All is not balneal in a bagnio.

This puzzled me: bain-marie: literally, bath of Mary, a pan with hot water in which smaller pans may be placed for slow cooking or to keep the food warm.
Why a 'bath of Mary'? Oh--wasn't it one of the Marys in the Bible who bathed Jesus' feet? Does bath of Mary mean a foot bath; that is, shallow? I don't think I've ever heard the term before.

I seem to remember that balneum Mariæ is an alchemical device and term. Not sure which Miriam it might've been named for. OTOH, bagno and balneal are from the same root.

How else do you cook your Hollondaise sauce for the sparrow grass? :)

[F.; ad. L. balneum Mariæ (14th c.), lit. ‘the bath of Mary,’ so called, Littré thinks, from the gentleness of this method of heating.]

(See quot.)
1822 Kitchiner Cook's Oracle 398 ‘Bain-Marie’ is a flat vessel containing boiling water; you put all your stewpans into the water, and keep that water always very hot, but it must not boil. 1875 Ure Dict. Arts I. 280 Bain-marie, a vessel of water in which saucepans, etc. are placed to warm food, or to prepare it and some pharmaceutical preparations.

OED2

How else do you cook your Hollondaise sauce

Use a double-boiler.

yeahbut®

It don need no steenken boilin, let alone no dubble bubble toil and trubble

no steenken boilin

Exactly why you would use a double boiler. The boiling is confined to the lower chamber.

‘the bath of Mary,’ so called, Littré thinks, from the gentleness of this method of heating.]
Yeahbut®--why Mary? Why not Jeannette, or Katherine, etc.?

There was an alchemist by the name of Mary the Jewess or Maria Prophetissa (supposedly the sister of Moses), or at least a text attributed to her.

http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss1.asp?Num=1737

below the fold, for months, Dr Bill has been making interesting post.. one site he found was
engines of ingenuity.. transcrips of a 15 minute or so radio broadcasts.
http://www.uh.edu/engines/engines.htm

one episode was about Marie the Jewess, and her work with what we now call double boilers.
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi964.htm

double boilers allow you to regulate heat.

in a water bath/water based double boiler, water, which boils at 212(f) or 100(c) controls the heat of the upper vessel (which is why we heat melt chocolte on a double boiler) --it keeps its (provided the upper and lower vessels aren't tightly sealed and there is escaping steam) at the upper bowl at the tempurture of boiling water..
(so the chocate or custard or what ever, never gets hotter than 100(c).

if you want to learn the melting point of an unknow material, being able to figure out if it is higher or lower than water is one step.
interesting how almost nothing is know about her.. (so true for so many woman in science.)

How else do you cook your Hollondaise sauce for the sparrow grass?

you cheat!
-melt the butter in a micro wave, and make the hollondaise in a blender.. sure it gets whipped up and is lighter and airier than the real stuff... but that's okay. it never curdles, and its fast!
(put egg, lemon juice and a little dijon mustard in bottom of blender,(and a dash of salt and pepper) Melt butter,
Start blender and immediately start pouring melted butter in a thin but steady stream-- turn blender off as soon as all butter has been added. serve asap.)

interesting how almost nothing is know about her

That we know anything about her is due to her disciple, Zosimus of Panopolis (who lived in the late 3rd or early 4th century). According to Z., Mary wrote an alchemcial treatise called Peri kaminon kai organon (Concerning furnaces and apparatus). Mary either invented or was the first recorded to have described the bain-marie. I got this information from The Jewish Alchemists: A History and Source Book by Rapahel Patai, 1994. Also, the German for bain-marie is Marienbad. Always loved the Resnais flick Last Year in Marienbad. Thanks for the links.

This all seems admirably clear; and second the thanks for the links. So what we're saying is, someone needs to let the OED know it's nuffink to do with Mary meeks and mild?

oh, and btw Fong, I was simply taking the piss out of calling something a "double boiler" when the whole purpose of the article is to avoid boiling! But mebbe youze guys, if you're allergic to French, could call it a "freedom boiler" or sumfink...

Bain-marie is also a term used for a type of double-boiler with holes in the bottom of the top pan. It is used to steam veggies and such.

Similar to the platform with holes on a tripod that you put inside a saucepan to steam veggies? I've always just known it as a steamer.

Bingley

That's a steamer, Bing. Lemme see can I find a picture of a double boiler.

http://www.beringsea.com/communities/Saint_Paul/museum/othercoll/gfx/gallie/gallie_0010.jpg

The pot on the right fits inside the pot on the left. Not the best picture technically but the best I could find quickly showing the whole thing.

If no-one objects to a commercial site, this is what I had in mind:

http://www.happycookers.com/wc.dll/products/divulge/1-4823.html

Bingley

from Bing's site:
A bigger version of the old stand by stainless steel steamer basket

I would have written "standby"...

but then, I can't cook...