The subtleties of nature and health

One of the most significant female figures of the early Middle Ages, Hildegard, lived along the Rhine River, in the tract that separates Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate, among slopes full of vineyards, haughty castles, small villages with pointed roofs and timber-framed facades. The Benedictine abbess, who founded the monastery of Bingen in the thirteenth century, represents the summa of the vast cultural repertoire of the time, boundless and yet expressed in great humility. She encompasses various figures: churchwoman and theologian, writer and musician, philosopher and thaumaturgist, gemologist and phytotherapy connoisseur, cook and prophet, and much more.

Explanatio Symboli clarifies the philosophical framework within which the German mystic inscribes her vision of the world. The first action of a person starts from the five senses; this knowledge triggers intelligence, which, through the scale of creatures and the great cosmic works, arrives analogically to God. Therefore, the body is not a burden to be freed from, even when it is weak, fragile and sick. Thanks to it, we are humbly “educated” to the sense of the creator.

Hildegard has a vivid perception of the cosmic warp, both dialectical and complementary in all its components, whose completeness is not the sum or reduction of parts, but the exaltation of the beyond. The body and the soul belong to us / like the man and woman / as the divine and the earthly /. The earth and the water / the sun and the moon /. The birds in the air / the baked bread /. And the fire with honey.

For this reason, it is not at all surprising that everything intertwines in her thinking and practices of a mystical, psychological, medical and culinary nature.

In her work, Causes and Cures, we read: When the soul of man feels something harmful to himself or his body, the heart, liver and blood vessels contract. Consequently, the harm rises like a cloud that overshadows the heart, so that man becomes sad. She traces the causes back to the loss of the virtuous connective knots that bind nature, man and the cosmos; the immediate effects are those causing illness or physical and psychological disharmony.

Mother Hildegard is a prodigious theoretical-practical investigator of the remedies that can restore this lost harmony at all levels. On one condition, both preliminary and fundamental: recover the ability to see what appears invisible.

It is also crucial for food. Everything that is in nature has a subtilitas or a hidden quality, declares the Benedictine nun. We must strive to intercept even in the cuisine to combine good food and health and acknowledge that salus indicates physical health and spiritual salvation.

Some recipes of the German mystic go in this direction, as with the biscuits of joy. They dissolve the bitterness of the heart, opening it up, and unlocking the five senses. They make us glad, reducing harmful moods and restoring our blood in its best composition. Apart from the traditional ingredients in biscuit making art, here we have three spices: nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, with their marked therapeutic qualities.

To each his nourishment

When man nourishes his body with temperance, in heaven I will let the lyre ring out, Hildegard writes in the Book on the Merits of Life. Likewise, her attention immediately converges on a personalized diet, very attentive to the environmental context of being at the table. For example, she recommends that adults have a liquid breakfast and only one main meal per day. After work, a small evening lunch: “before the sun sets”, to “digest comfortably”. For the children and the elderly, she advises an abundant and more structured breakfast, several other meals but less substantial. Furthermore, she invites everyone, without distinction, to sit at the table with a smile, not to get too close to the fire, or to have lunch in places that are too cold (harmful to the digestion).

Now we come to the many recipes the Abbess of Bingen recommended as an accompaniment to the day, able to combine taste, psychological well-being, and physical harmony.

The starting point is the Habermus, the perfect breakfast, an exceptional nutritional concentrate and shield for many possible diseases. The base is semolina and peeled and broken spelt grains brought to the boil, with the progressive addition of honey and spices (including galangal and cinnamon). In the last minutes of cooking, on a slower heat, also mix some apples in slices. Sprinkle almonds, psyllium seeds and pyrethrum root on the cooked mousse. Finally, while cooling, topple with raisins, dried cranberries and lemon juice.

This breakfast is also a real phytotherapeutic receptacle worthy of an apothecary. Why not try to browse this atlas, starting with spelt. For Hildegard, spelt (which she identifies with the ancient and purest one, namely triticum spelta) is the best of cereals, at the same time tasty, nutritious, light, above all a real safe for our health. It is very versatile in the kitchen, used for bread, pasta, risotto, desserts preparations and much more.

Delightful, healthy and plain spelt salad and fennel caramelized with ginger (with its strong digestive properties). Sautéed almonds; mint (digestive and against abdominal swelling) and sunflower seeds (eclectic healthy). Spelt coffee from whole roasted beans is delicious, too.

The fussiness of the abbess at the table

Regarding lunch, a real speciality is the calf trotters broth, tonic and purifying, indicated expressly for fortifying bones, joints and ligaments. Prepare the broth with veal cut in small pieces (from the knee to the foot, including the cartilage, hoof excluded), kept at rest in cold water overnight. Then, add in a pot with a variety of vegetables (celery, carrots, fennel, onions and garlic) together with a real encyclopaedia of spices (chervil, lovage, bay leaf, galangal, pyrethrum, wild thyme, cubeb pepper and nutmeg).

Concerning meat, the abbess of Bingen gives very significant and, at times, peculiar advice. For example, she does not recommend pork meat because it does not reduce phlegm or other diseases. She accords curative preference to the cooked liver. Ox, hen, sheep, goat liver, in various ways, help against internal diseases. Cooked liver cleanses from humour and strengthens the mucous membrane of the stomach. In this regard, there is also a more specific recommendation. Heart and lung are not foods for men; gout sufferers should eat roe deer liver, and the pain will cease. Venison is exceptional for digestion and cleanses from mucus; mutton is perfect in summer, dangerous in winter; eat kid goat meat in late autumn.

When speaking of fish in detail, the abbess of Bingen develops a fascinating reflection on the food chain, recommending eating fish that live in healthy waters. Sea bass swims among rocks, sometimes in caves, where it looks for rich and healing herbs. Therefore, its flesh is good for the healthy and the sick. Pike is also among the best, as it has firm and salutary meat. And this applies to cod, sea bream, tub gurnard, common whitefish, and Arctic char.

She dedicated large space to herbs. The difference between raw, steamed and cooked is incredibly detailed.

Among the former, fennel stands out. It does not harm humans if eaten raw; it makes human beings cheerful, and it gives them a beautiful colour, a pleasant smell and good digestion.

Steamed herbs are delicate and do not lose their original properties. For example, cress harvested before flowering, simmered and seasoned with butter and salt, retains a tender flavour but does not lose its peppery note, reminiscent of radishes. Artemisia, steamed and served like spinach, is a side dish to meat dishes; at times, dried in powder, it becomes a spice.

Gliding towards the end of the meal, fruit of every form and type is equally of great importance. There are particular references to two species, now partially eclipsed: common medlar and quince. Regarding the former, its strength is in the fruit, it makes the flesh develop and purifies the blood, and one can eat it as such, but even turned into jam. Regarding quince apples, Hildegard proposes those in syrup, brought to boil after having cleaned and sliced ​​them, with the addition of water, lemon juice and its peel, sugar, cloves and cinnamon. Transferred into sealed containers, cool and dark, one will consume the apples afterwards.

She gives plenty of attention in the final part of lunch. She allows significant space to digestives. For the stomach, she recommends boiling some peeled and meticulously chopped chestnuts in water and then adding liquorice powder and common polypody root. A special place has even absinthe elixir: juice from leaves and stems harvested at the end of spring, then boiled with honey and wine.

Sober in fasting and attentive to the changes of the season

The Benedictine mother, exalting measure and sobriety at the table, also arrives at the fasting menu. She recommends it for several physical pathologies and spiritual vices, but not exaggeratedly as it does not give the body the right and measured nutrition. The basic idea is to abstain from solid foods for a limited period. In this period, our body saves the energy it sometimes consumes in excess, thus used for detoxification, self-healing, and mental regeneration. The timing and objectives of fasting are precise. We will follow the most decisive, which lasts eight days, the intermediate, which lasts for three months, and the longest (six months).

In the first case, liquids are used instead of solid foods. Fennel tea or other similar ones like spelt coffee; juice from beets, apples or grapes; vegetable soup or spelt semolina. In the middle version, eat three meals daily, but without animal proteins. Spelt is central (bread, pasta, semolina, flakes). Vegetables and fruit are present. In the last case, alternate the intermediate diet some days followed by some others in which it is possible to eat to satiety only spelt and lettuce.

Nutrition cannot ignore seasonal changes. That is why Hildegard offers many examples in connection to the theory of moods of the Salerno school. For example, she warns against the proper winter weather conditions, when cold and humidity prevail. For this reason, nourishment must adapt, giving more space to hot and dry foods, to nourish more the intensely stressed organs (liver and intestine). Better to resort to cooked foods, even for a long time, which, in this way, attract less digestive heat to the stomach and allow the extremities of our limbs not to get too cold. In cooking and at a curative level, she recommends using spices to stimulate body heat and drying damp humour. The list consists of omnipresent elements (ginger, galangal, cloves and nutmeg), but even several others (pepper, black cumin, sage). She also describes a potent elixir against seasonal diseases, mainly composed of the aerial parts of hyssop, fennel, liquorice, cinnamon bark, grape juice. It protects the airways and heals liver overload.

The tenth angelic choir

Water is another fundamental element in human physical life and health. Its high therapeutic power. It is a meeting of multiple energies, especially those that, in the mountains, make water merge with the ardour of sunlight and the preciousness of stones. This blend of life and health arrives both on our tables and in pharmacies. The immersion of stones in drinking water, according to Hildegarde, is thaumaturgical on many occasions: the diamond cures jaundice; rock crystal heated beforehand in the sun prompts improvements in the abdomen. The recipe regarding topaz is noteworthy: immersed for three days in wine, when brought close to the eyes, topaz will brighten and heal them.

The whole scale of creatures is as if crossed by the current of a river. A vis vitalis, which animates and makes everything possible, nourishes and heals.

he search for this new dignity and human centrality anticipates the Renaissance season of the ascent to heaven by more than two centuries. It is possible because: “all that is in heaven, on earth and under the earth, is permeated with interconnection, with the essence of a reciprocal relationship”.

Capturing this secret plot is sudden intuition. It goes beyond space and time. You can recognize it thanks to the sentiment that produces and assists its beneficial transmission. Accordingly, whoever receives must give.

Furthermore, more courageous becomes the final philosophical itinerary proposed by Hildegard: recover that dignity and glory once lost by the rebel angels. After all, humanity aspires to become the tenth angelic choir.

Through the beauty of rationality, men and angels interact, mix, merge and exercise much strength for the honourable purpose of splendour and blessing.

FRANCO BANCHI