Professor Butter Beard and “The Unicorn in Captivity”
“The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said, ‘Talk, child.’
Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began, ‘Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!’
‘Well, now that we have seen each other,’ said the Unicorn, ‘If you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?” - Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
Taking down and packing up the Christmas tree is an emotional experience. Every year. My mind wanders into thoughts of what will transpire before I see these magnificent decorations again. My “eternal child” (yes, I too watched “Red One”) sweetly believes that each ornament contains a soul of shared history and visions, and as I carefully wrap each one in their tissue paper blanket, I whisper “sweet dreams until we meet again.”
This year, I made sure to take my time, listening to two and a half hours of “Cher Forever” as I gingerly wrapped each giggling elf, Henry and all six of his wives, Vincent and Monet, Rudolph and Cornelius, glistening glass muffins, slices of pie and eclairs, and ceramic snowflakes, polar bears and owls. And then I reached out and gathered my two unicorns from their perches in the boughs, each purchased at the Metropolitan during very memorable recent holiday seasons. Both, in my childlike mind, returned my gaze and wished me well in return – until we meet again.
I realized I experience the same communication every time I visit the “Unicorn Tapestries” at The Cloisters. Walking silently (and rather reverently) into the gallery, I enter and join the Unicorn in its medieval realm, sharing its journey and its magic. The huge gorgeously woven tapestries provide a tangible warmth and extremely personal shared experience - one that I can internally treasure as I return to my own magical journey already planning my next visit.
“The Unicorn in Captivity” is one of seven hanging tapestries at The Cloisters that depict the hunt of the unicorn, a mythical creature first mentioned by the Greek physician Ctesias in the fourth century BCE. Lavishly woven in fine wool and silk with silver and gilded threads, the seven wall hangings collectively known as “The Unicorn Tapestries” are considered by many historians to be the most spectacular surviving artworks of the late Middle Ages. They are also amongst the most enigmatic, in both meaning and origin. Believed to have been designed in Paris and produced in Brussels or Liège, they were owned for centuries by the La Rochefoucauld family before being purchased by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who donated them to The Met Cloisters in 1937.
Within the seven tapestries, richly dressed noblemen, accompanied by hunters and hounds, pursue the unicorn through forested landscapes. They find the animal, appear to kill it, and bring it back to a castle; in the last and most famous panel, the unicorn is shown safely alive, chained to a tree surrounded by a circular fence, in a field of flowers.
“The unicorn was a symbol of many things in the Middle Ages,” Richard Preston writes in “The New Yorker,” including Christianity, immortality, wisdom, love, and marriage.” Add to this that every single element in the tapestries — from flora and fauna to clothes and human gestures — had a particular medieval meaning. “Certainly, the unicorn is a proxy for Christ,” continues Preston, “but he is also an image of the lover brought down like a stag in the allegorical hunts evoked in medieval works like Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess and Gottfried von Straussburg’s Tristan and Isolde. He is both a creature of flesh and spirit, earthly longing and eternal life.”
“The Unicorn in Captivity,” the last of the series, depicts the captured unicorn resting in a flowery meadow, bound within the confines of a circular fence. Behind the magnificent beast is a pomegranate tree with some of its fruits bursting with seed. The red drops on his back have been interpreted as the juice of the pomegranate, a fruit considered a fertility symbol in the Middle Ages.
Included plants such as bistort (by his right knee) and the large European orchid (whose bloom is set against his body) were believed to have medicinal properties that would help women conceive and magically determine the sex of the unborn child. Christian historians believe both the Madonna lily and Saint Mary’s thistle make reference to the Virgin Mary, while the carnation (to the left of the irises) is thought to symbolize the Passion of Christ.
The Cloisters’ current curator suggests this last tapestry “may have been created as a single image rather than part of the series.” But a former curator, Margaret B. Freeman, thinks, like many others, that it may have been the mystical conclusion of the series, in which the “unicorn, miraculously come to life again,” stands for both the risen Christ and the “lover-bridegroom, at last secured by his adored lady.”
And then my mind wanders back to the task at hand. I tuck the two resting unicorns into their tissue blankets, basically capturing them within the confines of their secure paddock - a comfortable dreamland until the next day after Thanksgiving. And as the sun rose this morning, these same thoughts inspired me to gather the last of the holiday ingredients (fresh cranberries, ripe clementines and dark chocolate) and marble bake them into glorious “last of the holidays” muffins enclosed within its own parchment paddocks. One last scrumptious taste until we meet again.
Oh yes, my unicorns. I promise to believe in you.
“Last of the Holidays” Muffins
One Dozen Muffins
1 cup fresh cranberries
2 clementine oranges
3 Tbsp dark cocoa powder
1 ½ Tbsp instant espresso powder
3 Tbsp boiling water
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup light (or dark) brown sugar – I prefer dark
2 tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp Kosher salt
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp cinnamon
2 cups mashed banana (usually around 4 bananas)
1 tsp vanilla paste
1/3 cup vegetable oil
¼ cup Greek yoghurt
2 large eggs, room temperature
Optional – sliced almonds and granulated sugar for topping
1) In a food processor, pulse the cranberries and one clementine into a coarse mix. Scrape into a small bowl and set aside.
2) In a medium bowl, whisk together the cocoa and instant espresso. Add the boiling water and stir into a paste. Set aside.
3) In a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the two sugars. Zest the remaining clementine over the sugars and mix to combine. Add the flour, baking powder and soda, salt and cinnamon. Mix to evenly combine.
4) In a glass bowl, mash the bananas. Add the vanilla paste, oil, yogurt and the 2 eggs. Whisk to combine. Add the banana mixture to the dry mix in the standing mixer and mix together until just combined. Do not overmix! Remove one cup of the batter and add it to the chocolate mix. Fold together until evenly combined. Let both batters rest 30 minutes.
5) Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and line your muffin tin with tall parchment liners.
6) Fold the cranberry mix into the plain batter. Spoon 6 Tbsp of this batter into each parchment liner. Then spoon 3 Tbsp of the chocolate batter into each parchment liner. Top with another 3 Tbsp of the plain batter. Sprinkle a few almond slices and a dash of granulated sugar on the top of each muffin.
7) Bake for 7 minutes at 425, lower the temperature to 375 and bake for another 15 minutes until a peak has formed on each muffin. Let the muffins cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before serving.
