August 06
Johanna Maria
Lind's
Birthday
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The legendary showman, P.T. Barnum, gave
Jenny Lind the sobriquet "The Swedish Nightingale,"a term that
reflected many music critics comparisons of her vocal qualities with
birds, angels, and other mystical beings. Although Jenny attempted
at times to maintain a public facade of innocence, sweetness, and
spirituality, she was possibly the most cold-hearted, calculating,
vengeful, ruthless, sanctimonious, and smarmy figure in the history of
musical theater. Part of her faux persona can be traced to a somewhat tragic childhood. Jenny was an illegitimate child of a highly bigoted, violent-tempered Swedish schoolteacher who was noted for her shrill diatribes against immorality and the constant chastisement of her pupils for "impure" thoughts. Little Jenny was shunted off to a series of foster homes where her illegitimate status in the superficially moral climate of Sweden did not encourage affection from her foster parents. |
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Jenny's unique vocal talents earned her a place in the opera school at
the Royal Theatre of Stockholm when she was only nine. By sixteen, she
was one of the major stars of the Royal Theatre. At twenty-one, Jenny
Lind had become the most successful musical star in Swedish history.
Jenny's international fame started with
her appearances in London in 1845 and 1846. Her subsequent
engagements in Cuba and the United Sates under Barnum's brilliant
management added to her international reputation. However, when she
refused to sing in Italy becomes most of the residents were Catholic,
and in France because she claimed that the French were all immoral, she
became the
somewhat notorious which only added to her mystique.
Jenny gave several concerts in Germany and Vienna where she was courted by
the infamous Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the Austrian novelist whose name
became the eponymous terms for sexual satisfaction from receiving pain.
Apparently a little S&M was more acceptable to Jenny than a little
Catholicism.
As part of Barnum's publicity campaign for Jenny, he created the
fiction that her unique vocal gifts were the result of eating a bowl of
pearl sago soup before every appearance. As a result of Barnum's inspired
ruse, thousands of singers from all over the world began making and
consuming huge quantities of the soprano's famous soup. Sago is a
thickener similar to tapioca that was relatively popular at the time used for
soups and puddings and starch extracted from the pith of sago palm
stems. It is a major staple food in New Guinea
and popular in Indonesia in making fruit soups. It used to be difficult to
find pearl sago difficult in the United States, but with the increased
popularity of the Vegan movement, it can often be found in organic
food stores and occasionally in some Asian markets.
So sago soup seems to be the appropriate celebratory dish for Jenny's
birthday which we suggest enjoying with a viewing of A Lady's Morals
(1930) with Grace Moore as Jenny
|
Sago Soup with Melon and Coconut |
| Ingredients |
| 1 honeydew melon 3 oz sago pearls 1/2 tsp ground cardamom |
1 cup sugar 1/2 tsp salt 2 cups coconut milk |
Instructions