Full bellies breed gentle manners
My Week 19 of WolfCrawl
On the table week 19
The Vermeyen Cartoons
Thanks to a severe cold, which has turned out to be as annoying and unpleasant as Stephen Gardiner1, there is only a short look at the food this week. (When I feel sorry for myself, I think: it would be worse if I were at Henry's court now. I'd be forced to take his home-made remedies with God knows what obscure ingredients in front of Henry. That helps a lot to feel better. )
‘Never mind what it is. If it works, you´ll eat it.’
The first thing Cromwell does after weeks away from home is to go to Thurston's kitchen. Thurston is not only a competent chef, he also brings the boss up to date with the latest gossip in the London rumour mill and what people on the street are talking about.
The further we get in the trilogy, the more I like Thurston. He doesn't just run a kitchen, but a catering business, with admirable calm (the currants that Cromwell eats were surely a prepared, weighed ingredient for whatever Thurston was preparing) and humour (‘Inky fingers out). In addition to feeding the humming, large Cromwell household, he also gives out 200 portions for the poor twice a day. And he is a true friend to Cromwell. Still life with raisins, apricots and plums in a porcelain dish by Jacob van Hulsdonck in the 1620s
‘Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.’
Hunger is addressed this week, the poor harvests, the speculation with grain. Cromwell needs to keep an eye on this. Uncertain times, major upheavals combined with hunger make for an explosive mixture.
‘I’ve sat at too many abbot’s tables where the abbot nibbles raisins and dates, while for the monks it’s herring again.’ To put it mildly, Cromwell doesn't think much of monasteries (‘these tonsured fools’), he only thinks the worst on them and is completely uncompromising. But if he dissolves them, won't a lot of poor relief be lost? Who will pay and organise this?
What else do we have?
Ginger comfit, the scent of cinnamon and gloves wafting through the kitchen, venison pasties and quinces ripe for picking.
And Jane Seymour, who calmly and unhurriedly eats a huge portion of chicken. Still Life with Roast Chicken by Gottfried von Wedig, around 1630 (I have found actually a few chicken paintings - mostly I just fine one painting with food from the week - but none where the chicken's head is not on the painting… Apparently it was served that way, the chicken is looking at you while eating…)
The Emperor´s recent victory at Tunis
Charles V took the Dutch painter and carpet designer Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen with him on his Tunisian campaign in 1535. Later Vermeyen was commissioned to create designs for tapestries depicting Charles V's campaign. 10 of the 12 of these designs have survived, which is quite unique- ‘the Vermeyen Cartoons”. Each around 6 to 8 metres (between 19,68 and 26,96 feet) long and 3.85 cm (12,63) high, painted with charcoal and water colours on paper2. One of the cardboards: The Conquest and Looting of Tunis, below two details by Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, 1546/1548
When I saw them for the first time, I was very disappointed, not by the cartoons, they are great, but: they are in a narrow corridor in the museum, it is impossible to look at them in their entirety . It is even difficult to look at one of them without twisting your head completely upwards. It´s such a pity (here two of them):
Since my voice sounds like a mixture of Rod Stewart and something not of this earth, I would be rather scary to Gardiner.
More information about them: https://www.cairn.info/revue-studia-bruxellae-2019-1-page-387.htm
Oh dear, that sounds like a particularly unpleasant cold! I think Thurston is great too, there's a lovely sense of mutual respect in their exchanges.
Feel better soon! I love Thurston. Got to love someone that can cook, has a generous heart and a great sense of humor.