A couple months ago, I chanced to find an interesting cookbook. It was in French, so I can't be 100% sure about its title, but it was something along the lines of "Monastic Cooking". Given that I have a soft spot in my heart for all things monk-y, and that fact that I immediately associate all things French with delicious food, I of course wanted the book. Unfortunately, I didn't get it then, and of course, haven't seen it since.
Spurred on by the drudgery of winter and the idea of piping hot, home made food, I recently ran a search online looking for that monastic cookbook- there can't be that many, right?
Wrong! Apparently there's a whole niche market of monastic cookbooks. But if you think about it...that's really weird.
Why is it weird? Well, first off, food in monasteries isn't supposed to be good. The cooks aren't supposed to enjoy making it, and the monks certainly aren't supposed to enjoy eating it (no earthly pleasures and such). There's no meat allowed, except the occasional fish (don't get me wrong, I like fish just fine, but no chicken, pork, beef, or lamb?) and spices are strongly discouraged- in the Middle Ages, they thought the spices would incite the monks to lust (ref. Bernard of Clairvaux). I also like spices. All spices- even the allegedly lusty ones (cumin, paprika- you naughty things!). So, either these cookbooks are full of really bland vegetarian food, or they're lying about being all monastic- bummer.
Also, a thought: a lot of these cookbooks are written by a particular author, Victor-Antoine D'Avila-Latourrette (side note: awesome name of the day award goes to him). According to his publisher, he is a monk in a NY Benedictine monastery (NY has monasteries?!). According to the New York Times, he's the only monk at the monastery he opened (how does that work?). Here's the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/dining/04vinegar.html
Apparently, he's also a bit of a culinary celebrity, which is seems suspicious to me. Doesn't celebrity and fame kind of go against the whole idea of monastic life? I mean I'm sure V-A D'A-L is a nice guy and all, aside from his vinegar-making, but what if he had a cooking show? Would his monk friends be able to watch it (even if they had a tv, it would probably coincide with Vespers anyways)? If he's not supposed to really enjoy cooking as more than a necessary duty, is he filled with self-loathing all the time? Or pride (oh no, not that deadly sin!)?
That being said, I didn't get the cookbook because it was written in French...and had metric measurements (neither of which I'm very good at).
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