An Ecclesiastical Harem from Eighteenth-Century Spain August 21, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
The Inquisition it can’t have been that easy. Mass in the morning, torture in the afternoon and, yet another blasted auto da fe in the evening… Who can blame the good men with the blood red cloth if sometimes they decided to create, let’s call it, ‘recreational space’ for themselves. This extraordinary – and apparently […]
Bow Your Hamms to Chocolate February 4, 2011
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
[[an onion]] Dieticians and quacks have long tried to convince humanity that certain foods can work wonders on our failing bodies. Beachcombing’s favourite example is Baldini’s De sorbetti (1775) where it is argued that Neapolitan ice-cream will cure everything from sniffles to tumours (another post another day). But there are others from, in the nineteenth […]
Hot Chocolate at High Mass November 6, 2010
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Beachcombing was doing some research, trying to catch up with a student’s reading on the origins of chocolate and came across this gem. It is the story of a bishop, Bernardino de Salazar, who was poisoned because he tried to stop the women in his congregation from taking chocolate drinks during high mass. Our narrator is […]
