Saint Hubert Mastellen
The blessed East Flemish donut that's a cure for rabies
In East Flanders, Belgium, one can enjoy bread rolls called "mastellen". Not only are these delicious. Eating them will also protect you against rabies!
In the seventies my parents found themselves living in Africa. One day they received in the mail a little piece of home. Their parents had sent them a bag of "mastellen", bread rolls typical of the region surrounding Ghent in Belgium. But these were no ordinary mastellen: these had been blessed.
Mastellen can be found only in bakeries in the region around Ghent in East-Flanders. They look like donuts that haven't been fully perforated. Unlike donuts they are fluffy and eggy, not too sweet with just a whiff of cinnamon. They're a nice treat, especially with creamy butter.
Mastellen can be enjoyed any time of the year. But on 3 November, the bakers bring their batches in to the early Mass to be blessed in the name of Saint Hubert, whose Roman Catholic feast day it is.
Saint Hubert (d. 727) was a noble from Aquitaine who lived around the Ardennes in the north of France. He was a bon vivant and a great hunter. The morning of Good Friday, 683, he decided to go out hunting, which was a serious breach of Christian etiquette. He had tracked down a stag and was about to shoot it, when he had a vision of a lighting cross between its antlers. A voice told him to convert to a holy life, and Hubert answered the calling. After the death of his wife he became a priest, and later he was promoted to bishop of Liege, in what would later be Belgium.
After his death Hubert became the patron saint of hunters and trappers. He was in charge of protecting animals from rabies, which was often caused by rabid hunting dogs. Still today, open air masses are held in Europe at which hunting dogs and horses as well as other animals are given their "rabies shot" in the form of the "Bread of Saint Hubert". But also humans can partake of the Bread, which can take many forms, depending on the region. In Ghent they are mastellen.
Mastellen are the most efficacious when eaten on an empty stomach while reciting an "Our Father". And of course, because it is blessed, a Hubertusmastel cannot go bad. At least, this is what my grandparents assumed when they sent their holy package to the Congo. On trains, planes and boats. Through the tropics. In a non-refrigerated trunk...
Mastellen recipe:
Ingredients:
- For 1 kg of flower,
- use 1/2 liter of milk (whole)
- 75 g yeast
- 5 g of cinnamon
- 300 g of butter
- 20 g of salt
- 50 g of sugar
Instructions:
- Put all the ingedients except the butter, sugar and cinnamon together and knead into a consistent and smooth dough. Add the butter, sugar and cinnamon at the end of the kneading. Let the dough rise for 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into pieces of 55 g each. Form balls out of these and let them rest for 15 minutes.
- Then make a little pit in the middle of each.
- Beat an egg yolk and brush it over the surface of the balls. Let them rise for another half hour.
- Bake them quickly, for 10 to 12 minutes in preheated over at 200 degrees Celcius.
More articles related to culinary traditions:
On the consumption of raw meat
