It’s not that I’m lazy that I’m reposted again, we’ve been out of town 7 of the last 9 days, and the trip home yesterday was brutal. I have several posts in the works (mostly food but it will have to include an airline rant), will get to it asap. In the meantime, please to enjoy:

From the Discovery Channel

Chocolate: Political Tool of Italy’s Medicis
By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

March 29, 2006— The Medicis, the family that dominated the Italian Renaissance, used chocolate as a powerful political tool to impose the Florentine taste in European courts, according to an exhibition that traces the history of chocolate from its arrival to Europe in the 16th century.

The exhibition, at the Civic Museum of Monsummano Terme, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Florence, brought to light a 17th century letter which contained the secret jasmine chocolate recipe of Grand Duke Cosimo III, hidden in a footnote.

Double chinned, bovine eyed, chocoholic Cosimo III (1642–1723), was determined to put to an end to Spain’s supremacy in making chocolate.

Indeed, the Spaniards managed to turn the Maya and Aztec’s spiced cocoa drink into a delicate, sweet drink aromatized with vanilla, musk, and amber.

To compete with Spain, the Grand Duke told his court scientists to develop new recipes in his food laboratories.

It was there that his personal doctor and court scientist Francesco Redi created the jasmine chocolate.

The recipe remained a state secret until the Medici dynasty ended with the death from obesity of Cosimo’s son Giangastone.

“Cosimo turned his love for chocolate into a political tool. As Redi wrote in his letter, he counterposed to the Spanish perfection Florence’s exquisite gentleness,” Ida Fontana, director of Florence’s National Library and one of the exhibition curators, said.

Offered only to very important guests, the jasmine chocolate soon became the most sought-after drink at the European courts.

At that time, chocolate was almost boiling and sipped very slowly from small cups called “chicchere.” Not one, but two napkins had to be used in the drinking ritual.

Indeed, the jasmine chocolate required much attention. It took the Grand Duke 12 days to make it.

“It wasn’t an infusion, neither it was water flavored with jasmine. Making jasmine chocolate wasn’t a simple preparation of food, it was an operation of botanical-gastronomical engineering,” Danielo Vestri, a chocolate maker who has reproduced the Medici recipe, told Discovery News.

Layers of fresh jasmine flowers and cocoa powder were put one over the other. The process had to be repeated every 24 hours for 12 days.

In this way, the jasmine petals provided the cocoa dough with a flavor never tasted before.

“It is simply delicious. And it is easy to digest: the cocoa dough was melted in water, not in milk. The Medici did not only influence the arts, but also chocolate. People at my shop go crazy for jasmine chocolate,” Vestri said.

The recipe:

10 librae of roasted cocoa, cleaned and coarsely minced (1 libra = 12 oz.)
fresh jasmine petals
8 librae white sugar
3 ounces vanilla flowers
6 ounces cinnamon
2 scruples (7.76 grams)ambergris

Put layers of cocoa and jasmine flowers in a box, one layer over the other. Let it rest for 24 hours, then change the jasmine flowers with fresh ones. Repeat 12 times. Add the other ingredients and combine them on a warmed marble surface until the chocolate dough forms.

Hmmmm, you think. Interesting. Trust me. Fabuloso with a capital F.

This is a sweet cornbread recipe (sans blueberries) that I’ve used for years. I’d make it at Grins Cafe as both regular and vegan cornbread whenever we’d have our chili, and there was nothing better. One of the most important ingredients is the honey that is brushed on the top right after coming out of the oven. This might be an issue for some vegans, but it really makes this cornbread sing. It is worth a special trip to the store to get honey if you have every other ingredient but that for this recipe. The only downside is that you can’t really stack the cornbread pieces on top of each other once they are coated with honey, so you need a big platter for serving. I’m used to making this in a huge hotel pan (18 x 24″), so I’ll half the recipe and you can use a 9×13 pan. This works well for muffins, too, just cut the baking time dramatically.

The blueberries made their appearance because of a glut of wonderful berries from the farmer’s market. I’d bought so many that I just couldn’t physically eat them all before they would spoil, so I knew I should bake something soon. Our rental freezer is on the blink, or else I could have just frozen the berries. There is a wonderful marriage between the sweetness of cornmeal and the blueberries and I love the rougher cornmeal texure against the super soft blueberries.

Let’s talk about corn flour vs. corn meal vs. polenta… The real differences are the coarseness (or lack thereof) of the grind. Corn flour is the most processed and comes in yellow and white. I like more texture, so my choice is to use a medium grind whole grain corn meal (like Bob’s Red Mill which can be found at many regular grocery stores in the organic/health food dept). I have often mixed corn flour and polenta which has a really coarse grind to achieve a mixed texture result, especially delicious in cornbread.

350º

Dry Ingredients:
2 c. cornmeal
1 1/8 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. sugar (use more like 1/3 c. if not doing the blueberry version) – brown sugar is ok, but white sugar works the best
2 1/4 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. sea salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. buttermilk
3 eggs, beaten
2 t. vanilla
6 T. melted butter (cooled before adding to eggs)

3 c. blueberries (do not defrost if using frozen, just add directly to batter)
1 T. butter
4 T. honey

Put pan in the oven to preheat. Mix dry in a bowl with whisk. Beat wet together, then add dry to wet. Use a folding movement to mix, and add blueberries before the last of the dry is absorbed. Finish folding until there is no dry left, then put 1 T. butter into hot pan from oven. Allow this melting butter to grease the pan by tipping it around on all sides. Pour batter into pan and bake. Cornbread will probably take a total of 30-45 mins depending on the size of the pan you are using. Turn it for even color at 20 minutes. Use the skewer/toothpick test to see if the cornbread is done. Watch out for wet spots in the center. When you remove the hot cornbread from the oven, immediately pour the honey on the top and spread it around evenly. Don’t forget the corners. A silicone pastry or BBQ brush is perfect for this job, but you can also make do with a knife or the back of a spoon. Serve warm or room temp.

It’s delish. Just ask the Seattle crowd that got to eat some this weekend. It makes a great brunch option and I love it for breakfast as well. You can sub a drained jar of pickled jalapenos and some grated cheddar cheese for the blueberries if you’d like to take the flavor in a different direction. I think I’d skip the honey on top in that case.

**Vegan: I’ve made this vegan plenty of times, especially as corn muffins. I like to use a combo of soy milk and soy yogurt (plain or vanilla) to achieve the effect of vegan buttermilk. I’ve also used sour supreme instead of yogurt. Use egg replacer beaten well with water instead of the eggs, and include about 1/4 cup of applesauce. Use vegan margarine instead of butter – Willow Run is my favorite because it is cheap but works great.