The Chalice of Earthly Delights
When you [taste] the abyss, the abyss [tastes] you. - Friedrich Nietzsche (paraphrased)
In the 15th century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch painted The Garden of Earthly Delights. It is an iconographic masterpiece worthy of centuries of contemplation. The artistically unrefined might use words like demented, sick, and twisted to describe the piece.
Those wouldn't be wrong, per se, but they wouldn't get at the truth either.
There is one word that best describes The Garden's mood - anxious. The Garden was painted as the medieval period began blurring into the early Renaissance. It was a time of deep cultural strife as classical religious fervor clashed with modernist, arguably pagan, sensibilities. For the first time in a thousand years praise of the earthly began supplanting praise of the divine.
Bosch, a devout Christian with an vivid imagination uses The Garden to illustrate the deep anxiety he and those around him felt.
The left panel illustrates mankind in peaceful innocence. Here in the Garden of Eden is Adam, Eve, and the Christ Jesus in paradisal harmony.
The second and largest panel portrays post-innocence man as he trades eternal salvation for earthly and ephemeral pleasures.
It is an orgiastic buffet of rampant carnality. This was Bosch interpreting the times we was witnessing.
The final panel is what I'll stretch to describe as the celestial hangover. It is a deeply disturbing expression of hell steeped in horrors far beyond what I have the words to describe. This was Bosch's fear.
In it's entirety, The Garden is a simple warning - Do not be led astray.
I write to you because I fear I've gone astray.
Long ago I wrote a piece about my dabbling’s with buttery spiced beverages. I was innocent then. I tinkered with countless iterations of spices, fats and caffeinations. I did not know the powers I was tampering with.
How could I?
After years of tinkering and hundreds of iterations I went too far. I created something that never should have been created. In doing so I breached an unspoken pact with the Gods and sealed my fate for eternal infernality.
This piece is that journey.
For a long time I debated sharing this.
The sensible thing would be to keep it to myself. But that risked allowing others to accidentally stumble down the steps of darkness.
After long contemplation I have recognized my moral obligations in detailing my descension towards irredeemability.
What I write here is a warning.
Do not follow this path.
Behold dear reader my Chalice of Earthly Delights.
Part 1 - Spicy Innocence
This journey began as many do - water. It's a perfect blank canvas well suited to absorb the upcoming parade of flavors and textures.
Next are spices. Early I was naïve. I used pre-powdered spices which might as well have been scented sawdust.
Once I stumbled upon whole spices did I realize I was living in a peasant simulation. Whole spices in the form nature intended contain their true glorious essence.
Cinnamon begins the spice parade. It's tree bark scrolled up as if it contained secrets of a lost realm. The nose detects deep earthy aromas while the tongue finds a warm festive zing.
Nutmeg is a powerhouse shamefully typecast as holiday garnish for eggnog. Nutmeg's unassuming nut-like exterior juxtaposes delightfully with it's intense flavors and vibrantly striped interior - like those of an aged redwood.
Clove is a curious one. It's a small bulb-on-a-stick that looks like it could fly given enough centripetal force. It's scent is as dark as it's color is. Clove is best used in smaller quantities as too much will overpower the rest.
All Spice is the only spice that tells you what it tastes like. These innocuous little spheres betray the scent rainbow hiding within.
Ginger. Strictly speaking, ginger is not a spice. It is a root. Ginger is an outsider to the spice brigade, but it's bright colors and citric flavor balances out it's darker heavier neighbors.
Turmeric. Also not a spice, Turmeric is Ginger's more gregarious cousin. It's rich sunsetting hue makes it the bane of all white clothing. Turmeric is difficult to palate alone, but adds a pleasingly mystic quality in smaller doses. It is the only spice permitted in ground form.
Black Tellicherry Peppercorns. Pepper is a surprising crossover from a more savory realm. Tellicherry, the king of Black Peppercorns, lends curiously sweet and grassy kick.
Black Cardamom. I love all my spicy children, but I love Cardamom the most. It's soothing aroma penetrates the roughest of barriers. It's essence is regal. If scent had color Cardamom's would be the deep royal purple emblazoning the robes of dynastic monarchs. There is no such thing as too much Cardamom.
Saffron. I almost decided against mentioning Saffron. Only my long eroded sense of shame permits me to mention it. Saffron are stems carefully plucked from flowers you haven't heard of from places you haven't been to that costs more than you can afford. It's flavor eludes mortal description, so I won't attempt.
Part 2 - The Pantry of Earthly Delights
I could have stopped with spices and bought myself a slight chance of celestial reprieve.
But no.
One evening I was relaxing in a warm steamy thought chamber lost in a pensive trance.
In that state it seems the mechanisms in my head guard-railing against dangerous ideas went off duty.
Speedy Gonzales - one thought bubble emerged.
Speedy Gonzales was funny. I like Looney Toons. Speedy Gonzales was Mexican. Mexican food was spicy. I like spicy. Mexicans use lots of Chiles.
Chiles make things yummy, my tummy grumbled.
Chiles.....
No, don't do it, a quiet voice in my soul cried out.
Another voice peppered in.
Do it. Do it. What's the worse that can happen?
I felt terror. I felt glee.
This can't happen. It must happen.
I lost consciousness. Time passed. When I snapped back to reality I found my pantry stuffed with dried guajillo, ancho, pasilla, cayenne and chipotle peppers.
Chiles and spices in hand, my ritual took on a darker more sinister twist.
I can't tell you exactly what happened next. A mysterious force inhabited my body and guided me like a marionette. I slipped into the backseat of my own consciousness watching it all unfold.
What I describe below is my best approximation.
The spices jumped into my stone mortar as my pestle ground their spirits into fragrant stardust. Their screams didn't haunt me like they used to.
Then the Chilis. I rip them to shreds and dump their seeds onto the spice heap. Together they toast at the bottom of a a blood red cast iron dutch oven. A gentle heat primes the mixture for it's imminently glorious ascension.
Water enters the mix and captures their spirits. I bring it to boiling’s edge as it aromatizes my home.
Next is coffee. I must confess that I am ill-versed in it's varieties and modes of preparation. Here coffee's role is utilitarian than indulgent. A conservative dose of concentrated dark roast cold brew is enough to add it's darkly acidic undertones and caffeinated energy without dominating the foreground.
My holy water is complete.
In a large steel walled chalice I prepare the next phase.
Butter escalates this ritual to an ethereal plane. I've tinkered with many. Butter-butter (Kerrygold, obviously), peanut butter, hazelnut butter, and macadamia butter to name a few. I've even on occasion toyed around with egg yolks to varying success.
The apex came with a blend of Kerrygold butter, the one true butter, and an unlikely ally - chocolate tahini.
Tahini, for the culturally unaware, is ground sesame seed paste mysteriously rich with umami. When accented with a modest level of chocolate it becomes a silky delight.
Sweetness is the final touch and a critical element. Bitterness underlies it's absence while ruin overlays it's excess. Maple syrup's bold woodsy notes is ideal, but the honey foraged by crafty bees is a suitable substitute. The right amount highlights all flavors, but never makes itself known. A thin syrupy layer coats the bottom of the Chalice.
Here the concoction it is an awkward mess of liquids and fats.
The final step requires outside help.
Into the blend goes a bladed steel wand powered by Zeus, God of Thunder and Electronic Kitchen Appliances.
I take a deep breath. This is the point of no return.
Part 3 - Pride Before The Fall
I activate the bladed thunder rod and begin cranking the key on the door to a forbidden realm.
The blades hum and forcibly collide liquids and fats into a more perfectly union. A victoriously gold froth vortex forms in the center and grows like an aggravated hurricane. I’m lost in a trance. It spins and spins until the froth disc ceases.
It is done.
I am overtaken with mischievous anticipation. My heart palpitates as my mouth salivates.
It has to happen. It must happen.
I take the first sip. It is a kaleidoscopic carnival of earthly sensations.
The liquid is warm and silky. My tongue becomes center stage for a sublime orchestra of Spices and Chiles. The froth is rich, decadent, yet light and playful. Previously unknown senses activate. The heavens halt as I lose myself in ecstatic delirium.
I have transcended time and space.
I sit quietly on my balcony. Birds chirp. Dew mists the air. The sun stretches it's rays across the sky.
All is right in the world.
The bottom of my chalice approaches. Beyond my ephemeral transcendence is the renegade pride which precedes the fall. I have reached heights previously unknown to man.
I have gone too far.
Nature abhors a vacuum. The cosmos abhor imbalance.
I have, if only for a brief moment, disrupted the cosmic order for my earthly leisure. I executed a Promethean heist and stole that which should not have been stolen.
The Gods don't take lightly to this.
I sense faint cosmic tremors and the cackles of under-beings impatiently waiting to hold me in their eternally infernal embrace.
But I cannot stop. I know too much. Adam cannot un-eat the Apple. What has been sipped cannot be un-sipped.
I have strayed too far into my own garden of earthly delights. Unspeakable torments await me, of that I have no doubt. I beg you to not follow me down this path. Do not be led astray as I have.
It's temptations are great, but pale to the consequences.
I take my last sip. I laugh and sigh as a small teardrop trickles beneath my eye.
Beware, my dear reader, the Chalice of Earthly Delights.