You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Ruby’ tag.
We have “dark” (Yummmm!!) we have “milk” (yumm!) and we have the cloying travesty that is “white”(ummm…I guess this is for people who like the idea of chocolate but who don’t like the delicious flavor, the robust color, or the pleasant texture)… and thus has it been for many lives of men. But now, a marketing company has crafted a whole new hue/variety of chocolate “ruby” which is a sort of sad etiolated reddish color. An honest colorist would probably call it “sickly pink”.
Allegedly, ruby chocolate is made from a whole new cultivar of cacao plant. These ruby beans have been grown secretly in Ecuador, Brazil, and Cote D’Ivoire by mad German scientists in silent service to Callebaut (the chocolate maker which I have also never heard of until their effort garnered a bunch of attention from the media). All chocolate lovers are going to have to try this overpriced weird looking stuff (just in case) but it is highly probable we will quickly discover that it is a worthless marketing stunt (like most things in our oversaturated oversold era). Here is a very funny article from the NYTimes which skewers the inane language of this novelty chocolatier.
This is all good fun, but it brings up a bigger question about why humankind is so profoundly susceptible to novelty. We know what is good and what works well, but we will happily trade it all for a quick-tongued peddler’s dodgy-looking magic beans (literally, in this ruby bean chocolate case…but figuratively in art, politics, culture and all sorts of other venues). I guess this is ok and is all part of humankind’s desperate tragic fire-wielding ascendancy: you don’t go from pathetic leopard-fodder hominid to planet girdling superorganism in a mere 100,000 years without trying a lot of new coke and diving dolphins. Yet I can also see why venerable people start to roll their eyes at the pop-stars, computer apps, and cronuts which culture lavishly fawns upon and then instantly forgets. There are a lot of pinkish beans and not may rubies…
[The role of the greedy simpleton will be played by, um, everyone]
When scanning over the (dreadful and upsetting) news this morning, a wacky and funny story jumped out at me from amidst all of the grim happenings: fruit merchants in Japan auctioned off some grapes for a record high price! A bunch of approximately 30 “Ruby Roman” grapes sold for 1.1 million yen (which is equal to approximately $11,000.00). Even considering today’s high food prices and Japan’s astringent import rules (aka crooked tariffs), $365.00 per grape is an appallingly high price! What is going on? And what are “Ruby Roman” grapes?
Paying astronomically high prices for high-status foods is sort of a Japanese food tradition—like hotdog contests or giant pumpkin weighing in America. Merchants or wealthy patrons buy up ceremonial first fish or crops in order to gain prestige and whip up public attention (from all the way across the ocean in this case). The buyer of these particular grapes, Takamaru Konishi, plans on showing the expensive fruit in his shop before parceling them out to special customers and patrons.
Ruby Roman grapes are a special Japanese variety of red grape which each grow to the size of ping pong balls. Viticulturists began developing this new variety of grapes in 1992 by hybridizing and selecting certain strains of Fujiminori grapes. In 2008 the new giant red grapes hit shops…provided the fruit met the hilariously strict Japanese agricultural guidelines for what constitutes “Ruby Roman.” To quote Wikipedia:
Every grape is checked strictly to guarantee its quality, with certification seals placed on those thus selected. The Ruby Roman has strict rules for selling; each grape must be over 20g and over 18% sugar. In addition, a special “premium class” exists which requires the grape to be over 30g and where the entire fruit bunch must weigh at least 700g. In 2010, only six grapes qualified for premium status while in 2011, no grapes made the cut.
Wow! Maybe these grapes are worth $365.00 each! Or maybe this is another goofy publicity stunt for lazy reporters. If so, count me in!
The Coronet of Margaret of York
Two years ago, Ferrebeekeeper featured the crown of the renowned king Henry VIII of England. To my eyes it has been the prettiest crown so far featured here…but it’s fake, of course. All of the real historical medieval crowns from English history were melted down and sold in the aftermath of the English Civil War (which ended in 1651) when Oliver Cromwell and the protectorate took over the United Kingdom and ruled with a puritanical iron fist. Well, technically all of the actual medieval crowns from English history were destroyed…except for two. Above is the finer of the two, the coronet of Margaret of York, who, though never a queen, became duchess of Burgundy, one of the richest and most important ducal territories in all of Europe. This crown survived England’s tumultuous history by the simple expedient of not being in England (which sort of describes Margaret of York as well).
Anonymous portrait of Margaret of York, ca. 1468, Louvre
Margaret was born the daughter of England’s most powerful lord, Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, who served as lord protector of England during the madness of Henry VI (the pious but weak king who briefly ruled both France and England). Two of Margaret’s brothers were kings of England– Edward IV and Richard III (famous forever as a Shakespeare villain, whose remains were rediscovered 3 years ago under a parking lot in England). Margaret’s personal history of conniving nobles, kings, wars, alliances, betrothals, marriages, murders, horsing accidents, scurrilous sexual rumors, and complex treaties would make George. R. R. Martin pull out his beard in frustration, although Wikipedia amazingly manages to summarize it all in approximately 3 incomprehensible pages. When Margaret was married to Charles the Bold (whose untimely death precipitated two centuries of major wars) she wore this coronet. Burgundy was known for its wealth and extravagance. During her wedding the city was decorated with ornamental pelicans which spewed wine on the crowds!
Margaret’s coronet is tiny—a mere 12 centimeters (five inches) in diameter and height, but it is richly “ornamented with multi-coloured enamel, pearls, gems set in white roses, a diamond cross, the coats of arms of England and Burgundy, and letters forming the name: margarit(a) de (y)o(r)k. Margaret of York.” The reason the beautiful object has survived history in such good shape is that Margaret visited the Imperial city of Aachen in the summer of 1474 and donated her coronet to the statue of Mary in the great cathedral there. The little crown has remained in the cathedral’s treasury for the ensuing 541 years. It should be noted that the meticulous Germans have also kept the original leather case (which makes the crown more valuable for serious collectors?).
The Signature of Lucas Cranach the Elder
Some artists sign their works with a symbol instead of with their written name. My favorite of all these artist’s symbols was the one employed by the great German gothic painter Lucas Cranach. Ferrebeekeeper has already written about Lucas Cranach’s troubling allegory Melancholy, his fascination with severed heads and femme fatales, and his magnificent depiction of animals. Cranach usually signed his works with a black winged serpent holding a ruby ring in its jaws and wearing a crown. It fills me with frustration that I didn’t think of it first—imagine signing the water bill with that!
There are various different versions of the serpent. Cranach changed it around—especially when he signed printed artworks. Elector Frederick the Wise granted the winged serpent with a crown and ruby ring to Cranach as a coat of arms on January 6th, 1508, but nobody is sure what it means. Some art historians have speculated that it is an astrological or alchemical symbol. Others believe it may be a lost pun concerning some aspect of Cranach’s name or have some allegorical meaning too subtle to fathom. The actual explanation seems lost in mystery (which is probably how Cranach would like it). Whenever I see a Cranach painting in a museum, the search for his serpent sigil is part of the fun.
Detail from "Cupid" (Lucas Cranach the Elder, c.1530)
Detail from "Venus Standing in a Landscape" (Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1529)
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