Among the pots

Avila: Construction of the cathedral

A phrase of Saint Theresa of Avila is often being quoted as a common saying: “God walks even among the pots and pans.”

This saying is usually interpreted like God does not despise even the simplest and least appreciated jobs; on the contrary, He is even there to help one.

Obviously neither cooks nor cheese makers and manufacturers of other dairy products let slip this heavenly sent promotion, and thus this saying has also become a favorite motto of cook books, an apotheosis of the kitchen. This is how it is also used for example by the Spanish-Italian gastrojournalist María Cepeda, a direct niece of Saint Theresa – Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada – who in her childhood, when she did not want to eat the lunch, was admonished by her parents: “be obedient like aunt Theresa”.

In Hungary this saying has become popular mostly after the charming and widely used cook book of Alaine Polcz (1922-2007), the great lady of post-war Hungarian psychology and literature:

Saint Theresa of Avila, this wonderful woman whose memoirs and introductions into mysticism (The Foundations, Interior Castle) are among the first peaks of Spanish literature and who was always encircled by miracles, once said: “Between the pans and pots there walks the Lord.” And this is really so, you will see it.

But how did Theresa herself mean this?

Mati Klarwein: Spanish kitchen, 1954

We are just working with Wang Wei and Kata on the new Hungarian translation of the Obras of Theresa. It will be published by volumes, the first one, Theresa’s most important work, the Interior Castle by this Christmas. It is no easy job. Theresa writes as informally as an interview subject speaks – thus the sociologist’s experiences of Kata help a lot in the interpretation –, and if something occurs to her in the middle of what she’s saying she starts a new phrase without finishing the previous one. And chiefly, she never read back what she had written. “You cannot even compare it to the translation of such simple things like Finnegan’s Wake”, Wang Wei says.

The passage that is the source of the above saying is in Chapter 5.8. of The Book of Foundations. In the previous phrase Theresa says that the seeker of God who has already found the joy of contemplation would prefer to be with God without interruption, but if her obligations call her to fulfill her everyday duties then God will be for her not in the contemplation but in these duties:

Pues, ¡ea!, hijas mías, no haya desconsuelo; cuando la obediencia os trajere empleadas en cosas esteriores, entended que, si es en la cocina, entre los pucheros anda el Señor, ayudándoos en lo interior y esterior.

So come on, my daughters, do not despair. If obedience demands of you to be employed in external things, then understand that if these are in the kitchen then the Lord walks among the pots and He helps you there both externally and internally.

Thus the saying in its own context means something different from what it means when taken out of it. Theresa simply says that if your duties call you to the kitchen then God is there for you. And if they call you elsewhere then God is also elsewhere. This is not a praise of humble works or of the pleasures of the kitchen, but an appeal to the sober and precise determination of your tasks and to their resolute execution.

Independently of this, Theresa also pursued cooking in a masterly manner, just like everything else she set about. On great feasts she herself cooked for her friends and guests, and she emphasized that whoever is at the kitchen she must cook just as if she cooked for Christ himself. And when – this was obvious for both of them – she met for the very last time her master Saint Peter of Alcantara, she cooked a dinner of five delicious courses for him. All the monastery was watching what would Peter, the famous faster do. And Peter ate all the courses without a word.

Theresa – who loved not only to cook but also to eat – gave her name to a dessert as well which has been ever since prepared and sold by the Carmelite monasteries of Avila and Toledo.

Yemas de Santa Teresa – Yolks of Saint Theresa

- 8 egg yolks

- 150 g of sugar

- 1 deciliter of water

- icing sugar

- 12-14 paper capsules

1. Prepare a syrup by putting water and sugar in a heavy-bottomed steel pan on fire. When the syrup is quite sticky, remove it from heat.

2. Meanwhile, in a pan separate the yolks from the whites.Beat yolks slightly and add the syrup slowly. Place the saucepan over very low heat, cook it slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon until it begins to thicken.

3. Put the dressing over a cold and even surface. Extend it slightly and let it cool. Sprinkle it with plenty of icing sugar. Then take of it portions of a walnut and form balls, then sprinkle icing sugar on them again. Serve it in paper capsules.

Miracles of Egypt

Red granite from the Aswan quarry used for the first chamber of the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Khephren. April 2010

Quartz chrystal from the Chrystal Mountain along the road from Bawiti to Oasis Farafra

English soldier’s button from the ruins of Fort Gebel al-Englis in Oasis Bahariyya

Paper soldiers

This is a touching video of his last concert in Toronto, 1994, but this recording from his young years was more forceful:

Bulat Okudzhava: Песенка о бумажном солдате (Little song about the paper soldier). From the CD А как первая любовь… (And as the first love…) (2002)

Один солдат на свете жил, Красивый и отважный, Но он игрушкой детской был: Ведь был солдат бумажный. Он переделать мир хотел, Чтоб был счастливым каждый, А сам на ниточке висел: Ведь был солдат бумажный. Он был бы рад – в огонь и дым За вас погибнуть дважды, Но потешались вы над ним: Ведь был солдат бумажный. Не доверяли вы ему Своих секретов важных. А почему? А потому Что был солдат бумажный. А он, судьбу свою кляня, Не тихой жизни жаждал И все просил: «Огня! Огня!» – Забыв, что он бумажный. В огонь? Ну что ж, иди! – Идешь? И он шагнул однажды. И там сгорел он ни за грош: Ведь был солдат бумажный.

A soldier lived on the world he was handsome and brave but he was a children’s toy for he was a paper soldier. He wanted to change the world so everyone be happy while he himself hung on a thread for he was a paper soldier. He would have happily died for you in the fire and smoke but you only laughed at him for he was a paper soldier. You have never trusted to him your important secrets and why not? Only because he was a paper soldier. But he, cursing his destiny did not long for a calm life: “Fire! Fire!” he demanded, forgetting that he was of paper. “To fire? Why not, go! Don’t you?” And he marched alone and burned up there for nothing for he was a paper soldier.

“Приходилось играть в солдатики, которых я сам и мастерил. Уже второй год мама выписывала для меня детский журнал "Задушевное слово", и каждую пятницу почтальон приносил мне вместе с тоненькой тетрадкой журнала солидный пакет "бесплатных приложений". В этом году я получил, среди прочего, очень много листов для вырезывания. На этих еще слегка липких, еще пахнущих литографской краской листах были изображены солдаты и офицеры всех родов войск: пехота, артиллерия, казаки, уланы, самокатчики, мотоциклетисты... На отдельных листах были отпечатаны зеленовато-серые пушки, полковые кухни, санитарные повозки, а также разрывы снарядов, похожие на букеты завядших цветов или, еще больше, на черные, в красных пятнах веники. Все это, будучи вырезанным и склеенным, можно было расставлять на полу или на столе, можно было устраивать целые сражения. Тем более что в бесплатных приложениях были представлены не только русские, но и наши противники - немцы и австрийцы. Правда, эти противники главным образом убегали, показывая спины с зелеными ранцами, или сдавались в плен, поднимая раскинутые в стороны руки.”

“I played with soldiers prepared by myself. After the second year Mum subscribed for me to the children’s magazine Sincere Word, and every Friday the postman delivered together with the thin fascicle of the magazine a solid package of «free supplement» as well. In that year I received, among other things, a lot of sheets for cutting. These slightly sticky sheets with a smell of litographic paint represented soldiers and officers from every branch: infantry, artillery, cossacks, lancers, cyclists, motorcyclists… Separate sheets were printed with greenish gray guns, regimental kitchens, ambulances and even explosions resembling bunches of wilted flowers or rather black brooms spotted in red. All this being cut and glued and arranged on the floor or on the table served for modeling entire battles. Especially because the free supplements included not only Russian soldiers but also our enemies: Germans and Austrians. True, the enemies mostly fled, showing to us their green knapsacks, or surrendered, raising their arms outspread.”

L. Panteleev (1908-1987):  Маленький офицер (The little officer, 1975)

The stock for cutting also included the fortress of Przemyśl in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
This sheet was probably made before the outbreak of WWI, as it bears the then official
name Пржемышль instead of its Russian name Перемышль.

Map of the fortresses of Przemyśl. Appendix of The Story of the Great War, New York 1916

Siege of Przemyśl. Hand to hand combat between Austro-Hungarian defenders and Russian attackers. Illustrirte Zeitung, 12 November 1914

The Austro-Hungarian defenders of Przemyśl burying the fallen Russian soldiers.
Das Intressante Blatt, September 1914

Friday

Cairo, Holy Friday of 2010

On a street of Cairo, near to Giza

It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man’s naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked round me, but I could hear nothing, nor see anything. (Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe)

Viernes

El Cairo, Viernes Santo de 2010

En una calle de El Cairo, cerca de Giza

Un día, a eso del mediodía, cuando me dirigía a mi piragua, me sorprendió enormemente descubrir las huellas de un pie desnudo, perfectamente marcadas sobre la arena. Me detuve estupefacto, como abatido por un rayo o como si hubiese visto un fantasma. Escuché y miré a mi alrededor pero no percibí nada. (Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe)

World revolution for children

Chemical War. Soviet board game by A. V. Kuklin. State Publisher, 1925

We have recently written about the Goose Game, the Renaissance ancestor of all European board games through whose labyrinth the player, moving ahead at the cast of the die and overcoming all the obstacles on the way, finally entered the Paradise. The game has preserved its popularity to this day, only the obstacles and the Paradise were regularly actualized according to the taste of the period. In Russia of the 1810s, as we have already seen, the victory over Napoleon was the desired Paradise. And a hundred years later, the world revolution.


This game with the inscription “LONG LIVE THE WORLD REVOLUTION” was published in 1925 (every board can be enlarged!). After entering it through the gate with the rising red Sun which was also included in the coat of arms of the Soviet republics, you can study while working, enroll in the Red Army, chase the bourgeois, join the anti-alkohol campaign. Production meetings, war aircrafts and breaking the chains of the workers can promote you by even twenty spaces, while bad health and living conditions throw you back by just as much.


Another version of the Goose Game with the title “For Healthy Life” was used from 1926 for health education.“Through making work and life healthier, ahead for the victory over social diseases!” proclaims the text of the larger V-belt wheel on a light background, continued by that of the smaller wheel on a dark background like a small print: “Making work and life healthier is the task of the workers themselves.” Each space impresses an important element of home and working place hygiene and healthy way of life in picture, text and diagram.




The various versions of the “Round Race” game differentiated by profession were published in 1924 with a similar purpose. „The board game «Round Race» was established by the Education Department of the В. Ц. С. П. С.  [Central Committee of All-Soviet Trade Unions] for the purposes of propaganda. Its use is primarily recommended in the sitting rooms of workers’ clubs. It can be also used in professional courses of an introductory type for the repetition of the acquired information.” – the users instructions write. The hundred spaces were associated with twice as many cards of questions and answers, each about a different passage of the Labor Code and the trade union regulations. After the cast of the die the player could advance to the corresponding number only if he answered correctly the question belonging to that number.


In the game “By plane through the Soviet Union”, published in 1924 the players had to visit the five cities allotted to them in the shortest route possible. One year later Soviet children could already go in this way from Moscow to China and in 1928 as far as the islands of the Arctic Sea.



Players could participate in increasing the wealth of the Soviet Union, in the electrification of  the country, in collecting recyclable scraps and in the industrial production as well.

“Traveling through the wealth of the Soviet Union” (1924)

“Electrification” (1928) – from Russian villages through the mountain auls of the Caucasus to the cities and industrial plants

“Let us give raw materials to the factories!” (1930) The recyclable scrap has to be found all over
the city and delivered to the collection centers, in three different
operating modes: cart, truck, pioneer.

“The young friend of car building” – “From game to model, and from model to the study of modern automobiles” (1931)

“ABC of flag signals for the young water life saver” (1937). An осводовец was a member of the ОСВОД, the Voluntary Water Life Saver Society

The games naturally laid a special emphasis on the expansion of the military knowledge and moral of the youth. The State Publisher even dedicated a complete series of board games to the various military branches, of which the game “Chemical War” we have already seen above.

“Revolution” (1925). A. V. Kuklin, State Publisher

“Air War” (1925). A. V. Kuklin, State Publisher

Another “Air War”, this time with land-air rockets, also from 1925

“Reds and Whites. War game” (1929), in the spirit of the best Russian avant-garde graphics.
The red tank called “Ilyich” breaks through all obstacles!

“War of Tanks” (1930)

“Sea War. A new game” (1931)

“Manoeuvering. For pioneer groups, the young friends of ОСОАВИАХИМ [voluntary armed militia]” (1933, six years after the foundation of this paramilitary organization)

“Contemporary War”. Perhaps in 1933 cavalry charge did not belong to the most advanced
techniques of warfare any more, but it remained a popular motif of patriotic ads,
evoking the glorious cavalry of the civil war and, beyond that, the figure
of Saint George traditionally fighting for Russia on a white horse

The purpose of the “game preparing for war” published in 1938 and baptized simply “War” was to give an introduction to the large masses into the elements of modern strategy. This was indeed necessary at that time, for the professional men of this science were just being systematically liquidated by the Generalissimus right then, at the threshold of the war.


The professional character of these games is beyond doubt. And everyone growing up on similar games in the sixties and seventies will precisely know what an enormous effect these impressive microcosms can have on the young players. It was from such games that we have also learned by heart all the countries of the world, the animals of the sea and the Western makes of car in a period when we could have never got to know them personally, thanks to the world revolution.