A HARTE APPETITE: HONEY BRINGS AGES OF TASTE TO RECIPES

The "heavenly gift of honey," as the poet Virgil referred to it, has always been one of my very favorite foods. Indeed, I was stung to learn recently that the late M.F.K. Fisher, arguably the greatest food writer in the English language, detested it. So does Ruth Reichl, former New York Times restaurant critic and now the new editor of Gourmet Magazine.

With all due respect, it's hard for me to imagine how anyone could not like honey. I agree with Claude Levi-Strauss who, in his "The Origin of Table Manners," observed about this miraculous substance, "So powerful is its gastronomic appeal that, were it too easily obtained, mankind would partake of it too freely until the supply was exhausted." And, as food historian Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat points out, the effort we must expend to obtain honey is perhaps part of its appeal. "Hidden away like treasure, it has an element of reward about it," she says as she proudly begins her magnificent volume, "A History of Food," with a chapter on the subject.

Human beings have apparently been stuck on honey for as long as recorded history, and probably even before then. As food writers Jane Charlton and Jane Newdick suggest, "The date when man enjoyed his first taste of honey is not known -- we can only surmise that the earliest hunter-gatherers must have come across a wild bees' nest in a hollow tree or bank of soil and plundered it. A few bee stings would be quickly forgotten, but the sweetness of the honey would remain in the memory, in contrast to their normally unpalatable diet of game, plants and nuts."

What Toussiant-Samat calls the oldest advertisement in the world is a rock painting in the Cave of the Spider near Valencia, Spain, depicting a man gathering honey with bees swarming around him. It is 12,000 to 15,000 years old. Representations of bees, which came to symbolize royalty, are not uncommon in Egyptian hieroglyphs, such as those at the temple of Karnak. (Napoleon would later take the bee for his emblem as well.) The Egyptians, in fact, occasionally paid their taxes in the form of honey and they sent their Pharaohs off to the after-life with a pot of it. It was even used as an embalming agent. Rameses III offered 15 tons of the stuff in sacrifice to the Nile god Hapi in the 12th century B.C.

The ancient Greeks, just like their descendants today, made honey a staple of their diet. So did the Romans. In the first century A.D., the Roman gourmet Apicius included honey in more than half of the recipes he recorded in his cookbooks. Among them were honey-baked tortoise and peacock in honey sauce. His honey sauce for fish was considered a classic. Honey-baked ham, a dish so popular today that there is even a whole chain of stores devoted to its sale, actually goes back to the Romans.

Throughout the Middle Ages, as the only sweetener available in a pure state and far less a luxury than cane sugar, honey continued to be an important ingredient, not just as a sweetener but as a condiment. It was used in the preparation of beer in Germany in the 11th century and cultivated in the American colonies in the 17th century. Though Native Americans had already developed beekeeping using an indigenous strain of bees that lack stingers, settlers brought hives of European bees with them. They adapted well to the new climate and ultimately spread across the continent.

Though taste might be its foremost feature, honey and its byproducts have also been used for a variety of non-culinary purposes, chiefly medicinal and cosmetic. As early as 2500 B.C., honey was used to treat wounds and burns and, indeed, it does contain an antibiotic element. The ancient Greeks fed it to their Olympic contestants to boost their energy. The Romans prescribed it both as a laxative and as a cure for diarrhea. An old English treatment for an earache involved inserting a piece of honey-coated onion into the ear. Honey is still used today to treat sore throats and coughs and is the principal ingredient in a common household remedy for a hangover. Modern medical research reveals that consuming honey can help ward off hay fever symptoms, especially if the honey contains small amounts of pollen. Honey has been an ingredient in skin treatments at least since Cleopatra's day and was popularized as a hair lotion in the 18th century by British royalty. Bee glue, a byproduct of honey, was one of the secrets in the varnish used by the violin makers of Cremona.

Given our long fascination with honey, it is not surprising that the substance and the bees who manufacture it have often figured prominently in myth, legend and ritual. The Bible, of course, refers to the land of milk and honey, and bees, we are told, fled the Garden of Eden after the fall of Adam and Eve. (Candles used during a Roman Catholic Mass must still contain a proportion of beeswax for that reason.) Mohammed claimed the bee was special because it was the only animal addressed by the Lord himself. The Hebrew term for bee means "word," an indication that the bee's mission is to reveal the Divine Word or truth that honey signifies. The ancient Greeks believed Zeus was born in a sacred cavern guarded by bees and used honey to make his father, Kronos, sleepy prior to chaining him up and dethroning him. The Popul Vuh, the sacred text of the Mayan Indians, talks about the Universal Hive at the center of the earth.

Toussaint-Samat tells of an Eastern custom whereby honey is poured on the hands of just-married couples. Likewise, the Hindu wedding ceremony sometimes employs a bowl of honey and a mention of it in the marriage vow. Clearly, in either case, the newlyweds should be ready for the "honeymoon."

Dr. Frank Nickell of Southeast Missouri State University's Regional History Center remembers, as a youngster, a neighbor who always went to "tell the bees" about a death in the family, an old English custom memorialized in a Whittier poem. The bees had to share in the family news lest they would either die themselves or leave. In England in the 18th century, sometimes a piece of funeral cake would be left at the hive and the bees formally invited to the services.

It seems only fair to include the bees in family happenings. They are, after all, models of domestic tranquility. And where would we be without them? Someone has calculated that if bees were to become extinct all world crops, not just garden flowers, would expire due to lack of pollination and, what is more, human beings, dispossessed of food sources, would not last longer than two years. No wonder, then, that a Cornell University study concluded that the value of the work honeybees perform for U.S. agriculture amounts to nearly $10 billion. The figure makes sense when you consider that it takes 864 worker bees an entire lifetime to produce one pound of honey and as many as 100,000 trips for them to bring a liter of nectar back to the hive.

So during September, which is National Honey Month, when the harvest is at its peak, I say we should show our appreciation by making a beeline to the kitchen to whip up some recipes containing that magical elixir.

Flavored Honeys

The National Honey Board, headquartered in Colorado, suggests these gourmet honeys are an appropriate way to honor the work of the honeybee. They couldn't be easier to produce and would make a unique gift.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups honey

One of the following:

1 tablespoon grated orange, lemon, lime or grapefruit peel

1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

1 tablespoon julienne ginger

1 tablespoon whole allspice

1 1/2 teaspoons dried crushed red pepper

Directions:

Add flavoring to honey, heat on low heat, and let stand two hours being careful to avoid boiling or scorching. Strain into 8-ounce jar with lid.

Duck Breast with Moroccan Honey Sauce

This beautiful dish adapted from "A Taste of Honey," a lovely book by Jane Charlton and Jane Newdick, showcases duck's affinity for sweet sauces and was inspired by the Moroccan fondness for honey. The recipe should work almost as well with chicken.

Ingredients:

1 cinnamon stick

1 tablespoon hot strong coffee

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cloves

4 1/4 tablespoons honey

2 teaspoons sugar

4 duck breasts, skin on

1 stick butter

1 1/4 cups chicken broth

Directions:

Break cinnamon stick in half and place in shallow container. Pour coffee over it and let stand for 15 minutes. Combine allspice, nutmeg, cloves, sugar and two teaspoons honey. Add coffee, discarding cinnamon stick, and mix well. Brush duck breasts with mixture and let marinate for 2 to 3 hours. Pan fry breasts skin side down over high heat for five minutes, then turn and fry 2 to 3 minutes more. Remove from pan and keep warm. Pour off all but two teaspoons fat, add butter, and when melted add remaining marinade, the broth, and remaining half of cinnamon stick. Simmer 8 to 10 minutes until sauce thickens. Discard cinnamon stick and serve sauce over breasts.

Honeycomb

With its porous honeycomb-like structure, this candy is aptly named. It's reminiscent of peanut brittle only without the peanuts. The recipe is adapted from Charlton and Newdick who suggest serving the confection with vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons honey

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

3 tablespoons water

1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:

Combine all ingredients except baking soda in a high-sided pan and place over low heat until sugar is completely dissolved. Bring to a boil and cook until syrup reaches 300 degrees (hard crack stage). Immediately remove pan from heat and stir in baking soda. Pour syrup onto lightly greased baking pan and let cool until set, about one hour. Crack into pieces.

Got a culinary question you'd like to ask or an idea you'd like to see treated in this column? Send your suggestions to A Harte Appetite, c/o The Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semovm.semo.edu.