Professor Butter Beard and “St. George’s Dragon”
“Always remember, it’s simply not an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons.” - - J.R.R. Tolkien
I spent my Thanksgiving break in Middle Earth via “The Rings of Power.” It took me awhile to get there as I knew once I started, I would be fully submerged, unable to step away. Over the course of two days, with lots of popcorn, turkey quesadillas, and wedges of pumpkin pie, I travelled alongside the elves, dwarves, wizards and Harfoots as their stories began to magically unfold. Secrets were revealed, friendships were tested, and Middle Earth never looked more inviting! I wanted to gather berries with Nori (possibly the best nickname for Elanor ever), shoot arrows with Galadriel, walk with “The Stranger,” and smash rocks with Durin. But my biggest inhale and heart hiccup occurred when I believe we caught our first glimpse of “Smaug.”
Dragons have been my karmic companions since, well, I can’t even remember when I didn’t dream of dragons. As an art historian, I have encountered dragons in almost every culture and time period. Strange as it may sound, the medieval dragon wasn’t just a myth or symbol to the people of its time. On the contrary, according to historians, medieval Europeans believed that the dragon was every bit as real as its supposed enemy, the elephant. And despite their pretty nefarious connotations, dragons have appeared in places like wall frescos in monasteries, lavish paintings for church altars and within beautifully illuminated manuscripts.
According to Matthew Gabriele, a professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech, “Though they sometimes appeared as foes to be overcome in valiant single combat, dragons in the European Middle Ages more often figured in accounts about the lives of saints and religious figures than stories of heists and adventures.”
In 1470, Carlo Crivelli compressed the story of Saint George—who saved a city and its princess from the marauding dragon—into a single, dynamic moment. In a popular Christian saint story, a Roman soldier named George arrives at a pagan community called Silena while in Libya in the third century CE. There, he finds the king and his people about to offer the king’s own daughter to a dragon. George saves the princess, stuns the dragon with his lance, and orders the princess to bind it with her girdle. He then brings the helpless dragon to town where he demands that the inhabitants convert to Christianity or be killed by the dragon—which he later slays.
In Crivelli’s image, the “monster,” run through with a lance, roars in agony, frightening the saint's valiant steed. The horse rears up and shies away, eyes flaring wide with fear. In a feat of remarkable horsemanship, George stands, drops the reins and draws his sword to deliver the death blow. Our roaring dragon, with its mouth wide open and its wings outstretched, has been pierced in the one vulnerable spot between his scales and ruby-red dragon blood spurts from the open wound.
Truly a rather bizarre subject for the side panel of a church altarpiece, this image originally constituted the right side of the Porto San Giorgio polyptych in the Provence of Fermo, Italy. Unfortunately, at this time, the altarpiece has been dismantled and the various individual painting have been dispersed among some of the leading European and United States museums. St. George can now be viewed within the Isabella Stewart Gardner collection in Boston.
I do, and always will, believe in dragons. Monsters, both medieval and modern, are indeed a part of our everyday lives. On my current journey, I have chosen to honor them as glorious symbols of internal burning strength and courage. In fact, one such beast is forever with me as my eternal guardian, always having my back. This week, I chose to stamp their image onto delicious shortbreads enhanced with Chinese Five-Spice and a citrus glaze. Because, to quote a favorite author, “it’s simply not an adventure worth telling if there aren’t any dragons.”
Chinese Five-Spice Dragon Cookies
Three dozen cookies
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup hazelnut flour
½ tsp fine sea salt
2 Tbsp Chinese Five-Spice powder
12 ounces (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cup confectionary’s sugar
Zest of one large orange (or 3 clementines)
2 tsp vanilla paste
Glaze:
3 ½ cups confectionary’s sugar
½ cup hot water
The juice of the one orange or three clementines
1) Place the confectioner’s sugar, orange zest and the butter in the bowl of a standing mixer and cream together on low for 5-8 minutes.
2) Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and line three sheet pans with parchment paper.
3) Whisk together the flours, five-spice and the salt.
4) Add the vanilla to the creamed mixture and mix for 1 minutes. Slowly add the flour on low speed until fully incorporated – do not overmix.
5) Divide the dough into two pieces, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for one hour.
6) Roll half the dough on a lightly floured surface to ¼” thick. Cut into 2” circles (the size of your chosen cookie stamp) and place them on the baking sheets about 1” apart. Gather the scraps and roll again and cut into the circles. Then do the same with the second half of the dough.
7) Dip your cookie stamp in a small bowl of flour, tap off the excess and press onto the cookie. Slowly release the cookie from the stamp, dip the stamp again and flour and press the next cookie. Continue until all the cookies are stamped.
8) Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes, one pan at a time, rotating the pans halfway through, until the edges are just beginning to brown. Remove them from the oven, let them cool 5 minutes on the pans and then move them to a wire rack to cool slightly.
9) While the cookies cool, whisk together the glaze ingredients in a medium bowl. Dip the cookies into the glaze, stamped side down, and return to the wire rack to harden the glaze.
