Found this on Wikipedia article on the different types of galangal, and regarding the word galingale. "...The term galingale is sometimes also used for the rhizome of the unrelated sweet cyperus (Cyperus longus), traditionally used as a folk medicine in Europe." Maybe this is what Hildegard was using.
Was wondering. The cookies may have been cooked with a cooking oil (adding some fat). I noticed you used a silicone mat, maybe greasing the pan would do something else. The cookies may have been dunked in the wine. Unrelated the ancient Roman herb Silphium has been rediscovered.
I subscribe to a channel called Hildegard Von Blingin' that takes modern songs and makes them medieval. Now I know what to consume while I'm listening to the latest song.
"She was born into a noble family but she was born tenth into that family and so the likelihood of her inheriting anything was basically NUN..." Good one Max ;D
( giggles) it is the traditional end of the Sunday meal in Tuscany, hard almond biscuits, baked twice called Cantucci and vin santo (the sweet raisin wine used for the catholic mass) blog.giallozafferano.it/inventaricette/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cantucci-e-vin-santo-2-vid-720x569.jpg www.giallozafferano.com/recipes/cantucci-almond-cookies.html
Well, they have a lot of beneficial nutrients, and spices do have certain neural effects. And if all else fails, you had wine and biscuits, or oatmeal stout, or whatever else.
Licorice is good for digestion like ginger. Cinnamon helps control blood sugar. Cloves are a natural analgesic. It helps to numb pain. I'm not sure about the rest but it sounds to me like she knew what she was about with herbs and spices.
Nutmegs contain myristicine, which, as a MAO-Inhibitor, is a potent antidepressive drug. Only problem is dosage and side effect - MAO inhibitors are notoriously problematic, and it's almost impossible to get a reliable dosage.
My wife, the Hildegard fanatic, says you're supposed to make these with spelt flour to impart a kind of nuttiness to them rather than that bitter flavor you described. Love this video!
Quite right! Hildegard was a spelt fanatic. My mother is also a Hildegard fanatic and she makes these biscuits with some spelt flour but also some butter, sugar and an egg yolk. Delicious! But one musn't eat too many, especially children. One or two small ones a day and not every day. They are after all medication!
This might explain why there are so many products with spelt here. It's the Hildegard effect. I kinda like it as they are considered healthy as whole grain without tasting like it.
@@mellie4174 I'm from Central Europe and historical recipes traditionally specify white wheat flour only for "cakes" to be eaten on Easter or the feast before spring fast. But overall, the common flour kinds are very different here compared to USA.
We used to make these in primary school every year on her saint's day, we called them Bingen biscuits and we'd eat them after lunch, apart from the last one which would be fed to the classroom hamster by the youngest child while we listened to a casette of some of her music. I think the school still does it but not sure
Fun fact: Her creation of Lingua Ignota, the mystical language that she created, makes her the unofficial patron saint of all Conlangers aka people who make languages, whether fictional ones like Dothraki and Elvish, or ones that are actually used by some people such as Esperanto.
Her spices were measured by weight. Cinnamon, being slightly denser than nutmeg, should be closer to 1.5t and cloves (being in much higher demand at the time) should be closer to a 1/4 t. Spelt is the native flour of the German area. To make the biscuits softer, whip them up with a whisk to mechanically leaven them, spoon them onto a pre-heated tray and stick them right into the oven. Rather than heating the wine, you can do a cold soak, it just takes longer. If you do choose to heat an alcoholic beverage, use a double boiler to prevent souring or faulting. There is a short-cut to this which uses Creme de Violette (a violet liquere) in a 17-2 ratio (1, 750ml bottle of wine to 3oz liquere). This will sweeten the drink so I suggest using a very dry wine to start. You can then make a sachet or Galangal and Licorice (I also like to add an allspice berry) and either brew a tea using 4oz water or directly infuse the wine for two days before removing the spices.
The cinnamon would also be a different kind from what we tend to get in the US, ceylon rather than cassia, though it's really interesting that she would say that it helps blood flow better, since even true cinnamon (though cassia is much higher in content) contains coumarin, which is a blood thinner, so effective it's been used as both rat poison and as a modern prescription medicine to prevent blood clots (Warfarin). As for the wine, both the violets and licorice are known cough suppressants, so the "helping the lungs" part of that isn't all that far off either...
The great thing about these little biscuits is that you could eat them right the way through Lent, which may well have been a deliberate consideration on Hilda's part. You can still get struck by melancholy during Lent. Hilda has long been a hero of mine, so thank you so much for this video Max.
@@eeresponsibleit is interesting that there’s not at least some honey. sweetness was part of the remedy for melancholy. maybe they were purely for medicinal treatment and not purely disposition
@@eeresponsible Sugar wasn't available to people in Europe then, not really at least (that wouldn't come until the 17th century with the New World sugar plantations). But honey was. But remember that the life of the religious (monks and nuns) is a life of mortification, and additionally, it's possible that she thought that a sweetener would ruin the physic or salutary properties of the cookies, which are clearly designed to be medicinal more than recreational (a treat).
I had major heart issues and the medication from the hospital really messed me up for years and could barely walk. An old German neighbor gave me her parsley wine remedy and I made it myself. A sip a day cured my arrhythmia, and I hike 20+ miles now. If I don't take it for about 5 days, the arrhythmia returns.
@@GreenTea3699 Take 1 bottle of Pino Noir, pour into pot. Add 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar Bring to boil and simmer. Take 10 bound sprigs of parsley, and stir the pot for 5 minutes with the parsley bundle, while simmering. Then add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of honey. Bring to Boil again and simmer again for 5 minutes while stirring with the parsley bundle. Let cool... Pour back into the wine bottle with a funnel. Put in fridge. Take a sip a day. It really works!!! You can look up St Hildegard's Parsley Wine Remedy for the official recipe, too. This worked great for me.
Native Viennese here, enjoy the city! I also know for a fact that the National Library, apart from just being amazing to look at, has old books on medieval cookery containing some... interesting recipes.
@@TastingHistory It's been almost 20 years now so my memory is hazy, but I remember reading through one and looking for old cake recipes. I found one that, I believe, had sugar, spices and almonds, you know, the good stuff, and then... fish? Bit of a whiplash.
@@TheSerpitmy dude, Thai people use fish and shrimp paste to make a sweet sauce for dipping with sour fruit. We literally called it “sweet fish sauce” (น้ำปลาหวาน) We believe in you. You can do it😂
Let food be your medicine; people were using herbs/spices for all sorts of issues all through human history up until very recently when big business took over and only sees the purpose in peddling drugs that can be patented and owned by them and them alone (plants in nature can't yet be)
Cookies and wine are a lot better than the dangerous poisons called antidepressants that doctors push at everybody now because they get paid commission to prescribe them! $300,000 per year they get from Big Pharma to prescribe these deadly poisons! And people wonder why doctors are so keen on getting every last person on them - so much so they are even targeting kids and pets!!!
I am from germany, and I can assure you, over here she is known best for her medical work, less for poetry and music. I learned during this video that she even composed music to be honest, but then I am a trained nurse, and learned some things about her during my training. But the aversion against strawberries is actually a quite common "medievel thing", for they were not really eaten in its raw form like today, but more often boiled. Because of the obviously different way people had acces to food, meaning you really could just eat what was in season because you had to grow it youreself, they did actually had more often (minor) problems with theire digestion, because they could eat certain things like fresh berries just in a very small part of the year, wich their digestion could often not really tolerate, because it was not a stable throughout the year. This let quite often to diarrhea, wich was a quite fritening condition in this period of time, with things like the pest and other illnesses taking lives in great abundence regularly. So even if it was just a mild complain that lastet only a few days, it was taken very serious. And especially children would not be fed with fresh fruits in any way. I remeber ruth goddman saying something like "They started feeding children at age 10 boiled apples, you know, just to be on the safe side"
can confirm this and in Deutschland she is definitely the medieval herb lady ! .....gonna listen to some of her music now.......which I've never done before....
sounds super middle agey ! the extra calming stuff I would have expected to have been sung by a medieval nun edit: shouldn't have listened to soothing medieval nun music while eating Spekulatius and now I feel all christmassy ......gonna put on "puer natus in bethleem" next....to make it even worse 😅
Hildegard is one of my favourite figures from history. Que femme! Philosopher, composer, artist (possibly), theologian, mystic, physician, abbess, linguist, evangelist, moralist and all round amazing woman, all with poor health and without being a raving lunatic. It's a pity she's not better known.
And beautifully orthodox in her faith and as such, violently anti-modern and anti-Feminist (but in no way anti-feminine). The woman was an absolute gift of God and is one of my favorite saints.
That "pity she's not better known" surprised me; in Germany, if you have so much as a highschool degree, you're likely to have at least heard of her. And I'M not even sure if I would _want_ her to better known, she and her work are being marketed quite enough already. I think in most cases, her recipes are 'adapted' to modern tastes - which makes me all the more thrilled that Max went with the *original* recipe. ❤
@@ChristopherMH Hildegard cared about the wellbeing of others, so I can guarantee you she wouldn't like your politics. Sorry to crush your fantasies about historical figures being "just like you fr fr" 😂
Hildegard was a fascinating woman. Interestingly, she is part of the reason why we use hops in beer instead of gruit now. Also, on that note, I think the cookies would have turned out better if you had used wheat malt instead of all or part of the flour. That may impart some sweetness cooked over a slow flame, and she definitely would have had it available. Another interesting tidbit, she liked the way nuns looked when they drank wine and beer because it made their cheeks rosy, thus making them look cheery.
@user-kw9se9cm8m It's a mix of herbs, roots, spices that were used as the flavoring (bittering) in beer prior to hops being used. I can't tell you an exact blend because they were all hyper local blends based on what was available where the beer was being made and the time of year. That being said, I have read that juniper branches and Angelica root were common ingredients in gruit mixes.
I thought fruit was a typo for fruit! Thanks for the explanation. Before the German beer purity laws that specified that beer could only be made with malt, hops, water and yeast all sorts of things were added to beer. Including lentils (yuk. Turns beer into a health food). Some of the Belgian beers still echo medieval concoctions. There are wheat beers with fruit that are still made today. It might have been the same type of beer that they used to ferment naturally in large shallow vats stored in the attic. The wort was colonized by natural fermenting yeasts present in the local area. It must have tasted like a fruit vinegar with bubbles.
Hildegard von Bingen still has a lot of influence through her recipes in Germany at least. My grandparents practically swear by her bread and would always buy the "Hildegard von Bingen"-bread made after her recipe when at the bakery. Cool to see some other things from her on here!!
@@thycauldronProbably lots of them. German bakeries are often mid-sized chains or even small and independent. I mean, there are big bakeries, but even travelling like 50km can lead to seeing entirely new chains. My small town (about 30k people) has 2 native chains alone, 2 other who only have one location but they deliver to other locations (which sell the baked goods and do not just use them to make like sandwiches, but they are not chains), a couple of chain locations from other cities and at least 2 bakeries which are still completely on their own as far as I know. I also just googled the two biggest chains around here thinking they were germany-wide. Nope, they are big, but not that big.
This recipe is exactly the kind of joy I expected from Hildegard. 😂 My grandma, who was a huge admirer of Hildegard von Bingen, always had this saying: 'the worse it tastes, the better it cures'
for the time its from, it often actually does taste kinda nice, her whole thing is spices and those are awesome . . . . if your taste is not compleatly ruled by sugar
I love Hildegard! I spent a lot of time studying her in college and my favorite Halloween costume involved a stuffed octopus on my head and a nun habit (based on that vision picture)! I have only made the Joy cookie recipes that add butter and sugar though 😆
@@taylorashlock6309 Most recipes of the day would have probably added the butter or eggs too, it's common for them to assume you know what you're doing and add the basics automatically in many recipes of the time. So enjoy them as you make them. Sugar on the other hand would probably not been common in anything European back then although it did exist in the eastern parts of the world and was probably imported but would have been super expensive.
Today in Germany many organic supermarkets and bakeries sell Hildegard's cookies, but of course with sugar or honey and butter, to make them more familiar to modern costumers' palate. But of course they still contain spices like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg which are identified as the main antidepressive ingredients. I've made them by myself, they are indeed very delicious! I haven't tried the anti-melancholy wine though :D Greetings from Germany!
To imagine that this Woman turned 81 in a time without antibiotics, where every little inflammtion could be a death sentence, is a sentiment to the legitness of some of her herbal medicine ngl.
It wasn't that unusual. The concept of average lifetime really skews people's perception. Once you made it through childhood and as a woman past having babies and were living a relatively safe life, ignoring things like pandemics, 80 wasn't that unusual for her class. Even hunter gatherers could live into their 70s.
Living to that age really wasn't as uncommon as is popularly assumed. I heard a university professor say recently that people only just started living into their 80s in the past centuries which is crazy 😅 But I definitely agree that her healthy eating, taking care of her teeth, etc. must have contributed!
Cinnamon and especially cloves have antibiotic (& cloves, antiviral) properties, and licorice, in addition to adding sweetness, is a gentle anti-inflammatory and even in modern herbal medicine known ato relieve chest and lung ailments.
Her drawings include really good versions of what migraine auras look like. I get auras (but happily not the actual headache following) and her illustrations really capture the effect.
I used to get painful migraines, & ocular migraines (Even bright white blindness in my left eye, up until 2003, when I accidentally realized that coffee was the main culprit! I immediately gave it up cold turkey, & while the painful headaches have not ever returned, however I have had a few auras in the past few years, which I realized were brought on by certain, mostly “perfumey” smells. Hope this helps. (Yes. I am aware that caffeine is helpful in migraine treatment, & I do still enjoy caffeinated sodas, but there must be some other component of coffee that is the migraine culprit?)
@@EPShockley That's so fascinating--I don't get migraines, but a general headache and queasiness if I drink coffee without any added fat. Something about diluting with milk, or adding cream, (and once, in a pinch, butter, which... did its job but was not tasty) nullified the effect. Really makes me wonder what's in coffee other than caffeine!
the cookies you held im 3:55 where definitely the correct ones, even if they are hard. im german and we did such similar cookies in elementary school, they are supposed to be like that
Max, I have done what you suggested in the end and made ginger snaps with Hildegard's spices (although I got them through my own kitchen experimentation) and I can confirm that they are very good. We call them 'unscarfable spice cookies' because they're so heavily spiced that you have to eat them slowly, even though they're small. Of all of the cookies that I make over the holidays, these are the ones that make peoples' eyes light up when they find out I've made some, and I have to make them in very large batches, basically cleaning out my spice cabinet each time.
@@sleepynightowl1550 It's just a standard molasses spice cookie using the darkest possible molasses, but with the spices listed above and the amounts just ludicrously high. It shouldn't be quite as crisp as a ginger snap, as I've found that baking them that crisp messes with the flavor of the spices when there's THAT much of them there. Let the dough sit in the fridge at least overnight before baking to give the flavors a chance to really get in there and mingle. (ETA: My recipes, such as they are, wouldn't be out of place with the historical ones that just list 'some' or 'a lot of' or 'do it until the consistency is right', which was why I advised looking up an actual molasses spice cookie recipe, since that's the base.)
She was just an amazing person. If you haven't listened to her musical compositions, you must. They are so beautiful. Thank you, Max, for your historical narratives. I learn so much from them.
She sounds like an extremly intelligent person. Really on the level of a Leonardo Da Vinci or a Michelangelo, but only 500 years earlier and being a woman, which was not helpfull of course in that timeframe. A 'nun' is a demeaning term, meant to keep women subdued.
@@telebubba5527 "nun (n.) Old English nunne "woman devoted to religious life under vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience to a superior," also "vestal, pagan priestess," from Late Latin nonna "nun, tutor," originally (along with masc. nonnus) a term of address to elderly persons" I don't see how you came to your conclusion.
About Hildegard's sneezing theory: I've been modelling for artists for nearly 20 years, and can attest that when you're doing a long pose for a portrait class, and no matter how many short breaks you take you're always going back to that same seated position, you indeed start feeling like the blood in your vessels is not awake and lively, but rather just lies there as if asleep... to think of it, those interminable hours of prayers in cold, dusty rooms can't have been that different from a portrait pose. And in those situations, a sneeze is a gift! I honestly feel refreshed and energised afterwards, it becomes easier to keep my eyes open, sometimes the vertebras in my neck spontaneously crack and my neck hurts less as a result... AND it doesn't count as an actual break 😂 She obviously noticed this positive effect of sneezing, and in absence of the knowledge she would have needed to fully understand why a sneeze happens, she decided it must be the body's way of getting a person out of that lethargic state. Thank you for the great video, what a fascinating woman. I love that she effectively went on strike to get her way - her freedom, in fact. If I find dried violets I'll try making that wine, and the spice snaps too, they sound like nice autumn treats. Have fun in Vienna 🤗
We did an a capella piece by Hildegard von Bingen in college. Because nobody else wanted the solo, I got it. It was the "drone" part; just one low pitch throughout the whole song- something that is pretty common in medieval compositions . Aside from breath control, easiest solo I've ever done. 😅 We were taught a bit about her life too. Fascinating woman.
"you wanna keep milking me as your cash cow? well how about I run out of milk..." such a power move. I knew she was a bit of a badass but this gave me more details. love it.
Please don't ask any dead Saint, ancestors or spirit to pray for you or pray to them or any prophets ,Mary, or with any rosary. JESUS is the only mediator : We are constructed not to consult the dead Deuteronomy 18:10-13 King James Version 10 There shall not be found among you any one that .....or a consulter with familiar spirits (the spirit of a dead person invoked by a medium to advise or prophesy) , or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. King James Bible 1 Timiothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus Also only worship God alone, not the pope, any saint or mary, that is commting the great sin of idolatry. Exodus 20:3-6 King James Version 3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Please repent! If you were to die today, are you a 100% sure you will go to heaven? If no, here is what the bible says, (1) Romans 3:23 KJV [23] For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Q1. Do you know what Sin is? Sin is anything bad that we have done. Q2. Have you sinned before? Yes or No? (2) Revelation 21:8 KJV [8] But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. Because they have sinned, and God does not allow Sin into Heaven, the punishment is burning hell. What is the way to reconcile our peace and relationship with God? Q3. Do you know the Story of Jesus? (3) Romans 5:8 KJV [8] But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus = God who lived up in Heaven, but he came down on earth and became a man like us, he lived for 33.5 years without committing any sin. Then there were certain people who were jealous and therefore framed him on phony charges, and crucified him. Then he was buried and resurrected on the third day; Now he lives in HEAVEN. Q4. Do you know why Jesus went through all this bloody mess for us? A4. As mentioned, our sin is the reason why we can’t go to heaven, and the only thing that can wash away our sin is the Blood of Jesus. (4) Romans 5:9 KJV [9] Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. According to the bible, the only way for us to reconcile with God is through Christ Jesus’s blood, and not through any works that we do or merits we accumulate, such as water baptism, attending church, or any good thing that we do. The following verses clearly support this. (5) Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV [8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast. (6) 2 Corinthians 7:10 KJV [10] For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. In order to get saved, repentance of one’s sin is needed to get saved, we need to be sorry, and repent, with conviction, that we are a wretched sinner. (7) Romans 10:9 KJV [9] That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. If you truly do believe in everything you have heard in the gospel, ,I strongly suggest you to make a proclamation to GOD! You can say it to God in less than 15 seconds !Repeat after this simple prayer, to make sure you truly get saved. Remember repeating this prayer doesn't save you, it's you telling God you BELIEVE THE GOSPEL. Ok, here is the prayer : ‘Dear GOD, I know I am a sinner, as I repent, I put my faith, that Jesus is GOD, and that he died, buried and resurrected, so that his blood, can wash away my Sins. I put my faith in that alone to save me, not my good works. In Jesus’s holy name, I pray. Amen! Congratulations ! Now you are a child of God. Download /Buy a KJV bible (I highly suggest getting a hard copy bible , as one day, it will be illegal to buy, own or even have an online version of the bible) and search for youtube channel like REAL Bible Believers , Spencer Smith to help you grow , study dispensationalism to understand the bible ( How do we reconcile the verses in the New Testament that tell us that we need works to show our faith, and another that tells us that nothing that can take our salvation away? That's why we need to study biblical dispensationalism to rightly divide the word of God.( study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, 2 Timithy 2:15) (I recommend the dispensationalism video from Genesis to Revelations by Dr. Gene Kim, ruclips.net/video/GI4CteEFxOk/видео.html) , join a bible believing church. God bless you brother/ sister ☺. See you in heaven one day!
This video caught also my (German) wife's attention as I was watching it. She was surprised that you stated what Hildegard was best known for was her music. Apparently in Germany she's best known for her herb-craft. We were both pretty sure that the only sweetener that would have been available in the 12th century in central Europe would have been honey, which might have changed that wafer quite a bit, but as you said it wasn't in the recipe itself. Have fun in Wien, it is a lovely city. We were there for our honeymoon many years ago, and have visited several times. Make sure you make it to the Prater and take a ride on the Riesenrad!
@@RowdyRodimus Oh wow she is definitely very interesting and I think is definitely worth reading and devoting time to studying. While not a saint *yet* I think she has much insight into the world of our ancestors. As a rule, divinely inspired prophecies and revelations, whether *Private* and or *Public* are not *Necessary* for our Salvation, they are something the Church has for us to deepen our faith and guide us. We don't *Need* them, but they are there for us if we so choose to study them or want to dive in. Such a wonderful question. Thank you!
Oh wow, not just me. Nuns (medieval bluestockings) were resourceful, I'm sure if she could have made doughnuts, she would have definitely made doughnuts.
@@oriel9347the nuns near where I live are a testament of this. They are so resourceful and share cooking recipes, they're also amazing gardeners, crafters and wells of knowledge on local plants ❤ when I was a younger I used to learn cooking thanks to their videos to know how to make nourishing meals with humble items making my college days a bit better 😂
Funfact: Hildegard von Bingen lived in an abbey called Eibingen right above Rüdesheim, famous for its Drosselgasse. If you do the typical Germany tour popular with Americans, Japanese and Koreans (start in Frankfurt, Eltz castle, Rüdesheim, Heidelberg, Rotenburg ob der Tauber, Neuschwanstein, finish in Munich), you are also walking in Hildegard's footsteps. A hike through the vineyards from Rüdesheim to Eibingen is well worth it. In the monastery shop you can buy pastries, spirits, teas, ointments and much more from Hildegard's recipes.
I was even more interested than usual in today's episode, because I live in Vienna and often perform Hildegard's music here in my instrument making workshop. She was a wonderful composer, but hardly recognized as such until recently. My music history classes at UC Berkeley didn't even mention her. And as you showed, she was an amazing personality. Danke aus sonnigem Wien, Scott
I’m astonished you never heard of her music at Berkeley. I certainly have heard her music performed at Berkeley! Then again, I am into Early Music, and Cal (and the San Francisco Early Music Society) have co-sponsored the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition for some years now, showcasing music of 1850 and before. She was truly remarkable, far ahead of her time. And it’s amazing to think she did all of this while probably suffering from aura migraines, which are hypothesized to be the source of her visions. Just wow.
@@DawnDavidson Early music was pretty much ignored at UC Berkeley when I studied there (69 to 73). I ended up doing mostly Renaissance and then Medieval music, was in several groups and played the Renaissance Faire several times, but I basically had to teach myself. Things have changed since then.
She probably didn’t write every ingredient for her recipes in her “Physica “, because she assumed readers of the time would know to fill in the gaps. The point in these cookies is the spices (similar to the spices in chai.) These are mood boosting and stimulate circulation. Definitely helpful for bouts of melancholy. I actually go get a chai when I’m feeling down-it really does work!
I remember first reading about Hildegard in a childrens book titled ‘Outrageous women of the Middle Ages’, and I always thought she sounded so cool! There were a whole bunch of women in the book, from different parts of the world. My memory says it was a good book, but it’s been a few years so😂
I have a book called "Uppity Women of the Middle Ages" which gives thumbnail bios on a whole bunch of women from all over the world who were intelligent, feisty & made quite a name for themselves at a time when it was not acceptable.
Most whole wheat flour we use in the USA is hard red wheat, which tends to be harsher tasting, bitter, and higher in tannins, at least from my experience. As others have said she would have most likely using spelt, which tends to have higher protein, and if you whip it up good and put it in an already heated medieval oven can have a naturally leavened effect. You could also make them from malted or sprouted wheat or spelt, which would make them sweeter, which would have been more seasonable back in the period.
Those are actually still made in Austria (and Germany probably) for the healing qualities people ascribe to them. I've had them myself a few times, and though not my favorite, they are quite ok
Actually, given that she mentions lung problems with the Violet Wine, that "spiciness" from the galangal might help. I know personally when I've got a cold or congestion a bit of spicy ginger ale or ginger beer really helps loosen things up and ease my breathing for a time.
I just bought the ildegarde cookies from an herb and pharmacy shop in Rome - at Saint Paolo’s basilica. The cookies we got are made with rye flour monococco - a type of grain that is 10,000 years old and still today unmodified. this is extremely different from the wheat found today and much healthier. There is a company based in Novara, Italy that recreates all of her remedies - I just bought a violet, Helichrysum, and iperico cream and her artemisia tincture for menstrual health.
Somehow reminds me of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Mexican nun from the XVII century that is famous for her poetry bu also wrote a couple cook books. Not many thing in common besides that, but her story is equally interesting, at least to me
According to Hildegard, eating and drinking tasy stuff is almost always the cure. A smart woman, but more of a mystic than a outcome-oriented experienced healer. Her writings show that most of her "healing" advice comes from theoretical learning, or her own a.... lets say her "visionary religious inspiration". She showns nearly no practical experience as a healer/caretaker. She only writes about what she heard or read about it. And writes quite some BS myths too.
. @user-un8tv1pp8m I agree. If I remember correctly she also advised against onions, which she thought were vile and bad for you. Along with the strawberries, I imagine this type of advice came from her own preferences. And perhaps she was allergic to strawberries, some people are. (Edited to correct auto correct;)
i love Hildegard, she is my patron saint. Her wine and cookies may have been helpful for people living in monasteries, far from the madding crowds! And thank you for the clarity in your narration of her life.
@@sosteve9113 She was known for her music and believed it cured illness. This is a beautiful album, its in my playlist! ruclips.net/video/_NGTsdL2YzE/видео.html. The song that starts at 2:02 is brilliant
Oh, I didn't know. That's hard. Warm hugs and condolences. My cat Miz Furbie (She who *must* be obeyed!) is going on 14 and I dread the coming inevitability. That is why I'm glad I rescued her. And you gave your kitty the best kind of life!
I'm glad you're doing well and okay, even after losing your furry friend! I know how that kind of loss feels like. But, don't work too hard either, and take time for yourself, and not worring about content! We all love you here!
I think it's best to think of these wafers not in terms of "cookies" or indeed, "food" but rather as medicinal tablets, basically the most efficient way to give the patient the spice mix (almost all spices were regarded as medicinal back then, as they still are e.g. in traditional chinese medicine) in a transportable, storable (in the short-term, at least) form.
During my healing practicer training in France, which included Hildegard's medicine, we also baked cookies of joy. We had a recipe with some butter and sugar : 250g flour, 2 egg yolks, a pinch of salt, 90g butter, 120g sugar, 15g spicemix. Mix it all up with melted butter and spread it to make about 70 cakes using an egg cup. Cook at 180°C for 15 to 20 minutes. The good taste is also important to revive the joy !
Hildegard the author of the first Diet-Book ! Actually this cookie sound more like something in addition to a soup. Maybe it would go well with Hildegards "Nine Herbs Soup" made from Nettle, ground elder, chickweed, daisy, dandelion, plantain, sorrel, wild garlic and dead nettle and a roux.
I had to take some time from watching Max's videos as it was something my wife and I did together (she was a massive lover of cooking and adored Max) and she passed in February. So happy to be back here watching Max's culinary adventures.
Glad you featured one of my favorite saints in the Catholic Church. She is considered a Doctor of the Church alone with St. Theresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Catherine of Siena. Will have to try her cookies and wine. I have her cd’s and her books. So interesting!
Yes, it's my girl Hildy! (Wrote a long paper on her in a medieval history class, mostly about her music though, and one on Julian of Norwich and anchorites.) Such a cool woman and I love hearing more about all the weird 'medicines'. I appreciate you covering what we do know of women's history here, since so many women get erased or forgotten! Definitely not gonna make those wafers though.
@@rejoyce318 - I am completely a-religious, but "Hildegard von Blingin' " (note the apostrophe in the name) sounds angelic! She has even covered a song written by Saint Hildegard von Bingen.
wait- this is the same Hildegard from my 1st semester western music history class?? i love learning about how deeply complex and accomplished women in history were, since they're so little talked about already (we barely covered her in class) when there's SO much one person is capable of
If you count the prezedella from your cookbook, it is the 2nd recipie from the Holy Roman Empire. Also, Austrian German is slightly different from mainline German so I watch out for those little language traps :), although in Vienna you can definitely just use English and almost everyone will understand, they are used to international tourism being the main source of income for restaurants, hotels and the like.
@@rowejon The difference between those is mostly limited to pronounciation and in a smaller amount, vocabulary. But Austrian and German German are more like British English compared to Welsh English.
@@rowejon We learn british English in school and are exposed to a fair amount of american media. So expect an inconsistent mish mash of pronounciation and vocabulary! 😁
First time I’ve come across your channel. Thank you. Wonderful portrayal of Hildegard, she was one of my favorite Christian history figures from seminary.
Actually, contrary to modern opinion, she was very much a woman of her own era, to her era, and for it. We just have the privilege of peeping into her part in that decidedly odd time .. when women could govern men wisely from an abbey, could berate recalcitrant popes into peaceful agreement, or lead armies into battle (and win) .. and also bake cookies from next to nothing, provide nice medicines, and be rather jolly about it too. We live and learn .. or rather .. we don't, not usually. ;o)
Beyond her era ? What does that even mean ? Hildegard was undoubtedly a woman living in XIIth century medieval, Western Europe. Had she lived anywhere else or in a different time period, she would not have been the person her specific cultural and geographic background allowed her to be. And she was only one nun, in an era where you could count them by the hundreds of thousand, and let's not talk about all the queens, noblewomen, poetess and doctoress who also shaped the medieval world, which is decidely far above the common clichés misattributed to it.
while I understand the sentiment, this way of thinking only distances us from people we’re not so different from. she very much was a 12th century woman and did a lot of work to legitimize things that are still seen as feminine and unnecessary. she isn’t a modern woman at all, we’re all just the same as we always have been.
I wrote a paper on Hildegard as part of my music history undergrad. She's a fascinating and incredible figure, so thanks for making this video about her! Now I'm inspired to recreate a modern version of her cookies when it's cold enough to start baking :)
I think you should've also tried dipping the crisps in the wine. It'd have softened them up a tad, and the sweetness of the wine might have opened the flavor up a little.
These might be good dipped in something with a sweetness to it. Apple cider and “hardtack” spiced cookies sounds like a good combo. Could have been their intended use, along with the extended shelf life. Medicinal biscuits dipped in mulled sweet wine or warm milk and honey.
I have all her music, and books about her, her work and life. The last one I bought came with CDs and her drawnings and the explanation of her visions. What amazes me is that her visions from Heavens match the description of two friends of mine who had seen Heavens and told me about it -- they even gave me their notebooks to read about their visions and learn. Her vision of the souls in Heavens that appear here in this video is also a match to what Vassula Ryden saw, when Jesus took her there for a visit. I truly believe Hildegard was divinely inspired and till today her prophecies become reality. She's amazing and her music is perfection. May God bless her and may she interced for us from Heavens.
Wow! Earlier just today I was thinking about her. She was written about in a spelt recipe booklet I have. Spelt is closer to the wheat she would have used and believed to have healing properties.
Kinda funny, I never knew she had visions or wrote music... she's more known for her herbal knowledge, medicine and recipes were I'm from. But I'm also not catholic and did not grow up in a very religous family. I love your pronounciation of the CH, not many Americans do that right.
omg I actually work for a monastery and Hildegard von Bingen's Feast Day is soon. she is one of the only Saints I'm familiar with because of her contributions to music. I wonder if the monks would appreciate some historically accurate Hildegard cookies for her day
Once upon a time, I found a recipe for a violet syrup (essentially just a whole lot of violets boiled in water with sugar), which had a lovely, delicate violet flavor. The color was similar to Max's violet wine, here. But it also called for a bit of lemon juice which immediately turned it into an intense sort of fuchsia/magenta shade. I'm kind of surprised that all the wine in this doesn't seem to have been acidic enough to make that change. Or maybe it just didn't show up that way on screen. In any event, it would be interesting to see what a dash of lemon juice would do, because that change from a sort of cloudy violet to bright and clear fuchsia always seemed kind of magical to me.
@ivonav3751 - Have you ever tried violet chewing gum that you can sometimes find in convenience stores? I love it for its lovely, unique taste, and because it does NOT have fake sugar in it.
One theory of medical history is that Hildegard (and possibly Jutta) both had migraines with aura and they experienced their visions through the effects of that condition. Hildegard is impossibly cool, and one of pioneers of natural science and women's health as well.
You can get migraines without the headaches. The geometric shapes which can be associated with migraines can precede visions....hopefully benign ones! The hypothesis has been applied to geometric prehistoric rock carvings where it is suggested that they record the geometric shapes seen before visions which can also be induced by ingesting certain substances.
@@suelane3628 yes! Several members of my family get the aura without the headache. It's fascinating. Migraine is such an interesting and complex condition.
Also a symptom of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and visions are very common for those who have this type of seizure disorder. It's also very common for people with TLE to be spiritually or religiously obsessed or highly focused upon. Having visions can definitely create a religious or spritual obsession. It's also been shown that religious phrases or photos can trigger a seizure, often called a partial or absence seizure. Not what most people understand as a seizure such as a grand mal or convulsive seizure.
You can get a hand of galingale at your local giant asian supermarket in the same area as the hands of ginger. I do the same thing with galingale as I do with ginger: Stick it in a jar, cover it with sherry, and put a lid on it, pulling it out to slice for use at need.
She also corresponded with many notables figures of the day (hundreds of her letters survive) and wrote extensively about human sexuality, including the female orgasm.
Her music was one of the 1st CDs I bought (along w/Gregorian Chants) when I got my cd player back in the day. So crisp &clear sounding. I’ve been fascinated with her ever since.
I am a Bavarian, and enjoy watching your videos so much! Hildegardkekse, that’s what we call them, are wonderfully delicious and I made them a couple of years ago. Always use whole meal spelt flour for this! They are absolutely not bitter but aromatic and sweet. By the way if you want to pronounce the letter correctly then use a t in front of it, as if you’re trying to say “tsunami “ and then you’ll be pronouncing like a German speaker 🌺😁👍 Many thanks for your absolutely amazing videos ❤
Loved this video! I'm a big fan of St. Hildegard of Bingen. This past summer I was able to visit St. Hildegard of Bingen's church & relics in Germany. Brought home some of her spirits, which I purchased at a healing center that promotes her health writings. The Rhine River Valley is so beautiful.
Hildegarde for sure was a truly remarkable woman. Her concept of a green and juicy earth being a 'godly' earth is just one of her relevancies to todays world. Plus her music is so divine.
Oh this is perfect! In my Greco-Roman-inspired fantasy I have a character drinking violatium, which I found in the Apicius cookbook. Now I know how to describe the flavor :) I already have the conditum paradoxum (spiced holiday wine) in another scene thanks to one of Max's previous videos. Do be warned, I read that in large quantities violet wine has a laxative effect, so drink in moderation, etc.
Being from germany and having learned about her in school, I never new she wrote music. It was always her writings and her being a woman in power that was why we learned about her.
Most of all, she was a Mystic, Saint and a Doctor of the Catholic Church! 🙏✝️🕊️ She was also a Benedictine abbess, the founder of two convents, writer, preacher, advisor to the powerful and powerless alike, composer, healer and even exorcist. Saint Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most important thinkers of the twelfth century renaissance.
Thank you for your fascinating video about St. Hildegard von Bingen and her cooking. There are some beautiful recordings of her compositions available. I was so sorry to hear about your companion cat passing away. I’m 77 years old and got my first cat when I was 7. There have been many cats in my life and loved each dearly, so I have some idea of how you’re feeling. When their lives came to an end it was so hard, so painful. I hope you have others near you to comfort you. I am praying for strength and comfort for you while you mourn for him.
I’m a huge Hildegard fan and have performed several portions of the Ordo Virtutum. I’ve also performed in Vienna, hope you have a blast!! You should be there at the height of chanterelle season, try to find the dish Eierschwarmmerl gerostet, it’s just divine!
He's probably got ideas already planned out, and I'm sure plenty of suggestions, but since Danish pastries originally came from Vienna (a Danish in Denmark is known as "Vienna/Viennese bread") I am hoping there's a pastry video that comes from his forthcoming trip. Safe travels!
I've always been a fan of Abbess Hildegard of Bingen since I heard her music back decades ago. After hearing all the other cool things she was up to, I don't think I could love her any more. She's awesome!
This is such a pleasant RUclips channel. I love Hildegard, so this was a special treat! I wish we could know more about what her cookies of joy were like. I’m sure they wouldn’t be considered very joyful if they really were bitter and had a poor texture. Either we are missing something that wasn’t written down, or we are too accustomed to sugar and butter. I bet she made these Lent friendly, too. 😂
I think I'd like to try this adding a few ingredients that they would have had access to, like honey and eggs to make them a bit more cookie-like. Also, we have to add that my son and I always have to pause to identify the Pokemon in the background as we watch each episode together.
I'm amazed that the flavor paring of violets and licorice goes that far back. Those goes so well together I've always thought it was an modern idea, like lavender and licorice which is amazing too.
After seeing this comment I just mixed some violet and licorice snuff (powder oiled tobacco inhaled/insufflated into the nose) and I can confirm it goes extremely well together, can't believe I never thought to mix them
I'm slightly infamous at my local milkshake place because my order of choice is Parma violets, Black Jack liquorice chews, and either rose water or lychee syrup depending on my mood. It makes the milkshakes go an alarming dark grey colour, but it's my fave
Awesome recipe trials! Hildegard von Bingen is one of my favorite healing partners. Re the cookies, you might also consider that being without the eggs and butter, they may have a lengthy shelf life, like bannock. I love that they're also vegan and easily adapted to keto with simple substitutions like almond flour.
I wonder if you add sugar, butter and milk, will the final result be like speculoos?? I love those, they definitely help with my mood, except I can't have them while on a diet 🥲 and my condolences for Jaime's passing. The best cat ever.
The cookies are called speculaas, speculoos is the very recent invention of grinding those cooking into a paste to use as a sweet bread topping ;) But you're right! The spices used in this recipe are almost the same as those used for speculaas, all you need to add is some powdered ginger (and white pepper, cardamom, coriander, aniseed etc. if you want to be fancy)
Hey Max, if you wanna try fresh galangal in something, it's pretty common at places that have south east Asian groceries. It's especially common in Thai cuisine. I've never tried dried galangal but I imagine just like with ginger, the difference between dried and fresh is pretty large. Fresh galangal has kind of a spicy, citrusy, woodsy flavor. Personally I think it tastes like if you took ginger and pushed it somewhat in the direction of sichuan peppercorn or sansho, though not so strong.
She has the most amazing illustration of her dream of the heavens. I think looking at that she must have been having a lot of these cookies. She was really an amazing woman of her time
Awesome video, Max! For any who are curious, the language Hildegard developed is called the "lingua ignota". Incidentaly, the music of Hildegard von Bingen is not to be confused with the bardcore artist Hildegard von Blingin', who is here on RUclips.
Check out these other interesting Medieval recipes:
Medieval Tournaments: ruclips.net/video/wxypUB5K0KE/видео.html
Peasant Food: ruclips.net/video/zKa5GRu4LwE/видео.html
Medieval Outlaws: ruclips.net/video/IfcQcAPt5vk/видео.html
Medieval Saint Diet: ruclips.net/video/jBRVvMm3xv0/видео.html
Medieval Monks: ruclips.net/video/zz0y1d6IIpY/видео.html
you'd better make that sachertorte!
@@michelguevara151 I sure am
Found this on Wikipedia article on the different types of galangal, and regarding the word galingale.
"...The term galingale is sometimes also used for the rhizome of the unrelated sweet cyperus (Cyperus longus), traditionally used as a folk medicine in Europe."
Maybe this is what Hildegard was using.
Was wondering. The cookies may have been cooked with a cooking oil (adding some fat). I noticed you used a silicone mat, maybe greasing the pan would do something else. The cookies may have been dunked in the wine. Unrelated the ancient Roman herb Silphium has been rediscovered.
I subscribe to a channel called Hildegard Von Blingin' that takes modern songs and makes them medieval. Now I know what to consume while I'm listening to the latest song.
"She was born into a noble family but she was born tenth into that family and so the likelihood of her inheriting anything was basically NUN..." Good one Max ;D
I thought the same thing 😂
I missed it! Thanks for sharing 😂
You stole my thought! 🤣😆
I was actually expecting more 'nun' jokes. But alas, there were 'none'.
I’m pretty sure he was nun the wiser when he made that comment
Hildegard: Cookies and wine cure melancholy!
Every modern person: Sounds legit.
( giggles) it is the traditional end of the Sunday meal in Tuscany, hard almond biscuits, baked twice called Cantucci and vin santo (the sweet raisin wine used for the catholic mass)
blog.giallozafferano.it/inventaricette/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/cantucci-e-vin-santo-2-vid-720x569.jpg www.giallozafferano.com/recipes/cantucci-almond-cookies.html
@CaptainRiterraSmith - Well, sadness, anyway.
Well, they have a lot of beneficial nutrients, and spices do have certain neural effects.
And if all else fails, you had wine and biscuits, or oatmeal stout, or whatever else.
My Italian grandmother would agree 😂
@@R.P.-hw2rq Holy Hardtack (click, clack!)!
Licorice is good for digestion like ginger. Cinnamon helps control blood sugar. Cloves are a natural analgesic. It helps to numb pain. I'm not sure about the rest but it sounds to me like she knew what she was about with herbs and spices.
Too much licorice will raise your blood pressure excessively and also cause diarrhoea
She is considered one of the best herbal apothecary of all time. And wrote about that too. She is such an interesting historical figure.
Liquorice is also good for "hurt of the lungs", or rather throat. As a choir singer, our choir leader always had liqourice for us.
Nutmegs contain myristicine, which, as a MAO-Inhibitor, is a potent antidepressive drug. Only problem is dosage and side effect - MAO inhibitors are notoriously problematic, and it's almost impossible to get a reliable dosage.
@@ruthardbaudach2302 also nutmeg in big doses can become poisonus for an adult human. It is all about the quantities 👍
My wife, the Hildegard fanatic, says you're supposed to make these with spelt flour to impart a kind of nuttiness to them rather than that bitter flavor you described. Love this video!
Quite right! Hildegard was a spelt fanatic. My mother is also a Hildegard fanatic and she makes these biscuits with some spelt flour but also some butter, sugar and an egg yolk. Delicious! But one musn't eat too many, especially children. One or two small ones a day and not every day. They are after all medication!
This might explain why there are so many products with spelt here. It's the Hildegard effect. I kinda like it as they are considered healthy as whole grain without tasting like it.
Except that the recipe says nothing about spelt and they clearly had both spelt and wheat
@@mellie4174 I'm from Central Europe and historical recipes traditionally specify white wheat flour only for "cakes" to be eaten on Easter or the feast before spring fast. But overall, the common flour kinds are very different here compared to USA.
Hildegard has... fanatics?
1:12 Miss Hildegard really said: “I have a cure for depression.”
She has an excellent sense of humours
I see what you did there
@@trevorshaw-mumford2150 Thank you!
And possibly a bad habit.
@@zirconia21 Loves the holy spirits
Go on then you lush… Hildegard 🫣🫶🏿✌️
We used to make these in primary school every year on her saint's day, we called them Bingen biscuits and we'd eat them after lunch, apart from the last one which would be fed to the classroom hamster by the youngest child while we listened to a casette of some of her music. I think the school still does it but not sure
🐹
Fun fact: Her creation of Lingua Ignota, the mystical language that she created, makes her the unofficial patron saint of all Conlangers aka people who make languages, whether fictional ones like Dothraki and Elvish, or ones that are actually used by some people such as Esperanto.
Omg yessss
Sweet! As someone who's been working on a conlang for 2 decades now it's awesome to know there's a patron saint of it.
As soon as he mentioned her making a language I was like, "Wait, she was a conlanger!?" 😆
Heck yeah 😌
klingon also?
Her spices were measured by weight. Cinnamon, being slightly denser than nutmeg, should be closer to 1.5t and cloves (being in much higher demand at the time) should be closer to a 1/4 t. Spelt is the native flour of the German area. To make the biscuits softer, whip them up with a whisk to mechanically leaven them, spoon them onto a pre-heated tray and stick them right into the oven.
Rather than heating the wine, you can do a cold soak, it just takes longer. If you do choose to heat an alcoholic beverage, use a double boiler to prevent souring or faulting.
There is a short-cut to this which uses Creme de Violette (a violet liquere) in a 17-2 ratio (1, 750ml bottle of wine to 3oz liquere). This will sweeten the drink so I suggest using a very dry wine to start. You can then make a sachet or Galangal and Licorice (I also like to add an allspice berry) and either brew a tea using 4oz water or directly infuse the wine for two days before removing the spices.
❤
Thank you!
The cinnamon would also be a different kind from what we tend to get in the US, ceylon rather than cassia, though it's really interesting that she would say that it helps blood flow better, since even true cinnamon (though cassia is much higher in content) contains coumarin, which is a blood thinner, so effective it's been used as both rat poison and as a modern prescription medicine to prevent blood clots (Warfarin).
As for the wine, both the violets and licorice are known cough suppressants, so the "helping the lungs" part of that isn't all that far off either...
Is that you Hildegard???
Have to agree, the Spelt flour alone would make so much difference. That or a slightly coarser ground oat flour like we used in England?
The great thing about these little biscuits is that you could eat them right the way through Lent, which may well have been a deliberate consideration on Hilda's part. You can still get struck by melancholy during Lent. Hilda has long been a hero of mine, so thank you so much for this video Max.
She could've at least put sugar in the things, since sugar wasn't forbidden during Lent. Maybe she didn't have a much of a sweet tooth.
@@eeresponsibleit is interesting that there’s not at least some honey. sweetness was part of the remedy for melancholy. maybe they were purely for medicinal treatment and not purely disposition
@@eeresponsible Sugar wasn't available to people in Europe then, not really at least (that wouldn't come until the 17th century with the New World sugar plantations). But honey was. But remember that the life of the religious (monks and nuns) is a life of mortification, and additionally, it's possible that she thought that a sweetener would ruin the physic or salutary properties of the cookies, which are clearly designed to be medicinal more than recreational (a treat).
@ChristopherMH I can easily imagine someone following her recipe and adding some honey. It's not too complicated of an idea.
@@janes8714sugar causes even more depression
I had major heart issues and the medication from the hospital really messed me up for years and could barely walk.
An old German neighbor gave me her parsley wine remedy and I made it myself.
A sip a day cured my arrhythmia, and I hike 20+ miles now.
If I don't take it for about 5 days, the arrhythmia returns.
That's wonderful! Bless you in your health ❤
How do you make it?
@@GreenTea3699
Take 1 bottle of Pino Noir, pour into pot.
Add 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar
Bring to boil and simmer.
Take 10 bound sprigs of parsley, and stir the pot for 5 minutes with the parsley bundle, while simmering.
Then add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of honey.
Bring to Boil again and simmer again for 5 minutes while stirring with the parsley bundle.
Let cool...
Pour back into the wine bottle with a funnel.
Put in fridge.
Take a sip a day.
It really works!!!
You can look up St Hildegard's Parsley Wine Remedy for the official recipe, too. This worked great for me.
@@Poisonedblade Thank you!!! 💕💕
@@GreenTea3699 No Problem!!!
Thank you so much! I’m going to try this.
Native Viennese here, enjoy the city! I also know for a fact that the National Library, apart from just being amazing to look at, has old books on medieval cookery containing some... interesting recipes.
Oooh thank you! This is actually exactly what I want to see.
@@TastingHistory It's been almost 20 years now so my memory is hazy, but I remember reading through one and looking for old cake recipes. I found one that, I believe, had sugar, spices and almonds, you know, the good stuff, and then... fish? Bit of a whiplash.
@@TheSerpitmy dude, Thai people use fish and shrimp paste to make a sweet sauce for dipping with sour fruit. We literally called it “sweet fish sauce” (น้ำปลาหวาน)
We believe in you. You can do it😂
@@rapipanmanoch6470 ahh..here in Indonesia we have similar food..Rujak Buah (fruits dipped with sweet and spicy peanut sauce)
Can't wait to see what Max comes up with from that! Gonna have to look for this book myself X3
As a german i can say Hildegard is a national treasure.
Doctor: “What are you taking for your depression?”
Me: “Cookies and wine. It’s medicinal”
I instantly envisioned a Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer cartoon version of this
Let food be your medicine; people were using herbs/spices for all sorts of issues all through human history up until very recently when big business took over and only sees the purpose in peddling drugs that can be patented and owned by them and them alone (plants in nature can't yet be)
Cookies and wine are a lot better than the dangerous poisons called antidepressants that doctors push at everybody now because they get paid commission to prescribe them! $300,000 per year they get from Big Pharma to prescribe these deadly poisons! And people wonder why doctors are so keen on getting every last person on them - so much so they are even targeting kids and pets!!!
Sugar and alcohol might cheer many people up! 😂
I am from germany, and I can assure you, over here she is known best for her medical work, less for poetry and music. I learned during this video that she even composed music to be honest, but then I am a trained nurse, and learned some things about her during my training.
But the aversion against strawberries is actually a quite common "medievel thing", for they were not really eaten in its raw form like today, but more often boiled. Because of the obviously different way people had acces to food, meaning you really could just eat what was in season because you had to grow it youreself, they did actually had more often (minor) problems with theire digestion, because they could eat certain things like fresh berries just in a very small part of the year, wich their digestion could often not really tolerate, because it was not a stable throughout the year. This let quite often to diarrhea, wich was a quite fritening condition in this period of time, with things like the pest and other illnesses taking lives in great abundence regularly. So even if it was just a mild complain that lastet only a few days, it was taken very serious. And especially children would not be fed with fresh fruits in any way. I remeber ruth goddman saying something like "They started feeding children at age 10 boiled apples, you know, just to be on the safe side"
Fascinating, thankyou!
Yes thank you. I’m a nurse from Australia but my father was German and I love learning about medieval history.
Wow, I'd never thought about how the seasonality of foods would affect your digestion! Fascinating
can confirm this and in Deutschland she is definitely the medieval herb lady !
.....gonna listen to some of her music now.......which I've never done before....
sounds super middle agey !
the extra calming stuff I would have expected to have been sung by a medieval nun
edit: shouldn't have listened to soothing medieval nun music while eating Spekulatius and now I feel all christmassy ......gonna put on "puer natus in bethleem" next....to make it even worse 😅
Hildegard is one of my favourite figures from history. Que femme! Philosopher, composer, artist (possibly), theologian, mystic, physician, abbess, linguist, evangelist, moralist and all round amazing woman, all with poor health and without being a raving lunatic. It's a pity she's not better known.
And beautifully orthodox in her faith and as such, violently anti-modern and anti-Feminist (but in no way anti-feminine). The woman was an absolute gift of God and is one of my favorite saints.
Couldn’t agree more!
That "pity she's not better known" surprised me; in Germany, if you have so much as a highschool degree, you're likely to have at least heard of her.
And I'M not even sure if I would _want_ her to better known, she and her work are being marketed quite enough already. I think in most cases, her recipes are 'adapted' to modern tastes - which makes me all the more thrilled that Max went with the *original* recipe. ❤
@@ChristopherMH Hildegard cared about the wellbeing of others, so I can guarantee you she wouldn't like your politics. Sorry to crush your fantasies about historical figures being "just like you fr fr" 😂
@@herenihothe violent modern and feminist trend cares nothing for other people. Its is entirely self-obsessed.
Hildegard was a remarkable woman, solidly faithful, and someone whose life bears study. This is a wonderful way to introduce her to today’s world.
😂12
Hildegard was a fascinating woman. Interestingly, she is part of the reason why we use hops in beer instead of gruit now. Also, on that note, I think the cookies would have turned out better if you had used wheat malt instead of all or part of the flour. That may impart some sweetness cooked over a slow flame, and she definitely would have had it available.
Another interesting tidbit, she liked the way nuns looked when they drank wine and beer because it made their cheeks rosy, thus making them look cheery.
What's gruit?
@user-kw9se9cm8m It's a mix of herbs, roots, spices that were used as the flavoring (bittering) in beer prior to hops being used. I can't tell you an exact blend because they were all hyper local blends based on what was available where the beer was being made and the time of year. That being said, I have read that juniper branches and Angelica root were common ingredients in gruit mixes.
awwwe thats sweet.
I thought fruit was a typo for fruit! Thanks for the explanation. Before the German beer purity laws that specified that beer could only be made with malt, hops, water and yeast all sorts of things were added to beer. Including lentils (yuk. Turns beer into a health food). Some of the Belgian beers still echo medieval concoctions. There are wheat beers with fruit that are still made today. It might have been the same type of beer that they used to ferment naturally in large shallow vats stored in the attic. The wort was colonized by natural fermenting yeasts present in the local area. It must have tasted like a fruit vinegar with bubbles.
@@carpathiangirl8460Lambic beer
Hildegard von Bingen still has a lot of influence through her recipes in Germany at least. My grandparents practically swear by her bread and would always buy the "Hildegard von Bingen"-bread made after her recipe when at the bakery. Cool to see some other things from her on here!!
What baker is this available at?
@@thycauldronProbably lots of them. German bakeries are often mid-sized chains or even small and independent. I mean, there are big bakeries, but even travelling like 50km can lead to seeing entirely new chains.
My small town (about 30k people) has 2 native chains alone, 2 other who only have one location but they deliver to other locations (which sell the baked goods and do not just use them to make like sandwiches, but they are not chains), a couple of chain locations from other cities and at least 2 bakeries which are still completely on their own as far as I know.
I also just googled the two biggest chains around here thinking they were germany-wide. Nope, they are big, but not that big.
I have a cup of "Hildegard von Bingen" tea next to me while watching this lmao
And in Austria 🇦🇹 . You‘ll find Hildegard von Bingen inspired products everywhere 😊
On a side note: I'd highly recommend Hildegard von Blingin on RUclips.
Her medieval bard cover of modern pop songs are God tier.
Totally agree! Thanks for mentioning her here!
My first thought on seeing this video was that it was a collab with her!
@@gemma3877 not gonna lie I had to look twice thinking it was her too 😂
I actually clicked on this video because my eyes are dumb and misread the title
(for extra durr I'm already subbed)
@gemma3877 same here!
This recipe is exactly the kind of joy I expected from Hildegard. 😂
My grandma, who was a huge admirer of Hildegard von Bingen, always had this saying: 'the worse it tastes, the better it cures'
for the time its from, it often actually does taste kinda nice, her whole thing is spices and those are awesome . . . . if your taste is not compleatly ruled by sugar
My grandma must have been a fan too. She always said: "A remedy must not taste good." Why, gran, why? 😢😂
Well, Buckley's Mixture *does* work.
I love Hildegard! I spent a lot of time studying her in college and my favorite Halloween costume involved a stuffed octopus on my head and a nun habit (based on that vision picture)! I have only made the Joy cookie recipes that add butter and sugar though 😆
@@taylorashlock6309 Most recipes of the day would have probably added the butter or eggs too, it's common for them to assume you know what you're doing and add the basics automatically in many recipes of the time. So enjoy them as you make them. Sugar on the other hand would probably not been common in anything European back then although it did exist in the eastern parts of the world and was probably imported but would have been super expensive.
Today in Germany many organic supermarkets and bakeries sell Hildegard's cookies, but of course with sugar or honey and butter, to make them more familiar to modern costumers' palate. But of course they still contain spices like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg which are identified as the main antidepressive ingredients. I've made them by myself, they are indeed very delicious! I haven't tried the anti-melancholy wine though :D Greetings from Germany!
To imagine that this Woman turned 81 in a time without antibiotics, where every little inflammtion could be a death sentence, is a sentiment to the legitness of some of her herbal medicine ngl.
There’s also the matter of her living in an abbey where she received adequate food and at least somewhat proper hygiene
@@ViridianCrisis7 also absolutely a beneficial factor.
It wasn't that unusual. The concept of average lifetime really skews people's perception. Once you made it through childhood and as a woman past having babies and were living a relatively safe life, ignoring things like pandemics, 80 wasn't that unusual for her class. Even hunter gatherers could live into their 70s.
Living to that age really wasn't as uncommon as is popularly assumed. I heard a university professor say recently that people only just started living into their 80s in the past centuries which is crazy 😅
But I definitely agree that her healthy eating, taking care of her teeth, etc. must have contributed!
Cinnamon and especially cloves have antibiotic (& cloves, antiviral) properties, and licorice, in addition to adding sweetness, is a gentle anti-inflammatory and even in modern herbal medicine known ato relieve chest and lung ailments.
Her drawings include really good versions of what migraine auras look like. I get auras (but happily not the actual headache following) and her illustrations really capture the effect.
I get both so I had to look at her aura art. I’m going to have to dive deep into this now 😎😅
I used to get painful migraines, & ocular migraines (Even bright white blindness in my left eye, up until 2003, when I accidentally realized that coffee was the main culprit!
I immediately gave it up cold turkey, & while the painful headaches have not ever returned, however I have had a few auras in the past few years, which I realized were brought on by certain, mostly “perfumey” smells.
Hope this helps.
(Yes. I am aware that caffeine is helpful in migraine treatment, & I do still enjoy caffeinated sodas, but there must be some other component of coffee that is the migraine culprit?)
@@EPShockley I wish that a remedy for mine was that easy. I’ve had them since childhood and I’ve done many months without coffee 😭
@@EPShockley That's so fascinating--I don't get migraines, but a general headache and queasiness if I drink coffee without any added fat. Something about diluting with milk, or adding cream, (and once, in a pinch, butter, which... did its job but was not tasty) nullified the effect. Really makes me wonder what's in coffee other than caffeine!
I get the headache part but not so much the auras, so it's neat to have a reference for what other people I've talked to are experiencing!
the cookies you held im 3:55 where definitely the correct ones, even if they are hard. im german and we did such similar cookies in elementary school, they are supposed to be like that
Max, I have done what you suggested in the end and made ginger snaps with Hildegard's spices (although I got them through my own kitchen experimentation) and I can confirm that they are very good. We call them 'unscarfable spice cookies' because they're so heavily spiced that you have to eat them slowly, even though they're small. Of all of the cookies that I make over the holidays, these are the ones that make peoples' eyes light up when they find out I've made some, and I have to make them in very large batches, basically cleaning out my spice cabinet each time.
Can you share the recipe? 😮 I am so intrigued!
I would love the recipie as well! They sound delicious!
That is a very excellent name for a cookie.
Oh yes, please share your recipe!
@@sleepynightowl1550 It's just a standard molasses spice cookie using the darkest possible molasses, but with the spices listed above and the amounts just ludicrously high. It shouldn't be quite as crisp as a ginger snap, as I've found that baking them that crisp messes with the flavor of the spices when there's THAT much of them there. Let the dough sit in the fridge at least overnight before baking to give the flavors a chance to really get in there and mingle.
(ETA: My recipes, such as they are, wouldn't be out of place with the historical ones that just list 'some' or 'a lot of' or 'do it until the consistency is right', which was why I advised looking up an actual molasses spice cookie recipe, since that's the base.)
Hey I sang one of Hildegard's song in choir class this year - I wish I could have brought these cookies to rehearsals!
Bring them to the next one.
Still holds up 1,000 years later ... and people are already turning on the White Album!
@@andybaxter4442 I dunno who's turning on the White Album, but whoever they are, they are wrong and need to stop.
I am so glad you did an episode on St. Hildegard! She was an amazing woman, and is considered a theological doctor of the church for her teachings!
She was just an amazing person. If you haven't listened to her musical compositions, you must. They are so beautiful. Thank you, Max, for your historical narratives. I learn so much from them.
She sounds like an extremly intelligent person. Really on the level of a Leonardo Da Vinci or a Michelangelo, but only 500 years earlier and being a woman, which was not helpfull of course in that timeframe. A 'nun' is a demeaning term, meant to keep women subdued.
@telebubba5527 No. It is a religous order a respectable one that garners the title Sister. Please correct your ignorance.
I prefer Hildegard von blingin'
@@telebubba5527
"nun (n.)
Old English nunne "woman devoted to religious life under vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience to a superior," also "vestal, pagan priestess," from Late Latin nonna "nun, tutor," originally (along with masc. nonnus) a term of address to elderly persons"
I don't see how you came to your conclusion.
@@telebubba5527you’re massively misinformed. “Nun” is a vocation , a respected profession.
About Hildegard's sneezing theory: I've been modelling for artists for nearly 20 years, and can attest that when you're doing a long pose for a portrait class, and no matter how many short breaks you take you're always going back to that same seated position, you indeed start feeling like the blood in your vessels is not awake and lively, but rather just lies there as if asleep... to think of it, those interminable hours of prayers in cold, dusty rooms can't have been that different from a portrait pose.
And in those situations, a sneeze is a gift! I honestly feel refreshed and energised afterwards, it becomes easier to keep my eyes open, sometimes the vertebras in my neck spontaneously crack and my neck hurts less as a result... AND it doesn't count as an actual break 😂 She obviously noticed this positive effect of sneezing, and in absence of the knowledge she would have needed to fully understand why a sneeze happens, she decided it must be the body's way of getting a person out of that lethargic state.
Thank you for the great video, what a fascinating woman. I love that she effectively went on strike to get her way - her freedom, in fact. If I find dried violets I'll try making that wine, and the spice snaps too, they sound like nice autumn treats. Have fun in Vienna 🤗
When I was small I used to live close to Eibingen and I always thought she was so cool!
We did an a capella piece by Hildegard von Bingen in college. Because nobody else wanted the solo, I got it. It was the "drone" part; just one low pitch throughout the whole song- something that is pretty common in medieval compositions . Aside from breath control, easiest solo I've ever done. 😅
We were taught a bit about her life too. Fascinating woman.
"you wanna keep milking me as your cash cow? well how about I run out of milk..." such a power move. I knew she was a bit of a badass but this gave me more details. love it.
As a practicing Catholic, I really appreciate this video, Max. Thank you for doing this Saint justice.
Please don't ask any dead Saint, ancestors or spirit to pray for you or pray to them or any prophets ,Mary, or with any rosary. JESUS is the only mediator : We are constructed not to consult the dead
Deuteronomy 18:10-13
King James Version
10 There shall not be found among you any one that .....or a consulter with familiar spirits (the spirit of a dead person invoked by a medium to advise or prophesy) , or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
King James Bible 1 Timiothy 2:5
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus
Also only worship God alone, not the pope, any saint or mary, that is commting the great sin of idolatry.
Exodus 20:3-6
King James Version
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Please repent!
If you were to die today, are you a 100% sure you will go to heaven?
If no, here is what the bible says,
(1) Romans 3:23 KJV [23] For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
Q1. Do you know what Sin is?
Sin is anything bad that we have done.
Q2. Have you sinned before?
Yes or No?
(2) Revelation 21:8 KJV [8] But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Because they have sinned, and God does not allow Sin into Heaven, the punishment is burning hell.
What is the way to reconcile our peace and relationship with God?
Q3. Do you know the Story of Jesus?
(3) Romans 5:8 KJV [8] But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Jesus = God who lived up in Heaven, but he came down on earth and became a man like us, he lived for 33.5 years without committing any sin. Then there were certain people who were jealous and therefore framed him on phony charges, and crucified him. Then he was buried and resurrected on the third day; Now he lives in HEAVEN.
Q4. Do you know why Jesus went through all this bloody mess for us?
A4. As mentioned, our sin is the reason why we can’t go to heaven, and the only thing that can wash away our sin is the Blood of Jesus.
(4) Romans 5:9 KJV [9] Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
According to the bible, the only way for us to reconcile with God is through Christ Jesus’s blood, and not through any works that we do or merits we accumulate, such as water baptism, attending church, or any good thing that we do. The following verses clearly support this.
(5) Ephesians 2:8-9 KJV [8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast.
(6) 2 Corinthians 7:10 KJV [10] For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.
In order to get saved, repentance of one’s sin is needed to get saved, we need to be sorry, and repent, with conviction, that we are a wretched sinner.
(7) Romans 10:9 KJV [9] That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
If you truly do believe in everything you have heard in the gospel, ,I strongly suggest you to make a proclamation to GOD! You can say it to God in less than 15 seconds !Repeat after this simple prayer, to make sure you truly get saved. Remember repeating this prayer doesn't save you, it's you telling God you BELIEVE THE GOSPEL. Ok, here is the prayer :
‘Dear GOD,
I know I am a sinner, as I repent, I put my faith, that Jesus is GOD, and that he died, buried and resurrected, so that his blood, can wash away my Sins. I put my faith in that alone to save me, not my good works. In Jesus’s holy name, I pray. Amen!
Congratulations ! Now you are a child of God. Download /Buy a KJV bible (I highly suggest getting a hard copy bible , as one day, it will be illegal to buy, own or even have an online version of the bible) and search for youtube channel like REAL Bible Believers , Spencer Smith to help you grow , study dispensationalism to understand the bible ( How do we reconcile the verses in the New Testament that tell us that we need works to show our faith, and another that tells us that nothing that can take our salvation away? That's why we need to study biblical dispensationalism to rightly divide the word of God.( study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, 2 Timithy 2:15) (I recommend the dispensationalism video from Genesis to Revelations by Dr. Gene Kim, ruclips.net/video/GI4CteEFxOk/видео.html) , join a bible believing church. God bless you brother/ sister ☺. See you in heaven one day!
This video caught also my (German) wife's attention as I was watching it. She was surprised that you stated what Hildegard was best known for was her music. Apparently in Germany she's best known for her herb-craft. We were both pretty sure that the only sweetener that would have been available in the 12th century in central Europe would have been honey, which might have changed that wafer quite a bit, but as you said it wasn't in the recipe itself. Have fun in Wien, it is a lovely city. We were there for our honeymoon many years ago, and have visited several times. Make sure you make it to the Prater and take a ride on the Riesenrad!
Her music and devotional writings had a moment in the US in the 1990s.
I too only knew her from her medicinal herb recipes. I never knew she wrote music!
Herbalism is scoffed at and ignored in most places. Germany is kind of an exception. Or so I hear.
Yay! Thank you for doing a video on Saint Hildegard and our beloved Catholic nuns. We love her and them so!
Just a question, I've been rereading "The Complete Visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich" and what are your thoughts on her?
@@RowdyRodimus Oh wow she is definitely very interesting and I think is definitely worth reading and devoting time to studying. While not a saint *yet* I think she has much insight into the world of our ancestors. As a rule, divinely inspired prophecies and revelations, whether *Private* and or *Public* are not *Necessary* for our Salvation, they are something the Church has for us to deepen our faith and guide us. We don't *Need* them, but they are there for us if we so choose to study them or want to dive in. Such a wonderful question. Thank you!
Oh wow, not just me.
Nuns (medieval bluestockings) were resourceful, I'm sure if she could have made doughnuts, she would have definitely made doughnuts.
@@oriel9347the nuns near where I live are a testament of this. They are so resourceful and share cooking recipes, they're also amazing gardeners, crafters and wells of knowledge on local plants ❤ when I was a younger I used to learn cooking thanks to their videos to know how to make nourishing meals with humble items making my college days a bit better 😂
One of my favorite. I keep spice of joy mix and add it to everything!
1TB nutmeg
1 TB cinnamon
1 Tsp Clove.
I make it in large quantities!
"spice of joy" - I like that
Funfact: Hildegard von Bingen lived in an abbey called Eibingen right above Rüdesheim, famous for its Drosselgasse.
If you do the typical Germany tour popular with Americans, Japanese and Koreans (start in Frankfurt, Eltz castle, Rüdesheim, Heidelberg, Rotenburg ob der Tauber, Neuschwanstein, finish in Munich), you are also walking in Hildegard's footsteps. A hike through the vineyards from Rüdesheim to Eibingen is well worth it.
In the monastery shop you can buy pastries, spirits, teas, ointments and much more from Hildegard's recipes.
Are the recipes they use "touristed up"? Or accurate to the original?
I was even more interested than usual in today's episode, because I live in Vienna and often perform Hildegard's music here in my instrument making workshop. She was a wonderful composer, but hardly recognized as such until recently. My music history classes at UC Berkeley didn't even mention her. And as you showed, she was an amazing personality.
Danke aus sonnigem Wien, Scott
I’m astonished you never heard of her music at Berkeley. I certainly have heard her music performed at Berkeley! Then again, I am into Early Music, and Cal (and the San Francisco Early Music Society) have co-sponsored the Berkeley Festival and Exhibition for some years now, showcasing music of 1850 and before. She was truly remarkable, far ahead of her time. And it’s amazing to think she did all of this while probably suffering from aura migraines, which are hypothesized to be the source of her visions. Just wow.
@@DawnDavidson Early music was pretty much ignored at UC Berkeley when I studied there (69 to 73). I ended up doing mostly Renaissance and then Medieval music, was in several groups and played the Renaissance Faire several times, but I basically had to teach myself. Things have changed since then.
She probably didn’t write every ingredient for her recipes in her “Physica “, because she assumed readers of the time would know to fill in the gaps. The point in these cookies is the spices (similar to the spices in chai.) These are mood boosting and stimulate circulation. Definitely helpful for bouts of melancholy. I actually go get a chai when I’m feeling down-it really does work!
I remember first reading about Hildegard in a childrens book titled ‘Outrageous women of the Middle Ages’, and I always thought she sounded so cool! There were a whole bunch of women in the book, from different parts of the world. My memory says it was a good book, but it’s been a few years so😂
It is an excellent book !
I have a book called "Uppity Women of the Middle Ages" which gives thumbnail bios on a whole bunch of women from all over the world who were intelligent, feisty & made quite a name for themselves at a time when it was not acceptable.
Most whole wheat flour we use in the USA is hard red wheat, which tends to be harsher tasting, bitter, and higher in tannins, at least from my experience. As others have said she would have most likely using spelt, which tends to have higher protein, and if you whip it up good and put it in an already heated medieval oven can have a naturally leavened effect. You could also make them from malted or sprouted wheat or spelt, which would make them sweeter, which would have been more seasonable back in the period.
I took a class on medieval mystics in uni and the nuns were my FAVORITE by far. This is so,,, fond for me.
Those are actually still made in Austria (and Germany probably) for the healing qualities people ascribe to them. I've had them myself a few times, and though not my favorite, they are quite ok
Actually, given that she mentions lung problems with the Violet Wine, that "spiciness" from the galangal might help. I know personally when I've got a cold or congestion a bit of spicy ginger ale or ginger beer really helps loosen things up and ease my breathing for a time.
I just bought the ildegarde cookies from an herb and pharmacy shop in Rome - at Saint Paolo’s basilica. The cookies we got are made with rye flour monococco - a type of grain that is 10,000 years old and still today unmodified. this is extremely different from the wheat found today and much healthier. There is a company based in Novara, Italy that recreates all of her remedies - I just bought a violet, Helichrysum, and iperico cream and her artemisia tincture for menstrual health.
Somehow reminds me of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Mexican nun from the XVII century that is famous for her poetry bu also wrote a couple cook books.
Not many thing in common besides that, but her story is equally interesting, at least to me
Cookies cure sadness, got it😂
Makes me feel less bad for my cookie eating habits!
According to Hildegard, eating and drinking tasy stuff is almost always the cure.
A smart woman, but more of a mystic than a outcome-oriented experienced healer.
Her writings show that most of her "healing" advice comes from theoretical learning, or her own a.... lets say her "visionary religious inspiration".
She showns nearly no practical experience as a healer/caretaker.
She only writes about what she heard or read about it. And writes quite some BS myths too.
. @user-un8tv1pp8m I agree. If I remember correctly she also advised against onions, which she thought were vile and bad for you. Along with the strawberries, I imagine this type of advice came from her own preferences. And perhaps she was allergic to strawberries, some people are. (Edited to correct auto correct;)
One of my favorite female saints and theologians, we have a lot of interesting people like her in the church, I’m sure we have even more cooks.
i love Hildegard, she is my patron saint. Her wine and cookies may have been helpful for people living in monasteries, far from the madding crowds! And thank you for the clarity in your narration of her life.
Same here,I have been reading a lot of her more and more
@@sosteve9113 She was known for her music and believed it cured illness. This is a beautiful album, its in my playlist! ruclips.net/video/_NGTsdL2YzE/видео.html. The song that starts at 2:02 is brilliant
Can we get an April Fool's episode where Jose hosts? Love the stuff, keep it up :)
😂 I could try to convince him
thats such a cute idea!!
@@TastingHistoryYes please!!!
Omg that would be amazing I love you guys
@TastingHistory please Jose... we all are asking.
Sassy, classy, and sometimes brassy. It’s silly how much I enjoy every installment. Like the best comfort food. Thank you.
I hope you're feeling better about your cat, Max. The fact that you keep working despite the loss is very telling of your strength and tenacity
Oh, I didn't know. That's hard. Warm hugs and condolences. My cat Miz Furbie (She who *must* be obeyed!) is going on 14 and I dread the coming inevitability. That is why I'm glad I rescued her. And you gave your kitty the best kind of life!
I'm glad you're doing well and okay, even after losing your furry friend! I know how that kind of loss feels like. But, don't work too hard either, and take time for yourself, and not worring about content! We all love you here!
So sorry for your loss Max.
I just lost my 15-year old to a brain tumor. She was the best cat! However, my other two are happy that she is gone. I miss her so much.
I think it's best to think of these wafers not in terms of "cookies" or indeed, "food" but rather as medicinal tablets, basically the most efficient way to give the patient the spice mix (almost all spices were regarded as medicinal back then, as they still are e.g. in traditional chinese medicine) in a transportable, storable (in the short-term, at least) form.
During my healing practicer training in France, which included Hildegard's medicine, we also baked cookies of joy. We had a recipe with some butter and sugar : 250g flour, 2 egg yolks, a pinch of salt, 90g butter, 120g sugar, 15g spicemix. Mix it all up with melted butter and spread it to make about 70 cakes using an egg cup. Cook at 180°C for 15 to 20 minutes. The good taste is also important to revive the joy !
Hildegard the author of the first Diet-Book ! Actually this cookie sound more like something in addition to a soup. Maybe it would go well with Hildegards "Nine Herbs Soup" made from Nettle, ground elder, chickweed, daisy, dandelion, plantain, sorrel, wild garlic and dead nettle and a roux.
Oh, that's a really neat idea. Crackers specifically spiced to pair well with soup. I may be doing some baking this weekend!
I had to take some time from watching Max's videos as it was something my wife and I did together (she was a massive lover of cooking and adored Max) and she passed in February.
So happy to be back here watching Max's culinary adventures.
My condolences to you
Welcome back and I'm sorry for your loss.
Glad you featured one of my favorite saints in the Catholic Church. She is considered a Doctor of the Church alone with St. Theresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Catherine of Siena. Will have to try her cookies and wine. I have her cd’s and her books. So interesting!
Yes, it's my girl Hildy! (Wrote a long paper on her in a medieval history class, mostly about her music though, and one on Julian of Norwich and anchorites.) Such a cool woman and I love hearing more about all the weird 'medicines'. I appreciate you covering what we do know of women's history here, since so many women get erased or forgotten! Definitely not gonna make those wafers though.
If you don't know her, please go search Hildegard von Blingin' for her amazing bardcore covers
She has a beautiful voice, and her arrangements are superb!
Yesssss
That's why Hildegard von Bingen sounded familiar.
There are 2 movies on RUclips about her life. Also amazon prime
@@rejoyce318 - I am completely a-religious, but "Hildegard von Blingin' " (note the apostrophe in the name) sounds angelic!
She has even covered a song written by Saint Hildegard von Bingen.
wait- this is the same Hildegard from my 1st semester western music history class?? i love learning about how deeply complex and accomplished women in history were, since they're so little talked about already (we barely covered her in class) when there's SO much one person is capable of
Yay! I’m teaching Hildegard in two weeks in one of my classes and I’m totally showing this video! Thank you!
You should make the cookies and depending on the age of your pupils use grape juice or dare I say, wine 😊
If you count the prezedella from your cookbook, it is the 2nd recipie from the Holy Roman Empire. Also, Austrian German is slightly different from mainline German so I watch out for those little language traps :), although in Vienna you can definitely just use English and almost everyone will understand, they are used to international tourism being the main source of income for restaurants, hotels and the like.
Ah! You’re right! I got too many to keep track of these days.
the meaningful difference for him are different names for foods
Ah, but which English, English or American?
@@rowejon The difference between those is mostly limited to pronounciation and in a smaller amount, vocabulary. But Austrian and German German are more like British English compared to Welsh English.
@@rowejon We learn british English in school and are exposed to a fair amount of american media. So expect an inconsistent mish mash of pronounciation and vocabulary! 😁
First time I’ve come across your channel. Thank you. Wonderful portrayal of Hildegard, she was one of my favorite Christian history figures from seminary.
"Mini clack clack" was a great caption. Also *hugs* that you both had reason to feel melancholy when this ep aired.
Hildegard of Bingen was a woman well beyond her era. I knew about her writings and music, but not that she baked as well. Thanks, Max! (and Hildegard)
She's most well known for her herbal medicine in the German speaking countries
Actually, contrary to modern opinion, she was very much a woman of her own era, to her era, and for it. We just have the privilege of peeping into her part in that decidedly odd time .. when women could govern men wisely from an abbey, could berate recalcitrant popes into peaceful agreement, or lead armies into battle (and win) .. and also bake cookies from next to nothing, provide nice medicines, and be rather jolly about it too. We live and learn .. or rather .. we don't, not usually.
;o)
Beyond her era ? What does that even mean ?
Hildegard was undoubtedly a woman living in XIIth century medieval, Western Europe. Had she lived anywhere else or in a different time period, she would not have been the person her specific cultural and geographic background allowed her to be.
And she was only one nun, in an era where you could count them by the hundreds of thousand, and let's not talk about all the queens, noblewomen, poetess and doctoress who also shaped the medieval world, which is decidely far above the common clichés misattributed to it.
@@TheLeonhamm couldn't have written it better myself
while I understand the sentiment, this way of thinking only distances us from people we’re not so different from. she very much was a 12th century woman and did a lot of work to legitimize things that are still seen as feminine and unnecessary. she isn’t a modern woman at all, we’re all just the same as we always have been.
I wrote a paper on Hildegard as part of my music history undergrad. She's a fascinating and incredible figure, so thanks for making this video about her! Now I'm inspired to recreate a modern version of her cookies when it's cold enough to start baking :)
I think you should've also tried dipping the crisps in the wine. It'd have softened them up a tad, and the sweetness of the wine might have opened the flavor up a little.
These might be good dipped in something with a sweetness to it. Apple cider and “hardtack” spiced cookies sounds like a good combo. Could have been their intended use, along with the extended shelf life. Medicinal biscuits dipped in mulled sweet wine or warm milk and honey.
That was my first thought - that the biscuits would have been dipped in wine or mead
I have all her music, and books about her, her work and life. The last one I bought came with CDs and her drawnings and the explanation of her visions. What amazes me is that her visions from Heavens match the description of two friends of mine who had seen Heavens and told me about it -- they even gave me their notebooks to read about their visions and learn. Her vision of the souls in Heavens that appear here in this video is also a match to what Vassula Ryden saw, when Jesus took her there for a visit. I truly believe Hildegard was divinely inspired and till today her prophecies become reality. She's amazing and her music is perfection. May God bless her and may she interced for us from Heavens.
Wow! Earlier just today I was thinking about her. She was written about in a spelt recipe booklet I have. Spelt is closer to the wheat she would have used and believed to have healing properties.
I fell in love with bread made from spelt when visiting Amsterdam! Best bread ever🙌🏽with butter 🧈😻
Kinda funny, I never knew she had visions or wrote music... she's more known for her herbal knowledge, medicine and recipes were I'm from. But I'm also not catholic and did not grow up in a very religous family.
I love your pronounciation of the CH, not many Americans do that right.
Hildegard's music helped bring me back to Catholicism. I didn't know she was a cook and herbalist as well!
PS: Your German pronunciation is great!
Even centuries after her death she is doing her work as a Nun.
Welcome home! 😊
Yay! I am so happy to read this! Love St. Hildegard!
Deo Gratias ❤🙏🇻🇦✝️👑.
Me also ❤️🔥 Ava Maria
omg I actually work for a monastery and Hildegard von Bingen's Feast Day is soon. she is one of the only Saints I'm familiar with because of her contributions to music. I wonder if the monks would appreciate some historically accurate Hildegard cookies for her day
They totally would! You should make the cookies for them, or pass along the recipe!
That sounds like a fantastic idea ! Did you end up making them ? What did the monks think ?
Once upon a time, I found a recipe for a violet syrup (essentially just a whole lot of violets boiled in water with sugar), which had a lovely, delicate violet flavor. The color was similar to Max's violet wine, here. But it also called for a bit of lemon juice which immediately turned it into an intense sort of fuchsia/magenta shade. I'm kind of surprised that all the wine in this doesn't seem to have been acidic enough to make that change. Or maybe it just didn't show up that way on screen. In any event, it would be interesting to see what a dash of lemon juice would do, because that change from a sort of cloudy violet to bright and clear fuchsia always seemed kind of magical to me.
@ivonav3751 - Have you ever tried violet chewing gum that you can sometimes find in convenience stores? I love it for its lovely, unique taste, and because it does NOT have fake sugar in it.
In the Toulouse area of France violet flavored candy is available.
Much the same thing happens with hibiscus tea.
For drinking history, please do Caribbean Sorrel ( spiced hibiscus drink)!
the acid in wine is not as acidic (or as concentrated) as the one in lemon juice, so that's why :)
Thanks for covering Hildegard! She was so prolific it’s badass.
One theory of medical history is that Hildegard (and possibly Jutta) both had migraines with aura and they experienced their visions through the effects of that condition. Hildegard is impossibly cool, and one of pioneers of natural science and women's health as well.
Well, darn. I have chronic migraines, sometimes with auras, but they never resulted in any cool visions.
@@juliam248 right?? I just get nauseous... Guess we aren't cut out for sainthood 😜
You can get migraines without the headaches. The geometric shapes which can be associated with migraines can precede visions....hopefully benign ones! The hypothesis has been applied to geometric prehistoric rock carvings where it is suggested that they record the geometric shapes seen before visions which can also be induced by ingesting certain substances.
@@suelane3628 yes! Several members of my family get the aura without the headache. It's fascinating. Migraine is such an interesting and complex condition.
Also a symptom of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and visions are very common for those who have this type of seizure disorder. It's also very common for people with TLE to be spiritually or religiously obsessed or highly focused upon. Having visions can definitely create a religious or spritual obsession. It's also been shown that religious phrases or photos can trigger a seizure, often called a partial or absence seizure. Not what most people understand as a seizure such as a grand mal or convulsive seizure.
You can get a hand of galingale at your local giant asian supermarket in the same area as the hands of ginger. I do the same thing with galingale as I do with ginger: Stick it in a jar, cover it with sherry, and put a lid on it, pulling it out to slice for use at need.
She also corresponded with many notables figures of the day (hundreds of her letters survive) and wrote extensively about human sexuality, including the female orgasm.
Her music was one of the 1st CDs I bought (along w/Gregorian Chants) when I got my cd player back in the day. So crisp &clear sounding. I’ve been fascinated with her ever since.
I am a Bavarian, and enjoy watching your videos so much! Hildegardkekse, that’s what we call them, are wonderfully delicious and I made them a couple of years ago. Always use whole meal spelt flour for this! They are absolutely not bitter but aromatic and sweet. By the way if you want to pronounce the letter correctly then use a t in front of it, as if you’re trying to say “tsunami “ and then you’ll be pronouncing like a German speaker 🌺😁👍
Many thanks for your absolutely amazing videos ❤
Yay! A Tasting History and Drinking History in one episode!
Cookies and wine cure all.
@@xdragonx6969 - No they don't.
@@MossyMozartYou've missed the joke, bud.
@@MossyMozart Not meant to be taken literally. 🤦🏻♂️
Loved this video! I'm a big fan of St. Hildegard of Bingen. This past summer I was able to visit St. Hildegard of Bingen's church & relics in Germany. Brought home some of her spirits, which I purchased at a healing center that promotes her health writings. The Rhine River Valley is so beautiful.
Hildegarde for sure was a truly remarkable woman. Her concept of a green and juicy earth being a 'godly' earth is just one of her relevancies to todays world. Plus her music is so divine.
Viriditas! 💚🌏🌿
How was her music?
@@timothyohlem4477 beautiful. Very beautiful but very different from gregorian chants.
Oh this is perfect! In my Greco-Roman-inspired fantasy I have a character drinking violatium, which I found in the Apicius cookbook. Now I know how to describe the flavor :) I already have the conditum paradoxum (spiced holiday wine) in another scene thanks to one of Max's previous videos. Do be warned, I read that in large quantities violet wine has a laxative effect, so drink in moderation, etc.
Being from germany and having learned about her in school, I never new she wrote music. It was always her writings and her being a woman in power that was why we learned about her.
Most of all, she was a Mystic, Saint and a Doctor of the Catholic Church! 🙏✝️🕊️
She was also a Benedictine abbess, the founder of two convents, writer, preacher, advisor to the powerful and powerless alike, composer, healer and even exorcist.
Saint Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most important thinkers of the twelfth century renaissance.
Thank you for your fascinating video about St. Hildegard von Bingen and her cooking. There are some beautiful recordings of her compositions available.
I was so sorry to hear about your companion cat passing away. I’m 77 years old and got my first cat when I was 7. There have been many cats in my life and loved each dearly, so I have some idea of how you’re feeling. When their lives came to an end it was so hard, so painful. I hope you have others near you to comfort you.
I am praying for strength and comfort for you while you mourn for him.
I’m a huge Hildegard fan and have performed several portions of the Ordo Virtutum.
I’ve also performed in Vienna, hope you have a blast!! You should be there at the height of chanterelle season, try to find the dish Eierschwarmmerl gerostet, it’s just divine!
She is one of my absolute favorite people! I’m so excited!
Why?
He's probably got ideas already planned out, and I'm sure plenty of suggestions, but since Danish pastries originally came from Vienna (a Danish in Denmark is known as "Vienna/Viennese bread") I am hoping there's a pastry video that comes from his forthcoming trip. Safe travels!
I've always been a fan of Abbess Hildegard of Bingen since I heard her music back decades ago. After hearing all the other cool things she was up to, I don't think I could love her any more. She's awesome!
This is such a pleasant RUclips channel.
I love Hildegard, so this was a special treat! I wish we could know more about what her cookies of joy were like. I’m sure they wouldn’t be considered very joyful if they really were bitter and had a poor texture. Either we are missing something that wasn’t written down, or we are too accustomed to sugar and butter. I bet she made these Lent friendly, too. 😂
I think I'd like to try this adding a few ingredients that they would have had access to, like honey and eggs to make them a bit more cookie-like. Also, we have to add that my son and I always have to pause to identify the Pokemon in the background as we watch each episode together.
I'm amazed that the flavor paring of violets and licorice goes that far back. Those goes so well together I've always thought it was an modern idea, like lavender and licorice which is amazing too.
After seeing this comment I just mixed some violet and licorice snuff (powder oiled tobacco inhaled/insufflated into the nose) and I can confirm it goes extremely well together, can't believe I never thought to mix them
I'm slightly infamous at my local milkshake place because my order of choice is Parma violets, Black Jack liquorice chews, and either rose water or lychee syrup depending on my mood. It makes the milkshakes go an alarming dark grey colour, but it's my fave
Awesome recipe trials! Hildegard von Bingen is one of my favorite healing partners. Re the cookies, you might also consider that being without the eggs and butter, they may have a lengthy shelf life, like bannock. I love that they're also vegan and easily adapted to keto with simple substitutions like almond flour.
I wonder if you add sugar, butter and milk, will the final result be like speculoos?? I love those, they definitely help with my mood, except I can't have them while on a diet 🥲 and my condolences for Jaime's passing. The best cat ever.
The cookies are called speculaas, speculoos is the very recent invention of grinding those cooking into a paste to use as a sweet bread topping ;)
But you're right! The spices used in this recipe are almost the same as those used for speculaas, all you need to add is some powdered ginger (and white pepper, cardamom, coriander, aniseed etc. if you want to be fancy)
Hey Max, if you wanna try fresh galangal in something, it's pretty common at places that have south east Asian groceries. It's especially common in Thai cuisine.
I've never tried dried galangal but I imagine just like with ginger, the difference between dried and fresh is pretty large. Fresh galangal has kind of a spicy, citrusy, woodsy flavor. Personally I think it tastes like if you took ginger and pushed it somewhat in the direction of sichuan peppercorn or sansho, though not so strong.
She has the most amazing illustration of her dream of the heavens. I think looking at that she must have been having a lot of these cookies. She was really an amazing woman of her time
Awesome video, Max! For any who are curious, the language Hildegard developed is called the "lingua ignota".
Incidentaly, the music of Hildegard von Bingen is not to be confused with the bardcore artist Hildegard von Blingin', who is here on RUclips.
To make things even more complicated, Hildegard von Blingin' did a rendition of a hymn by Hilildigard von Bingin
@@JP2GiannaTspecifically O Sapientia
To make things _even more_ complicated, Lingua Ignota is a retired stage name of the metal musician Kristin Hayter.