German Blushing Virgin: Errötende Jungfrau

Very "north German" dessert with many variations as to the flavor used, like raspberry, red currant, lingonberry, and I tend to use strawberry. It is known from northern Germany in the Schleswig part of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein (the part that borders on Denmark) and in the Mecklenburg and Pomerania area (since the end of World War Two reduced to Vorpommern, with the remainder a part of Poland) along the Baltic Sea.

 

Serve with vanilla sauce, whipped cream or just plain heavy cream.*

 

Ingredients:

 

32 ounces of buttermilk (half to be heated, half cold)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 box (3 ounces) red gelatine (strawberry or raspberry flavored)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 tablespoons sugar (check gelatine box instructions)

 

Heat half the buttermilk to boiling. Add the hot buttermilk to the gelatine and sugar in a bowl, stirring to dissolve the gelatine/sugar mixture and to prevent lumps. Add the cold buttermilk, lemon juice and vanilla extract, mix well. Refrigerate until set and chilled. Serve with vanilla sauce or whipped cream.    

 

*  The recipe for vanilla sauce is at this link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/11/vanilla-sauce-vanillesoe.html

 

WORD HISTORY:

Blush-This word is not well documented, but it is very likely related to "blaze" and "bleach," both words from the Germanic roots of English, and it is distantly related to "flame," a Latin-derived word borrowed by English via Anglo-French. It goes back to Indo European "bhel," which had the notion of "to shine, to glow, to be bright, to be white." This gave Old Germanic "bluskjanan" (or "bliskjanan"?), which seems to have meant "to burn, to glow with fire," and this gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "blyscan," meaning, "to glow red, to make red." This then became "blus(s)chen/blusshen," before eventually settling upon "blush." The noun form developed in the 1300s, and it also took on the meaning "(a) look," which brought about the phrase "at first blush;" that is, "at first look," or "at first glance," with the second form even replacing or becoming a substitute for the original to some extent, but why this meaning developed is unclear. The idea of "glowing, becoming red" in the verb form led to "become red in the face from embarrassment or shame," along with such a meaning for the noun form, and this seems to have happened in the second half of the 1500s, and this has become the main meaning in English, with a secondary noun meaning specifically referring to "light red or pink" wine. Because the original meaning of "burn, glow" spawned forms in the Germanic languages, the English word's Germanic relatives tend to have words closely related to "blaze," but Dutch has "blozen" and Low German has "blü­sen," both meaning "to blush," but did this meaning develop on the continent with it then passed by one or both languages to their cousin across the North Sea, or was it perhaps the other way around?