A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in a bar, quietly sipping my favourite Belgian beer and quite sacrilegiously I offered up a bit of a prayer for the divine intervention that made it taste so good. I know it's wrong. But it got me thinking, thinking about all the amazing ways that monks, nuns, all sorts of religious groups have affected the history of our food, not just the beers but some of the world's most magnificent cheeses, liqueurs, stuff that's been responsible for a lot of very earthly pleasure. And it seems that it's not just in the actual production of food and drink they've influenced us. In the medieval landscape, religious institutions had a huge influence at seats of learning as advocates for good animal husbandry. As most monasteries had herb gardens, they also wrote down as
