Professor Butter Beard and the “Antinous Mondragone”
“I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.” – Mae West
Temptation. Its power seems to swell as we enter the autumn holiday season. It’s that call to buy a second cashmere sweater when you are cashing in on the Macy’s “family and friends” sale. Or a trip to the barbershop for an unnecessary haircut, just because you are craving being groomed and pampered. Or a second helping of dessert, because that Clementine Drizzle Cake is just too damn good, and your soul craves another taste. Or baking double the bacon necessary for your cookie recipe and justifying it because you know Nellie (and you) would love some right now.
My temptations flow into my artistic cravings as well. How can I resist when, yet another Van Gogh exhibition catalogue becomes available? Or when I daydream of my favorite Roman emperor Hadrian and decide to write about him for a third time. Well, I’m not actually writing about him this time. I am writing about Hadrian’s own temptation – Antinous.
Hadrian was gay – that is now a historical fact. Yet, according to Thorsten Opper, “to the ordinary Romans it mattered little, for in the beginning, at least, Hadrian’s predilections seemed nothing special at all.” What brought attention to the emperor’s obsession was not his behavior towards Antinous in public or private, but by the unprecedented honors Hadrian lavished on his deceased lover after Antinous’ death in the Nile in 130 CE. But, I get ahead of the story…..
There are little to few historical primary sources describing Antinous’ life prior to meeting Hadrian. We know he was a Greek from the city of Bythinion-Claudipolis in western Asia Minor, modern Turkey, or more precisely from a place called Mantinium not far away. The surviving literary sources make no mention of where and when Hadrian first encountered Antinous, but historians now believe that they met when Hadrian toured the province in 123 CE, verifying that their relationship may have lasted for up to seven years.
The emperor, like Trajan before him, was a passionate, almost obsessive hunter. If we look into the surviving works of art depicting Hadrian the hunter, primarily tondi reliefs, we see Hadrian surrounded by his entourage in the countryside, hunting down any dangerous beasts and thus protecting his peasant subjects and their harvests. It is now believed that Antinous was one of many skilled young huntsmen in the entourage of a ruler who was impassioned about the chase. Whatever the truth, we know a deep physical and emotional bond had developed between the two by the time the imperial party approached the Nile.
Hadrian and Antinous arrived in Egypt from Judea in the summer of 130 CE, and that October, the royal party embarked on a voyage up the Nile. Along their journey, they stopped at Hermopolis Magna, the primary shrine to the god Thoth. It was shortly after this, around the time of the festival of Osiris, that Antinous fell into the river and died, probably from accidental drowning. It was Hadrian himself, publicly weeping, who announced his death. But gossip soon began to spread throughout the Empire that Antinous had been intentionally murdered.
Sources report that Hadrian was utterly devastated and that he became obsessed with surrounding himself with Antinous’ images and thereby perpetuating his presence. His suffering and intense sense of bereavement are nowhere more obvious than at the great villa at Tivoli. In the year 2000, Italian archaeologists found the remains of a substantial structure consisting of two small facing temple buildings in front of a large semi-circular portico. Fragments of Egyptian-style sculpture, including an extensive number of sculptures of a young man dressed as a pharaoh (Antinous-Osiris), leave little doubt with historians that this was a sanctuary, perhaps even a monumental tomb or memorial for Antinous himself.
One of the most beautifully stunning examples, the “Antinous Mondragone,” would have been part of a colossal statue with a wooden torso and marble extremities, a technique normally used for cult images. The eyes would have been in a different material, such as colored marble or glass paste, adding a life-like gaze. The eyelashes were most likely made of a reflective metal. The series of holes drilled into the hair would have held additional metal leaves and small fruits to complement the wreath carved in marble and the large central hole at the top of Antinous’ head would have held a golden crown, probably of the Egyptian type, marking Antinous as the god Dionysus-Osiris.
While researching the relationship of Hadrian and Antinous, and imagining the grand temptation, passion and bond between the two, my baking mind began to envision combinations of my own favorite culinary temptations – crisp smokey bacon and extremely dark chocolate. The result is this smoke-spiced decadent version of a classic chocolate chip cookie. Oscar Wilde wrote, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” Ooh, I fully appreciate that statement, Oscar. I did justify their creation by giving the cookies to my favorite farmers at today’s farmer’ market – but I do confess to setting aside a half dozen to munch tonight while giving in to one more seasonal temptation – a double feature of Hallmark Christmas movies.
Smoked Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies
5 dozen cookies
4 strips thick-cut hickory-smoked bacon, cooked and chilled
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp chili powder
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 Tbsp chilled bacon fat
1 tsp vanilla paste
2 large eggs, room temperature
16 ounces dark chocolate morsels
1 cup turbinado sugar
1) Cook the bacon as you prefer. (I cook mine on wire racks in a baking sheet at 400 degrees until crisp.) Cool and cut into small dice. Chill the diced bacon while you make the dough.
2) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
3) Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.
4) In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, fine sea salt, cinnamon and chili powder. Set aside.
5) In a standing mixer, cream together the two sugars, butter and bacon fat. Add the vanilla paste and beat to combine. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until fully combined.
6) Turn off the mixer and add in all the dry mixture. Pulse the mixture a few times (so the dry doesn’t all fly in your face), and then mix just until no streaks of flour remain.
7) Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the dark chocolate morsels and the chilled bacon pieces.
8) Portion the dough with a 1 Tbsp cookie scoop and roll each dough ball in turbinado sugar. Place twelve cookies on each baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, one sheet at a time, and rotate the sheet after 6 minutes. The cookies should be brown at the edges and still golden and puffed in the middle. They will finish their cooking outside the oven on the hot baking sheet.
9) Cool the cookies on the sheet for 5 minutes and then remove the cookies to cool on a wire rack.
