Benedictine or benedictine spread is a

spread Spread may refer to: Places * Spread, West Virginia Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Spread'' (film), a 2009 film. * ''$pread'', a quarterly magazine by and for sex workers * "Spread", a song by OutKast from their 2003 album ''Speakerboxxx/T ...

made with

cucumber Cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated Vine#Horticultural climbing plants, creeping vine plant in the Cucurbitaceae family that bears usually cylindrical Fruit, fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.

s and

cream cheese Cream cheese is a soft, usually mild-tasting fresh cheese made from milk and cream.Oxford English Dictionary Stabilizers such as carob bean gum and carrageenan are often added in industrial production. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration de ...

. Invented near the beginning of the 20th century, it was originally and still is used for making

cucumber sandwich The traditional cucumber sandwich is a crustless tea sandwich (or finger sandwich) composed of thin slices of cucumber situated between two thin slices of lightly buttered white bread. The sandwich originated in the United Kingdom, and modern ...

es, 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 border ...

-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 nati ...

'', and '' Saveur Magazine'', 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 National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

. 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 Hea ...

, 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–based Southern Prog ...

'' magazine as one of June's "2011 Best Recipes" for their corresponding issue, in ''

Garden & Gun ''Garden & Gun'' is a national magazine focusing on the American South. The magazine reports on the South's culture, food, music, art, literature, and its people and their ideas. It was created in 2007, published by the Evening Post Publishing Co ...

'' 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

. 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 whic ...

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'' Ne ...

'' and

: *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 onion ...

juice *1 tsp.

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 quantitie ...

*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 food ...

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 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 for flavouring food. Growth ...

and common spread ingredients. They also use significantly less salt.

References

{{reflist, 30em Spreads (food) American condiments Kentucky cuisine Cuisine of Louisville, Kentucky History of Louisville, Kentucky Food and drink introduced in the 1890s 1890s establishments in Kentucky

History

Recipe

See also

References