A line drawing illustration shows how to tie a buttered paper collar around the soufflé dish to help it hold its shape as it rises.

Another winning recipe in this book is Quiche au Fromage (Cheese Quiche). Photos for this dish show how to lift the rolled-out crust onto a rolling pin to be unfurled over a ridge-edged quiche pan. The next step requires pushing the rolling pin with the crust over the pan and cutting off the excess. Another photo shows how to remove the quiche from the quiche pan.

The photos support the written text very well to aid the novice and advanced cook alike.

The made-with-a-fork-and-pan-only omelet with recipes is here, too. According to French restaurant lore, if you cannot master an omelet this way in the kitchen, you will not be hired no matter what other skills you have.

Once the cheese soufflé, quiche au fromage, and omelet have been mastered, readers can try a terrine de maison. This is advanced provincial cuisine. Detailed instructions and photos will see adventurous cooks through the process.

Among the advanced recipes that follow, there is a myriad of information to absorb that M.F.K. Fisher deftly provides throughout her text such as:

• How to eat Escargots Bourgogne (Burgundy Snails) with a snail holder and small fork

• How to use roasting pins to hold a stuffed fish together

• How to prepare innards such as kidneys and thymus glands

• How to make bean stew – French style

• How to Grow Your Own Herb Garden

• How to Understand French wine in a brief wine guide

The Time-Life Series devoted to Foods of the World dates from 1968. A complete set is hard to find, but sometimes you can find them at garage sales, used books stores, and in thrift shops. M.F.K. Fisher’s unerring taste runs through Foods of the World: The Cooking of Provincial France; seek it out for some tasty returns.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Food of Southern Italy - Book Review

2012-02-01T02:18:00.000-08:00

In The Food of Southern Italy, Carlo Middione wishes to dispel the notion that Italian food originates in a single national style limited to pizza, spaghetti, and lasagna. Middione writes that many dishes that readers may associate with Italy are Neapolitan, representing the Campania region and the many Neapolitan immigrants in the United States. Middione’s recipe book covers Campania as well as the regions of Lazio (home to Rome), Abruzzi, Molise, Basilicata, Apulia, Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia.

Middione broadens readers’ knowledge of Southern Italy to share its civilization, which has been challenged to maintain and create its own culture through centuries of occupation and exploitation. The recipes that Middione provides illustrate that you can live well while wasting nothing as you glean what you can from nature.

Middione explains to readers that what may appear to be simple course choices are really complex pairings of food in the order of an Italian meal. Choosing courses is cause for conversation and allows diners to demonstrate culinary knowledge of what can be made with available ingredients, what is in season, and what is in the larder.

Readers learn from Middione that antipasti are less frequent in a Southern Italian meal. Primi Piatti (First Courses) will most invariably be pasta or rice according to The Food of Southern Italy. Both pasta and rice can be stored dry. In the “Italian Pantry Chapter,” Middione introduces readers to some ingredients basic to the Southern Italian kitchen that sometimes require learning new techniques to cook with them. These ingredients include almonds, caciocavallo cheese, capers, chestnuts, mozzarella di bufala (buffalo milk cheese), and ricotta cheese.

Despite his opening comments about pizza, Middione begins his discussion and recipe sections with a chapter on pizza and bread. Middione writes about how easy and satisfying making bread is, but it is economical as well. Readers may initially peruse this chapter for a recipe to make a Margherita pizza, but will find recipes that reflect the life of the people of Southern Italy when they encounter recipes for “Christmas Eve Pizza” and “Easter Pizza.”

The cuisine of Southern Italy reflects a “waste not, want not” approach to cooking. Readers of Middione’s book will learn from him that chicken is not consumed as much as it is in Northern Italy; instead the Southern Italians cook egg dishes.

Delicious pasta dishes are typical of Southern Italy according to Middione. He provides a recipe entitled “Pasta with Red Pepper Flakes and Toasted Bread Crumbs” as an example. Middione notes that many Southern Italian dishes calling for pasta and bread crumbs are eaten on Saint Joseph’s Day.

Middione’s aristocratic recipe offerings for Southern Italy reflect the good life of Caserta, for example, with recipes such as “Lamb Stew with Wild Mushrooms” and “Pomegranate Quail.” Readers will find several recipes for luscious desserts in The Food of Southern Italy, yet the recipes for walnut cake, flaming chestnuts, and bitter almond cookies furnish an idea of how people in this region were tied to the land.

The Food of Southern Italy by Carlo Middione merits a purchase for its recipes as well as for the reflection of the society that it captured.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Venice: Tradition and Food - The History and Recipes of Venetian Cuisine - Book Review

2012-01-26T07:11:00.000-08:00

Venice: Tradition and Food – The History and Recipes of Venetian Cuisine by Pino Agostini and Alvise Zorzi describes “an essentially poor and wholesome cuisine that is also healthy….with its use of olive oil rather than animal fats, its love of deep sea fish, and garden vegetables.” (p. 12) This centuries’ old cuisine, however, is not as easy to make today due to changes in women’s working outside the home, Venetians’ choosing to live on the mainland, and the influx of tourists.

Agostini and Zorzi note that Venetian civilization “ has suffered food shortages and the pangs of hunger” (p. 9) despite the sumptuous banquets displayed in the art and photos throughout the book. The authors wish to maintain historical Venetian cuisine and in so doing highlight the prominent place that gastronomy holds in Venetian civilization.

There are several facets of the book that will appeal to the home cook and the informed tourist alike. The recipes, for example, are a guide for tourists seeking out restaurants serving traditional fare. The recipe titles are all given in the Venetian dialect, which eludes standard dictionaries. Writing down recipe titles with translations before setting out for Venice might aid visitors with restaurant decision-making triage.

Just by reading recipes, home cooks can familiarize themselves with the flavor of Venetian cuisine typified by olive oil, parsley, and pepper. Venice owed her great wealth to trade in pepper and other spices. Each recipe, even those for vegetables, comes with Italian wine pairings that will give ideas to home cooks and tourists for exploration.

Along with the history section and recipes provided, readers can also enjoy glimpses into some of the sumptuous interiors of Venice with Luca Steffenoni’s photos. The authors have also provided recipes for those people, who may not have been quite as fortunate as those dining from tables laden with crystal, silver, and china; there are recipes here for frogs, horsemeat, and offal, such as tripe, from the Veneto region across from Venice.

The inclusion of foods from the various social strata of society in Venice Tradition and Food: The history and recipes of Venetian cuisine make the book an even more intriguing one and worth a purchase for the home bookshelf.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Paris Metro Tales: A Stop-by-Stop Guide by Ruth Paget is now on Kindle

2011-12-23T08:37:00.000-08:00

My new book Paris Metro Tales: A Stop-by-Stop Guide is available on Kindle now.

Every stop of the Paris Métro has a history or urban legend attached to it. Both are interesting, but the urban legends are sometimes more revealing of the Parisian character.

I have researched every stop of the fourteen lines of the Parisian Métro system. This system is a microcosm of Parisian history as well as that of France. Using French-language sources and specialized English ones, I am able to offer readers of Paris Métro Tales: A Stop-by-Stop Guide an engaging underground tour of Paris that you can enjoy at home or in the City of Light.

Information is available by clicking on the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/Paris-Metro-Tales-Stop--ebook/dp/B006P9IFQG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324657630&sr=1-1

Best wishes,
Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Munich’s Deutsches Museum and Food Discoveries

2011-11-15T12:26:00.000-08:00

The Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany beckons visitors to deepen their knowledge of the science they already know and discover how other sciences and technologies evolved often by viewing original machines or replicas. The Deutsches Museum houses a boggling array of items, including planes, cars, full-size boats, a replica of Foucault’s Pendulum, and a reproduction of Galileo’s workshop. You really cannot appreciate more than one or two galleries at a time on a visit. During the visit I spent with my husband, we spent most of our time in the topography and mapping and mathematics galleries.

The first thing that will surprise visitors to the Deutsches Museum is the amount of wood you will see. Early scientific equipment was often made of wood and highly polished, so that it still resembles a work of art. This is especially true of land surveying equipment, models, and globes used to make topographic maps. Topographic maps show the shape and elevation of land. Topographic maps help with disaster prevention and land use planning and are especially necessary in Alpine landscapes.

The mathematics gallery will bring back school day memories for many visitors. For example, even though scientific calculators had been invented, I still had to learn how to use a slide rule to calculate logarithms, the opposite of exponents, in geometry class in high school. I wonder if today’s engineers would know how to use slide rules if their scientific calculators quit on them.

Further on in the mathematics section, there was a large wooden Mobius Curve that you could pick up and handle. It allowed you to see how it was an infinite curve by looking at upper case letters that became lower case letters without turning it over. An Albrecht Dürer copy of a geometric design drawing by Leonardo da Vinci illustrated the close ties between Germany and Northeren Italy as well as the general human delight in spiraling shapes that remind viewers of the Book of Kells or The Lindesfarne Gospels.

After cursory tours of several other galleries, we set out to find a meal that was not the typical sausage and beer that is described as typical “Munich-style” cuisine in most guidebooks. We found a small Bavarian café, where I tried out my budding German and some new foods. I ate Zagreb-style schnitzel, which is Croatian pan-fried veal coated with breadcrumbs and stuffed with cheese and ham. It is served with fries and took the edge off a foggy winter day that reminded me that the Alps were there even if I could not see them.

My husband had rindersteak (Round Steak) with red wine sauce and rotini pasta. This satisfying dish and mine were accompanied by a salad made of juicy tomatoes and cucumbers.

Our meals fortified us to walk around Munich’s neighborhoods and along the Isar River. The fall colors of the trees in a descending winter fog from the Alps held out promises for hikes and strolls through town despite the cold; we will be back.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Magic of the German Language - Part 3

2011-10-25T15:03:00.000-07:00

The chapter title “The Age of Expiring Chivalry” in Calvin Thomas’ A History of German Literature could just as aptly be named “The Rise of Church Theatre.” Thomas describes Easter plays in detail as Easter is the more important holiday in Europe than Christmas. There several kinds of plays presented by churches in open-air spaces that connect us with Europe’s past albeit in a fragmented form. The plays orchestrated by the Church that Thomas describes include:

Easter plays – Pertains to the discovery of Jesus Christ’s body and his resurrection

Passion plays – Enactments of the trial, suffering, and death of Jesus Christ

Christmas plays – Depiction of the birth of Jesus

Shrovetide plays – Carnival plays before the fasting period of Lent before Easter

Thomas points out key elements about these productions that planners of small and large theatre acts should keep in mind:

*They were performed outside as open-air spectacles

*These dramas began as late-medieval performances and ended as spectacles by the fifteen century, “employing an army of actors” (Google page number 109, Book page number 3)

*The performances lasted several days

These plays functioned like the sculpture on the French Gothic cathedrals for teaching the illiterate Bible stories. Spectacles must have brought in necessary revenue as well, especially if they lasted over several days.

Thomas points out that Latin and German were used to narrate the plays, which does make them important for literature. Thomas complains that the play texts that survive are more akin to stage directions; they probably resemble a director’s copy of a screenplay.

Some of the stand-alone acts that we associate with circuses or as children’s entertainment have come down to us from church Easter theatre; these include clowns, any kind of horseplay, and scatological humor according to Thomas.

Many of these plays are still performed in Germany today for adults and children alike. These performances draw in tourists to contemporary Germany; they invite the spectator to hearken back to a medieval soul and assume the position as town baker, butcher or candlestick maker and play your role in society.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Magic of the German Language - Part 2

2011-10-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

“The German lyricists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were men of knightly rank who sang the praise of women, the joy and pain of love, the happiness of springtime, the beauty of flowers, the sweet music of birds” wrote Calvin Thomas in The History of the German Language (Google Books page 77, Book page number 92)

The poetry, mostly written by the knights, that Thomas refers to paid homage to unobtainable yet nubile ladies or Minne; minne is the origin of the word minnesingers, or love singers. Southern France with its troubadours is the source that Thomas cites as the source for minnesingers, but Northern France’s trouvères may have been a conduit of the troubadour tradition or a source of stories itself for some German-language songs and tales.

The minnesingers, or nightingales as they liked to be called according to Thomas, used May Day, the herald of spring, for their assignations, passing of notes, and attention getting. Once again my daughter’s Waldorf School kept alive the tradition of the Minnesingers in a most lovely way; a May Day picnic.

We did Californian things like barbecue wild boar sausage made in Carmel Valley on one grill and organic peppers, carrots, and celery for dipping in tamari sauce on another grill. A cake walk was held in the park’s gazebo, and we set up all our age-appropriate games all around the park.

All the little girls received flower garlands to wear in their hair like white and yellow crowns. A very tall May Pole stood in the center of the park with white ribbons swirling in the wind. The children caught the ribbons and walked around the May Pole without tangling the ribbons. (They had been practicing.) Their walk was accompanied by recorder music and song. Sheet music with lyrics helped out those of us who had not been cooed by a minnesinger.

Thomas writes that each minnesinger had “[h]is stanza with its tune…. a Ton , and professional honor required that a man’s Ton be respected as his property.” (Google books, page 85 and Book page number 100). This practice appears to be an early form of copyright.

Tunes were becoming property, but good stories were shared out in the medieval era. The most famous of the shared stories are the Arthurian Romances. The stories entered Germany as Parzival written by Wolfram von Eschenbach. While they seem to deal with love, they represent a love that is different from that portrayed by the Minnesingers. Parzival seeks the Holy Grail, Christ’s cup which represents holy love. Parzival begins naively and ends as a wise man through his own efforts including mistakes.

Learning to succeed through your own efforts is a powerful lesson to express to sixth graders, but I was impressed with how Waldorf Schools dealt with this lesson as a system. Several schools worked together to hold a Medieval Games at the end of the school year. Children at my daughter’s school began running one mile every day before class to get into good physical shape. They practiced the games they would compete in such as tug-of-war, archery, shot put, and javelin throwing. In their sewing class, they made crests representing families to sew onto their tunics. I told my daughter on the way to school, “Win, lose, or draw, you will be in great shape at the end of the year!”

On the day of the Medieval Games at the Marin County Waldorf School outside San Francisco, all the kids tried to lose a little at tug-of-war to get muddy. I helped hose down kids after their bouts in the “boue,” or mud. I quizzed them about their family crests and the courtly songs they would compose that day.

As I read Thomas’ book The History of the German Language now, I hope the children from that day will all have inhered some poetry along with the mud to them. Thomas writes that Esenbach’s Parzival is the work of a poet; Esenbach “saw visions and thought in symbols…” Communicating symbols through metaphor and/or simile in poetry or prose is a skill that makes complex ideas concrete.
The ability of the German language to make intellectual concepts into objects you can see, feel, handle, and experience through metaphor and simile truly makes it not only a tool for communicating technical ideas, but a language that merits its place in schools and universities for the beauty of the ideas it conveys and its form.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Magic of German-Language Literature: Part 1

2011-10-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

Books about literature often provide a shortcut to learning about another culture. In the case of the German language, readers can find clues about how the cultures of Germany, Austria, German-speaking Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and Luxembourg function.

As I read through the first half of A History of German Literature by Calvin Thomas on Google Books, I felt like I was reliving many of the experiences I had shared with my daughter when she was a grade school student at a Waldorf School. This is not a farfetched claim when you consider that the founder of the Waldorf Schools, Rudolf Steiner, was Austrian and founded his first school in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919. Steiner’s philosophy focuses on the performing and visual arts as a means for teaching, which makes the mystical and medieval texts of the German language come alive.

Thomas relates in the very beginning of his book that the German runes are a form of paganism. He says that no extant literature exists which uses the runic alphabet. When my daughter and I made clay pebble tablets and inscribed runic symbols on them, which resemble Sumerian hatch marks, I told her, “People who could read runes were thought to be magic by everyone else. That’s why reading is still magic now.”

I believe that runes hid codes and showed my daughter how to set up codes similar to vignière ciphers to communicate with me. These codes may have been beyond her years, but they provided us with afternoon entertainment during long winter nights. The entertainment for the Germanic peoples most probably came from what were eventually written down in the thirteen century Icelandic Edda that formed the corpus of the Norse myths. Thomas deals with these myths only briefly as he was focusing on indigenous literature, but these myths appear to be important to German speakers as well.

Thomas writes that it was only in the twelfth century that “gleeman’s or minstrel’s tales were written down.” The two most famous tales were The Niblung Lay and The Lay of Gudrun. What is interesting here is what Thomas shares about how storytellers memorize their tales for presentation. Storytellers use “stereotypical phrases and prolixities which stamp the gleeman’s style.” (Google page 33, Book page 48). This creates flat characters, but allows the storyteller to focus on action and plot, perhaps accompanied with body movement.

Thomas further notes that “the gleeman’s art is discernable in this repetition, also in a marked fondness for fantastic adventures, hair-breadth escapes, cunning tricks and disguises, and in general for the wildly fabulous.” (Google page 48, Book page 63)

As I watched school performances where young children recited poetry each in turn, I understood why their teachers had them do this from reading Thomas’s A History of the German Language; Literature is based on the foundation of oral literature’s strong plot structure, especially when accompanied by music.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Good Food of Italy: Region by Region by Claudia Roden – Book Review

2011-10-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

In The Good Food of Italy: Region by Region (Alfred A. Knopf, 1990) by Claudia Roden, readers can find Roden’s signature gift to them: easy-to-assemble recipes that often result in first-time success.

Roden helps readers succeed in their culinary pursuits through the precise writing of her recipes. Namely, she lists the ingredients in her books in their prepared or “prep work done” state. For example, Roden asks for “2 cups hazelnuts, toasted, skinned, and coarsely chopped” (p.32) in a recipe for hazelnut cake. Here she gives a precise quantity (2 cups) and defines the state the hazelnuts should be in before readers measure them.

Presenting ingredients in this way allows Roden to give one- to two-paragraph instructions that readers can assemble and carry out quickly. It can be distracting to prepare basic ingredients in the midst of working through a complex recipe.

In addition to providing easy-to-prepare recipes, Roden notes that there is no national Italian cuisine, but different regional cuisines. She examines the history and culinary traditions in Italy’s twenty regions, beginning with the northern regions and working her way south. Along with the region-by-region recipes, Roden discusses the wines that are known internationally as well as local wines that do not export well, making the book ideal for travel purposes.

The chapters entitled “Planning a Meal” (p. 262) and “Recipe List by Type of Food” (pp. 264 – 272) make The Good Food of Italy: Region by Region stand out from many other cookbooks for being cook friendly. In these two chapters, readers learn how to put together a meal in Italy, using Roden’s recipes. A summary of an Italian meal described by Roden (p.262) follows:

Antipasto

Primo (First Course) – pasta, risotto, or soup

Secondo (Second Course) – meat, poultry, or fish accompanied by contorni (vegetable side dishes)

Insalata (Salad)

Sometimes cheese

Dolce (dessert) or fruit or both

This cultural information and the recipe list with page number for each recipe by course make Claudia Roden’s The Good Food of Italy: Region by Region a useful purchase for the home reference shelf.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Perfect House: A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio - Book Review

2011-10-12T06:23:00.000-07:00

The Perfect House: A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio (Simon & Schuster, 1997) by Witold Rybczynski offers its readers insights into the Palladian architecture of Vicenza, Italy; English interpretations of Palladio’s vision and design; and evidence of the enduring nobility of Palladian architecture in its appearance on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and in the American South.

Rybczynski describes ten of Palladio’s villas outsides Vicenza, Italy in-depth and shows how they provided inspiration to other architects, beginning with Palladio’s earliest works and ending with his much copied Villa Almerico “La Rotunda” (Vicenza, 1560 – 1570). Andrea Palladio (1508 – 1580) built villas instead of churches and city halls at the beginning of his career, because he was a stonemason. He had to create a new path of advancement for himself. He finally did become City Architect of Vicenza on April 11, 1549 according to Rybczynski.

The architectural works he created relied upon designs from antiquity contained in the Ten Books of Architecture written by the Roman architect Vitruvius Rybczynski recounts. Palladio was able to impart this knowledge to the English architect Inigo Jones (1573 – 1652) among others in England thanks to the collection of his architectural drawings by several English architects. Inigo Jones designed Queen Anne’s home in Greenwich and St. Paul’s Church in Covent Garden in England. Palladian architecture made its way to the English colonies and later the United States with the Capitol in Williamsburg and the Shirley Plantation on the James River in Virginia both exemplifying that style Rybczynski writes.

Palladian architecture remains popular for its design even centuries after Palladio built his villas for several reasons, which include:

*The design of the colonnaded double-porticoes with Ionic columns traditionally on the bottom and Corinthian ones on the top.

*Building villas to reflect the needs of the villa’s owners. Palladio’s political clients all had large waiting rooms for petitioners, for example.

*Symmetry that balanced the building’s perspective.

Rybczynski writes that both Goethe (1749 – 1832) and art historian Rudolf Wittkower (1901 – 1942) relate exterior and interior architecture to music. Rybczynski writes that Goethe said, “Architecture is frozen music.” Even if you have not read German intellectual history, it is possible to identify the relaxing effect that symmetrical architecture has on the mind like most music.

The Perfect House invites readers to contemplate difficult questions around Palladian architecture, which include the following:

Are Goethe and Rudolf Wittkower correct when they liken architecture to music? Why or why not?

Why are Corinthian and Ionic columns almost always the ones chosen for porticoes in Palladian architecture in Italy, England, and the United States?

Could you call Palladian architecture the architecture of freedom? Why or why not?

For researchers, The Perfect House: A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio by Witold Rybczynski offers:

*a list and map by the ten villas he describes in-depth

*a list of all his villas by decade, location, and a brief annotation

*a notes section with full citations

*an index, acknowledgements, and an image reproduction of Palladio

For readers who want to plan informed architectural tours of Palladian villas, homes, and public buildings, Rybcynski’s The Perfect House offers a thorough introduction to the subject.

Book review by Ruth Paget
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Bad Mergentheim, Germany: Reclaiming an Icon

2011-07-06T11:25:00.000-07:00

Bad Mergentheim is a must-see destination for lovers of iconography developed by the early Christian military and charitable orders in the Holy Land. This site “was chosen as headquarters for the Knights of the Teutonic Order in the sixteenth century” according to the French guide Michelin (page 364).

The Teutonic Order in the Holy Land was developed to protect and profit from the pilgrims to Jerusalem. The Teutonic Order became a religious order in 1198 after its knights came back to Germany following the failure of the last crusade to secure Jerusalem.

The Teutonic Order has both Catholic and Protestant members, reflecting the religious divide in contemporary Germany. The order was dissolved by Napoleon in 1806 and later reconstituted as a religious and charitable institution in Vienna (Guide Michelin, page 365).

Hitler outlawed the Teutonic Order in Germany in 1938, because it was loyal to the papacy and not to him. However, Hitler retained the powerful and emotive icons of the Teutonic Order for use by the Nazi party. Perhaps Nazi adoption of the symbols of this order may have made Nazism more palatable to everyday Germans, who associated the order with its charitable works.

While my husband toured the Teutonic Order’s museum, which is housed in a twelfth century castle, I sat in the castle’s courtyard as a bell concert was going on in the castle church. I made sketches of signs and symbols in the castle’s courtyard.

After the bell concert, a group of children came into the courtyard and played a cute game of some sort of tag called “Moustache.” Safety was tagging the church. Crows flew around the church spire, making shadows every now and then on the book I was deciphering on the Teutonic Order and its symbols.

After the swastika, the iron cross is the icon most associated with the Nazi party. This is an evil use of an icon devoted to the Virgin Mary, but it does not need to be the eternal association of this icon.

In fact, I think Germans should proudly display this icon, with its original form with the white background around it. When the black cross is displayed with its white background, the icon works benevolently.

The reason that I say that icons can work benevolently is that they appear to make brain chemistry react viscerally in particular with color association.

In the book Deutscher Orden 1190-2000: Ein Führer durch das Deutschordenmuseum im Bad Morgentheim (Spurbuchverlag, 2004) by Hg. Von Maikie Trentin and Udo Arnold, which is only available in German, the authors state that the black cross on a white background represents Jerusalem and refers to the Virgin Mary. Some icons may represent the dimensions of towns, but in the case of what is called the “Hochmeisterkreuz (Grand Master’s Cross)” I think color and not sacred geometry is at work.

White is a reference to the purity of the Virgin Mary, which Deutsche Orden 1190 – 2000 also says refers to lilies associated with the Virgin Mary as well. This color association is not innate, but it is taught so early to Catholic and Orthodox children that it becomes culturally innate.

Black is what I would call an innate color reference, because our brains associate black with soil without hardly thinking about it. Soil gives life through food just like a good mother and probably explains why we call the ground beneath our feet “Mother Earth.”

Both the cross, which became associated with Christianity, and the white field surrounding the black cross make strong associations with caring motherhood. The Nazi party certainly wanted to acquire the devotion that mothers have, and that is why they adopted the Hochmeisterkreuz of the Teutonic Knights.

The difference between innate and culturally acquired color associations explains why the Nazis dropped the white background. Culturally acquired color associations such as white with the Virgin Mary are not as strong as innate color associations such as the black of soil that comes from nature. Color associations that come from nature make up part of our sensory world and may even be the basis for the formation of our intellect.

Did the Nazis know this when they adopted just the black cross? Most probably. German intellectuals created the field of art history theory and practice. German art historians pioneered the study of the hieratic and highly iconic work of prehistory. They appear to have been especially familiar with the artwork of the militaristic Akkadians.

In Bad Mergentheim, I liked seeing how contemporary Germans are repossessing the Hochmeisterkreuz (Hochmeistercross). This April (2011), throngs of Germans were visiting this place to understand the good and bad of the Teutonic Order (i.e. the slave treatment of pagan Lithuanians at one time). One café, in particular, called the Café in the Schlossgarten makes a pastry featuring little Hochmeisterkreuz decorations that you can enjoy after visiting the museum.

Grandparents and parents can easily bring their children and grandchildren to a fun outing in Bad Mergentheim and begin educating them about the past of the Teutonic Order and the possibilities for its future.

Ruth Paget
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Metz, France: Urban Ecology at its Best

2011-07-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

As my husband Laurent and I drove through innumerable tiny tunnels in the mountains to get to Metz, France from the area around Saarbrucke, Germany, I looked forward in anticipation to visiting this town where water is king.

Metz is built on a series of islands in the Seille and Moselle Rivers. As we drove into town, mist rose off the canals to make it look like Amsterdam in winter. It is appropriate for Metz to look like another European city, since it has been an axe of exchange among cultures and countries for centuries.

Metz has been a European city for three thousand years, and it is sagely constructing its future with its neighbors with the SAAR-LOR-LUX industrial complex oriented towards electronics, information technology, and communication. “Lux” refers to Luxembourg and “Saar” refers to Saarbrucke, Germany. (Brucke means “bridge” in German and Saar refers to the river that the bridge crosses – very logical language German is).

The European orientation of Metz affects not only industry, but cultural institutions as well as our “balades” through Metz would prove. Before launching into the gastronomic delights that Metz offers its visitors, I have to explain what the French word “balade” means. To serve as a point of comparison, in the United States when we walk for our health, we often do it by huffing and puffing on a treadmill at a club while profusely sweating. The French prefer long, tranquil walks during which they can learn about culture and history as they appreciate nature. What I have just described is a “balade” and not a “promenade.”

Metz has attained its great balade status the outstanding management of its natural environment. Urban ecology was pioneered in Metz by professor Jean-Marie Pelt. Pelt’s theory helped create the European Institute of Ecology according to Un Grand Week-end a Metz by Sylvie Becker and Francis Kochert. Grassy parks, canal and riverside walks, and the pedestrian-only city center invite balade after balade in this three thousand-year-old European town.

On the way to our cousins’ Martine and Bertrand’s home in Metz, we drove by the Porte des Allemands (the Germans’ Gate or Doorway). I chuckled when I remembered how I asked Martine’s mother, “Why do they call it the ‘Porte des Allemands’?”

She replied, “The Germans come here quite a bit for long term stays, so we gave them their own door.” My husband Laurent and I laughed at this response, but I knew there was a lot of pain and suffering behind the remark.

When the Third Reich took over the Lorraine in the Second World War, for example, not only did they invade, but they stayed. One day children were taught in French and the next day in German. Moreover, children were immediately reprimanded for speaking French and not German in school. Children learned German Gothic lettering and German-style architecture appeared along the fashionable Avenue Foch.

I was impressed with Martine’s mother for being so European as to say, “The past is water under the bridge. Let’s build a European future.”

The real story of the Porte des Allemands is that it is a remnant of a medieval era fortified wall that was built between (1230-1480) on the Seille River. The entry gets its name from its proximity to the order of the Frères Hospitaliers de Notre-Dame-des-Allemands, which belonged to the larger order of the Teutonic Knights.

When we arrived at Martine and Bertrand’s apartment, we climbed the five flights of stairs to their beautifully decorated apartment and prepared for a languorous Saturday lunch. We started with cocktails. Laurent had an orange-flavored bitter liqueur added to his beer. That looked tempting, but I had an anise-flavored pastis more typical of the Riviera than Metz that made the cold day full of sunshine for me.

For lunch we had two decadent pastries filled with cheese and ham. One was a tourte Vosgienne made with ham and an egg-cream custard-like filling called La Migaine. “La Migaine” is one of those Lorraine in-group words that Lorraine dwellers use to confuse Parisians and protect all their gastronomical goodies for themselves.

The other tourte from Lorraine had a lattice-work crust decoration that made it almost too good to eat. It was full of sweet flavored ham and melting, savory cheese. Of course, I had a few slices of that, too.

Martine prepared the most magnificent cheese platter I have ever been offered in France. She must have had fifteen different kinds of cheese on her plateau, which included a perfectly ripe camembert, Brie de Meaux, Morbier, two kinds of Gouda, Emmenthal, and a creamy Italian cheese whose name I have forgotten. Martine served a biting Roquefort on its own dish, and I could almost feel the cool side of the caves where the cheese is cured.

I had a coffee and wanted to go to sleep under the table. However, when in France, you must balade for a few hours after a meal like this to help you digest your food.

We took a two-hour walk around Metz. We walked along the Quai de Régates, where you can even rent boats for evening dinner cruises to loll along the Moselle and Seille Rivers as you quaff some mirabelle (yellow plum) eau-de-vie. The Temple Neuf (Protestant Church) came into view at the tip of yet another island in the Moselle River. The Temple Neuf was built between 1901 and 1904 during one of Germany’s many annexations of France. The citizens of Metz have an uneasy relationship with the Temple Neuf as it represents German militarism and lacks French finesse in it architectural style.

French and Japanese finesse is manifest in the architecture of the Centre Pompidou-Metz. The Centre-Pompidou Metz features selected works from Europe’s largest collection of modern art – the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, who studied with American architect Frank Gehry, and the French architect Jean de Gastines have created a flexible interior and exterior space that can easily host temporary exhibits of modern and contemporary art, dance, music, cinema, theater, and workshops for children and teens.

The building itself interested me more than the art during our visit. The Centre Pompidou – Metz is built on the space that formerly housed the Roman ampitheatre. The architects render homage to this space’s history by featuring tiered outdoor benches that can be used for watching theatre, dance, opera, and movies.

In side wide open spaces allow for viewing of the art and for hosting the fundraiser cocktail parties that the arts need to survive even in countries that subsidize the arts like France. There were so many people visiting the Centre Pompidou-Metz the weekend that we were there that I could only do two floors. I know I should enjoy modern art for its aesthetic value, but I end up laughing at much of it. I think many modern artists play jokes with their art such as Man Ray’s Man Sleeping and a Bancusi severed head that was on display.

After a one hour nap, we walked from downtown to the Esplanade. The Esplanade used to be a military grounds and now is a vast rectangle bordered by trees that overlooks the canal and Mont Saint-Quentin. Saint –Pierre-des-Nonnains, the oldest church in France is located at the top of the Mont. It was built in the fourth century.

I did not think there were religious edifices older than the Baptistery of Saint-Jean in Poitiers or the crypt at the Abbaye of Jouarree with its stunning Merovingian Wall, but ancient Metz was constantly unveiling her mysteries to me.

Our corner table at the La Guinguette Restaurant on the Esplanade had a stellar view on St. Pierre-aux-Nonnains, which is illuminated at night making its pure yellow stone shimmer.

La Guinguette is a cute name for restaurant, which recalls the little restaurants and dancing halls that dotted the Marne River in the nineteenth century called “guinguettes.” La Guinguette in Metz serves the theater and movie crowd. On the way to the restaurant, Bertrand and Martine showed us the Arsenal built under Napoleon III that has been turned into an acoustically perfect musical mecca for all genres of music. They have season tickets to the Arsenal concert series and walk to and from their apartment to enjoy the shows. I suspect that La Guinguette is their après-spectacle dinner spot.

Everyone ordered scallops and risotto except me. I had a rable de lapin farci au cavier d’aubergines with a side of two pankoufles. Translated into English this savory dish is rabbit saddle stuffed with eggplant caviar and braised in wine sauce. The Pankoufle is a kind of potato pancake that remind me of a Jewish latke.

In fact, I would say that a pankoufle is an upscale latke. It is a thick pancake made with grated potatoes, grated onions, parsley, and some flour maybe to hold everything together. I had two of them to soak up the wine sauce from the braised rabbit.

The pankoufle reveals an aspect of Metz’s history that is not so well known today. The Jews have been present in Metz since the Middle Ages, and Metz was the center of an important center of rabbinical studies at that time.

Another important religious group that was present in Metz was the Huguenots, the French Protestants who followed the way of either Luther or Calvin. In 1570, almost half of the population of Metz had become Calvinist according to Un Grand Week-end à Metz, which became problematic when the Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV in 1570. The Edict of Nantes was issued on April 13, 1598 by Henri IV to guarantee religious freedom in France.

When they no longer had religious protection, the French Huguenots emigrated en masse to tolerant cities such as Berlin. According to Un Grand Week-end à Metz by Sylvie Becker and Francois Kochert, the Huguenots of Metz led by pastor David Ancillon were especially active in the economic and cultural development of the capital of Brandenburg.

All of France suffered when the Huguenots emigrated abroad, but Metz seems to have recovered its élan better than other French towns. On the balade back to the hotel, I thought of how ravishing the buildings looked with their soft, almost coy illumination.

I slept like a baby that night, because we had to get ready for more gustatory delights the next day!

I started the meal off with another pastis. I like the refreshing taste that that anise-flavored drink leaves in my mouth. Martine made another beautiful hors-d’oeuvre tray with fresh vegetables. I ate more than my share of those wonderfully sweet French radishes that are spicy like their American cousins.

For lunch starters, we had green asparagus tips with unctuous, spicy mayonnaise and foie gras. I had not eaten foie gras for seven years and felt like I was being re-initiated all over again to that silky, smooth, textured substance that melts in your mouth.

Then, we ate what Bertrand and Martine normally eat as their Christmas Eve dinner: Morilles à la crème. Morilles are the cone-shaped mushrooms with a sponge-like texture that you can find in the abundant forests around Metz. Bertrand prepared the morilles in cream sauce in a buttery and crumbly pastry shells. The pastry shells tasted just great as the mushrooms, but more crumbly. The mushrooms reminded me of a tender, juicy steak.

For dessert, Martine served a five-berry fruit salad with as much Chantilly (whipped cream) as you wanted. Coffee followed and then it was time to balader.

We walked along the canal, which the French rather scientifically a “plan d’eau.” Our first stop along our balade Saint Etienne Cathedral. The cathedral was built over three centuries from 1220 to 1522 and features the flamboyant Gothic style with its characteristic pointy, flame-like window arches.

The pure yellow stone used to build the cathedral invites touch. When we arrived in the doorway, I placed my forehead into the cold, humid stone and inhaled what is for me the perfume of real France. According the Un Grand Week-end à Metz, the cathedral’s architect Pierre Perrat (circa 14th century) made a pact with the devil to build France’s most beautiful cathedral. When he died, Perrat was not buried, but encased in one of the cathedral walls.

From the cathedral, we walked to the house where Rabelais lived in exile from France. Rabelais wrote a rather snarky book called simply The Third Book here, too. His former home is located at the corner of the streets named de la Jurue and de l’enfer ( the street of hell). I wonder if that street name gave him any ideas for The Fourth Book.

From Rabelais’s house, we walked to the Place Saint Louis with its comfy feeling arcaded walkways. This area took on the name Place Saint Louis in 1707 according to Un Grand Week-end à Metz, but it has been in existence since the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, the area was called the “place de change” for its banking activities carried out by Germans and Jews. I laughed when I saw a restaurant named La Migaine – I hoped they served some very creamy quiche Lorraine pies in there.

After another quick nap, we set out for dinner at the Le Toqué Restaurant on Metz’s rue Taison. This whole street is cute, because it is devoted to the Graouilly. “Graouilly” is another Lorraine word designed to keep Parisians in the dark about what is being talked about.

“Graouilly” is Lorraine-speak for “dragon.” All the store signs suspended over the streets feature a dragon in them. The Lorraine legend says that Metz’s first bishop Saint Clément (third century C.E.) killed the graouilly that represented the pagan faith. The people of Lorraine demonstrate their subtle sense of humor when they joke about the graouilly.

When I first came to Metz, the newspapers were reporting that excavations for an underground parking garage had to be stopped, so a team of archaeologists could be called in to examine the graouilly bones. Since I was a Parisian at the time, I had no idea what a graouilly was; Lorraine-speak worked that day when the American Parisian, asked herself, “I wonder what era those bones are from?” Now, I am somewhat in the know for the meaning of graouilly and la migaine at least.

Quiche was not on the menu for the evening though; that is lunch food. We began our meal in this cozy, little restaurant with Kir. The Kir was made with Bourgogne-aligot and black currant liqueur. I had not had one in seven years and it tasted just fine on a cold, drizzly night in Metz.

We began our meal with an appetite teaser soup made of butter, cream, and mushrooms. It was hard to keep track of what everyone ate as I sipped a generous glass of Grès Saint Paul – a nice wine from Burgundy.

I remember that I started with a terrine “d’autrefois.” The words “d’autrefois” signals that your French grandmother would make a terrine like this. I know what goes into a pork terrine, but just enjoy the pork mixture and the creamy white stuff that holds it together.

Next I had a souris d’agneau with ratatouille and puréed potatoes. A “souris” in culinary terms is not the critter you chase around the kitchen, but what appears to be the meat on a foreleg. The Grès Saint Paul from Burgundy went well with the lamb with its berry flavors.

For dessert, I had a crème brulée made with mirabelle, the yellow Lorraine plum for which the Lorraine is famous. Mirabelle plums are turned into a strong eau-de-vie in the Lorraine. It is this eau-de-vie that flavored the crème brulée with a savory finish in the mouth.

Coffee followed with a morsel of chocolate. Countries with a Germanic past or influence always serve chocolate with their coffee.

Snow began fall as we walked back home and continued as we drove through tunnel after tunnel in the mountains around Saarbrucke, Germany. Trucks from Spain, Slovenia, and Poland threw ice from their roofs onto us and made driving a real thrill.

I thought of how pretty Metz would look in the snow. Despite its natural beauty, Metz failed to achieve status as a World Heritage Site the first time around I think, because they focused on its Imperial Germanic architecture and military structures. Metz’s role as a pioneer in urban ecology might earn them the World Heritage Site designation, if they try again. It is always worth a shot to try; nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Ruth Paget
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Alps, Architecture and Mozart: Salzburg, Austria Notes

2011-05-09T01:21:00.000-07:00

Heading into Austria from the Southern Bavarian region of Germany into the undulating Alpine foothills of the Austrian Tirol region makes for a pleasant afternoon drive.

As my husband and I passed over the Innsbrücke, the bridge of the Inn River, I noticed that the water beneath us was almost touching the bottom of the bridge. A little further inland, we passed the Űbersee (Super Lake). The water of the Űbersee was high up on its banks, but many people were grabbing the opportunity to go out in their sailboats.

This was the first time that I had visited the Alps, which make up most of the topography of Austria. I took multiple photographs of the soaring craggy Alps, but kept asking myself, “Where’s the snow on top of those mountains?” Alpine flowers grew above the tree line, but snow should have been where those flowers were.

When we arrived in downtown Salzburg, the water in the Salzach River was swelling up to almost churning with its rapid fire current. We enjoyed the sights as we drove along the Salzach River on Müllner Street to Old Town (Altstadt).

UNESCO has classified Old Town Salzburg as a World Heritage Site, leaving it crammed with tourists. The buildings along Müllner Hauptstraat had entrances that opened up not onto a courtyard of a single building as in Paris, but courtyards with many buildings and shops. These single entrance mini-towns were equipped to help Salzburg, a salt mining center, fend off invasion.

We parked the car by the courthouse and enjoyed walking to the Mozartplatz (Mozart Place) and listened to part of a free concert by a live orchestra of popular music. We ate lunch at a nice, outdoor café away from the hubbub, but close enough to hear the music; I ate a Greek salad and my husband had spaghetti alla carbonara.

We crossed the Nonntaler Brücke and walked along the Imbergstrasse, full of Baroque buildings. Austria shares a border with Italy. According to the Michelin Green Guide, the prince-archbishops of Salzburg “essentially dreamed of making [Salzburg] into a second Rome.” (p.57) The Austrians beat the Italians at the Baroque architecture game, because the painted limestone of Austria articulates architectural structure and details better than the polished yet mottled surface of marble used to construct many Italian buildings.

The Austrians used restraint in painting their buildings in pastel colors to accentuate an architrave here or an entire wall there, leaving white surfaces to bring out the straight lines of Doric columns, for example.

Another architectural triumph of the Austrians is to make architectural features protrude in relief as necessary to define symmetrical relationships between surfaces. You can look at the exterior of an Austrian Baroque building and almost know how the interior is designed. Finally, the pastel colors play off the soft hues of flowers in summer and glisten in the bright, snow-covered Alps in the winter.

While my husband walked on to the Mozart House, I sat by the Salzach River on a shaded bench and looked over at the Hohensalsburg Fortress and the Dom (Cathedral). I used to love walking around towns and cities, visiting every church that was open in my path. I have had an interest in religious iconography since I was nine when I started reading everything I could on Egypt; I wanted to be an archaeologist. Sculptures , in particular, can relate the hidden beauty of many of the world’s religions to the illiterate.

Some of my recent visits to German and French churches, though, have spoiled my enthusiasm for visiting churches. I could spot anti-Semitic work and features everywhere it seemed. In fact, I started running through images of secular art through the ages in my mind and saw that Western Civilization has always needed a scapegoat it seems to feel good about itself. I also knew that science could prove many things that could be used to purify houses of worship.

A bell concert began at the Dom, which I was thankful for as I admired the outline of the church. Jews might not have found Mozart’s religious music uplifting, but perhaps they enjoyed Mozart’s opera, Le Mariage de Figaro, featuring two oppressed servants outsmarting their lascivious, aristocratic masters.

Mozart’s music beguiles us in an age of democracy, because of such themes. Yet the architecture of Baroque Salzburg that Mozart grew up with is what influences Mozart’s music the most I think and makes it appealing to contemporary listeners.

Mozart’s music calms one down to listen to it, so that listeners can find the organization in it and focus. The symmetrical buildings of Baroque Salzburg with rooms defined and articulated on building exteriors by color and relief seem to have helped Mozart create equally mathematically satisfying music.

By Ruth Pennington Paget
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Tubingen, Germany: Research Home of Alois Alzheimer

2011-03-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

We went to the university town of Tübingen today (March 2011) to see where Germany’s famous Alois Alzheimer worked at one time.

Before we could see the university where Alzheimer worked, though, my administrator executive function brain kicked in about some absolutely illegal infractions of European Community law in Tübingen.

First off, all the traffic signs and map indicators in Tübingen are in German only. As Tübingen is in a border region that touches France, all traffic signs and map indicators must be provided in German, French, and English. This is especially true I would imagine in a university town that receives subsidies and grants from the European Community for scientific research.

The second thing that marred my two-hour walking tour around Tübingen was that there were no public toilets anywhere in this town let alone public toilets with handicapped access. This I am sure is another infraction of European Community law. I know there is no way that the European Community does not have an American equivalent of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The fines the European Community could impose on Tübingen for these infractions of the law could be put into the community coffers to help the PIGS countries stabilize their economy against the Euro. The PIGS are the countries of Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. The acronym works, but it is insulting. Only people, who are gluttonous themselves, could invent such a name for other countries.

Germany experienced a 4% growth in its economy last year. This kind of growth is possible when your country fails to make investments to its infrastructure that make equal access to facilities the law for everyone. This is an especially heinous act of public administration, since there are still people living who were maimed in Dachau Concentration Camp that I am sure live in Tübingen.

With my administrator function comments aside, I began to enjoy my walk around Tübingen, which escaped any damage from World War II. The ancient, timbered houses here have seen a lot of festivals, crimes, and misdemeanors.

We walked from our parking spot through a pedestrian tunnel under the Tübingen Castle to a park where the mighty Neckar River we saw in Heidelburg had become a still water stream.

When we turned around from our vantage point on the bridge over the Neckar, we looked up at the imposing castle on the hill above us. Brown shutters framed windows on the perfectly white building. A massive coat-of-arms was painted on the castle, which was visible to us from below. I could make out criss-crossing hatchets on either side of the coat-of-arms, but that was it.

We walked down the street where houses bordered the Neckar River. At one of these houses, there were five books lined up along a flower box. They were all in German, which I am starting to learn. Laurent and I laughed at the free, bookstore open on Sunday.

Laurent said, “They’re obviously there for the choosing.”

“Right,” I said and chose. I could have taken all five books, but I am not a glutton even for free books.

A little further down the street, I asked Laurent to take a photograph of a house that had a twirling vine growing around a tree trunk that framed one side of the doorway and lined the front of the house. Laurent made sure to get the house numbers of this house, which was written in Arabic and Hebrew numerals.

Unlike Ulm, 99.9% of Tübingen is pristine clean and well-ordered. When we arrived at the Rathaus (city hall), we loved the yellow façade, frescoed with carytids, portraits of illustrious mayors, and softened, yet menacing portraits of the green forest man (painted yellow in this case).

People were planting sapling trees in planters around the rathaus platz with its pretty, cobbled street set at an angle. We walked past a pharmacy, and I was glad to see that the cosmetic line Vichy that was advertised had the “V” rubbed out. (The Vichy government of France was the French ally of the Third Reich).

Lovely clothing stores lined the maze of streets around the rathaus. Women’s fashion in Tübingen featured gray and peach lacy dresses with belts around the waists with clasps that resembled the interlocking designs found on treasures of Sutton Hoo objects from England. Planters of flowers sat on either side of the entrances to these fashion shops.

We walked on a little further down more maze-like streets until we came out at the other side of town. We turned back and saw what looked like a Protestant church with its undecorated steeple and façade.

There was no name or address on what I assumed was the church. It was painted yellow, blue, and white; it appeared to be fresh paint as well. The windows were freshly cleaned and had crisscrossing panes of glass in them. In the lamplight, those windows panes would glisten like crystal in the night.

We walked down more twisting and turning streets and passed a bar that was full of tagging. I told my husband Laurent that only garbage businesses get tagged, especially ones that do not bother to clean up the tagging.

We walked along a small pedestrian bridge to the most filthy street I have ever seen called Judenstrasse (the street of the Jews). There were no swastikas here, but plenty of words that I just knew meant things like maggot, rat, dirt, pig, and dog.

Suddenly, the gift of tongues struck me. I held aloft the pretty, pink book I picked up for free at the beginning of our Tübingen tour with a menorah on it and paraded back and forth above the degraded street of the Tübingen Jews, who could no longer defend themselves in death caused by extermination at Dachau.

The name of the book in German “Das Kerzen Handbuch” or “The Curse Handbook.” Since the Jews of Tübingen have been exterminated, I did the cursing for them first in Tourette’s Syndrome and then nicely.

Since the Jews of Tübingen cannot defend themselves, I invoked the Earth to open a California-style sink hole on the whole street that would expand exponentially and ride right up the hill behind the Judenstrasse and swallow up the Tübingen Castle, with the kitchens on the backside falling in first. The tagged Jewish homes would remain while the sinkhole kept expanding and would only stop expanding until those Jewish homes were freshly painted white with red geraniums in wood flower boxes.

Sinkholes could very well happen in Tübingen. The Lake Constance (Bodensee) water table probably runs under Tübingen and who knows how well German industry is taking care of the water table, particularly chemical companies.

When Laurent stopped taking pictures, he saw me parading back and for the with The Curse Handbook held high like the Bible during mass on the pedestrian bridge above the Judenstrasse with pedestrians staring at me. He was struck with the gift of “We should return to the hotel now.”

I smiled and laughed all the way back to the car as I scanned through the Das Kerzen Handbuch. We passed by the Evangelist Church of Tübingen on the way back to the car. I loved seeing a sister religion to the one I was brought up in.

I have lapsed in many religions, but I was brought up as a member of the Southern Baptist Convention with roots in Appalachia. I soaked up how to be a jerk for justice at a young age. I also dress like a dork for damnation. I’m not much good at fire and brimstone, but I know a lot about the water cycle and water tables.

The German elections are coming up soon. If I were German, I would get a few folks from the Hunters’ and Fishers’ Party in office, who know about the water table and nature. I would not vote for the Greens, who advocate eating organic food produced by the backbreaking, stoop labor of Third World Farm Workers. (It makes me angry to see all the chiropractic clinics in Hispanic neighborhoods in California.)

We ate at a classic restaurant outside Tübingen. We started our meal with a selection of curry soup, foie gras, and a dainty egg roll. Since it was Lent (Fastenzeit), we ate fish and seafood. Laurent ate wolf fish. I ate coquilles Saint-Jacques with artichokes. We drank water with our meals.

I laughed all the way home about the foie gras at our classic restaurant. It looked as if it had been puréed; people in the know know that you do not purée foie gras. The foie gras purée had been swirled into a dainty bowl and looked like a precious turd.

When we came home, I looked up Alois Alzheimer online and how he carried out his medical research. I thought it a better idea to do more research on this doctor, who set the precedent for the medical experiments and pharmacological torture of human beings at Dachau Concentration Camp.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Beautiful Rothenburg, Germany

2011-03-13T10:06:00.000-07:00

My husband Laurent and I set out for Rothenburg in Bavaria, Germany today, but the ride the through Baden-Wurttemberg region to get there proved to be just as much fun. Baden-Wurttemberg is a very diversified region. We started out by driving through the edge of the Schwarzwald (Black Forest), which is actually dark blue and green.

There are homes along the way in Baden-Wurttemberg that resemble Swiss Chalets. I kept expecting Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to pop out of these houses at any moment. The houses have those extremely slanted roofs, so that snow will fall off them easily. Many of the roofs are festooned with solar panels. The Germans enjoyed 4% economic growth last year due to their using every resource available to them.

There are huge, modern white windmills with three propellers capturing energy made by the wind all along the autobahn to Rothenburg – another tapped into resource. You can also see town gardens every now and then along the autobahn. Apartment dwellers in cities have the right to a plot of land for gardening in Germany.

Baden-Wurttemberg is also home to many vineyards on its hilly slopes. There is even a town called Weinsberg on the way to Rothenburg. Vineyards run over every hill (the best wine is grown on slopes). The place reminds me of Burgundy in France, but on a larger scale. The varietal grown is Riesling, which is drunk in its preferred demi-sec state by Germans.

Once you reach Weinsberg, you are at the border of the Bavaria region. This region resembles the wine region of Baden-Wurttemberg, but the land is dedicated to agriculture. It is hard to know what grows at this time of year (March), because the fields are unplanted, but well turned, exposing dark, black, and moist earth. Snow and rain make Germany agriculturally productive and verdantly green in spring and summer.

Rothenburg’s nooks and crannies are all postcard photos waiting to be taken in this medieval town, beginning with the crenellated towers topped with turrets above the gates opening into this walled city above the Tauber River.

We walked through the cobbled streets, taking pictures of the signs hanging over the streets of bretzels at the baker’s shops and dragons at the taverns. The gabled homes are painted in pastel colors. Other homes have criss-crossing timber designs while even more homes feature a mixture of pastel colors and timber. Coats-of-arms are sculpted right onto the walls of the more well-to-do residences.

The St. Jakobskirche (Saint Jacob’s Church) dates from the fourteenth century and has several sculptures depicting Santiago de Compostela pilgrims. There is even a statue of a Santiago de Compostela pilgrim in front of the church, wearing the typical wide-brimmed hat with a string to protect against the sunlight and rain.

The church documentation did not say if the church was a pilgrimage route to Compostela or not, but the presence of these statues suggests that it was. The art insider’s secret to identifying a Santiago de Compostela pilgrim is the presence of scallop shells.

Across from the church, we went to a local family restaurant located in a hotel called the Reichs Kuchenmeister. A beautiful wood interior with planters of flowers and upholstered booths awaited us. Three generations of Bavarian families sat at tables around the restaurant. Beautifully dressed and coiffed children conversed easily with grandparents and parents as they sat up straight with elbows off the table and ate with their fork in the left hand and knife in the right.

We hung up our coats on the coat rack; you always hang up your on the coat rack in Germany and never place it on your chair. It is considered uncouth to do otherwise.

We ordered the three-course menu and red wine. The wine was actually called schwarzriesling, or black Riesling. I am not sure how this wine is made – if it’s a mixture of varietals or a single varietal called schwarzriesling. In any case, the wine tasted of raspberries. The wine was served in what I thought were oversized glasses until the seductive perfume of the raspberries wafted over to me before I even picked up the glass. “Oh, this is going to be good!” I thought to myself. The wine was excellent with the duck we had as our main course.

To begin our meal, though, we started with a white wine soup with lebkuchen croutons. Lebkuchen is German for gingerbread. Nuremburg, which is right up the autobahn form Rothenburg, is famous for its lebkuchen. The lebkuchen of Rothenburg is pretty good, too, especially on top of white wine soup.

Our second course was duck breast braised in red wine sauce. The fat on the duck breast was deliciously crunchy despite the braising. I love duck breast especially when it comes in beautifully fanned out slices, but I was bowled over by the gorgeous side dishes that came with this meal.

The first side dish that impressed me was the baked apple half topped with a sweet not tart cranberry sauce that left the fruit intact.

Next came the Bavarian dumpling made from flour. Dumplings are made from flour in southern Germany where the soil is rich. In northern Germany where the soil is poorer, dumplings are made from potatoes. The delicate texture of the dumpling melted in my mouth especially as I used pieces of it to soak up the wine sauce.

Once I finished my braised duck breast and wine, I served myself some braised red cabbage. I thought this would be sour, but instead it was sweet and savory at the same time. I just let it unctuously melt in my mouth. Cabbage cuts the grease in duck and makes it more digestible. There are all sorts of culinary secrets like this in gastronomy, but they take a few decades to learn.

Dessert was a light treat. We ate a rum-laced gelato that topped tart apple sauce. Coffee followed and was served with a small chocolate morsel like they do in all countries with a Germanic influence. This Bavarian meal was equal to and superior to many of the meals that I ate in French restaurants during the seven years that I lived there.

More walking around town ensued with a walk back to the car along the ramparts high above the Tauber River. The day was overcast and the mist rose off the Tauber River just like the sfumato in da Vinci paintings. Rothenburg is Germany’s medieval gem.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art - Book Review

2010-10-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art (Kodnansha, 1980) by Shizuo Tsuji reflects everything I associate with Japan: challenge in its recipes, elegant art in its illustrations and photographs, and crisp prose albeit in English provided by Tsuji’s student Mary Sutherland.

The cookbook’s introduction by the doyenne of American letters M.F.K. Fisher, who chose food as her metaphor, stuns in its message for American readers. I have truncated one of Fisher’s beautiful several-line sentences to provide the gist of the cookbook: “As children raised in the lands of plenty, we do not learn to count on the curl of carrot and one fried gingko nut to detract us from the fact that the rest of the food on the plate” does not amount to much.

In mountainous Japan, there is little arable land. Fish occupies the central position in the Japanese diet due to lack of land for raising livestock. Fisher simply states,”…there is not enough space to grow food to feed all of the people.” This situation was true of Japan in the 1980s and makes one wonder if the Earth’s burgeoning population will soon make it true of the entire planet. Fisher writes that Tsuji believes that Japanese cuisine has made it possible for the Japanese to survive social upheaval in Japan.

Tsuji continues Fisher’s reasoning when he stated in the preface that “our cooking, too, is simply the result of an acute awareness of the seasons.” You will note that he does not focus on ingredients. In fact, he counsels that when cooks cannot locate exact ingredients that they should use what they find at market in the spirit of Japanese cuisine: use the freshest possible in-season ingredients prepared using Japanese techniques and beautifully presented. Tsuji further notes that “the essence of Japan’s culture is its closeness to nature” and later he states that it was “born of austerity.” In an overly polluted world, Japanese culture will be the first to suffer and perhaps disappear.

As a cookbook, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art qualifies as a work of cultural anthropology. Part one deals with basic recipes, presentation of meals complete with suggested seasonal menus, ingredient descriptions and illustrations, utensil descriptions, a whole chapter on knives sharpened on one side like swords, ingredient selection and cutting techniques, and a chapter on tea and sake. Part two provides recipes making up 220 for the entire book.

I have never cooked from this book, but I have learned a lot about food and the environment from it.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Everything Tastes Better Outdoors - Book Review

2010-10-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

Claudia Roden’s Everything Tastes Better Outdoors: An International Celebration of Alfresco Dining (Fireside, 1984) encourages readers to gather their picnic baskets, coolers, and thermoses and fill them up for an outdoor feast. As Roden makes your mouth water with her succulent recipes from around the world, she also discusses the role of alfresco dining and foods in various cultures.

Roden devotes half of her cookbook to “take out” foods that you make at home and eat elsewhere. She begins with recipes for hot soups like Italian minestrone, Moroccan harira bean soup, and Virginia country-style consommé to fortify stalwart picnickers such as the British, who will brave cold and rain to enjoy a picnic. A recipe for Spain’s cold, puréed vegetable soup, gazpacho, makes an appearance here as well as one for a cold, yogurt and mint soup from the Middle East.

Readers could open their own deli with the recipes Roden provides, but the recipe for Mufulleta shows off the genius of New Orleans: an Italian round loaf is stuffed with green and black olives along with Italian pickles in a sour vinaigrette with mounded salami and provolone cheese filling out the sandwich. Roden discusses how to make pita sandwiches Indian with a mashed potato or cauliflower filling or Arabic with a meat filling as lahma bi ajeen. She introduces readers to Danish open-faced sandwiches, and no doubt will make readers chuckle as she describes MFK Fisher’s foil-wrapped sandwich that you have to sit on to make it acquire panini-like thickness.

The arrival of modern food preparation equipment such as the food processor has made picnic foods like eggplant purée, hummus, hot and spicy Moroccan carrot dips, and Greek fish roe salad called taramasalata a quick fix for the picnic basket. French terrines and mousses do not all benefit from food processors, but those that require a smooth texture like chicken liver mousse certainly have.

Roden explores the world of omelets as picnic fare for the benefit of her American readers: Arab onion omelets called ajja; Iranian herb omelets called kuku that are finished under a grill; Spanish tortilla de patatas, potato omelets; and Italian frittata, which are almost like pizza in their variety of possible ingredients. Cold meats, poultry, and seafood either as salads or as entrées with sauces such as poached salmon or a Mexican turkey or chicken salad with lime, chili, and cilantro make an ordinary picnic extraordinary.

Roden’s recipes shine everywhere, but her out-of-the-ordinary salads would make a reader’s contribution to any potluck the most sought after dish. These salads include Waldorf Salad from the United States, Moroccan grated carrot and orange salad, Greek salad, Salad NiÇoise, marinated mushrooms, and ratatouille, a vegetable stew.

Cheese transports well if it is kept cool according to Roden. She reminds us that luscious fruits make for the best end to a picnic meal. However, she does give a recipe for fruit fools made of fruit purée mixed with whipping cream that only a ripe mango could beat for taste.

She finishes her “take out” foods chapter with descriptions of the English Tea Tradition that she witnessed as a young woman in Alexandria, Egypt; Virginia Revival fare; Middle Eastern picnics especially the Arab mulids at religious sites and shem en nesseem, which heralds the arrival of spring; a Japanese picnic for moon gazing and picnics to celebrate the blooming of chrysanthemums and cherry blossoms; and a Himalayan picnic related by Indian writer Madhur Jaffrey.

The second section of Roden’s book is devoted to “Cooking in the open,” and it provides recipes and techniques for cooking with a barbecue, a spit, and a grill. She reminds readers that kebabs made on a grill are often available in areas of the Middle East where no restaurant tradition exists. Roden quotes literary passages to illustrate the splendor of roasting a wild boar at a Texan barbecue; the graveyard banqueting tradition in China where money from trust lands are used to honor ancestors with a feast; a mini culinary history of Southeast Asia where Roden writes of the fusion barbecue tradition that produced saté, peanut barbecue sauce, in an area where Islamic traders had a hand in influencing the culture; and improbable picnics in India where Roden writes that eating is “a private affair not to be witnessed by onlookers.”

Improbable gourmet meals on boats, in campers, and at campsites make up the third section of the book. Boiling water, burning embers, and lack of extensive kitchen equipment would seem to make eating well difficult. However, Roden counsels taking along sauces, herbed butters, vegetables, pickles, potted meats and fish, rillettes, salamis, and fruit chutneys to dress up travel foods. Berries, fish chowders, and gravlax made with raw fish represent some of the ideas that Roden offers readers to liven up meals in the wilderness.

The recipes for alfresco dining that Roden has collected from around the world will make readers want to picnic even with snow on the ground; you can always spread a blanket on the living room floor and have an indoor picnic.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Mennonite Foods & Folkways from South Russia - Book Review

2010-10-30T00:47:00.000-07:00

Cookbooks like Mennonite Foods & Folkways from South Russia, Volume 1 (Good Books, 1994) by Norma Jost Vost should make its readers want to seek out their families’ traditional recipes and honor their female ancestors. Without the contributions of Mennonite wives and mothers as cooks and household managers, it is doubtful that the Mennonites would have survived their many persecutions and immigrations.

The Mennonites have their origins in Switzerland with the preaching of Ulrich Zwingli and the organization in 1525 of a protestant group called “The Brethren” by Conrad Grebel in Zurich. The Brethren believed in adult baptism. Persecuted for this view as well as their abhorrence of war, this group went to the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, a Catholic priest named Menno Simons joined the group in 1536 and became the leader of a large group called the “Mennonites.” Spanish persecution of the Dutch Mennonites prompted them to go to the Vistula River area in what is now Poland in the 1530s. The Mennonites used their backbreaking skills in land reclamation acquired in the Netherlands to create farmland from the Vistula River Swamps. This work initially won the Mennonites exemption from military service as well as wealth. When Prussia took over the Vistula River region, the Mennonites were once again forced to leave their homes.

This time they were invited by Catherine the Great of Russia in 1756 to settle on the uncultivated steppes of the Ukraine around the Dnieper River and other uninviting territories such as some in Siberia and South Central Asia to tame and wrest a living from the soil while securing the territory for Russia against invasion. Once again the Mennonites worked and prospered just in time to be considered landowners by Bolshevik Revolutionaries. The Mennonites starved after the Bolshevik Revolution due to famine and began moving to the United States, Canada, and Paraguay. Travel expenses made them poor immigrants, but they again worked and prospered after several generations in North America.

The upheavals experienced by the Mennonites may have made them conservative about clinging to the foods and traditions associated with them for comfort.

Vost begins her history of Mennonite foods in the Netherlands not Switzerland. Dutch cooking served as the base for Mennonite cuisine from which other cuisines added or subtracted to it often as a function of climate and soil type. The Dutch diet that the Mennonites adopted included hearty lentil and pea soups, meat stews, and root vegetables. Herring was also part of the diet. The Netherlands was dairy country and still relies heavily on milk and cheese in its diet. Poor Dutch grains made for poor bread by later Mennonite standards. White bread was held in esteem in the Netherlands and may explain the Mennonite preference to use it in the form of Zwieback buns to mark weddings and funerals. Vost speculates that Zwieback, the signature food of the Mennonites, may have had its origins in the Netherlands.

The West Prussian influence from the Vistula River area saw the Mennonites drop many vegetables from their diet and rely more on root vegetables as the soil was poorer according to Vost. The Mennonites also adopted and developed a love for pork in the Vistula River region. They used lard and fat for frying and seasoned foods with bacon Vost writes. Mennonite women created Tilsit cheese here, which is still made in the area despite the departure of the Mennonites.

The Russian influence on Mennonite cuisine revolved around grains such as rye, barley, and wheat according to Vost. Potatoes, which grow well in poor soil, became part of the diet. Fruit orchards contributed to the many fruit soups especially those eaten as part of Sabbath meals.

Vost writes that in North America, food “[r]estrictions came from poverty and pioneering… rather than from foods they could not replicate.” It is heartbreaking to read about a woman who could not use all the sugar she wanted to in her Zwieback buns that called for one teaspoon of sugar.

Vost notes that for Mennonite women, “Cooking was a matter of pride.” These women knew that what they contributed to their families’ well-being and community survival through their cooking and household work equaled the work of men in the fields. Mennonite Foods & Folkways from South Russia, Volume 1 provides a great testimony to the role of Mennonite women in the perseverance of their community.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Art of the Table - Book Review

2010-10-30T00:23:00.000-07:00

Suzanne Von Drachenfels’s The Art of the Table: A Complete Guide to Table Setting, Table Manners, and Tableware (Simon & Schuster, 2008) delights readers with its evocation of pre-World War I formal dining and its informal dining heir that almost everyone except heads of state practices now.

Von Drachenfels begins her discussion of dinnerware with a quick history of the subject from Neolithic times (circa 10,000 B.C.E.). She writes about Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman pottery; Chinese pottery and porcelain; Islamic pottery, European pottery and porcelain; English pottery and porcelain; and American pottery and porcelain. She then treats readers to an extensive study of decorative methods and styles used in dinnerware and a piece-by-piece discussion of the uses, care, and purchase of plates, bowls, and cups. She repeats this same organization of information when writing about flatware, stemware, and table linens

She lays out at length how to serve meals at a formal dinner service, at an informal dinner service, at a dinner service from a buffet, at formal and informal luncheons, and at afternoon and high teas. She aces the chapter on dining finesse where she addresses the issue of seating arrangements, giving thanks, and making toasts.

The book’s star section is about menu planning, which has one of the best summaries of European wine classifications around. She also discusses the order of the wine service and how to correctly open a bottle of wine. Coffee, tea, and table manners receive air time in the book as well.

The Art of the Table is a superlative reference for those people catering large scale functions or sweet luncheons or even sweeter bridal couples making their wedding wish lists.

(Cookbook reviews will be the topic of the radio show Culture with Ruth Paget on Sunday, November 7, 2010 at noon ET – New York Time – on the Asnycnow Radio 3 channel on www.blogtalkradio.com. A podcast of the program will be available on iTunes and at blogtalkradio.com.)

Writing Cookbooks - Book Review

2010-10-29T23:56:00.000-07:00

Writing Cookbooks by Judith Comfort (Self-Counsel Press, 1997) may be dated and perhaps out-of-print, but it is packed with practical worksheets to organize every aspect of publishing a cookbook – seventeen in all.

Comfort is an expert in producing community cookbooks. Groups such as religious organizations, museums, and cultural groups raise money though these difficult-to-manage cookbooks. They often have many contributors with differing writing styles, untested recipes, and multiple recipes of the same dish.

What community cookbooks often do is preserve cultural history according to Comfort. This is particularly true when describing holiday meal traditions. The author notes that community cookbooks have many potential buyers, because there are so many contributors. In the age of social networking media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbleupon, it is possible to leverage publicity far and wide with a widget that allows you to share on these media. One of the personal touches that Comfort writes about is how some community cookbooks feature poetry.

Community cookbooks require incredible organization and tact to pull off the effort. Comfort notes that ideally you should have separate committees to do the following:

• Publishing
• Recipe editing and tasting
• Production
• Proofreading
• Publicity
• Inventory and sales

Writing Cookbooks may be difficult to find, but it is worth the effort for the detailed organization sheets it contains along with experienced counsel on how to produce a cookbook.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Recipe Writer's Handbook - Book Review

2010-10-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

Some reference books make you want to bow before them, because they are so well researched, documented, and written. The Recipe Writer’s Handbook by Barbara Gibbs Ostmann and Jane L. Baker (John Wiley & Sons, 2001) is such a reference book.

For more than thirty years, the two authors have worked to standardize recipe formats while avoiding formula, so that a recipe writer’s personal style and voice shines through his or her work. “How you write a recipe depends on the cooking experience of your target audience,” the authors write. Recipe errors cost money, time, and your reputation, reflecting the need for accuracy and consistency. Kitchen testing by someone other than the author is the key to successful recipes according to the authors.

In a side note, the authors bring up the subject of culinary illiteracy. This refers to the lost generation who no longer possess cooking skills. As farming communities lost population to cities, cooking skills disappeared it would seem with the advent of microwaves, packaged foods, and lack of gardening space.

Ostmann and Baker provide their recipe style sheet and counsel authors on how to prepare their own versions in case publishers do not provide them with one. One of the final chapters in The Recipe Writer’s Handbook gives recipe writing guidelines for Professional or Large Quantity Cooking, Recipes for Children or Beginning Cooks, and High-Altitude Cooking. The chapter on cooking terminology will help recipe writers distinguish among sautéing, frying, pan broiling, and braising, for example.

Cookbook writers for international audiences will love the chapter on how to adapt U.S. recipes to metric and Imperial measures. Writers can learn how to do nutritional analysis of recipes here as well. The chapter on recipes for radio, television, and the Internet has useful content. The Resources section is a reference dream.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Will Write for Food - Book Review

2010-10-29T22:55:00.000-07:00

Learning to write from books you like is preferable to using how-to books. However, the case of writing cookbooks merits some excursions into reference and instruction books, because good cookbooks reflect poetic technical writing.

I have wanted to write a cookbook for almost twenty years, but, alas, my mom usually made reservations for dinner. I have persisted in learning how to cook and know a great cookbook when I see one now thanks to reading books about how cookbooks are written and studying my favorite cookbooks.

I have about 250 cookbooks in my personal library, but the “Larousse” is in my head now. I might part with some of my cookbooks, but not with Dianne Jacob’s Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Restaurant Reviews, Articles, Memoir, Fiction, and more just in case I decide to write a cookbook one day. (Marlowe & Company, 2005). The title says it all, but there is so much more inside this treasure chest of a book.

The chapters on “The Cookbook You’ve Always Wanted to Write” and “The Art of Recipe Writing” provide glimpses into:

• How cookbook writers got started
• What’s a good cookbook idea
• Outstanding recipe writing

Chapters end with writing exercises although Jacob points out that this is not a book for beginning writers. Jacob does provide many resources for memoir and fiction writing though in her extensive bibliography. Jacob notes in her Acknowledgements that she donates ten percent of her book proceeds to the Alameda County Community Food Bank (AACFB). This is the kind of social marketing that I would like to see more cookbook writers adopt.

Jacob’s sense of humor makes the highly competitive field of food writing seem like a wildly bumpy hayride that you want to jump into headfirst. If you are interested in cookbook writing or other food writing, Will Write for Food should be your first stop.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Recipes for Success: A Guide to Advanced Cuisine - Book Review

2010-10-29T22:29:00.000-07:00

Snazzy fundraiser dinners, retirement banquets, and elegant large weddings enter the realm of the everyday cook or event planner when readers make use of a textbook for teaching international cuisine such as Recipes for Success: A Guide to Advanced Cuisine (Delmar Publishers, Inc., 1988) by Roland Chaton and Walter Talmage.

The authors state that what makes this recipe collection unique is the adaptation of European recipes for American ingredients. Many times when European chefs come to the United States, they fail because flour is milled differently, growing seasons differ, and certain vegetables and fruits may not be available due to consumer demand (i.e. green versus white asparagus). The authors provide the conversion formula for multiplying recipes in measurements, but explain that most recipes can only be made in fixed-number batches.

The majority of the recipes just cover one page and at most two. Main dishes come with wine suggestions from France and California. This is an older book and will amuse with a few references to California champagne and California Chianti. European wine suggestions are available as well and the wine pairings are right on and will please diners.

Even if readers never plan to cook large yield recipes, this book will teach readers how to obtain the best catering services for wedding receptions, for example, and always obtain the best value for their money. As this is a textbook, there are chapter questions. However, the questions require readers to use deductive reasoning as chefs must do when a sous-chef quits, a supply orders does not arrive, or the electricity runs out. Answering these chapter questions will teach readers how to think on their feel like best chefs and caterers in town.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

English Food - Book Review

2010-10-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

One would think that Jane Grigson’s English Food (Penguin, 1977) would offer many recipes for fish as England is an island nation. Grigson surprises readers, though, with her many meat recipes. And, the meat recipes are not limited to prime cuts; they include offal meat recipes along with recipes combining offal meat with prime cuts to stretch the prime cuts.

English Food’s focus on meat reminds the reader that England almost single handedly created the Bordeaux region by importing its wine throughout the centuries. English cuisine resembles that of Bordeaux in its focus given to meat that marries well with wine.

When the fish recipes appear in English Food, they detail what kinds of fish the English like and what the English send to France. The shocking absence in the fish section is a recipe for Fish ‘n’ Chips. One senses that there might be a bit of a class issue here, but the reader does not need to dwell on absences to enjoy the recipes.

The real treat in the cookbook is Grigson’t extensive review of English cheese. She even provides pairing suggestions for cheese type and fruit. Pairing cheese and fruit is an English tradition that merits a whirl.

English cooks like their Scandinavian cousins excel at baking. Grigson’s book tantalizes with heartwarming recipes for cakes, biscuits, and pancakes. Her thorough description of the tea tradition, which explains the difference between tea and high tea, displays the appropriate occasions for eating all the baked goodies.

Making the recipes in Grigson’s English Food will dispel any prejudices readers may hold about English food.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Food and Cooking of Eastern Europe - Book Review

2010-10-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

Readers almost feel sorry for Lesley Chamberlain whose book The Food and Cooking of Eastern Europe (University of Nebraska, 1989) debuted in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. One reviewer even called her book a “museum piece.” Chamberlain points out that the lack of international influence for so many decades on the Eastern European cuisines has allowed them to remain distinct from one another.
Although, these cuisines are distinct, they often use the same basic ingredients to create something totally different from their neighbors by using different seasonings. Chamberlain states that the cuisines of Eastern Europe reflect the solid food of Central Europe, “heavily influenced by Germany and Austria; at its most exotic it is the food of the Balkans and the Near East.”

The countries covered in the book include the former East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia as well as the present day countries of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania. Chamberlain chronicles what is unique in each country for its cuisine s well as dining traditions. She continues on to provide history and insightful comments throughout all of the recipe chapters, which makes the book an enjoyable read. Engravings scattered throughout the book add to the reader’s aesthetic pleasure.

Cabbage appears in the cuisines of the entire region. The plant is actually native to the Mediterranean. All of Eastern Europe would be hard pressed to live without cabbage as it is a major source of vitamin C.

Chamberlain’s book is truly groundbreaking in providing recipes for Albania, a heretofore unknown culinary player. All of the countries described deserve their own cookbook; let us hope that Chamberlain will write more cookbooks as enjoyable and useful as this one.

Ruth Paget
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Olowe of Ise: A Yoruba Sculptor to Kings - Online Exhibit Review

2010-10-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

Olowe of Ise: A Yoruba Sculptor to Kings, an online exhibit organized by the National Museum of African Art, challenges the notion that African art was made by anonymous sculptors. (http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/olowe/olowe.htm)

The exhibit opens with the statement “Anonymous has a Name.” The exhibition notes state that patrons and people living in their communities certainly knew who they were. The problem of attribution arose “because early ethnographers failed to ask ‘Who made this?’” The result is that most African artwork is identified by style or “of the ethnic group that produced them.” One artist who escaped the “anonymous” attribution is Olowe of Ise (c.1875 – c.1938), who was born in Efon-Alaiye in Yorubaland (the region located in the modern nations of Nigeria and the Republic of Benin).

Olowe was a Yoruba, and the Yoruban rulers and wealthy families of “Ilesa, Ikere, Akure, Idanre, Ogbagi and other towns located within a 60-mile radius of Ise” commissioned highly stylized and intricate works of art from him. The objects Olowe sculpted for these patrons included doors, veranda posts, and personal and ritual objects.

Exhibit viewers learn from the art work on display and the exhibit notes that Olowe’s style features sculpture with elongated and angular forms often carved in high relief.

Today his work is appreciated by Western art historians as well as members of Yorubaland and the Yoruban diaspora “a result of the Atlantic slave trade and religious pilgrimages to Mecca [extending] from Senegal to the Nile in Africa and from North to South America.”

The final element of the exhibit contains a song of praise called an okiri. Praise songs form an important part of Yoruban culture, and this one dedicated to Olowe will assure his immortality among the Yoruba. One line in particular will resound with talented and successful people, who have had to deal with vicious yet mediocre and jealous individuals:

“Whoever burns him [Olowe] invites trouble.”

Olowe of Ise: A Yoruba Sculptor to Kings will leave viewers wanting to see an even more extensive collection of his work and other African sculptors.

Ruth Paget
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Caravan Kingdoms: Yemen and the Ancient Incense Trade - Online Exhibit Review

2010-10-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

Caravan Kingdoms: Yemen and the Ancient Incense Trade, an online exhibit organized by the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, explores the cultural traditions in the trade of frankincense and myrrh in what has become modern-day Yemen.

Since the first millennium BCE, there has been a demand for perfumes and incense in the Near East and Egypt viewers learn from the exhibit notes. The fragrant smoke of burning frankincense made it a highly prized possession. Likewise, myrrh was used in incense and as a “component of medicines and perfumes.” Frankincense and myrrh both come from trees, whose growing area was restricted to parts of eastern Africa, the Southern Arabian Peninsula, and parts of India. Both substances were the “most sought-after forms of incense in the Mediterranean world…” This fact combined with limited supply made the kingdoms which controlled the trade in frankincense and myrrh wildly wealthy.

The exhibit begins with a discussion of these kingdoms under the rubric of “Desert Kingdoms.” The vast desert called the Ramlat as-Sabatayn “occupies Yemen’s interior, and the caravan kingdoms established along this desert’s edge dominated the region during the first millennium BCE.”

Four kingdoms, each occupying a major valley around the Ramlat as-Sabatayn Desert, controlled the incense trade at one time or another. These kingdoms were the the Saba, Qataban, Awsan, and Hadrmawt. The most celebrated of these kingdoms is that of Saba, thanks to the biblical Queen of Sheba. Saba with its capital at Marib was held together by its Sabaean language and shared veneration of the god Almaqah. The incense trade and agriculture made possible by sophisticated irrigation systems assured the caravan kingdoms of great wealth.

However, the exhibit notes inform viewers under the rubric of the “Mountain Kingdoms” that in “the first century BCE, political and economic interest shifted from Yemen’s inland desert to the sea and its nearby mountains” due to the need to defend against the growing challenge of the Roman Empire.

The mountain dynasty of the Himyar conquered the kingdoms of Qataban, Saba, and Hadramawt during the first centuries of the common era. From their capital at Zafar and through their main port of Mouza (modern Mozza), the Himyar Kingdom imported Mediterranean and Near Eastern “artistic styles, subjects, and craft traditions.”

Writing and literacy date from the very earliest times of these trading kingdoms; where there is trade, there will be accountants who need a writing system to record accounts. The exhibit notes inform viewers that “over ten thousand inscriptions survive in South Arabian, a Semitic language related to Arabic and Ethiopian.” The script of the language is based on twenty-nine consonants. Writing inscriptions exist, which cover a period of 1300 to 1400 years in this region.

Samples of writing along with votive objects and funerary objects complete the exhibit.

Caravan Kingdoms: Yemen and the Ancient Incense Trade will surely enlighten many of its viewers about the “little-known cultural traditions these kingdoms create” as they supplied the world with frankincense and myrrh.

Ruth Paget
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Art Nouveau, 1890 - 1914 - Online Exhibit Review

2010-10-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Anatomy of an Exhibition – Art Nouveau, 1890 – 1914 encompasses a multimedia, mini-course in museum studies around the exhibit Art Nouveau, 1890-1914 available online now as an art exhibit organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum of London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (http://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/nouveau.shtm)

The exhibition is divided into three parts with examples of the art available for viewing in text files with audio accompaniment at the exhibit’s end. These parts deal with the following issues in the development and elaboration of the art nouveau style:

*The 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, which debuted Art Nouveau’s entry into the art scene as the “first new decorative style of the twentieth century.”
*The various sources that influence the style
*The development of the style in the cities of Europe and North America where the style took root

*The Paris World’s Fair, 1900

Fifty-one million people visited the Paris World’s Fair, called the Exposition Universelle in French. Fair goers were able to view art nouveau “architecture, furniture, jewelry, ceramics, posters, glass, textiles, and metalwork” in a pavilion organized by art dealer Siegfried Bing. The name of Bing’s Parisian gallery, L’Art Nouveau, gave the artistic movement its name according to the exhibit notes.

*The Sources of Art Nouveau

The sources of Art Nouveau represent many cultures and the environment. Art Nouveau artists liked Celtic and Viking designs for their interlocking, linear patterns. The same artists employed “the delicate, curvilinear rococo style of the eighteenth century.”

The “flat color patterns” and “stylized organic forms” of Japanese woodblock prints also appealed to many of the art nouveau artists. Native art traditions such as the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood and the arts and crafts movement nourished the Art Nouveau style in Britain. Symbolist artists, who focused on the “psyche and spirit” guided the Art Nouveau movement in France and Belgium exhibit viewers learn from the exhibit notes. By far, nature was the leading source of inspiration Art Nouveau artists, who saw the interconnections among “human, animal, and plant forms.”

*The City

Art Nouveau was primarily an urban art form that sought to bring nature-inspired decorative arts into industrial cities. Each of the following cities were major centers of Art Nouveau:

*Paris – Hector Guimard, the leading Art Nouveau artist, designed the floral, green entrances to the Paris Métropolitan subway system that have become emblematic of the city.

*Brussels – Wealth from “colonial expansion in Africa” and Industrial Revolution capital gave Belgians the funds needed to commission Art Nouveau homes such as the Tassel House by Victor Horta.

*Glasgow – Linear restraint derived from Japanese art typifies the Art Nouveau style of artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh

*Vienna – Influenced the “geometry of the Glasgow school” and Japanese design, the artist Gustav Klimt led the Secession group as Art Nouveau was known in Vienna.

*Munich – In Germany, Art Nouveau was known as Jugendstil with Otto Eckmann as the movement’s leading proponent.

*Turin – Known as the stile floreale in Italy for its “curving, floral designs,” Art Nouveau was practiced by the famous furniture designer Agostino Lauro among others.

*New York – The glass manufacturer and artist Louis Comfort Tiffany was the most prominent Art Nouveau artist in New York, whose work was admired by European and American patrons alike.

*Chicago – The Art Nouveau architect Louis Sullivan was one of the few American architects to find a place in the international Art Nouveau movement.

The exhibit notes sum up the Art Nouveau movement by saying it “was short-lived” and had disappeared by the outbreak of World War I before inviting exhibit viewers to go through an audio tour of selected Art Nouveau objects.

Art Nouveau, 1890-1914 is a fabulous foray into an art movement that still elicits delight when viewing its sensuous forms based on the natural world.

Ruth Paget
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Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries - online exhibit review

2010-10-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries, an online exhibit organized by the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, traces the development of the Portuguese Empire and challenges viewers to rethink colonization as a one-way imposition of cultural beliefs. (http://www.asia.si.edu/encompassingtheglobe .)

The introduction to the exhibit notes underscores this idea of mutual sharing of culture and information: “Portugal’s explorations extended south to the west coast of Africa; west to Brazil; and east through the Indian Ocean to India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China, and Japan. Paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, maps, and other extraordinary works of art from these places show the formation of the modern view of the world.” The exhibit covers the breadth of the Portuguese Empire under six categories: The Age of Discovery, Indian Ocean, Africa, China, Japan, and Brazil.

*The Age of Discovery
The Portuguese set out to conquer the sea routes to India as a means of dominating if not monopolizing the spice trade. Prior to the Portuguese sea voyages, the spice trade had been dominated by “the Venetians and their Muslim partners in the Eastern Mediterranean” according to the exhibit notes. Spices were used to flavor food and drink and were thought to protect against airborne diseases.

The capture of Ceuta in 1415 marked the beginning of the Portuguese Empire. Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, located on the Tagus River “became a major center of world trade in the sixteenth century, after Vasco da Gama opened the sea route to India.”

One of the immediate results of Portuguese exploration around the world was the development of collections among wealthy European rulers of the “kunst-und Wunderkammer (chamber of art and wonders). These collections, called kunstkammers, contained “the most striking and unusual products of nature and man” acquired from distant lands and served at the forerunner of the modern-day museum.

*Indian Ocean
In late 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed into the Indian Ocean and discovered a “long-established network of maritime trade connecting ports from East Africa to what is now Indonesia.” In order to capitalize on this trade network, the Portuguese created the Estado da India (State of India) with administrative headquarters located “in the city of Goa, on the west coast of India.”

Where traders went so did missionaries. The Jesuits, the popular name for the Society of Jesus, “dominated missionary activity in the Estado da India.” The Jesuits were famous for establishing rigorous schools throughout the Portuguese Empire that trained not only priests, but colonial administrators as well.

*Africa
Portuguese navigators explored the coast of Africa beginning in the 1430s and rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Portugal sought gold in Africa, but began slave trading in earnest in the seventeenth century “when the sugar industry expanded to Brazil and the Caribbean islands.”

*China
The Portuguese colony at Macao became the base for Jesuit missionary activity in China. Using the long-established Jesuit policy of converting from the top down, the missionary Matteo Ricci (1552 – 1610) and other Jesuits settled in Beijing with the pope’s blessing “to become fluent in Chinese and to ally themselves with Confucian scholars.” The mathematical and astronomical skills of the Jesuits placed them in high demand at the Chinese court; the Jesuits could predict eclipses better than the Chinese astronomers, for example, which endeared them to the rulers. However, the Jesuits won very few converts to Christianity in China.

*Japan
The Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier (1506 – 1552) used the Jesuit strategy of evangelizing from the top down to convert the daimyo or warlords of Japan to Christianity. While meeting with initial success and winning “the establishment of the Jesuit base at Nagasaki,” Christianity was eventually banned by the daimyo. The most lasting Portuguese contribution to Japan was firearms.

*Brazil
In 1500, Pedro Alvarez Cabral “sailed into the Western Atlantic to take advantage of favorable winds and by chance landed on the coast of Brazil.” The Portuguese created a colony in Brazil rather than a trading post as it had done in its other domains.

The Portuguese based the colony’s first economy on Brazil wood, the source of a valuable dye. However, the Portuguese saw that huge profits could be made in sugar cultivation and introduced that industry into Brazil along with slave labor from Africa. Later, gold and diamonds were discovered in what is now called Minas Gerais (general mines).

Exhibit viewers can follow Portuguese exploration with the aid of Google Earth that has set up an application for the exhibit.

Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries allows exhibit viewers to take in the vast Portuguese Empire and see through its artwork the interchange of cultures from the portrayal of the Portuguese in the bronze sculptures of Benin to the exotica found in kunstkammers around the capitals of Europe.

Ruth Paget
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Caliphs and Kings: Art and Influence of Islamic Spain - Online Exhibit Review

2010-10-28T00:43:00.000-07:00

Caliphs and Kings: Art and Influence of Islamic Spain, an online exhibit organized by the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, uses artwork to trace the enduring influence of Islamic art from the eight hundred years of Islamic rule in what is now modern-day Spain to the time of the voyages in the Americas. (http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online.asp .)

Exhibit viewers learn in the introduction that the Iberian Peninsula formed part of the Islamic world for “almost eight hundred years, from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries.” Arabic speakers called the land “al-Andalus,” and it was famed for its sophisticated population of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. The inhabitants of al-Andalus transmitted the advanced artistic culture of Islam to Western Europe along with re-introducing the works of ancient Greek scholars such as Aristotle.

The artwork used to tell the story of Islamic Spain in the exhibits “explores the magnificence of the Umayyad Caliph at Córdoba, the refinement of the Nasrid Court at Granada, and, especially the Christian patronage of Muslim craftsmen in Spain.”

The first item in the exhibit is an elaborately carved cylindrical container called a pyxis, circa 966. The pyxis bears an inscription which attests to its function of being a receptacle for smaller containers of perfume. An ivory container such as this one could have been used at the Umayyad court at Madínat al-Zahra for offering gifts or tribute payments according to the exhibit notes.

One of the exhibit’s most impressive pieces is a bowl from the 1370s from Manises, a suburb of modern-day Valencia. This lusterware bowl is an example of Mudéjar art – Mudéjar refers to the art of Muslims working for Christian patrons. The prestige of the lusterware produced at Manises “can be gauged by the impressive number of heraldic shields found on these wares, representing noble, ecclesiastical, and royal patrons.” The lusterware industry at Manises flourished until the early seventeenth century. At this time, moriscos (Muslims converted to Christianity) were expelled from Valencia.

Islamic influence is also found in the textile industry. A silk panel from Granada, circa 1400, features interlocking, geometrical bands that repeat themselves in a fashion that “is similar to the tile work in the Alhambra Palace in Granada.” The Nasrid court at Granada favored this style, which also appears in the “tile work, woodwork, bookbinding, and painted stucco.”

Delicate, embroidery-like ivory inlays in floral and geometric patterns in wood also characterized Islamic luxury goods such as the chest in the exhibit, which probably came from Barcelona, circa 1500 to 1600. The exhibit notes state that this type of Mudéjar decoration “was officially repressed in the 1520s,” but tastes for luxury products die hard.

The last object in the exhibit is a planisphere or world map drawn by “the Florentine cartographer Juan Vespucci, nephew of Amerigo Vespucci, in the Casa de Contratación in Seville.” Vespucci’s map was one of many that helped develop a secret map for navigating the New World’s waters at the Contratación called the Padrón Real. With this map in hand, Spanish navigators could then spread their love of Islamic-inspired design throughout the growing empire.

Caliphs and Kings: Art and Influence of Islamic Spain reveals a part of Spain’s history that many viewers may not be aware of; this online exhibit is an absolute winner.

Ruth Paget
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The Language of Native American Baskets - Online Exhibit Review

2010-10-27T21:35:00.000-07:00

The Language of Native American Baskets – from the Weaver’s View, an online exhibit organized by the National Museum of the American Indian, invites viewers to learn about this art form, largely practiced by women, and its relationship to the environment. (http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/baskets )

In his introduction to the exhibit, Bruce Bernstein, Assistant Director for Cultural Resources at the National Museum of the American Indian, writes that “[i]n earlier days, baskets accompanied Indian people throughout their lives – Babies were carried in baskets, meals were prepared and cooked in them, and people were buried in them.” (Exhibit viewers may be perplexed as to how you could cook in a basket; it certainly was not placed over flames. Rather, liquid was placed in the baskets and stones heated in fire were then placed in the baskets. If you ever see scorch marks in a basket, they most probably came from this cooking method.) Bernstein further remarks that the exhibit focuses on the lives of five contemporary weavers to show how basket weaving is a living art.

What is distressing about the interviews with the weavers in the exhibit is how close the art came to dying out due to undervaluing the arts of Native Americans. Fortunately, the women in the exhibit and others like them persisted in learning the art of basket weaving even if it meant having to figure out weaving techniques for themselves.

Viewers learn in the exhibit that there are four basic weaving techniques used to construct baskets – wicker, plaiting, twining, and coiling. The exhibit notes describe these techniques in the following manner and give examples of them:
“wicker, plaiting [and] twining all interlace wefts (horizontal elements) and warps (vertical elements), but each technique brings to basketry subtleties of design, color, and form. Coiling is more like sewing.’

Weaving techniques are what weavers talk about when they discuss each other’s work. When weavers critically assess baskets as a work of art they hold it up close “to see how it is begun and finished, what materials its maker used and how she used them, her choice of stitching, which designs she chose and how she placed them on the basket’s surface.” These same criteria can be applied to what Native Americans call “burden” or work baskets as well; there is an entire segment of the exhibit just devoted to burden baskets that will impress viewers with how even functional items demonstrate a high level of creative and artistic attention.

This high level of artistry exhibits itself thanks to tradition, which provides values rather than formulas to weavers. The same could be said of Renaissance art in Europe; the subject matter was largely defined by religion, yet the execution of the subject matter resulted in a form that was dynamic, enduring, and still celebrated.

Despite the growing numbers of Native Americans who are practicing basket weaving, there are threats to the continued existence of the art form which include:
“scarcity of raw materials or their [the weavers’] limited access to them, health risks from the use of pesticides and herbicides at plant-gathering sites, and the problem on non-Native making and selling of baskets as ‘Indian-made’”

The Language of Native American Baskets – from the Weaver’s View elicits respect not only as a Native American art form, but as an art form practiced largely by women.

Ruth Paget
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Ethiopian Icons: Faith and Science - Online Exhibit Review

2010-10-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

Ethiopian Icons: Faith and Science, an online art exhibit organized by the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution, represents a perfect example of how to use a select number of art works to explore a theme. (http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/icons/index.html) This particular exhibit uses six icons from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries to explore issues of the faith carried out by a curator as opposed to the science of preserving the art work carried out by a conservator.

Viewers learn from the curator’s section of the exhibit that Ethiopian icons date from the mid-fifteenth century to the present day. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is a much older institution than the use of icons in its faith. The exhibit notes inform viewers that:

“In the fourth century, the young Syrian Christian Fromentius became an important advisor to the royal court of the Aksumite Kingdom of Ethiopia. Credited with converting the king, sponsoring Christian merchants, and building churches, he was the first bishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and is still venerated as Abba Salama, father of peace.”

Viewers further learn that the Ethiopians truly practice the precept of “it is better to give than to receive” in their use of icons. Church patrons first commission icons from artist-priests. Three forms of icon are acceptable: single panels, diptychs (two-paneled icons), and triptychs (three-paneled icons). Church patrons do not keep the finished icons for their personal use however. Instead, church patrons give their finished icons to the church for “display on holy days and public processionals.”

The curator’s section provides a glossary of terms, which provides more information about Ethiopian history and culture. Exhibit viewers learn here that Ge’ez is “the ecclesiastical language of Ethiopia used on icons.” The use of Ge’ez on icons reminds one of the Slavonic language found on icons in the Slavic churches of the Orthodox Church.

The curator’s glossary gives mini hagiographies of Ethiopian saints. The life of Abba Ewostatewos, in particular, shows how the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had contacts with Christendom well beyond its borders:

“Abba Ewostatewos (1273 – 1352)…established a monastic order in Ethiopia before leaving for Armenia in 1338 as a result of a religious dispute. His followers returned to Ethiopia after his death and founded monasteries.”

Science comes into play when looking at these six icons in the exhibit, because they were the focus of a yearlong conservation effort that sought to research materials and techniques as well as conserve the artwork. A treatment case study illustrates how to preserve an icon with before and after images and opportunities to view detailed conservation processes.

The conservator glossary provides extensive technical information. The definition for Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy reminds viewers that organic substances were used to paint and varnish icons. Despite the databases set up to identify organic substances, conservation remains an imperfect science.

A bibliography rounds out the art exhibit.

Ethiopian Icons: Faith and Science introduces viewers to Ethiopian church culture and does an outstanding job in educating viewers about what goes into conserving art work.

Ruth Paget
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Wrapped in Pride: Ghanian Kente and African American Identity - Online Exhibit Review

2010-10-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

Wrapped in Pride: Ghanian Kente and African American Identity, an online art exhibit organized between the National Museum of African Art and the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture of the Smithsonian Institution, explores the “best known of all African textiles.” (http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/kente/top.htm )

Kente cloth is made by the Asante peoples of Ghana and the Ewe peoples of Ghana and Togo we learn in the exhibit. It is traditionally worn as “festive dress for special occasions in toga-like fashion by men and by women as an upper and lower wrapper.”

“Bright colors, geometric shapes and bold designs” characterize the cloth. We learn from the exhibit notes that “[k]ente comes from the word kenten, which means ‘basket.’ The Asante peoples also refer to kente as nwentoma or ‘woven cloth.’”

Kente is usually woven by men and carries names from sources evoking “proverbs, historical events, important chiefs, queen mothers, and plants.” Historically kente was reserved for kings, the king’s household officials, and the king’s political allies. As the use of kente became more widespread, it still retained its regal association; wearing “[k]ente is comparable to an evening gown or tuxedo in Western cultures.”

In the section on “How to Wear Kente” not only do viewers learn how to wrap kente for wearing, we learn how to wear it properly; “…it must be worn so that the woven patterned strips are straight horizontally and vertically.”

The online exhibit Wrapped in Pride: Ghanian Kente and African American Identity invites several viewings especially for the interactive kente design feature at the exhibit’s end.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

East of Eden: Gardens in Asian Art - online exhibit review

2010-10-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

East of Eden: Gardens in Asian Art, an online exhibit organized by the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, introduces viewers to the differing and similar conceptions of gardens held in South and West Asia versus East Asia through artwork. (http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online.asp ) In the exhibit’s introduction, we learn that “[t]he very word ‘paradise,’ a synonym for the Garden of Eden, is derived from the walled orchard gardens and hunting parks of ancient Iran, known as pardis.”

The gardens of South and West Asia were born of the arid, desert landscape that surrounded them; “the most critical feature was water,” the exhibit text informs us. The favored garden type featured the “four-part” garden called the chahar-bagh. The chahar-bagh style was organized using interconnected pools and watercourses. These interconnected pool and watercourses “…divided the surrounding landscape into quadrants and lent a sense of order and symmetry” to the environment.

The gardens of Southa and West Asia were often located outside of cities in walled enclosures. The enclosed structures “became symbolic expressions of the king’s power and control over his domain,” the exhibit notes inform us. These private spaces also allowed men and women the opportunity to interact without constraint in a society with many strictures on relations between the genders in South and West Asia.

In East Asia, the gardens of China and Japan had differing origins that may explain some of their most striking outward manifestations. Written sources record the earliest gardens in China as dating from circa 1050 – 256 B.C.E. in the Zhou Period. These gardens “consisted of large hunting grounds, reserved for the royal elite” according to the exhibit notes. On the other hand, Japanese gardens we learn “probably evolved from the sacred groves and rock outcroppings in Shinto shrine precincts where gods were worshipped.” The artwork on display illustrates these different approaches to gardens and allows viewers to become familiar with the conventions used for signaling the existence of a garden in artwork.

The exhibit notes maintain, however, that “certain basic features…are common to most East Asian gardens and help define a distinctive regional aesthetic.” Among these features are the enclosed gardens found in urban courtyards as opposed to gardens found outside the city in South and West Asia. Both Chinese and Japanese gardens are designed so that they can offer the viewer something to appreciate in each season. Most importantly, exhibit viewers learn that “[g]ardens in China and Japan, especially private ones, were frequently designed as microcosms of the natural world.”

The one element that East Asian gardens share with the gardens of South and West Asia is the key role that architectural structures played as “a space for viewing and enjoying the landscape and for a variety of human activity” such as moon viewing in Japan.

East of Eden: Gardens in East Asian Art brings out all of these themes using artwork, which viewers can examine in great detail thanks to the zoom function in the exhibit. The Smithsonian shows what unites and distinguishes Asia through garden art in this engaging online exhibit.

Ruth Paget
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Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya - Online Art Exhibit Review

2010-10-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

As a small town resident, I relish the “big city” art that I can access online through virtual tours and exhibits. I like learning about other cultures and periods of history through art as well. Seeing the real thing is best, but I have become an advocate for virtual tours and exhibits – what a national treasure. I also write to learn, which is why I chose to review this exhibit entitled Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya.

The National Gallery of Art’s online tour of the exhibit Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya functions as an archive and introduction to the art, history, and mythology of ancient Mayan civilization. Created in 2004, this online tour preserves elements from an exhibit showcasing new discoveries about Mayan writing and warfare among its artwork on display. The National Gallery of Art (NGA) collaborated with the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes and the Instituto Nacional de Antroploigía e Historia of Mexico to bring many of the works in the exhibit to the United States for the first time in exhibits at the NGA and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. The direct link for the exhibit follows:

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2004/maya/lifeatcourt.shtm

I would suggest going through this exhibit by going to the Exhibition Information section first. This section’s link will take you to the exhibition overview with links to the archived materials: the outstanding sixteen-page Children’s Guide with pages numbered using Mayan numerals, Lecture Abstracts, and the insightful press material.

The Children’s Guide to the exhibit epitomizes what an engaging tour reference can be for children. The Guide includes all of the following, which should appeal to the inner child of adults as well:

 A map showing the various ancient Maya sites, noting the key exhibit sites of Palenque, Tonina, and Yaxchilan

 Color photographs of the artwork

 Games to playing using the artwork

 An explanation of how the ancient Mayans achieved physical beauty in their culture

 A summary of the Mayan gods

 A discussion of why maize and the maize god were central to the ancient Mayan civilization

 Details about the ancient ball game that “reenacted the contests of life and death, war, and sacrifice”

 Mayan number games using their base-20 counting system

 Highlights about the stature of women in ancient Mayan culture

 A Mayan hot chocolate recipe including chili peppers.

 Writing games using the ancient Mayan syllabary and an explanation of ancient Mayan hieroglyphics

 Lists of books for further reading and websites

The Children’s Guide may well entice you to click back to the exhibit, but the Lecture Notes and Press Materials both offer insight to make the tour more engaging as well.

The Lecture Abstracts represent a boon for researchers and pose some interesting questions as you go through the exhibit. Stephen B. Houston from Brigham Young University, in particular, outlines some interesting topics in the abstract for his talk The Memory of Bones: Body and Experience among the Courtly Maya of the Classic Period. Houston’s remarks make you consider the natural and symbolic roles of the body in Mayan civilization as well as in your own.

The Press Materials give paragraph-long summaries of each of the exhibition sections by describing selected artwork. These summaries along with the Lecture Abstracts and the Children’s Guide provide an excellent background for better understanding how the artwork was used in Mayan civilization. The Children’s Guide does such a good job of explaining the exhibit that I will only highlight a single object from each of the exhibit sections.

 Life at the Maya Court

The Portrait Head of Pakal (c. 650-683) illustrates how maize affected canons of beauty as well as form the basis of Mayan civilization. His stylized hair makes him resemble maize “emerging from the cob.” Pakal the great ruled in Palenque and is often referred to as “Pakal the Great.”

 The Divine Court

If you select the Learn More about the Maya Gods option, you will find images and discussions of the various deities. The maize god was supreme in Mayan civilization, but I cannot help but love a culture with a chocolate god. A bowl with images of the chocolate god reminds visitors that cacao is native to the tropical Americas. The text points out that cacao beans functioned as currency and the Popol Vuh, the Mayan creation myth, relates how cacao and maize have a common ancestry.

 Women at Court

Lady Xok of Yaxchilan shed her royal blood by having sharp awls drawn through her tongue in order to gain divine favor as shown in the lintel entitled Bloodletting Ritual of Lady Xok. Self sacrifice in this manner bestowed great influence on Lady Xok even if she did not wield power.

 Word and Images

Exhibit viewers can play with the base-20 numbering system as well as the writing system in this section. A game using a real artifact invites players to decipher a Mayan number. If you become stumped, you can always revisit the Children’s Guide for an explanation.

 The Court at War

War captives received mistreatment in perpetuity in Mayan culture where sculptural reliefs of pained faces and distorted figures became the treads of stone stair cases as in the Relief of a Captive from Monument 27 of Tonina.

 Palenque

The Mask with ear Ornaments (c. 600 – 800) of Pakal the Great of Palenque created in jade and embellished with shells and obsidian illustrates the wealth and artistic refinement of the civilization of the ancient Mayan court.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia - Online Exhibit Review

2010-10-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

The National Gallery of Art’s online tour of Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia: Millennium of Glory uses interactive web software to create an exhibit that shares the history, culture, and religious iconography of the Khmer civilization through text, video, and audio files. The majority of the artwork in the exhibit comes from the National Museum of Cambodia (Phnom Penh) and the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet (Paris).

Each major era of Khmer art has a hyperlink to a page with two or three short paragraphs describing the era, a QuickTime video link that allows you to move around the exhibit and click on artwork for its description, and RealPlayer audio links for selected artwork that gives supplementary information about the work and its place in Khmer civilization. The text, audio, and video elements of the exhibit bring different information together to create an appealing new kind of museum experience for the online visitor.

The exhibit introduction page describes the conditions that set the stage for the rise of Khmer power and its monumental art complexes and sculpture between the sixth and sixteenth centuries C.E. Most importantly, the Mekong River system provided the transportation network allowing for commerce to generate building funds. Secondly, trade routes between China and the Middle East brought traders and travelers, who introduced Khmer society to Hinduism and Buddhism.

In the early Khmer period and up to the twelfth century, the Khmer rulers adopted Hinduism as their religion while allowing Buddhism and its art to coexist with Hinduism. The Pre-Angkor Period section of the exhibit provides a succinct description of the central tenets of Hinduism and names the principal Hindu deities that figure in much of Angkor’s art:

Brahma (the creator)

Shiva (the destroyer)

Vishnu (the preserver)

Khmer rulers identified themselves with either Shiva or Vishnu until Buddhism became the state religion.

If you click on the photo of Vishnu from the Pre-Angkor Period page, you can see the swaying hips, broad shoulders, and fleshy, naturalistic modeling of the body that distinguishes the art of this early period. Buddhist art from the Pre-Angkor period also manifests the naturalistic forms seen in Hindu sculpture until the eighth century C.E. when Khmer art becomes more formal and distant, commanding respect on the part of the viewer.

The Pre-Angkor Sculpture page provides easy-to-understand explanations regarding:

• The central tenets of Buddhism

• Why and how Prince Siddharta became Buddha

• What Bhodisattvas are and what they do

Buddhism’s day as the state religion of the Khmer civilization would come in the late 12th century.

The monarchy that would make Angkor famous began in 8092 C.E. when Jayavarman II unified Cambodia. (Varman, as one of the audio segments points out, means “protector” and figures in the name of all the Angkor monarchs.) However, it was Indravarman (r.877-886) who began the building program that would make Angkor and its environs famous. Indravarman commissioned the first “temple-mountain” built, which was called Bakong. Bakong and later temple-mountains symbolized Mount Meru, the Hindu home of the Gods. Indravarman also commissioned the building of a reservoir that provided water to the temple moats as well as for agricultural needs during the dry season; the Angkor complex served spiritual as well temporal needs.

A statue of Vishnu from Jayavarman II’s reign that you can select from the photo reflects the values of the new ruler: Vishnu stands in a rigid pose signaling the new distance between rulers and ruled. The symbols justifying this distance are portrayed with Vishnu: the staff, globe, disk, and conch shell. The audio description which accompanies the sculpture details what each symbol means, but the important element to retain is that the rulers were the earthly embodiments of the deities, commanding obeisance.

Indravarman’s son Yasovarman (r.899-early 10th century C.E.) commissioned the first reservoir and temple-mountain complex called Bakheng at the actual site of Angkor and continued the monumental, regal, and austere style of his father. The exhibit continues to provide historical information on the Tenth Century and the Art of Koh Ker and Banteay Srei as well as the Eleventh Century Art of the Kheleang and Baphuon.

In the early twelfth century C.E., Vishnu became all important as a deity during the reign of Suryavarman II (r.1113-at least 1145) when the monarch chose this deity to represent him. The bronze torso and head fragment of Vishnu from what was once a monumental sculpture must be one of the treasures displayed in this online tour. This sculpture originally showed a sleeping Vishnu (the preserver) on the back of the serpent of eternity with water flowing out of Vishnu’s navel. When Vishnu wakes from his sleep a golden lotus bearing Brahma (the creator) will emerge from his navel.

This identification of the Khmer rulers with deities made the rulers omnipotent. Even the Buddhist sculpture of the 12th century C.E. shows Buddha asking with a crown, earrings and distended earlobes, and jeweled belt. While the exhibit describes this kingly aspect of Buddha as the “later Khmer conception of Buddha as King,” there is a historical basis for this representation. Prince Siddharta (who later became Buddha) was born into the Ksatriya caste in the Hindu religion. The Ksatriyas form the princely and warrior caste of Hinduism. As part of this caste, it would be expected for Siddharta to wear jewels and a crown. Once he renounced his princely birth, he set upon the path to becoming enlightened as Buddha.

Buddhism would find its place as state religion in the Khmer Empire when Angkor reached its zenith under Jayavarman VII (r.1181-1218). Jayavarman VII extended the Khmer Empire by conquering the Chams of central Vietnam and extracting tribute money from most of Thailand and Laos.

The audio recording that describes the photo of the sculpture of the head of Jayavarman VII records the devout Buddhist as saying, “The suffering of the people is the pain of Kings.” The sculpture of Jayavarman VII’s head depicts as sharing Buddha’s characteristics – the long distended earlobes caused by wearing heavy earrings as a price in his youth and eyes closed to the “Illusion of earthly things” as the audio informs online visitors. The Buddhist Bayon Temple built in the center of Angkor Thom is his contribution to Angkor.

The Cambodian capitol moved to Phnom Penh in 1431 when the Thai Kingdom captured Angkor. After this period, wood sculptures predominated alluded to for several reasons in the exhibit text. If you click on the photo of the wooden Worshipper sculpture from the Post-Angkor Section of the online tour, you will discover its description as a Theravada Buddhist work, focusing on spiritual humility rather than metaphysical speculation. Theravada remains the predominant form of Buddhism in Cambodia to this day.

If you have never participated in an online tour of an exhibit, Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia: Millennium of Glory will impress you with its content and composition. The direct link to the exhibit follows:

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/cambodia/camrm9-8c.htm

(Online art exhibit reviews will be the topic of the Culture with Ruth Paget program on Sunday, October 31, 2010 at noon ET – New York Time – on the Asnycnow Radio 3 channel on www.blogtalkradio.com . Podcasts of the broadcast will be available on iTunes and www.blogtalkradio.com. )

This review was originally posted on Ruth Paget’s Redroom blog.

Jerusalem - Book Review

2010-10-25T00:48:00.000-07:00

Colin Thubron begins his narrative travel story Jerusalem (Penguin, 1969 and republished in 1996) with a description of the Jewish concept of the city: “Long after their dispersal, the Jews looked back in yearning to their fathers’ city, radiant with the beauty of the unattainable, and thought it the shadow of paradise.” (pp. 1-2) Christians inherited the thought of a rebuilt New Jerusalem , and Muslims venerated the city as their third most holy sacred site. These intersecting visions of the holy land have clashed throughout history resulting in warfare and strife, but Thubron contrasts history with “dream of the divine” (p. 4) that Jerusalem’s citizens and pilgrims experience alike there.

Thubron makes an extended stay in Jerusalem. He chose not to dwell in an international hotel; he preferred to stay in “a foundation of the Polish sisters of St. Elizabeth, who keep a tiny hospice in the soul of the Christian quarter.” From this sanctuary of peace, Thubron makes forays into the religious communities that make up Jerusalem and visits the sites associated with Christ’s life and crucifixion in particular.

Thubron learns, for example, that “[t]he Moslem religious leader is different from most others. He is both pastor and politician, and because Islamic law is still operative, he may be judge and legist as well.” (p. 33)

We also learn that the Via Dolorosa followed by pilgrims today as the route that Christ walked shouldering the cross was the one that the Templars and Augustinians followed. The Franciscans developed the Via Dolorosa further in the fourteenth century according to Thubron. Thubron continues his history of the Via Dolorosa by noting that “[t]hree hundred years ago the way had almost found its present form, with fourteen stations clustered along it, but it lay already sixteen feet above the Roman city level.” (p. 103)

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is witness not only to Christ’s salvation, but also to the selfish divisions that run throughout Christianity. Thubron informs us that “[s]ix communities divide the church: the Latins –Franciscans – were installed after the Crusades, the Greek Orthodox almost since Christianity began. The Armenians acquired rights in 1829…, and minor concessions were granted to Copts, Syrian Orthodox, and Abyssinians.” (p. 115) What is shameful is that there were “scuffles and knifings” (p.115) around the Holy Places as the various church members fought for supremacy in the church’s operations. Thubron relates that “for years Moslem policemen stood guard to prevent the ministers of God [from] attacking one another.” (p. 123)

In Thubron’s final analysis, he writes that Jerusalem works “in the service of religion, and when the pilgrims fail, the people are poor.” (p. 166) The greatest strength of Colin Thubron’s Jerusalem is that he allows the city to exist on a human plane with its defects.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Oysters of Locmariaquer - Book Review

2010-10-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

Travel writing as a pretext for carrying out excellent ethnographical and scientific research allowed Eleanor Clark to win the National Book Award in 1965 for her book The Oysters of Locmariaquer (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1964 and republished in 2006).

Fresh, raw oysters are a luxury item for the upper-middle class and the rich in France, whose grueling cultivation is largely carried out by women. The subject of Clark’s book is the Armoricaine oyster cultivated “around the mouth of the Gulf of Morbihan, from which this southern department of Brittany gets its name. It is Breton for Little (bihan) Sea (mor).” (p.3)

Clark makes the distinction between “the plump crassotrea angulata called the Portugaise, which is cheaper and faster-growing” (p.4) and “the oyster of oysters, the most expensive…the indigenous ostrea edulis – called Armoricaine for the ancient name of Brittany.” (p. 4).

The ostrea edulis often appears on menus as “belon,” but this refers to their maturing phase as Clark points out. Bretons refer to this particular kind of oyster as “les plates,” the flat ones. Almost all of “les plates” begin their lives in the Morbihan a few miles away from the village of Locmariaquer.

The conditions in the Gulf of Morbihan are perfect for birthing oysters, but not for raising them as readers discover from Clark’s book. In fact, Clark records the four critical stages in the cultivation of ostrea edulis as follows:

1) production, from collection of larvae, or captage du naissin…to an age…of two years;

2) l’élevage, raising, until the oyster is three or four years old;

3) l’affinage, a further refinement of quality, over a period of a few months to a year; and

4) l’expédition, meaning not just shipping but a complicated set of procedures to get the oyster ready for market. (p.22)

Step 1 is carried out on millions of white tiles, generally set out in June, when the conditions are just right for the oyster larvae to attach themselves to the tiles. Step 2 sees the oysters sent to other locales, usually in Brittany, to fatten them up.

Clark’s story of the Armoricaine oyster explores all the efforts of scientists such as Dean and Coste to save and maintain oyster breeding grounds, highlights the struggles of the women who toil in the oyster industry, recounts the difficulties of the priests who minister to the Breton parishes where oyster cultivation takes place, and provides a chart of oyster types that distinguishes the oysters based on price and delectability.

The Oysters of Locmariaquer captures the interlocking roles of community and environmental science to create an industry who product still excites the taste buds of the wealthy.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Companion Guide to Florence - Book Review

2010-10-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

Eve Borsook sets the stage for her monumental Companion Guide to Florence (2001, Companion Guides) when she relates that while Florence, Italy has always been a small town, it was the fountainhead of Europe’s Renaissance. Some of the greats who have called Florence include Dante, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli.

Borsook organizes her book around town quarters, provides maps, detailed information on what can be found in and on the buildings she lovingly describes, and a history of the people who inhabited the quarter. She follows these descriptions with practical information at the end of the book on where to shop, eat, and stay in Florence.

Borsook excels at bringing history to life through telling the stories of the Florentines who inhabited the palazzos and piazzas as well as the life of unfortunates who passed through the Bargello when it was a prison and not a sculpture gallery.

When Borsook describes the Palazzo Vecchio she points out that not only is it a “fortress of municipal liberty,” but also “a monument to the victorious Guelphs, who finally crushed the Ghibelline or imperial party at Benevuto in 1266.” (p. 40) The Guelphs represented the Papal party and as the Medici later became bankers to the papacy, this alliance was maintained for centuries. The Ghibellines were the pro-Imperial-Hohenstaufen party. References to both of these parties are not uncommon in modern-day Florence.

The heart of Florence is centered upon the cathedral or Duomo. All contracts we learn in Borsook’s book carried the stipulation that the work carried out should be “Pìu bello che si può” – “as beautiful as possible.” The white, rose, and green-black marble that sheathes the Duomo and Florence’s other churches attests to the absolute adherence to the making of things “as beautiful as possible” policy. Competitions were regularly held to decide what art would adorn these institutions, resulting in works such as Ghiberti’s “Doors of Paradise” on the Baptistery and Brunelleschi’s soaring cathedral dome.

Santa Croce held position as Florence’s necropolis in the wool workers’ quarter. Florence owed its wealth to the wool trade and the Franciscans who operated Santa Croce preached to the workers. The Franciscans used painted murals illustrating the life of Christ in much the same way that sculpture at Chartres Cathedral in France was used to teach those with little or no education.

In contrast to Santa Croce, the Church Santa Maria Novella was run by the Dominicans, known as the Hounds of God. The church’s forbidding interior reflects the militant clerical order according to Borsook. She writes of the Dominicans that “[t]he conquest of heresy was their initial task.” (p. 139) The Dominicans fought heresy “not with love as the Franciscans did, but with the sword and fiery tirades.” (p.137) The Dominican spirit is reflected in the church’s art:

“They were less interested in making sacred history popular than in impressing the faithful with the infallibility of a theological system. This explains the appearance of many of the large murals in Santa Maria Novella which are not so much illustrations of stories but dogmatic expositions.” (pp. 139 – 140)

Both Franciscan and Dominican thought held sway in Florence, the town of bankers. Borsooks shares with readers that the Florentines created two commercial institutions in the 13th and 14th centuries, allowing them to become the bankers of Europe. These inventions were the “international letter of credit, the other was the coinage in Florence in 1252 of the gold florin, which established the first stable international currency.” (p. 208)

To complete the picture of Florentine thought and life, Borsook writes about Marsilio Ficino and the Neo-Platonic Academy. Ficino’s translation of Plato’s Dialogues set the cornerstone for the birth of the European Renaissance. Later he was the tutor to Lorenzo Medici called “the Magnificent.” Borsook informs us that “[f]or the neo-Platonists religion and philosophy were sisters. They believed that the active and contemplative life went hand in hand. Lorenzo had the habit of saying that without Platonic philosophy one could never be a good citizen nor penetrate the mysteries of Christianity.” (p. 266)

These anecdotes from Eve Borsook’s Companion Guide to Florence represent the tip of the iceberg of knowledge about the town she clearly loves. Readers will treasure Borsook’s tribute to one of the world’s shrines to civilization.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Viennawalks - Book Review

2010-10-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

J. Sydney Jones evokes the history of Vienna in his book Viennawalks (1994, Holt) through his promenades in the heart of Vienna’s First District. Architecture can impart culture as well as history when you have experienced guides such as Syd Jones to lead you.

In Viennawalks, we learn that the Celts were the first inhabitants of Vienna, giving it the name Vindobona, probably referring to the churning of the Danube at this spot according to Jones. The Romans took control of Vindobona in the first century C.E. Vienna stood in the center of trade routes and grew wealthy. Vienna grew wealthy when trade was good and poor when it was bad. Jones writes that this trade situation still affects the Austrian mentality with its love of monopolies and need for connections to get anything done.

In the winding, narrow streets of the medieval quarter, we learn through the pages of Viennawalks that streets were built this way to cut down on rushing, cold winds as well as to make it difficult for enemies to penetrate the city.

In the Jewish quarter, we learn that without the Jews there would have been no fin-de-siècle culture for which Vienna is famous. Jones writes that ‘[t]he modern mentality is unimaginable without the achievement of such Jews as Freud, Mahler, Schoenberg, Herzl, Kafka, Wittgenstein, Buber, Stefan Zweig, Schnitzler, and legions of other philosophers, writers, and scientists.” (p.78) Indeed, modern thought in the Western world had its origins in the works of these thinkers, making Viennese history become less of a provincial undertaking.

A walk that shows the outline of defense ramparts against Turkish invaders displays military architecture. In short, the Viennese built defenses designed to keep the enemy at bay until their rapacious appetites had scoured the countryside dry of all resources, forcing an enemy retreat.

The Habsburg’s are the imperial family associated with the city even if they did not always choose to live there. The Habsburgs came from Alsace and Swabia. “Their name comes from one of their castles Habichtsburg or Hawk’s Castle, in present-day Switzerland” (p. 127) writes Jones.

After the defeat of the Turks in 1683, Vienna became an imperial city as the provincial aristocracy began to send their sons there to be close to imperial power. The poor came to Vienna as well for the opportunities it afforded them. People slept in the sewers, rented beds in shifts, and just generally lived in cramped quarters; this may explain the popularity of cafés.

Viennawalks holds much more material and merits intent reading whether one is planning a walk in Vienna or doing armchair traveling at home.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Understanding Movies - Book Review

2010-10-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

Understanding Movies (Prentice Hall, 1999) by Louis Giannetti reveals a gem of movie wisdom in every sentence to help film novices approach the movies with new vision. Understanding Movies’s chapters on photography, mise en scène, movement, editing, sound, acting, drama, story, writing, ideology, theory and a synthesis chapter pulling all these elements together to evaluate Citizen Kane show readers how to tease out new meanings in films using these details.

Examples of how directors marshal these elements to create unique and memorable stories abound in Understanding Movies. We learn, for example, in Giannetti’s pages that “movies take so long to complete, in part because of the enormous complexities involved in lighting each new shot.” (p.17) Faces lit from below appear sinister while those lit from above appear angelic. The popular genre of film noir “is a style defined primarily in terms of light – or the lack of it” (p.18) Giannetti shares with readers.

Giannetti writes that color tends to be a subconscious, culturally-bound element in film. The color white, for instance, is associated with death in many Asian cultures rather than with life. The color green as another example is sacred in Islam.

Mise en scène makes films resemble painting in its composition of patterns and shapes on a flat surface. Vertical lines whether of people or objects create static compositions whereas diagonal created by people or line create a dynamic image.

Giannetti’s Understanding Movies delivers information about film like the preceding examples in every sentence; he literally trains your eye to see in a new way. In fact, Giannetti’s Understanding Movies makes you feel like you are suddenly wearing 3-D glasses at a film that was originally shot in 3-D. Understanding Movies is a great go-to reference on the underpinnings of what makes film great that should be in every film buff’s home library.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

How to Read a Film - Book Review

2010-10-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

How to Read a Film: The World of Movies, Media and Multimedia (Oxford University Press, 2000) by James Monaco merits a purchase if only for the definitions he offers of what distinguishes movies, film, and cinema from one another.
Monaco forever defines movies, film, and cinema in the following way:

“French theorists are fond of making the differentiation between ‘film’ and ‘cinema.’ The ‘filmic’ is that aspect of the art that concerns its relationship with the world around it; the ‘cinematic’ deals strictly with the esthetics and internal structure of the art. In English, we have a third word for ‘film’ and ‘cinema’ – ‘movies’ – which provides a convenient label for the third facet of the phenomenon; its function as an economic commodity.” (p.228)

What is wonderful about How to Read a Film is that it offers so much more than these definitions for a movie lover.

Monaco’s book fills the need for visual literacy that Monaco writes is necessary due to the vast visual information that films convey to us without our “questioning how they tell us what they tell.” (p.17) This need for understanding visual images has become even more important as video games have incorporated video techniques to create ever more sophisticated interactive game playing experiences.

Monaco writes at length about film as an art that encompasses all arts, but it is his discussion of film’s one hundred years of history that ignites the reader’s intellect as he often discusses film movements director by director and film by film.

Film buffs who want to know more and those new to the field of film criticism will enjoy the insights offered by James Monaco’s How to Read a Film: The World of Movies, Media, and Multimedia.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

A Short Guide to Writing About Film - Book Review

2010-10-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

If you have ever wanted to write a movie review, a theoretical essay, or a critical essay about film, Timothy Corrigan’s A Short Guide to Writing About Film (Longman, 1998) should be on your bookshelf.

Corrigan’s book was originally written for college classrooms, but with the advent of widespread blogs has opened up writing about films to anyone with Internet access. A Short Guide to Writing About Film offers practical advice as well as writing samples to help would-be critics do a great job with whatever media they choose for publication.

Corrigan begins his book by quoting French film critic Charles Metz, who remarked about film reviewing: “We all understand the movies, but how do we explain them?” (p. 1) Corrigan then sets forth the strategy for explaining films.

He emphasizes that you must always have your audience in mind when writing; “The purposes that become part or central to you writing will sometimes depend entirely on your audience.” (p.6) Corrigan writes that the movie review aims at a general audience with little or no film knowledge. The objective of the film review is to recommend or not recommend a film based on facts that you back up by evidence in the film.

The theoretical essay, on the other hand, has for its objective “to explain some of the larger and more complex structures of the cinema and how we understand them.” (p.9) The audience for a theoretical essay has much more technical and historical knowledge of film. The critical essay “…falls between the theoretical essay and the movie review.” (p.10) The audience for a critical essay is usually a film class and the instructor. Corrigan teaches how to write for each essay and its associated audience in A Short Guide to Writing About Film.

One of the most important insider secrets to writing about film is how to take notes especially in how to develop shorthand for describing scenes. His discussion of movie themes shows how they “become the foundation for an analysis.” (p.35) His discussion of how to write about foreign national cinemas is sage: he counsels viewing foreign films and American films with a similar subject matter to see how they are similar and how they differ.

Whatever kind of film you choose to write about, Corrigan’s A Short Guide to Writing About Film will help you write reviews that will enhance your appreciation of a film and share that appreciation with others.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Art of Dramatic Writing - Book Review

2010-10-13T21:45:00.000-07:00

If you have ever wondered why some stories succeed or fail whether in play, movie, short story, or novel form, Lajos Egri’s insightful book The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives (Touchstone, 1942) will provide you with the keys to a story’s status as a winner or flop.

Egri wrote for playwrights yet his book is routinely assigned as required reading in screenwriting and creative writing courses. Since 1942, students have been reading The Art of Dramatic Writing to find that “something to generate tension, something to create complication, without any conscious attempt on the playwright’s part to do so.” (p.xx)

For Egri, every good story has a powerful premise that is more powerful than a theme, because it identifies conflict and outcome. Egri uses the following example to illustrate what he means by premise:

“Frugality leads to waste.” (p.8) “Frugality” suggests character; “leads to” suggests conflict; and “waste” suggests the end of the play. (p.8). Egri then goes on to emulate many types of premises, which all retain “leads to” as a suggestion of conflict.

The house you build around the premise blueprint is the difference between a great writer and a mediocre one. However, Egri believes that “without exception everyone was born with creative ability.” (p. xx) He provides would-be writers with the tools to build well-rounded characters who are capable of inhering a story’s premise by being driven by motives. Egri writes that it is difficult to know where premise and character begin and end in the well-constructed story.

Later Egri lets readers know that “character creates plot” (p.98) and that successful characters and stories depend on characters who change. Egri underscores this point when he writes that “only change is eternal.” (p.47)

Egri’s book is a treasure trove for writers and readers alike. Even if you have no inclination to write yourself, Egri can teach you to become an incisive critic of why some stories leave you nonplussed or enthusiastic. For writers and story lovers alike, Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives is a must-have for home reference shelf.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Culture w/Ruth Paget - Cultures of the Middle East

2010-10-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

Award-winning author and Jerusalem-based foreign correspondent Matt Rees spoke about what unifies and distinguishes the cultures of the Middle East on Culture with Ruth Paget on www.blogtalkradio.com 's Asnycnow Radio 3 channel on October 10, 2010.

Culture w/Ruth Paget - Cultures of the Middle East

Orientalism by Edward W. Said - Book Review

2010-10-09T02:40:00.000-07:00

Edward W. Said delivers a tweedy iron fist of a scholarly read in his seminal book Orientialism (Random House, 1978); a must-read on any informed world citizen’s booklist.

Said, a Palestinian Arab, examines the studies of cultures in the Middle East carried out by French and British scholars over two centuries. Said writes that discoveries such as the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone led to information about ancient languages, yet scholars synthesized such information into illusory knowledge about the civilizations in question. The knowledge was illusory, because it was constructed to meet the ends of European Imperialism and colonial goals in the Middle East rather than in discovering what people of that region thought about themselves or their own history.

Knowledge of the Middle East was sought to control and pacify the native populations rather than enlighten. In the process of acquiring knowledge for empire’s sake, scholars defined the civilizations they studied in terms of their own culture. For example, early British Orientalist scholars described Islam as “Mohammedism.” This term equates Mohammed with Christ’s characteristics in Christianity. Mohammed, however, is a prophet delivering God’s divine words to mankind and is not divine or a part of a complex Father, Son, and Holy Spirit trinity as is Christ in the majority of Christian traditions.

Said also asserts and proves through his analysis of scholarly texts that anti-Semitism applies to Arabs as well as Jews. For example, as Semites, Arabs and Jews were “ranked” beneath Persians, who are of Aryan descent, amongst early Orientalist scholars.

For arguments like these, Said’s Orientalism has become a seminal book as what he writes about Arabs and Jews can be applied to any culture or nation that has been subject to colonial empires or imperialism.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

A Grave in Gaza - Review

2010-10-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

The horrific and grisly crimes that Matt Beynon Rees describes in A Grave in Gaza may leave readers liking this second book of the Omar Yussef mystery series without enjoying the carnage found in morgues and in front of tourist hotels in the Gaza Strip.

School teacher, now principal, Omar Yussef returns in A Grave in Gaza to do a routine school inspection in the Gaza Strip with Magnus Wallender, a Swedish United Nations (U.N.) Relief and Works Agency official in contemporary times. Upon arrival in Gaza, they attempt to free an imprisoned school and university professor. Yussef and Wallender’s attempt to save this colleague sets off a chain reaction of interlocking deaths and deals that leave Yussef forever changed.

When Wallender is kidnapped, Yussef discovers how lawless the Gaza Strip can be as each group and gang accuses the other of kidnapping Wallender for different reasons. No one seems particularly eager to save Wallender except Yussef. One Arab young man in A Grave in Gaza describes U.N. officials in the following way: “We’re better off without them. These people think they have all the answers, but they don’t know how to listen. They’re useless to us.”

Rees underscores this young man’s sentiments as he describes U.N. officials being ignorant of the Arabic language and customs and gagging on hummus.

Wallender’s statement at one point in the book may reflect how readers feel about the Middle East region as well after finishing A Grave in Gaza: “…people from the West, like me, have a very simplistic view of what’s right and wrong here in the Middle East.”

Far from asking readers of A Grave in Gaza to give up on the Middle East, Matt Beynon Rees appears to challenge readers to wise up and listen to citizens of the Middle East, who are seeking to maintain and establish law-abiding societies.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Cultures of the Middle East Radio Program

2010-10-07T17:48:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, October 10, 2010 at noon EST (New York Time), guest author Matt Rees will answer questions about cultures of the Middle East on Asnycnow Radio 3’s Culture with Ruth Paget program on www.blogtalkradio.com .
Matt Rees is an award-winning crime novelist and foreign correspondent who lives in Jerusalem. Major authors have compared his writing to that of Graham Greene and John Le Carré. The French magazine L’Express called him “the Dashiell Hammett of Palestine.”

Matt Rees covered the Middle East for a decade and a half for Time magazine and Newsweek.

His Palestinian mystery series (The Collaborator of Bethlehem, A Grave in Gaza, The Samaritan’s Secret, The Fourth Assassin) won the Crime Writers Association New Blood Dagger and has been published in 23 countries.

Rees’s newest book Mozart’s Last Aria, a historical novel about the death of the great composer will composer, will come out in 2011.

To keep up with Matt Rees online, you can follow him on his website at mattrees.net

If you cannot make the noon (New York Time) radio show, remember that the podcast will be available at www.blogtalkradio.com and on iTunes.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Requiem in Vienna - Review

2010-10-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

In the second book of J. Sydney Jones’s Viennese mystery series, Requiem in Vienna, lawyer and criminal investigator Karl Werthen agrees to take on the task of preventing someone from murdering acclaimed composer and conductor Gustav Mahler after an ardent fan, Alma Schindler, convinces him to do so.

As various musicians of the Vienna Opera show up dead and suspicious mishaps that could lead to Mahler’s demise multiply, Werthen cannot discount Alma Schindler from among the suspects of the murder attempts. The long list of suspects that Werthen develops reveals that not only is it lonely at the top, but one creates many enemies getting there as well. It is a wonder that Mahler lived and history bestows him with many original works to his credit. Jealous tongues even said at the time that he stole his greatest works from a fellow conservatory student who became insane.

While proceeding from crime scene to crime scene, author J. Sydney Jones allows readers to luxuriate in descriptions of fin-de-siècle Vienna while showing how murder exposes the weaknesses of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the 19th century.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Belshazzar's Daughter - Review

2010-10-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

Turkish police inspector Çetin Ikmen has to solve a murder that appears to have anti-Semitic overtones in Barbara Nadel’s Belshazzar’s Daughter (Felony & Mayhem, 1999), the first in the Inspector Ikmen series.

Despite the presence of a large swastika drawn in blood drawn next to the bed of an eviscerated Leonid Meyer, denizen of Istanbul’s poor Balat quarter, Inspector Ikmen takes nothing at face value. Ikmen has two prime suspects whom he traces to the scene of the crime - a bungling English school teacher and a German immigrant with Nazi sympathies - yet he refuses to jump to conclusions despite pressure from the Israeli Embassy for quick results.

Into this mix of suspects, Nadel adds a family of Russian émigrés, who still think servants are a subhuman species. Throughout Nadel’s Belshazzar’s Daughter, readers learn what a cosmopolitan society there is in Istanbul with English expatriates, German immigrants, Armenians, Jews and Russian émigrés playing significant roles in the book.

Belshazzar’s Daughter does present readers with more than a glimpse into Istanbul. We learn in the book’s pages that as late as the 1990s that Sephardic Jews still spoke Ladino, the language they spoke in Spain before being expelled from that country in the 15th century. Muslim rulers of what would become modern-day Turkey allowed Jewish immigrants to live in their country and practice their faith. Russian émigrés came to Turkey for safety as well and the family Nadel describes adds flair and speculation to Inspector Ikmen’s investigation. Whether or not one feels that Istanbul is European and/or Middle Eastern, Nadel’s Belshazzar’s Daughter will leave you wanting to read more about Istanbul and Inspector Ikmen.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Serpent in the Garden - Review

2010-10-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

Portrait painter Joshua Pope must clear himself of the theft of a peculiar piece of jewelry, an emerald necklace in the shape of a snake, as he tries to discover who the murderer is of an anonymous man in Janet Gleeson’s The Serpent in the Garden (Simon & Schuster, 2003).

Joshua Pope is hired to paint the wedding portrait of Sabine Mercier and Herbert Bentnick in this 18th century whodunit where one’s class origins determine whether or not someone will tell you the truth as Pope learns. Herbert Bentnick is a member of the landed gentry benefitting from a few generations of money and privilege. Sabine Mercier is the daughter of a military officer from Barbados. They both want the best marriage portrait in the land and hire Pope. When a murder happens on Bentnick’s Astley Estate, Pope discovers that he has the same status as a servant particularly in the eyes of his patrons despite his talent.

Pope must use all his finesse in dealing with art patrons to find the culprit who stole Sabine Mercier’s as well as identify the anonymous murder victim whom he feels more and more akin to as the story progresses. Pope feels compelled to find out who stole the necklace as his reputation equals his living and he was one of the last people in possession of the necklace. His line of inquiry constantly rubs up against class prejudices even when he wants to question the last person who held the missing necklace – Sabine Mercier’s maid. Herbert Bentnick tells Pope regarding questioning the maid, “I cannot for the life of me think what you would learn from a servant….”

At another point, when Pope confronts a possible suspect from the gentry class, this person declares, “Do you honestly think Herbert will give more credence to your testimony than mine.” Using his art of flattery, Pope does unravel all the knots he finds and in so doing provides a mirror to the society of 18th century England. Americans reading The Serpent in the Garden will enjoy seeing the forces at work in English society that led upstart colonists in the Americas to revolt and form their own county.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

How to Learn Any Language - Review

2010-09-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

Barry’s Farber’s fun and conversational book How to Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, and On Your Own (1991, MJF Books) will leave any monolingual speaker feeling left out of the global party.

Anyone who has studied foreign languages by conjugating verbs for Romance languages or rote copying characters for East Asian languages will love Farber’s asking readers, “What are your objectives?” (p.48). Why do you want to learn the language? If all you want to do is order in a French restaurant, learn restaurant French. Farber jokes by saying he likes blonde women, so he studied Swedish for fun, but Spanish for work. Setting your objectives or measures for success makes all the difference for your being able to say, “I speak French,” for example.

Grammar has a place for Farber in teaching yourself a language, but not pride of place. He reads through the first few chapters of a textbook for grammar, gets a dictionary, a newspaper or magazine, and flash cards among other tools and uses all his hidden moments to work on language study.

Language does take time and effort; you cannot get it merely by osmosis as in listening to a language lesson CD, which he likens to the behavior of a linguaphony. (p. 38) What Farber counsels, though, is working smart. When learning vocabulary, he encourages using a technique developed by Harry Lorayne about developing image pictures of words that allow you to mnemonically remember words.

For language learners, who want to excuse themselves from learning accents, Farber makes this sage observation:

A poor accent will get you what you want. A good accent will get you much more. (p. 39)

The most effective part of the book is the “Back to Basics” chapter where readers can get a course in parts of grammar in thirteen pages with examples instead of in several semesters at school. Farber smoothes the way for making grammar learning pleasurable before jumping into the commitment of learning a foreign language, which Farber likens to marriage.

While dated in the media used for language learning (i.e. use of foreign language cassettes rather than CDs), Farber’s How to Learn Any Language provides so many tips, shortcuts, and jokes for learning foreign languages that it merits tracking down a copy for purchase as a personal reference book for joining the world in speaking more than one language.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Remapping the Foreign Language Curriculum - Review

2010-09-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

Remapping the Foreign Language Curriculum (2005, Modern Language Association of America) by Janet Swaffer and Katherine Arens offers a vision of foreign language instruction that all students should use to evaluate a course on in whatever language they choose to study. While written for a scholarly audience, students who want to truly speak, read, write, and understand a foreign language would benefit from reading this book.

The objective of a foreign language course should not be rote learning of grammar rules and vocabulary but rather literacy that enables students to function in a society where a foreign language is spoken. (p. 2) To empower students with foreign language skills in more areas, there has been an influx of new media used in foreign language classrooms. Since the 1970s foreign language programs “have opened the door for expanded choices of what texts to read…The palette of offerings today now incorporates movies, websites, and popular writing along with high-culture literary words.” (p.30) Blogs have also been added to this variety of media. Interacting with these media allows teachers to focus on “production” (i.e. speaking and behavior) rather than on the regurgitation of memorized facts.

When you combine production with a variety of foreign language media from a given culture called “authentic materials,” it is easier to study contemporary society, different eras, and multicultural aspects of the language as well. (p.5) For example, French classes in high school traditionally focused on the language of France. In the foreign language instruction envisioned by Swaffer and Arens, students would study the language and culture of France, North Africa, Haiti, Quebec, and other francophone countries.

Swaffer and Arens further argue for the use of authentic materials early on as adult beginners can deal with intellectually challenging material. (p.140). They argue that grammar should be learned independently out of class (p.32); language is bigger than grammar rules. Classroom time should be used to learn to “manage cultural contexts” (p. 37) or how to behave in the foreign culture. Teachers become facilitators and resource people this scenario developed in Remapping the Foreign Language Curriculum. This change in the language teaching method alone make this book an intriguing read for serious foreign language students.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Intercultural Communication - Review

2010-09-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

“[P]rofessional communication between people who are members of different groups” (p. xi) guides the theory and examples that Ron Scollon and Suzanne Wong Scollon develop in their book Intercultural Communication (1995, Blackwell Publishers). Intercultural Communication focuses on “discourse systems,” which the authors describe as “our cultural groups, our corporate cultures, our professional specializations, or our gender or generation groups” (p. xi). Examples that highlight these discourse systems come from around the world in Intercultural Communication, but the authors field-tested the book in Hong Kong thus emphasizing Chinese speakers of Cantonese.

One of the most important differences in speaking comes between Anglo-Americans and Chinese who organize their presentation of information differently even when using English as a common language. Scollon and Scollon write that the Chinese defer the main point of a discussion until background on a topic is given in a structure that resembles the following:

Because of

Y (topic, background, or reason)

X (comment, main point, or action suggested) (p.1)

For example, a Chinese businessman might say:

The supply delivery was late the elevator is broken down.

Should we bring the materials up by the stairs?

An Anglo-American businessman would probably construct this information in the following way:

Should we bring the materials up by the stairs, since the delivery was late and the elevator isn’t working?

The Anglo-American example follows the structure of:

X (comment, main point, or action suggested)

Because of

Y (topic, background or reason) (pp 1 -2)

Practical examples of this type illustrating differences in communication styles between East Asian and Anglo-American speakers of English abound in Intercultural Communication.

Scollon and Scollon use the examples to argue that language is often like a crossword puzzle where initially we guess at meanings and then fill in information gaps more capably as we progress in a discussion. The authors also provide methods for how to probe for information to clarify assumptions held by conversation partners. (p.13) Scollon and Scollon emphasize that a successful communicator knows his or her limitations and works to bring meaning and information to light in what conversation partners say to one another. (p. 252)

Intercultural Communication provides useful advice for succeeding as a communicator in many cultures, but excels in dealing with how to work with Chinese speakers of English.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Art of War by Sun Tzu - Review

2010-09-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War (translated by Samuel B. Griffith, 1998, Easton Press) during the Warring States period (451-221 B.C.E.) in Chinese history. His book is as much about statecraft as war during this tumultuous period of Chinese when states had to remain vigilant or become vassal states or suffer annihilation. Sun Tzu leaves no doubt that preserving the state is his purposed when he opens his book with “[w]ar is a matter of vital importance to the state; the province of life and death; the road to survival or ruin.” As the textbook for Mao Tse-tung and modern Chinese leaders, it behooves everyone who wishes to understand China to read this slim book.

Sun Tzu’s advice is to avoid engagement if possible by knowing and defusing your enemy’s strategy. He advocates assimilating demoralized populations and not annihilating them. Sun Tzu wisely counsels against long, protracted wars, because they sap a country’s resources and leave it vulnerable to attack from a third party. The key weapon in war according to Sun Tzu is public image or “deception” as it is commonly translated. When it pays to be weak, you play weak even if you are strong. This trait requires the greatest strength of all. When you are weak and need to appear strong, Sun Tzu gives advice for how to achieve the appearance of strength.

Sun Tzu’s famous analogy for warfare that is often taught in U.S. business schools is to think of war as water:

“Water leaves dry the high places and seeks the hollows; an army turns from strength and attacks emptiness. The flow of water is regulated by the shape of the ground; victory is gained by activity in accordance with the state of the enemy.”

Even if you do not play by these rules, it is important to know how the Chinese are playing the game.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Food of China - Review

2010-09-20T23:24:00.000-07:00

Anthropologist E.N. Anderson explains why the Chinese eat what they do in The Food of China (1988, Yale University Press). Anderson provides a detailed history of Chinese food beginning with considerations of the natural environment up to and including a discussion of how the Chinese use food as communication in contemporary society.

Following Anderson’s argument for how Chinese cuisine was created reflects more how an art form was created than how a biological need was fulfilled. In discussing China’s natural environment to begin his book, Anderson may surprise some readers when he states that geography is the result of human intervention in China. (p.6). The most salient example of this intervention is the Yellow River’s riding high above agricultural land thanks to a system of dikes.

Anderson provides numerous examples of achievements towards building cuisine as an art by dynasty. The shortlist of these achievements gives an idea of the breadth of Anderson’s research:

• Chou (or Zhou) Dynasty (1046 – 256 B.C.E.)

Agriculture was held to be the most important function of state. The emperor performed token plowing every year beginning in this dynasty and the empress tended to silk worms right up until the end of the Qing Dynasty which ended in 1911. (p.35)

• Ch’in (or Qin) Dynasty (221 – 207 B.C.E.) and Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E. – 220)

The Chinese made innovations in noodle technology and stir-frying was introduced to China. Writings on food as medicine appeared at this time as well. (pp. 43-44)

• Medieval China: 400 Years of Disunity followed by reunification under the Sui Dynasty (581-618) and T’ang Dynasty (618 – 907)

During the period of national disunity, Buddhism and tea entered into China from India. (pp. 47-50). Double cropping of rice was adopted in Northern China. (p.54)

• Definitive Shaping of the Food System: Sung (or Song) Dynasty (960 – 1279) and Yüan Dynasty (1271 -1378)

Elaborate foods were being developed by local elites that surpassed imperial food in innovation. (p.57). Dairy foods began to be shunned for their association with foreign invaders such as the Yüan Dynasty’s Mongol Emperors. (p.66). The Mongols brought with them a liking for mutton.

• Late Imperial China: The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

New World food products such as peppers, peanuts, and corn (maize) were introduced by Chinese traders returning from Manila in the Spanish colony of the Philippines. The Portuguese also contributed to the introduction of New World food products through their colony in Macau located southern China.

• The Ch’ing (or Qing) Dynasty (1644-1911): Manchu Rule

Agricultural, herbal, and medical books circulated that reflected food’s role as a medicine.

After this detailed history of Chinese food, Anderson writes that “Chinese cooking is a cooking of scarcity” (p. 149) and describes heating and cooking methods beyond the usual Western conception of Chinese cooking as a stir-fry cuisine. He proposes a “wheat in the north” and “rice in the center and south” dichotomy that makes Chinese cuisine easier to classify.

He ends his opus The Food of China by using an example of banquet seating and serving to show how food serves as communication in Chinese society. Anderson’s The Food of China is an essential book for understanding the role of history and geography in making Chinese cuisine what it is today.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Poems of the Masters: China's Classic Anthology of T'ang and Sung Dynasty Verse - Review

2010-09-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

Poems of the Masters: China’s Classic Anthology of T’ang and Sung Dynasty Verse (2003, Copper Canyon Press) translated by Red Pine (a.k.a. Bill Porter) shares some of China’s best language of the heart” with the English-speaking world. Red Pine writes that “[p]oetry is China’s greatest art” (p.3) with the T’ang Dynasty (618-906) and the Sung Dynasty (960-1279) representing the Golden Age of Poetry.

Poetry’s pride of place in Chinese culture owes much to its functioning like photographs today; it commemorates occasions and honors friends and family, who have a place in our hearts. Red Pine writes in his preface to the collection that “no social or ritual occasion, no political or personal event was considered complete without a few well-chosen words in rhyme that summarized the subtleties of the Chinese vision of reality.” (p.3)

Learning poetry “by heart” as we say in English reflects this same sentiment. This particular anthology of T’ang and Sung poems, known as Poems of a Thousand Masters in Chinese represents a little over one hundred of China’s most quoted poets according to Red Pine. Children have been learning these poems for more than eight hundred years due to the ease of the four-line structure of the majority of the anthology’s poems.

Red Pine attributes the success through the centuries of this particular anthology of poems to the inclusion of poems that all social classes could relate to such as wishing farewell to departing friends and cleaning of the ancestral graves during the qing ming festival.

Red Pine provides the original Chinese poem in standard characters to facilitate looking up words in Chinese character dictionaries, a biography of each poem, and explanations of the symbols used in the poems in addition to his translation. Nature is present in almost every poem and often stands as a symbol for something else such as political intrigue and/or history.

The individuals who made up the body of the anthology’s poets could make for an interesting sociological study. Poets typically were well educated; some shunned the government posts they qualified for after passing the rigorous civil service examination, but the majority of the anthology’s poets were either monks or banished officials. Officials who told emperors they were ruling unjustly fell from favor, but many chose retirement rather than serve corrupt sovereigns. Poets often portrayed themselves as tipsy, harmless poets to escape censure even in retirement.

The images, scents, sounds, and sensations that Red Pine captures in his translation of Poems of the Masters evoke the Chinese love of nature and make one wish to capture life’s wonderful moments in a poem rather than in a photograph.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Tao Te Ching - Review

2010-09-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Anyone with an interest in Chinese culture will eventually encounter Taoism, either as a religion or philosophy of life. Taoism’s main text is the Tao Te Ching, written by Lao Tsu at the end of the sixth century B.C.E. Lao Tsu, an older contemporary of Confucius, wrote the Tao Te Ching after much prodding by his followers. In fact, Lao Tsu protested against writing about Taoism throughout most of his life, because it would be like trying to elucidate the unknowable.

Lao Tsu finally settled on using poetic metaphors to reflect the Tao in much the same way that Christ would later use parables as a way to teach Christianity’s higher truths to the masses. Lao Tsu was able to write the Tao Te Ching using approximately 5,000 words in eighty-one chapters. (Introduction to Feng and English translation).

The translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English of the Tao Te Ching (1972, Vintage Books) remains one of the most haunting presentations of the work thanks to the black and white photographs by English. English captures the spirit of the Tao in her images that remain with you long after you close the book.

Many of the Tao Te Ching’s sentiments reflect those found in other religions and philosophies and make the reader wonder if there was not some exchange of ideas through the Silk Road with the Middle East as there were with India. Some of the Tao Te Ching’s uncanny resemblances to other philosophical and religious systems include:

• Referring to the Tao as an empty vessel that is used but not filled (chapter 4) reminds one of the emptiness evoked by the Zen koan exhorting followers sitting in meditation to listen to the sound of one hand clapping

• Appealing to our inner child by saying that we should “give up learning and put an end to your troubles” (chapter 20)

• Looking beyond appearances: “…the truly great man dwells on what is real, and not on the surface.” (Chapter 38)

• Suppressing desire and attachment as found in Buddhism: “He who is attached to things will suffer much.” (Chapter 44)

• Hinting at Confucian ideals of moral leadership: “If the sage would guide the people, he must serve them with humility.” (Chapter 66)

• Humbling oneself as found in the Socratic thought that Plato recorded: “Knowing ignorance is strength” (Chapter 71)

• Integrating one’s work with one’s being so that it appears that you are not working which pre-dates Csikszentmihalyi’s state-of-flow work by several centuries (Chapter 81)

Whether or not Taoism affected the philosophies and religions above, the fact remains that the Tao Te Ching embodies some of the sagest advice in the world. The Feng and English rendition of the Tao Te Ching, in particular, adds to our comprehension of the Tao through its evocative photographs and beautiful calligraphy.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

How to Read Chinese Paintings - Review

2010-09-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

Maxwell K. Hearn’s How to Read Chinese Paintings (2008, Yale University Press) uses numerous paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to share the genre of scholar-official painting that many Westerners have enjoyed viewing without always knowing their symbolism. Subjects such as horses, bamboo, pine trees, and landscape paintings are familiar subjects yet their symbolism can invoke correct treatment of scholar-officials, resilience, loyalty and Taoism among others. Hearn writes that the Chinese words du hua, meaning “to read a painting,” typify the Chinese approach to unraveling the work of scholar-official painters.

Scholar-officials valued crisp calligraphy and monochrome painting that left no room to cover up errors with color; even shading was frowned upon. To become a Chinese scholar-official, one had to master calligraphy, history, and literary style in Confucian civil service examinations. The scholar-officials formed a cadre, from which painting practitioners, collectors, and critics were drawn, spanning centuries.

The scholar-official painters sought to capture a subject’s inner essence and its outer appearance by relying on line according to Hearn. Scholar-official painters used the inked brush to convey the “energy, life force, [and] spirit” (p.3) of their subjects. An absolute mastery of calligraphy acquired beginning with copying standard characters in childhood and learning “running” and “cursive” scripts later in life along with “seal” scripts made it possible for scholar-officials to produce flawless landscapes in ink. The historical and artistic knowledge of scholar-officials allowed them to express criticism of an emperor just by adopting a particular style or historical subject.

Hearn writes that the scholar-official painters used the verb “to write” rather than “to paint” to distinguish themselves from craftsmen who painted. This preference for ink on paper contrasted with the style of court artists, who relied on color and illusionistic scenes. The objectives of court painters differed from those of scholar-official painters as well; court painters aimed to please the emperors. Hearn informs readers that the role of the scholar-official was to pass historical judgment through their “poetry, diaries, and commentaries.” (p.5)

Hearn discusses forty of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Chinese scholar-official painting using detailed photography that reveals the sure brushstrokes that can evoke slowing dying trees, birds ready to take flight, and luxurious robes. The effect of the close-up photography through the book is akin to unrolling a silk scroll with a painting on it that invites you to lose yourself in contemplation. How to read Chinese Paintings also invites more than one reading and encourages viewers to not only evaluate a scholar-official painter’s technique, but to ask, “What is your lesson?”

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Japanese Society - Review

2010-09-11T15:13:00.000-07:00

Chie Nakane’s work of cultural anthropology entitled Japanese Society (University of California Press, 1970 and renewed in 1998) was written more than thirty years ago and yet this pragmatic study of how groups function in Japan still informs readers about how to conduct interpersonal relationships with the Japanese.

Nakane uses two terms to explain how Japanese society works: attribute and frame. Nakane gives the example of lathe operator and executive as being attributes of individuals in a company called Y. What distinguishes Japanese interpersonal relations is that an executive would feel that he or she has more in common with a lathe operator than with an executive from another company in the same industry.

In a similar manner, Nakane writes that student, professor, and office clerk are attributes while their university affiliation would be the frame. These members of the same university group would feel more camaraderie with their fellow university members than with people of the same attribute group at another university.

The preference for frame affiliation of the Japanese creates what Nakane calls a “consciousness of ‘them’ and ‘us’ [that] is strengthened and aggravated to the point that extreme contrasts in human relations can develop in the same society, and anyone outside ‘our’ people ceases to be considered human.” (p. 20)

This group consciousness that Nakane describes gives rise to ranking within groups and outside of them. In real physical terms, you can see this at a Japanese meal in a home where the head of the household sits with the tokonoma, or the alcove featuring the family’s artistic treasures, behind him while the lowest ranking member of the household sits nearest the entrance to the room.

You can also see ranking at work when business people exchange business card and carefully read them to see whose company has a higher rank. Knowing the rankings allows business people to modulate their speech to the proper level for the higher ranking company representative. Ranking even decides who bows last. One tidbit of information that Nakane does not mention is that the Japanese Imperial Family practically has a separate language developed for addressing them solely as the highest ranking members of Japanese society.

One might think that Japan is a very class oriented society based on the ranking that persists from the home to the company to the country vis-à-vis the outside. However, Japan is one of the world’s most egalitarian meritocracies. The university an individual attends determines his or her comfort level in Japanese society. Education is, thus, highly prized in Japan by everyone; the country’s literacy rate is 99%.

Meritocracy coupled with the competitive spirit of Japanese groups has made Japan a tremendous force in the world’s economy, cultural sphere, and increasingly in global politics. Nakane’s Japanese Society reminds us that Japan’s greatest natural resources are the work ethic and the intellect of its people.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Faith and Form: Selected Calligraphy and Painting from Japanese Religious Traditions - Review

2010-09-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the existence of online art exhibits, dwellers in small towns and rural areas can access art exhibits and other cultural events that used to be limited to inhabitants of large metropolitan areas. The museums of the Smithsonian Institution, for instance, have some of the most diverse exhibits available online. Online exhibits also remain available long after the on-site show has gone and usually offer detailed background information.

There is no one right way to view an online exhibit, but if exhibit documentation is available, I usually download that and read it before going through the art objects displayed. Online exhibits have many formats available to them as the medium is still evolving.

The Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution, which feature Asian art, list online exhibits by country. The exhibit reviewed below: Faith and Form: Selected Calligraphy and Painting from Japanese Religious Traditions invites viewers to download essays by Andrew Hare, Supervising Curator of East Asian Painting. You can also listen to the collectors whose purchases make up the exhibit, Sylvan Barnet and William Burto, speak about what prompted them to begin collecting and what they learned from the different artwork.

Each art work presented offers the opportunity to zoom in on details and listen to the collectors describe the work. To the left of art work’s image is the exhibit label with key points from the exhibit summaries. To view the different objects, you click on the art work images at the bottom of the screen.

While calligraphy makes up most of the exhibit, the exhibit essays entitled Notes on Ways in Which Japanese Buddhist Objects Convey Meanings introduce many of the fundamental concepts of Buddhism via the art work. For example, in the description of a statue of Buddha at birth, we learn that:

• April eighth is the birth date of the historical Buddha in what is modern-day Nepal
• At birth Buddha as a historical person was name Shakyamuni and lived from 560 B.C.E. to 483 B.C.E.
• Upon death, Shakyamuni became enlightened, giving us his name of Buddha
• Buddha preached a middle way between self-indulgence and self-denial, which would bring enlightenment
• Buddhism was introduced to Japan from Korea in the sixth century

The exhibit explains the symbolic meanings and origins of the pagoda, the wheel of the law, the five-pronged vajras (called thunderbolts and believed to menace the forces of evil), mandalas, and decorated roof tiles.

When exhibit viewers arrive at the calligraphy section, the essays describe sutras as being Buddhist texts, which recount Buddha’s words that were transmitted orally before being written down. The sutras were originally written in Indian languages: Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Pali. Sutras in these languages were translated into Chinese and then into Japanese.

Japanese language sutras were mostly written in a block-like script called kaisho with seventeen characters to a column to ensure clarity of understanding. According to the exhibit essays, kaisho script is characterized by the brush being lifted after every stroke in an imaginary box. This is contrasted to gyōsho text which runs together several strokes and functions like cursive writing.

While kaisho script is more common in sutra writing, gyōsho text could be used to personalize sutra writing. Learning to distinguish between these two styles allows viewers to discern meaning even in a foreign written language, one of the major benefits of poring over the documentation and art work in Faith and Form: Selected Calligraphy and Painting from Japanese Religious Traditions.

Overall, the entire exhibit functions like an art history mini-course in Buddhist iconography that will please both art lovers and collectors.

To access the exhibit, just click on the hyperlink below:

http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/faithandform/default.htm

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

A Hundred Years of Japanese Film - Review

2010-09-10T22:37:00.000-07:00

“What we know about Japanese film we owe to Donald Richie,” writes director Paul Schrader in his foreword to Richie’s book A Hundred Years of Japanese Film (Kodansha International, 2001 and revised 2005). One could just as easily add that what we know of contemporary Japanese culture we owe to Donald Richie as well. He has published on Japanese culture for more than fifty years and excels in elucidating those nuances that make a Japanese film unique.

Richie opens A Hundred Years of Japanese Film by stating that while film arrived in Japan at the end of the nineteenth century as a commercial Western product there was “a need to account for a certain Japanese tradition…a need which still remains.” (p. 10)

This need is often expressed in what Richie describes as the “presentational ethos,” which he identifies with Asia in opposition to the “representational ethos” in the West. An example explains this polarity. In the “representational” West, filmmakers would most likely film an orange “as is” to represent reality. In the “presentational” East, the orange’s skin would be removed; the sections would be separated and peeled; and the sections would be artistically arranged on a dish that matched the seasons before being filmed.

The presentational style is especially apparent in the films of Yasujiro Ozu as in his film Tokyo Story. Ozu’s placement of actors in Tokyo Story reveals narrative, or story line, though form rather than the content of what is actually said.

Once Richie has given us one of the keys to understanding the history of Japanese film, he informs us that very little of early film exists due to several factors:

• The 1923 Earthquake
• Firebombing of major cities in 1945
• Burning of banned films by the authorities of the Allied Occupation in the Post-War Period
• Industry indifference in later periods

Richie reconstructs the early history of film using existing stills, which seems an almost Herculean task when you see the number of “n.s.” in the citations, meaning “not surviving.”

After film made its 1897 debut in Osaka at a Cinématographe Lumière screening, the Japanese sought to make their own films. Taking their cue from the popularity of geisha postcards, the first directors filmed geisha dancing. The first true narrative films featured stories drawn from the kabuki theatre.

In Japan, film was considered theatre opposed to photography as in the West. Kabuki players relied on narrators to provide the story line as did noh drama and the bunraku puppet theater. Film had its narrators or, benshi, who maintained their position in film until 1932 long after the narrator tradition had died out in the West. Richie attributes the longevity of the film benshi to their go-between status as “conduits of new experience.” (p.19)

Japanese films are a perfect example of what the Japanese call “wakon yosai,” translated as “Japanese spirit and Western Culture.” This phrase emphasizes that while the means may be Western, the content and form is Japanese. This seemingly contradictory statement is still a key to understanding Japanese films along with the presentational style. Richie uses both as a guide to discussing films as diverse as Kenji Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff to Godzilla and anime.

Film buffs and lovers of Japanese culture alike will enhance their knowledge by reading Richie’s insightful A Hundred Years of Japanese Film.
Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Are video games the new literature of the 21st century?

2010-09-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

Video games are outselling movies and many players and manufacturers have claimed that video games are the new literature of the 21st century. As a diehard book lover, this state of affairs intrigues me.

The first thing I did to understand this phenomenon was to read several books on the subject. The one that answered my questions is Chris Kohler’s Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life (BradyGames, 2004). Kohler has been playing video games his entire life, taught an undergraduate course on video game history at Tufts University, and received highest honors for his undergraduate thesis on Japanese video games. Kohler turned his thesis entitled The Cinematic Japanese Video Game into the book Power Up as a Fulbright Scholar to Japan. I feel compelled to provide this information to prove that you can play video games and learn how to read. In fact, you can even become a respected scholar as Kohler has done.

Kohler gives us the clue to understanding how videos games are becoming literature when he described them as cinematic. Just as films have genres like literature so do video games. Narrative and sound, especially music, encourage video game players to advance goal-to-goal or level-to-level in games where players can role play in 3D settings now. Players “beat” the game by bringing it to a narrative conclusion according to Kohler.

Video games can now be educational, recreational, and/or both. The fact that many video games are programmable and foster teamwork make them especially important for training in the skills needed to succeed in the 21st century.

Kohler quotes a sentence from Marshal McLuhan’s book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man that sums up why readers should seek at least one video game recommendation and play it:

The games of a people reveal a great deal about them.

I just wonder if today’s video games will become like the one depicted in Ray Bradbury’s short story The Veldt.

Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Cahiers du Cinema, 1950s Review

2010-09-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

If you have ever mentioned that you like a particular director’s film, you have most certainly absorbed some of the ideas set forth in France’s Cahiers du Cinéma founded in 1951, notably that of the auteur theory. The rough translation of this journal’s name means “Cinema Exercise (or Note) Books” according to Jim Hillier, the editor of selections from this journal published as Cahiers du Cinéma, 1950s: Neo-Realism, Hollywood, New Wave (Harvard University Press, 1985).

Many of the articles published in this collection had never been translated prior to this publication and shed light on:

•The nuance of opinion surrounding the auteur theory of film creation
•Mise en scène or direction technique
•Cultural explanations of American genres such as the thriller, Western
and gangster films
•The modern example for French cinema set by Italian Neo-Realism
•Polemics, including André Bazin’s refutation of the auteur theory…sort of
•Reactions of how new technology represented by CinemaScope would affect
the artistry of films and audience response to the new technology
•The French New Wave films

What made the criticism of Les Cahiers so influential is that many of its contributors went on to become equally influential directors. François Truffaut, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, and Jacques Rivette formulated their style in articles they wrote for Les Cahiers before, during, and after directing films.

Hillier’s introduction to the journal articles attributing film criticism and filmmaking as we know it today to be a product of Les Cahiers may rankle film critics in other countries, but the fact remains that the French directed the discussion while many other critics offered their opinions on the topics raised by Les Cahiers.

The selections in Les Cahiers, 1950 show how the French were able to elicit the ire of other critics while leading the discussion on film. For example, the auteur theory attributed to Les Cahiers was discussed by several contributors to the journal in a transcription of a conversation among André Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast, Roger Leenhardt, Jacques Rivette, and Eric Rohmer. The conversation is entitled “Six Charactrs in search of auteurs.”

Jacques Rivette opens with a sentence sure to pique French tempers: “I think that French cinema at the moment is unwittingly another version of British cinema.” (p.4) Pierre Kast follows by saying “…the state of French cinema is one of total mediocrity.” (p.5). Readers may have been enraged, but they probably paid attention to what they were reading.

The auteurs being sought were directors who worked as artists like conductors or painters. The auteur theory is at work every time you see a review centered around the work of a film’s director.

One of the major tools that a director uses according to many of Les Cahiers contributors is the mise en scène – a theatre term meaning “placement on the stage.” In films, mise en scène for directors conveys this idea for what appears in a frame. However, not all contributors agreed with this concept, but the nuance of opinion is what makes Les Cahiers such a pleasurable read.

If you want an introduction to film theory and how it became the way it is, Cahiers du Cinéma, 1950s: Neo-Realism, Hollywood, New Wave will plunge you into the thick of the battle from the very first page of the introduction.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Judgment of Paris: California vs. France Review

2010-08-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

Members of the French wine industry would prefer to forget the May 24, 1976 wine tasting in Paris, which pitted California wines versus French ones. Time journalist George M. Taber, who reported on the American victories for both chardonnays and cabernet sauvignons, keeps the rivalry alive with France and other wine-producing countries in his book Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Tasting that Revolutionized Wine (Scribner, 2006).

Taber recounts the history of how and why the California wines won through stories of the wine makers and promoters who made it happen. The Cinderella story of California wine begins with the English salesman Steven Spurrier, owner of the Caves de la Madeleine wine store in Paris. Spurrier engineered publicity events to attract the wealthy Anglo-American community to his store and its associated wine school, the Académie du Vin. Spurrier’s American business partner Patricia Gallagher traveled to Napa Valley in 1975 followed by Spurrier in early 1976. Napa wines impressed them both. Gallagher came up with the idea for the California vs. France tasting in May 1976.

At the time, French wines commanded all the respect and the markets for superior quality wines. The rigorous Appellation d’Origine Controlée (A.O.C.) system in France created the administrative framework for making premium wines. The A.O.C. regulations determined the varietals that could be grown in certain soil types, the amount of wine that could be produced per area, and the adherence to tradition for everything from how the vines were pruned to forbidding irrigation. These regulations and more went into creating the meaning of the French terroir for wine.

A talented Russian, steeped in A.O.C. winemaking, named André Tchelistcheff seized the chance to make a name for himself in America when he accepted a position to work as the winemaker at Beaulieu Vineyards in Napa Valley. As he made wine, he also worked as a consultant to many of the wineries that won the 1976 tasting. The Slavic immigrant to the United States with the most rags-to-riches story is Croatia-born Mike Grgich. He came to the United States via Germany and Canada with $32 in the sole of his shoe. After stints with Souverain Cellars, Beaulieu, Robert Mondavi, and Chateau Montelena, Grgich finally opened his own winery in Napa. Grigich’s contributions to Chateau Montelena enabled that winery to place first in the chardonnay category at the 1976 tasting.

Warren Winiarski, the 1976 winner for the cabernet sauvignon category at the 1976 tasting, came to California with so many books in his trailer that he had to ask his wife and children to walk beside the car at Needles, California so the car and trailer could make it over the mountain’s summit. Winiarski, a lecturer at the University of Chicago, came to be called “the professor” in Napa due to all his readings and research. Winiarski’s studies in oenology and much hard, physical work propelled his Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon to the top of its category in Paris.

The drama of the 1976 tasting came from the reaction of the judges drawn from all sectors of the French wine industry. One judge even demanded her notes back from Spurrier, who refused her request. The French press failed to comment on the tasting initially due not only to the results, but also to the fact that no one from the French media attended the event. When the French media commented, it gave flak to the judges and questioned the conditions of the tasting.

No matter what the responses of the French press, the California winemakers had finally won the respect of wine merchants in the United Sates, who began to order California wines. While the 1976 California vs. France tasting opened markets for California wines, it no doubt inspired other countries such as Chile, Australia, and South Africa to make quality wines, too. Marketing will decide which wineries succeed in the future and the existence of blind tastings being held around the world will keep all winemakers striving to make great wines.

Taber’s final touch to the book includes a reading/tasting group guide for holding modern versions of the 1976 tasting. Anyone interested in wine should read Judgment of Paris to learn how one of the world’s major wine players arrived in that position.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Cold Havana Ground Review

2010-08-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

In U.S. schools during the 1970s and 1980s, students usually first heard of Cuba as they learned about the U.S.A.’s triumph during the Cuban Missile Crisis and skirted over the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Likewise social studies classes in the U.S. hardly ever covered the diversity of the Caribbean nations let alone that of Cuba.

Arnaldo Correa’s Cold Havana Ground (Akashic, 2003) opens Cuban society up to readers in this real-life mystery by using multiple character viewpoints to convey his story. Alavaro, a randy detective, reminds the reader that while Havana ground may be cold for the missing cadaver of Rafael Cuan, the scorching July heat makes this mystery hotter in more ways than one. Alvaro’s search for Cuan’s cadaver brings him into contact with a priestess of the Santéria religion who is referred to as “the Santera.” The Santera’s brother Lorenzo Bantú is a Nasakó, a priest who practices the Palo Monte religion and who is a leader in the Abakuá Secret Society as well. The three are tied together by the elusive and seductive Adrián, a master of human motives and a non-believer in any religion.

The three African religions play a decisive part in Adrián’s life and in Alvaro’s investigation often without their even being aware of it. Correa provides a glossary of the gods by religion at the book’s end. The African religions that Correa describes follow:

• Regla de Osha or Santéria with Yoruban roots in Western Africa
• Regla Mayombe or Palo Monte with Bantú origins in Central Africa
• Abakuá Secret Society based on a religious legend from the Calabar
River Basin(Cold Havana Ground, p. 312)

Cold Havana Ground illustrates how these religions blended with Catholicism through glimpses in rites and holidays and shows how practitioners of all three hold Chinese belief in awe.

Religion and politics both have their parts in Correa’s book. Set in 1993 during “The Special Period,” Cold Havana Ground shares with readers the impact of the Soviet Union’s demise on Cuba:

• Alvaro does his initial detective work on bicycle. When he
obtains a car, there’s a shortage of gasoline.
• It is hard to keep cars running, because there are no spare parts.
• Luxury products like rum are becoming scarce.
• The tourism industry is growing and gnaws away the ideals of
the Cuban Revolution.
• A food shortage exists.

While Correa’s Cold Havana Ground provides readers with a sophisticated mystery, its contribution to understanding Cuban society may be just as beguiling for the reader.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Empty Mirror: A Viennese Mystery Review

2010-08-22T15:16:00.001-07:00

Murder reflects the society and era in which it occurs. Like a piece of music, a painting, or a sculpture, murder allows us to see how people of another time behaved when someone’s life ended at the hands of another. Is it fate? Justice? Unfair? Of no importance depending on one’s social class? J. Sydney Jones presents us with these questions as we encounter a grisly string of murders that repulse Viennese society at the end of the 19th century in The Empty Mirror: A Viennese Mystery (St. Martin’s , 2009).

The story opens with the stodgy lawyer Karl Werthen lamenting his choice to become one of Vienna’s best wills and trusts lawyers instead of a criminal investigator like his friend Professor Hanns Gross. The appearance of the working class yet celebrated and uncouth artist Gustav Klimt at his breakfast table changes Werthen’s day and perhaps his life into one of a criminologist as well. Klimt’s model for his infamous Nuda Veritas painting has been found murdered, and Klimt has no alibi. Werthen and Gross team up to clear Klimt and stumble upon a Pandora’s box of evils and pleasures of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Throughout The Empty Mirror, readers can glimpse into the lives:

· Of assimilated Jews, who rediscover pride in their heritage
· Of women bristling at their restrictive lives
· Of gourmands enjoying paper thin schnitzel and Rhine wines
· Of nosy Viennese housewives, who are a detective’s dream….for a price

As detectives, Werthen and Gross use new forensic methods such as photography to advance their investigation while the rest of Austria remains in grudging transition. The Hapsburg Emperor Franz Josef himself detests typewriters and makes minimal use of the telephone. Automobiles exist, but even Werthen and Gross use horse drawn carriages to speed from one crime scene to the next. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is changing in The Empty Mirror albeit slowly.

Klimt represents change and is hard to keep out of the story along with the mirror that he painted in Nuda Veritas. Some may view the empty mirror in this painting as a reflection of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and society that no longer exist. However, Klimt was painting for his era and not ours. The outward-pointing empty mirror in the painting may have challenged Viennese viewers of the unclothed woman in Nuda Veritas with the question of “Am I nude or naked?” The answer to that question may have forced Viennese art lovers to ponder what kind of society they wanted to create. Whatever the interpretation you give to the book’s title, you will assuredly want to learn more about Vienna after reading The Empty Mirror.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

Manga! Manga!:The World of Japanese Comics Review

2010-08-19T13:34:00.001-07:00

U.S. bookstores did not always have sprawling manga sections and crowds of teens and adults reading manga from right-to-left. The fact that we do now is in part responsible to Frederik L. Schodt’s classic book from 1983 entitled Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics (Kodansha International, 1983).

In the book’s Foreward, manga and anime superstar Osamu Tezuka laments that in the 1980s “information about Japan’s vast comics culture is hardly available in the West” (p.10) due to language, Japanese subject matter, and the reversed reading patterns. Tezuka credits Japanese animation with paving the way for manga by creating interest in comic books about favorite characters such as Tezuka’s own Kimba, the White Lion and Astroboy.

Schodt, who translated several manga including Tezuka’s The Phoenix, opens Manga! Manga! with photos of manga books that are thicker than the San Francisco telephone book. Manga began as a children’s art form, but as children matured and became adults they still wanted to read stories in the comic book format with adult subject matter. Schodt affirms that in the 1980s, manga had “as much to say about life as novels or films.” (p.14)

Manga are written with gender and age in mind, but there is crossover reading despite differences in subjects, theme, and artistic treatment. The general presentation includes a glossy color cover with black and white pages inside Schodt writes. Sometimes red ink may show up as in some manga that are printed in Osaka.

Four general types of manga exist:

· Shonen (boys’ manga):

In the 1980s, Schodt writes that shonen manga alone sold over three million copies per week. The shonen subject matter “balance[s] suspense with humor; dramatic stories of sports, adventure, ghosts, science fiction and school life are interspliced with outrageous gag and pun strips.” (p.15)

· Shojo (girls’ manga):

Shojo manga contain “tales of idealized love, featuring stylized heroes and heroines, many of
whom look Caucasian.” (p. 14)

· Seinen (men’s comics):
· Josei (women’s comics):

Themes for adult manga feature everything from religious topics to risqué ones Schodt tells readers and includes subgenres related to gambling and stories of homosexual love written for and by women.

The cinematic treatment of the subject matter in manga may account for the initial and continued popularity of the format. Using frames to create tension by speeding up or slowing down action and montage techniques as well as camera-shot-drawing bring the motion picture to the flat page. For instance, in the excerpt from Tezuka’s The Phoenix readers can see a tortoise getting netted, having its head chopped off, and existing as a tortoise shell comb in its afterlife in a one frame that filmmaker and montage specialist Sergei Eisenstein could have composed.

Schodt deals with all aspects of the manga industry and history up to the 1980s. His chapter entitled “A Thousand Years of Manga” details the subject matter that manga artists draw upon in Japanese culture and the British, French, and American contributions to the comic strip format in Japan.

For anyone interested in understanding the appeal of manga, Schodt’s Manga! Manga! still delivers the answers.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

The Collaborator of Bethlehem Review

2010-08-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

The Collaborator of Bethlehem: An Omar Yussef Mystery (Mariner Books, 2008) by Matt Beynon Rees combines the traditional murder mystery with cultural anthropology to form a new genre: the ethnographic murder mystery.

While hairs stand up on readers’ arms as middle school history teacher cum detective Omar Yussef examines cadavers and parleys with machine-gun toting Palestinian liberation fighters in the West Bank, readers learn cultural tidbits that include:

· How Arab parents name themselves after their first born son
· How to be hospitable in Arab culture, including the different ways to drink coffee
· How students address and behave towards teachers
· How household decorating differs between Arab Christians and Muslims

Shards of culture like these reflect the efforts of West Bank citizens of all faiths to maintain civility in a society where guns rule and civilians do not have the right to bear arms. In this setting, Omar Yussef attempts to save a former student from murder charges. The justice system that Yussef encounters may infuriate readers yet justice à la West Bank does prevail in The Collaborator of Bethlehem.
Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget

How to Look at Japanese Art Review

2010-08-17T03:45:00.000-07:00

How to Look at Japanese Art (Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996) by Stephen Addiss with Audrey Yoshiko Seo merits a spot on everyone’s bookshelf for several reasons. First, readers will find Addiss’ outline of Japanese historical periods with the impact of each on the arts a useful thumbnail guide for analyzing artwork. The book’s chapters delve into ceramics, sculpture and traditional Buddhist art, secular and Zen Painting, calligraphy, woodblock prints, and gardens.

What makes each of the subjects compelling reading, particularly of painting, is Addiss’ ferreting out of those aspects of Japanese art that make it unique, including:

• Naturalness in the attention given to the seasons, time of day, and weather conditions

• Inviting participants to be part of the scene by composing pictures at angles and cutting off scenes as in photography

• Empty space associated with asymmetrical compositions that creates a feeling of movement and change

• Respect for nature, recording even the minutest details such as insects pollinating flowers.

How to Look at Japanese Art is a Zen-arrow 144 pages long and includes suggestions for further reading and an index.

Reviewed by Ruth Paget
amazon.com/author/ruthpaget