did you not name a tempest, a birth, and a death?

Our title line comes from Pericles, Prince of Tyre, which is a play that does not appear in the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, although estimations vary as to whether Shakespeare wrote half of the play or the entire thing. The line is spoken near the end of the play as Thaisa, the long lost wife of Pericles, stands in the temple of Diana as she and Pericles wondrously rediscover each other. The line neatly encompasses human experience, describing not only the characters’ mutual experiences, but also the ongoing life cycle of storms, birth, and death.

We typically celebrate William Shakespeare’s birthday on St George’s Day, April 23rd, even though we have no real record of his being born on this day. What we do have is a certificate of his baptism, which took place on the 26th of April, 1564. Because infants in the early modern period were typically baptised within three days of their birth, it is reasonable to assume that Shakespeare’s birth may have taken place on the 23rd of April. Historians also appreciate something of the neatness of this assertion, because Shakespeare died on the 23rd of April as well, in 1616.

Shakespeare’s dramatic and poetic works have become a foundational cornerstone to our understanding of literature, and of the breadth and depth with which poetry and drama may comprehend the range of human experience and understanding. Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, better known as the First Folio, was published after the author’s death in 1623, by his colleagues, John Heminges and Henry Condell. Thought to contain most of the plays in which Shakespeare had a major part in composition, the volume has 36 of the author’s plays, and is the only reliable text for about 20 of them. Although the landscape of textual authority continues to shift a bit, the only major Shakespeare plays thought not to have been included are two plays currently believed to have been lost, Cardenio, and Love’s Labour’s Won, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, andThe Two Noble Kinsmen.

Historians believe that perhaps 750 copies of the First Folio were printed, of which 235 survive today, although individual volumes continue to be ‘discovered’ in various libraries around the world, and any number of copies may exist that remain unrecorded. In 2016, for example, a copy of the first folio was found in the library of Mount Stuart House, on the Isle of Bute in Scotland. In 2014, a previously unknown copy was found in a library in Calais, France. Because of its historical and literary provenance, the first folio remains one of the most valuable volumes in the world. Only about six of the known copies remain in private hands.

Should you be armed with sufficient funds (copies of the First Folio trade hands for sums measuring in the millions–of dollars or pounds), opportunities for ownership do arise, although this happens only infrequently. For example, here’s a copy that was in the collection of Mills College which was once owned by noted Shakespeare Scholar Edmond Malone (1741-1812).

A well known liberal arts college, Mills College either will auction or has already auctioned this copy of the First Folio in order to provide the college with an infusion of much needed funds. For more information, contact Christie’s in New York.

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Of course, a birthday should always include a gift or offering, even if the offering should consist (as the best often do) of merely a thought of gratitude. For the purposes of this blog, however, we thought that perhaps the gift to honour Shakespeare’s birthday should include more than a mere thought. Because our tea and coffee mugs remain in the design stages (and because shipping those to readers all over the world might prove prohibitive anyway at this point), we needed to find something else–something that might be fun, that might be useful, and that might potentially include the essence of rambling down a rose flanked Cotswold walk amidst oncoming springtide.

Here then is the recipe for “King James Biscuits” which, according to Mistress Sarah Longe in her 1610 recipe book, “King James, and his Queene eaten with much liking”. The recipe, adapted by Francine Segan from Sarah Longe’s cookbook, makes approximately 24 scones. Please note that the recipe has been adapted for an American kitchen. European measurements can be approximated, and an oven keyed to Celsius temperatures should be preaheated to around 177°, or a moderate gas mark 4. (My apologies for the way the recipe is formatted in various formats. In this case, WordPress was singularly uncooperative in terms of providing an adequate format platform for this recipe, for whatever reason. Perhaps King James is still jealously guarding his biscuits.):

7 large egg yolks, 3 tablespoons rose water, 1 cup sugar, 5 cups pastry flour, 4 large egg whites, 1 teaspoon caraway seeds, 1 teaspoon aniseeds,

1. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the egg yolks, rose water, and sugar for 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of flour and mix for 2 minutes. Add another cup of flour and mix for 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add another cup of flour, and mix for two minutes. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Add another cup of flour, the caraway, aniseed, and the egg whites to the batter and mix for two minutes. Add the remaining cup of flour and mix until smooth and elastic. (If the dough is too thick for your mixer, knead in the last addition of flour.)

2. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Drop the dough, 2 tablespoons at a time, onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until light golden brown.

From Shakespeare’s Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook by Francine Segan.*

This might be a bit more work if one doesn’t have an electric mixer. Please note that noted food historian Francine Segan’s cookbook is not to be confused with Pulitzer Prize nomintated author Lore Segal’s similarly titled Shakespeare’s Kitchen: Stories. Both are fine books that speak abundantly to the human life experience in ways that share threads with Shakespeare, although Segan’s book has more actual recipes for preparing food.

There’s a great deal of charm and appeal to Segan’s cookbook. Should anyone try this scone recipe, or any of the other recipes from this source, at home (assuming you can get enough flour in these challenging times), do let me know how you get on. You’ll know where to find me. Looks like the ghost may be haunting these pages for some time.

It is worthwhile to recall that while rosemary is for remembrance, it is also good for cooking. If the only thing of which we can be certain in life is change, then it may be well worth it to ‘hang in there’. Here’s wishing a happy birthday weekend to William Shakespeare, and a great week ahead to all of you.

*Segan, Francine. Shakespeare’s Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook. New York: Random House, 2003. The recipe for King Jame’s Biscuits appears in chapter 8, ‘The Banquet’.