St George is the patron saint of England and the 23rd of April is St George’s Day. He is also patron saint of: Canada, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Montenegro and Ethiopia plus a few more.
Christian belief is that he was born in what is now Turkey, became a soldier in the Roman Army and died for his belief. When orders were received from Emperor Dioletian to persecute other Christians, he refused and after being tortured on the wheel of swords he was beheaded.
The English adopted the red cross of St George on a white background during the crusades and it was probably those same crusaders who brought back a story of St George and the dragon.
The original tale is roughly as follows. A dragon decides to nest in the spring belonging to the city of Silene, (In Libia?) and the only way the city folks could draw water was to lure the dragon away by making him a sacrifice of a fair maid. To be fair the maids were picked a random and none were exempt. Then one day it was the king’s daughter who was picked to be the dragon’s dinner. Luckily for her St George was riding by on his charger and he killed the dragon and rescued the princess.
Many places in England lay claim to a dragon that was killed by St George and one of the most fanciful is that St George was a son of Lord Albert and he was born in Caludan Castle, Coventry and not Turkey. According to the tale, St George, while abroad in Egypt saved a princess from a dragon. The princess and St George were married and he sailed back to England with his bride. Shortly after setting up home in Coventry St George saved the city, by killing another dragon that had taken up residence beneath the city streets. Unfortunately he died soon afterwards, poisoned by the dragon’s blood.
This may match up with the Cornish legend of St George sailing through St Georges Channel (The channel connects the West Country and Wales to Ireland.) on his way to England.
For St George’s day, why not bake a steak and kidney pie?
Fred Watson April 2008
Steak And Kidney Pie – with potato pastry crust (serves 4)
Ingredients
1oz of beef dripping
4oz of chopped onions
1lb of lean beef
4oz of kidney (trim and cut a little smaller than the beef)
1 level tablespoon of flour seasoned with ½ a teaspoon of salt and ½ a teaspoon of pepper.
¾ pint of water
2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce
4oz of mushrooms
Method
Melt dripping in pan, cook onions for 1 minute
Coat beef and kidney with seasoned flour, add to pan and stir to seal
Add Worcestershire sauce and water, stir until boiling
Cover and simmer, stir occasionally, until meat is tender, about 2 ½ hours
Place meat in 1 ¼ pint pie dish adding 4 tablespoons of the gravy and leave to cool
(Keep the rest of the gravy; you can warm it up later to serve with the pie.)
When meat is cold cover it with sliced mushrooms
Brush edges of pie dish with water, cover with pastry lid, flute edges with a fork and brush top with milk.
Preheat oven, bake pie at Gas, 7, 425ºF 220ºC until golden, about twenty minutes.
Reduce heat to Gas5, 375ºF, 190ºC for another 15 minutes
