Professor Butter Beard’s “Egyptian Beekeeper”
“Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although eating honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.”
― A. A. Milne, “Winnie-the-Pooh”
I had a serious crush on a beekeeper. He and I rented a farmhouse in the Berkshire mountains while I was working as a pastry chef in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was a true squire’s homestead, with six acres wrapped in fragrant clover, wild daffodils and tall hay. Near the center was an abandoned apple orchard that provided us with the most delicious crisp fruit every autumn. It was alongside those aged, twisted apple trees that Frank set up his four beehives and introduced me to an ancient tradition and a hauntingly pure taste. And I will be forever grateful!
From mythology to medicine, the honeybee practically reigned over ancient Egyptian society. Egyptians considered bees sacred, believing that their sun god, Re, created these impressive insects from his tears. Pabasa, who was also called Pabes, has a large tomb at Asasif, just outside the entrance to the female pharaoh Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri. The most significant hieroglyphic scenes are carved into the pillars and walls of the sun court, and these provide us with a great deal of detail about daily activities including men spinning, netting and cleaning fish and catching birds with a throw stick (or boomerang). There are also rare scenes of fruit-gathering and beekeeping such as the one I have chosen to introduce here.
The kneeling beekeeper watches over his stack of horizontal hives with raised hands addressing the queen bee. Researchers have interpreted the hieroglyph above the carved image to mean “to weaken” or “to slacken” or “to emit a sound,” which has been further interpreted as smoking bees - which is a way of quieting bees - or maybe calling bees. There are surviving papyrus describing the traditional Egyptian beekeepers’ practice of calling the queen by making a little sound to which the queen would respond. This response would tell the keeper if there was a queen ready to emerge or inform him of the status inside the hives as the buzzing workers created their nectar of the gods.
Professor Gene Kritsky of Mount St Joseph’s University is an entomologist, but his latest research is a historical look at beekeeping in ancient Egypt. In his book, “The Tears of Re,” he quotes a papyrus that was written around 300 BCE, telling the story of the god Re and the origin of bees: “The god Re wept, and the tears from his eyes fell on the ground and turned into a bee. The bee made his honeycomb and busied himself with the flowers of every plant and so wax was made and also honey out of the tears of Re.” This spiritual connection encouraged the belief that some spirits took the form of a bee after death, and that the bees’ buzzing was actually the voices of their souls.
Professor Kritsky goes on to write that the oldest honeybee hieroglyph dates back to just shy of 3000 BCE, proving it to be a very ancient symbol in the Egyptian writings, but also confirming honey’s importance not only as a sweetener to the Egyptian cuisine, but also as medicine to heal wounds and an article of trade used to pay taxes. We also learn that beeswax was used in cosmetics as well as in paintings and even in some embalming practices. “To me,” writes the professor, “beekeeping is a very ancient occupation because it goes back to ancient Egypt obviously, but there's something that's kinship with us, humans and bees, that I find very alluring.”
As do I, professor. As do I. This kinship inspired a Bundt cake combining by love of toasted cornmeal, ripe summer blackberries and peaches, and the clover honey I purchase from the farmers market every Sunday. The black and gold remind me of the bee’s….. well, you know. Do be sure to toast your cornmeal – the aroma is transcendent. And remember to toss your fruit in a bit of flour before folding into the batter. This will keep the fragile berries floating in the honey batter rather than sinking heavily to the bottom of the cake pan.
And to my buddy Pooh, the word you were searching for is blissful “anticipation.”
Honey Cornmeal Bundt with Peaches and Blackberries
Makes one ten-cup Bundt cake
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups unsalted butter (3 sticks), melted
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ cup of your favorite honey, plus ¼ cup for finishing the cake (I prefer local from the farmer’s market)
1/3 cup buttermilk
4 large eggs
1 egg yolk
Zest and juice of one ripe lemon (or a lime might be nice!)
1 ¾ cup cornmeal, medium grind (I use Bob’s Red Mill)
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
2 tsp Chinese Five-Spice
2 cups ripe blackberries
1 ripe peach, pitted and cut into small dice
1) Preheat the oven to 300 degrees (this is a lower temperature slow bake)
2) Melt the 1 ½ cups butter and use 2 Tbsp to grease your Bundt pan and then sift the pan with 2-3 Tbsp all-purpose flour. Give the pan a good bump in your kitchen sink to ensure you have an even coating of flour without lumps.
3) Toast your cornmeal in a non-stick pan over a medium burner. Toast until the cornmeal is just starting to smoke, shaking constantly, and it fills your kitchen with a roasted corn aroma. Set aside to cool slightly.
4) In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, toasted cornmeal, salt, baking powder and soda and five-spice.
5) In a larger bowl, whisk together the eggs and yolk, sugar, ½ cup honey, buttermilk, melted butter and the zest and juice of the lemon. Whisk in the dry mix, one cup at a time, just until no lumps remain.
6) In the medium bowl, toss the blackberries and the diced peach with 1 Tbsp additional all-purpose flour and then fold the fruit into the cake batter. Pour the finished batter into the prepared Bundt pan and gently place the pan in the oven.
7) Bake the cake for 40 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake for roughly 20 minutes more until a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted.
8) Let the cake cool on a wire rack for ten minutes then invert onto your serving plate.
9) Warm the additional ¼ cup honey and gently brush over the cake while the cake is still warm.
Always remember to toast your cornmeal.
