Weeping Eye, Laughing Eye or the Vine Variation

Folklore, Food & Fairytales

In which we discover that a good heart is a very vauable commodity, the loss of a vine that provides excellent unlimited free wine can cause distress and that sometimes there is more than one beautiful maiden in a story but sometimes she's just a fox.

We also learn how a killer migraine led an ancient Persian lady-in-waiting to the invention of wine, why we have wine goddesses and a mouthwatering recipe from one of the queens of French cookery.

This week's story is Weeping Eye, Laughing Eye or the Lame Fox adapted from the Serbian folk tale of the same name from Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources - Albert Henry Wratislaw (London, 1889)

This week's recipe is La Daube de Boeuf Provencal

‘O, scent of the daubes of my childhood!

‘During the holidays, at Gemeaux, in the month of August, when we arrived in my grandmother’s dark kitchen on Sunday after Vespers, it was lit by a ray of sunshine in which the dust and the flies were dancing, and there was a sound like a little bubbling spring. It was a daube, which since midday had been murmuring gently on the stove, giving out sweet smells which brought tears to your eyes. Thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, spices, the wine of the marinade and the fumet of the meat were becoming transformed under the magic wand which is the fire, into a delicious whole, which was served about seven o’clock in the evening, so well cooked and so tender that it was carved with a spoon.’

Pierre Huguenin: Les Meilleures Recettes de ma Pauvre Mère, 1936

If you would like to find more information about any of the stories, books or research mentioned in this episode you can find them in Further Reading.

You can also find out more at Hestia's Kitchen which has all past episodes and the connected recipes on the blog. If you'd like to get in touch about the podcast you can find me on Twitter or Instagram at @FairyTalesFood.