Theme Recipe

It might seem like I have a special beef with the Catholic church when in comes to it's religion; actually it is only with it's (largely past) obsession with world domination.  One thing that the church did do was, impose a diet on it's adherents, that was grumbled about (it still is according Catholic relatives).  It actually is surprisingly in line with modern thinking:  eating what is in season, and having prescribed periods of time that prohibit certain food, much like modern whole foods diets followed for short periods of time for health reasons.  Take the prohibition of eating meat during Lent for instance.  Lent has given the world two things--a lot of really good and varied fish recipes and Carnival!!  What would the Gulf coast in the US be without Mardi Gras!!!??  I have a recipe for Stewed Flounders from England of the Middle Ages that is pretty good at being simple and easy.

To stew Flounders

I would provide the original recipe in the medieval English, but there are time constraints here, so here's modern language instructions.  I have cut down on the cooking time some.

2 flounder, heads and tail removed

1/2 stick butter, melted

1/3 cup cider vinegar (Bragg is by far and away best for this!)

4 medium onion, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup parsley, chopped

1/2 tsp. powdered mace

1/4 tsp. each dried thyme and basil

14 tsp. allspice

2 tbsp. sugar

Fried Toast (fry in butter)

Place fish is non stick pan, pour over butter and vinegar.  Layer over the onions and the herbs and spices, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, turn the fish, add the sugar, re-cover, and simmer another 10 10 12 minutes.  Serve this over the fried bread on a platter, be sure to have some additional fried bread on the side.

Note:  the use of allspice here is modern.  It is a New World ingredient from the Caribbean--but it is good with flounder, that why Arawak natives used it with fish, including flounder, in pre-Columbian times.  To be more authentic, substitute powdered ginger, which is remarkably good with savory dishes.

There are no pictures of this around, but it does look a bit like:

Creepy Catholic Fact #6:  In relation to things eating other things, in this case feline mousers.; Pope Gregory IX declared cats to be instruments of the devil and symbols of heresy, which caused Europeans to exterminated them in nasty ways, burning, hanging, drowning, hacking, etc.  By a hundred years later so many cats were gone from Europe that none were left for pest control--the result (it is believed, and it makes sense):  The Black Death.