[Sca-cooks] Feast of St Nicholas Breads and Cakes

Johnna Holloway johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu
Tue Dec 5 09:01:23 PST 2006


It seems the season and the right day to share this one with the list.

Jan Steen's Feast of Saint Nicholas
I know that it is circa 1663-65, but it shows a number of interesting 
baked items.
The artwork may be seen here-
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/s/steen/page1/
Click on the image to get a larger image to look at.

What's great is that by using this page--
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-385?page=1&lang=en&context_space=&context_id=

from the Rijksmuseum one can read about various items portrayed
in the painting. [Also check out "Leiden Baker Arend Oostwaert and His 
Wife Catharina Keyzerswaert" which is also part of the Rijksmuseum 
collection.]
One can get the image to enlarge so you can examine all the details.

Included in this Feast of St Nicholas are
gingerbread, honey cake, nuts, waffles and apples from the tree. The
large ginger cake is a matchmaker or 'hylickmaker'
[A Hylickmaker is a
kind of large cake decorated with candied peel and pieces of orange.
Hylick means marriage. It was therefore an ideal gift for a person who
was about to propose. This type of cake was also eaten on St Nicholas
day, because of the saint's association with marriage.]

Leaning against the table is a gleaming duivekater [A
'duivekater' is a diamond-shaped loaf baked for festive occasions.]

The little girl holds a container from which can be seen a sucker
on a stick in the form of a rooster.

The child near the chimney is holding a delicacy that is still eaten
around 5 December: a gingerbread man in the shape of St Nicholas. In the
seventeenth century, the baking of St Nicholas figures was banned in
many Dutch cities. In Utrecht, for example, an ordinance passed in 1655
forbade 'the baking of likenesses in bread or cake'.
There's even a mention of the The second St Nicholas Feast that was also
the work of Jan Steen.

So Happy December 5th Everyone,

Johnnae llyn Lewis






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