Benedictine or benedictine spread is a spread made with
cucumber
Cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the Cucurbitaceae family that bears usually cylindrical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.cream cheese. Invented near the beginning of the 20th century, it was originally and still is used for making cucumber sandwiches, but in recent years it has been used as a dip or combined with meat in a sandwich. This spread can be obtained pre-made from some
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana borde ...
-area grocery stores.
Although benedictine is rarely seen in restaurants outside the state of Kentucky, it has been written about in articles in national publications such as ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'', and ''
Saveur Magazine
''Saveur'' is an online gourmet, food, wine, and travel magazine that publishes essays about various world cuisines. The publication was co-founded by Dorothy Kalins, Michael Grossman, Christopher Hirsheimer, and Colman Andrews, who was also t ...
'', and also reported about on multimedia outlets such as the
Food Network
Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ...
and NPR.
A benedictine-based sandwich was featured on the Food Network's ''50 States 50 Sandwiches'' program in 2012, on the television shows of celebrity chefs
Paula Deen
Paula Ann Hiers Deen (born January 19, 1947) is an American chef, cookbook author, and TV personality. Deen resides in Savannah, Georgia, where she owns and operates The Lady & Sons restaurant and Paula Deen's Creek House with her sons, Jamie ...
and
Damaris Phillips
Damaris Lennon Phillips (born December 8, 1980) is an American chef and television personality. In 2013 she won the ninth season of the Food Network television series '' Food Network Star''. She hosted the Food Network show ''Southern at Hear ...
, in ''
Southern Living
''Southern Living'' is a lifestyle magazine aimed at readers in the Southern United States featuring recipes, house plans, garden plans, and information about Southern culture and travel. It is published by Birmingham, Alabama
(We dare defend ...
'' magazine as one of June's "2011 Best Recipes" for their corresponding issue, in '' Garden & Gun'' magazine, and in PopSugar.
History
Benedictine was invented near the beginning of the 20th century by Jennie Carter Benedict, a
caterer
Catering is the business of providing food service at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park, festival, filming location or film studio.
History of catering
The earliest account of major services be ...
, restaurateur and cookbook author in
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana borde ...
. Benedict opened a kitchen for providing catering services in 1893, and in 1900 opened a restaurant and
tea room
A teahouse (mainly Asia) or tearoom (also tea room) is an establishment which primarily serves tea and other light refreshments. A tea room may be a room set aside in a hotel especially for serving afternoon tea, or may be an establishment wh ...
called Benedict's. It was probably during her catering period when she invented and originally served benedictine.
Benedict's cookbooks are still being sold a century after they were first published. For example, her ''The Blue Ribbon Cook Book'', which first published in 1902, has been reprinted numerous times and most recently in 2008. Although early editions of this book do not contain a recipe for the spread, the most recent edition does.
Recipe
Following are the original benedictine recipe ingredients used by Benedict, as reported by the Louisville ''
Courier-Journal
''The Courier-Journal'',
also known as the
''Louisville Courier Journal''
(and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''),
is the highest circulation newspaper in Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett and billed as "Part of the ''USA Today'' Net ...
'' and NPR:
*8 oz. cream cheese, softened
*3 tbsps. cucumber juice
*1 tbsp.
onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the oni ...
salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quanti ...
*A few grains of
cayenne pepper
The cayenne pepper is a type of '' Capsicum annuum''. It is usually a moderately hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes. Cayenne peppers are a group of tapering, 10 to 25 cm long, generally skinny, mostly red-colored peppers, often with ...
*2 drops green
food coloring
Food coloring, or color additive, is any dye, pigment, or substance that imparts color when it is added to food or drink. They come in many forms consisting of liquids, powders, gels, and pastes. Food coloring is used in both commercial fo ...
The original spread is made by thoroughly blending all these ingredients with a fork.
Modern variants of the recipe use grated or chopped cucumber and onions rather than juice, as well as
dill
Dill (''Anethum graveolens'') is an annual plant, annual herbaceous, herb in the celery family Apiaceae. It is the only species in the genus ''Anethum''. Dill is grown widely in Eurasia, where its leaves and seeds are used as a herb or spice fo ...
and common spread ingredients. They also use significantly less salt.
Tzatziki
Tzatziki ( el, τζατζίκι), also known as tarator or cacık (), is a dip, soup, or sauce found in the cuisines of Southeast Europe and the Middle East. It is made of salted strained yogurt or diluted yogurt mixed with cucumbers, garl ...
*
Cuisine of Kentucky
The cuisine of Kentucky mostly resembles that of traditional Southern cuisine. Some common dinner dishes are fried catfish and hushpuppies, fried chicken and country fried steak. These are usually served with vegetables such as green beans, ...
*
History of Louisville, Kentucky
The geology of the Ohio River, with but a single series of rapids halfway in its length from the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers to its union with the Mississippi, made it inevitable that a town would grow on the site. Louisvi ...
List of sandwiches
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby uni ...