Caturday Night Fevah

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Sonnets: Let Not My Food Love Be Called Idolatry

Well rounded bagel with

Cream cheese and sable

Green capers and onions (red)

No fish tale nor withered nasturtium bud

Considers this swallow their bed.

Hanatsubomi, hanayu? Yuzu you are, till eaten.

As farro! O farro!

Creeps into lasagna

(Ancient as Zeus’ old bolt)

Kakigori clouds delicately

Fall freezing

And the soft bun’d hot dogs onion-ly emote.

There was a river!

It was the Hudson

But I saw my friend’s face before it

Biting bright Bowery pickles

Always quite crunchy and

The fat strudel of poppyseed  can hardly be

Grumpy.

Let not my food love be called idolatry!

Since all edible, these bites and baubles be.

Three themes in one

My love is

I bid you

Each

A bite,

A swallow,

A ruminative

Chew.

………………………………………………………………….

There you are, Sonia, per your request – my love letter to the happy New York foods! 🙂

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Et Voila! (Or . . . So Okay, I Ate a Little)

A sable special at Murray’s bagels

A box of wagashi, including one like the one above

Farro lasagna

Kakigori which froze my tongue so much that when I talked near the end of it I sounded drunk

Hot dogs with lots of ‘Greek-style’ onions and papaya drinks

Waterfront dining above at SouthWest

Katz’s and the ever-so-gently pickled pickles are so good

Hungarian Pastry Shop

And last but not least, a link to the menu at Henry’s End.

How many days was I in NYC?

(Not enough!) 🙂

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On Eating Something to Understand It

No, I’m not suggesting that you eat the refrigerator – I was just looking for an excuse to use the illustration. But it does raise the question of whether we ‘understand’, or know, or experience, our food in the same way if that food is an icy plastic-covered super-industrialized product created by a corporation for mass consumption or if that food is rather the odd turnip or potato pulled up at the farm by Pappy then carefully washed, sliced and stewed by Mammy with the bit of salt pork from the pig slaughtered each autumn by Uncle Wilbur.

Have you ever considered eating something unusual for the purpose of ‘understanding’ it? (This is not the same thing as eating something strange for the purpose of  bragging about it afterwards to all your eagerly disgusted friends!)

One family in particular of a studious nature took to this idea. Their tables were graced with some very interesting foodstuffs.

Not only was his house filled with specimens – animal as well as mineral, live as well as dead – but he claimed to have eaten his way through the animal kingdom: zoophagy. The most distasteful items were mole and bluebottle; panther, crocodile and mouse were among the other dishes noted by guests. Augustus Hare, a famous English raconteur and contemporary, recalled, “Talk of strange relics led to mention of the heart of a French King preserved at Nuneham in a silver casket. Dr. Buckland, whilst looking at it, exclaimed, ‘I have eaten many strange things, but have never eaten the heart of a king before,’ and, before anyone could hinder him, he had gobbled it up, and the precious relic was lost for ever.” The heart in question is said to have been that of Louis XIV. Buckland was followed in this bizarre hobby by his son Frank.

Like father, like son – Francis Trevelyan Buckland followed his dad William in the ways of the table.

Buckland was a pioneer of zoöphagy: his favourite research was eating the animal kingdom. This habit he learnt from his father, whose residence, the Deanery, offered such rare delights as mice in batter, squirrel pie, horse’s tongue and ostrich. After the ‘Eland Dinner’ in 1859 at the London Tavern, organised by Richard Owen, Buckland set up the Acclimatization Society to further the search for new food. In 1862 100 guests at Willis’ Rooms sampled Japanese Sea slug (= sea cucumber, probably), kangaroo, guan, curassow and Honduras turkey. This was really quite a modest menu, though Buckland had his eye on Capybara for the future. Buckland’s home, 37 Albany Sreet, London, was famous for its menagerie and its varied menus. [4]

His writing was sometimes slapdash, but always vivid and racy, and made natural history attractive to the mass readership. This is an example:

“On Tuesday evening, at 5pm, Messrs Grove, of Bond Street, sent word that they had a very fine sturgeon on their slab. Of course, I went down at once to see it… The fish measured 9 feet in length [nearly three metres]. I wanted to make a cast of the fellow… and they offered me the fish for the night: he must be back in the shop the next morning by 10 am… [various adventures follow] I was determined to get him into the kitchen somehow; so, tying a rope to his tail, I let him slide down the stone stairs by his own weight. He started all right, but ‘getting way’ on him, I could hold the rope no more, and away he went sliding headlong down the stairs, like an avalanche down Mont Blanc… he smashed the door open… and slid right into the kitchen… till at last he brought himself to an anchor under the kitchen table. This sudden and unexpected appearance of the armour-clad sea monster, bursting open the door… instantly created a sensation. The cook screamed, the house-maid fainted, the cat jumped on the dresser, the dog retreated behind the copper and barked, the monkeys went mad with fright, and the sedate parrot has never spoken a word since.” [5]

Now that sounds like a fun place to visit! I never before thought the Dean of Westminster and his family so very exciting!

The only thing I feel really badly about is that I have not (yet) located their recipe for Rhinoceros Pie. Do you think perhaps Rhinoceros Pies is the magical thing inside the Holy Refrigerator illustrated above? Or is it a TV dinner in there? Or that famous organic turnip? Or some leftover canned spaghetti? Or . . . . ? What could it possibly be?!

And having eaten the things we eat, do we then understand them? Or do we write our own stories about them to suit our own pleasures and to fit our own mindsets . . . .

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Hungry? Or Merely Hubris-y: Rhino on the Table

Like any other thing we eat, there is the question of ‘why’? Why do we eat this particular thing? Do we eat it because we are really hungry? Or do we eat it because it just happens to be in front of us and available to eat? Or maybe simply because it happens to be the set time for a meal? These questions are the simpler ones. The more challenging questions have to do with tradition, history, culture, and power.

Power is not the least of things affecting what we eat – though in our culture that fact is not as apparent as it may be in other cultures.

In this short online documentary from National Geographic, the bush meat trade is summarized in a way that brings attention to some of the power issues circling around the eating of wild game or bushmeat such as rhinoceros in Africa. There was no mention of the lumber companies which have a hand in the story, but the players in this game – and the histories and traditions – all combine to create a not-so-small battle of ‘whose reality is the right one here’ – with very real results of the battle showing in day-to-day life in this place faraway from where we live and eat.

There is real hunger in some places. Hunger for food to stay alive. Then there are the other sorts of hungers. The complex hungers of status that play out in a number of ways.

Why would we want to eat rhinoceros? Or lion or tiger or bear? These things are not part of our cultural norms as edible things. Is the answer ‘I just want to know what it tastes like,’ a real answer – fully true and valid with no squirrelly levels of additional or alternate meaning underneath this flat-stated claim?

Perhaps in some cases it is for mere entertainment value.

We can buy wild game, including lion meat – online. Here, at this link, is a source. It is called ‘exotic meat’. Which of course has a different feel to the mind than ‘bush meat’ does. One of the satisfied customers giving testimonial on the website of this online exotic meat store was the pastor of a church in California, who states

“Anshu, The Lion Meat and the Python Meat was a hit. The guys found ways to cook it that were appealing. 500 people had a taste. Thanks for all your help.It was very nice to meet you and visit with you on the phone.” Yours, Jeff Beltz, Pastor, Hydesville Community Church

Dining upon the rhinoceros is certainly something to muse upon. We’ve come up close to the beast and have a few recipes ready if the need or urge arises.

The rhino is a homely beast,
For human eyes he’s not a feast.
Farwell, farewell, you old rhinoceros,
I’ll stare at something less prepoceros.

I think the rhino is rather cute, though Ogden Nash would disagree. Prepoceros, though – for sure.

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What They Don’t Tell You About Eating Rhinoceros

What they don’t tell you about eating rhinoceros is that before you take your first bite it is vitally important to know the beast! This is true of anything one eats. How can the taste of a thing be known if the sound of the word representing it is unknown, or if the look of a thing before you chow down upon it is unknown? The flavor would consist of a mere Tastebudian experience – bereft of all sensations of imagination upon experience.

You may never have seen rhinoceros in real life. Although you may have seen people who look or act like a rhinoceros in real life. (I have!)

Here are some rhinoceros images, and a poem before we eat.

(My kind of man. Always poking sticks at the sky while grimacing . . .)

Stiff upper lip there! Betray no expression of concern!

Our poem about rhinos is also a recipe for rhinoceros stew which can now be added to our recipe collection.

Cooking Rhino Stew (by James James)

Sieve some water in a pot, bring gently to the boil
When no lumps left then add some salt, a dash of diesel oil
For colour add some daffodils, a cup of kerosine
Then stir and boil it for a while, blend in some jumping beans.

Then set to cool and have a drink of vino red or white
And add a cup of pre-cooked goat, and stir with all your might.
Wait just a bit to moisturise, and stirring all the while
Then just to make it int’resting, add tongue of crocodile.

Turn the heat down just a notch, to let the juices thicken
Add more water, pinch of salt, and forty necks of chicken.
When this is bubblin’, nice and slow, it’s time to bone the rhino
But first, to still the nervous shakes drink some more of wino.

The rest of this poem can be found here. I am going out to gather recipe ingredients. Daffodils first!

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Welcome to the Jungle

Click here to view J.W. Buell Slideshow of ‘Sea and Land’ by stevelewalready (It’s possible to open this tab along with the music video at the same time . . . if you are so inclined – you’ll have to open another window. I rather enjoy the mix, myself.)

Welcome to the Jungle.

Hungry? Get your Sustainable Seafood Recipes right here.

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I Will Be Fruity in the Right Way.

Fructology. Why have I never heard of it before? Related to ayurvedism and humoral type-casting, but solely within the land of fruits.

Throughout the ages, women and men have sought to divine information about their past, present and future from the natural world. Quantum physicists have learnt that all things in the universe are interconnected, thus demonstrating the truth behind the science of Astrology. All over the planet, people read with awe the predictions made in their star-sign, moon-sign and sun-sign horoscopes. These accurate charts are created by the scientific interpretation of the relative positions and movements of the various Astral bodies within and without our Solar System. It is known that the planets affect the lives of  those born under them, as the pull of gravity affects the very molecules in our brains at the moments of birth and conception.

This science is, however, limited. The stars and planets are dead bodies – balls of rock or flaming gas, and nothing more. Something is missing. That something is the life-force itself. The Elan Vital, as it were. During his life-long search for the Truth, Doctor Barnett began to formulate the science of Fructology (or Fruit Signs) and it’s related science of Fructitherapy (fruit-based healing), based on the realisation that peoples from around the world exhibit minor modifications to their Astrological personality types. The one thing in common throughout the world, a thing which exemplifies the very essence of life itself, is fruit.
As the seasons roll across the face of the world trees, flowers, shrubs and hedges burst into life, expending their life-energies in the production of fruits.

Like people, fruit comes in all imaginable shapes, sizes, colours and textures.

There are eight fruit-life types, according to the website. I am going to try to find mine. If it affects my aura by the practice of eating the advised fruit-types, I’ll report back. Oh, in a month or so. I wonder what fruit-type I’ll turn out to be. I wonder what fruit-type you’ll turn out to be, too!

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It’s Not What You Eat – It’s That You Cook

Yes, I said “that”, not “what”.

Interesting article from The Economist, titled “What’s Cooking” from The American Association for the Advancement of Science. (Please do ignore the obvious capitalized letters and what they state in the shortening of that group’s name).

YOU are what you eat, or so the saying goes. But Richard Wrangham, of Harvard University, believes that this is true in a more profound sense than the one implied by the old proverb. It is not just you who are what you eat, but the entire human species. And with Homo sapiens, what makes the species unique in Dr Wrangham’s opinion is that its food is so often cooked.

Cooking is a human universal. No society is without it. No one other than a few faddists tries to survive on raw food alone. And the consumption of a cooked meal in the evening, usually in the company of family and friends, is normal in every known society. Moreover, without cooking, the human brain (which consumes 20-25% of the body’s energy) could not keep running. Dr Wrangham thus believes that cooking and humanity are coeval.

In fact, as he outlined to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in Chicago, he thinks that cooking and other forms of preparing food are humanity’s “killer app”: the evolutionary change that underpins all of the other—and subsequent—changes that have made people such unusual animals.

Sounds good to me. In fact, it reminds me of a poem.

We may live without poetry, music and
art;
We may live without conscience and live
without heart;
We may live without friends; we may
live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without
cooks.
He may live without books,-what is
knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope,- what is
hope but deceiving?
He may live without love,- what is
passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live
without dining?
Owen Meredith

Honestly, I got so excited about this idea that I just held out my hand to grasp my coffeecup and down a bit of the subtle delicious brew and was so focused on the page that I grabbed my pen and pencil pot instead, and almost swallowed a handful of sharp pencils and pens.

Uncooked.
That’s the worst part.

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I Would Not Eat an Axolotl

I would not eat an axolotl
For fear he’d get stuck in my throatl

It wouldn’t matter that I was hungry
He’d make my tummy feel too jumbeley

I’ve decided that
(For me)
Eating axolotl-y
Would be sheerly vacuous glaxoluttony.

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Big Fish Eat Little Fish – Van der Heyden Views Dinner

‘Big Fish Eat Little Fish’ 1557 – Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Breughel the Elder is, of course, a piece of art that tells a story – a proverbial story. And how vividly it does so!

Here is no paper-tray and cellophane-wrapped water-injected boneless white chicken breast for the distanced senses of the diner. This is life full-tilt – the sea thrashes, the men struggle with knives huge and dangerous, small and pointed. The fish flail and scramble, the boats toss. I can smell it. The sea, the innards of fish, the pungent dank liverish smell. The scales fly in the air to land on an exposed cheek, the fingers are numb and cold, slippery with fish.

It reminded me, actually, aside from these musings of life – of stuffed squid. The big fish shape sort of looked like a squid, and naturally all those little spouting fishes were the filling – which had to include anchovy as a matter of course.

Here’s a recipe for stuffed squid (calamari ripiene). It looks almost exactly like the one I  make, except I chop up the anchovies rather than use paste . . . and only three squid to stuff? No. I think they must be larger than the ones I can find. Plus the stuffing/filling needs a generous handful of chopped Italian parsley added to it.

It’s very good.

Lent is coming up. I wonder if it is as common as it used to be to dine upon fish rather than meat.

Certainly the process seems no gentler,  after gazing at the image above.

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Happy Setsuban! (The Bird at My Window)

“Keetkeetkeet! Keetkeetkeet!” Every year around this time the bird would return to my bedroom window and start knocking. “Keetkeetkeet!” his little beak would tap against the glass.

I’d look at him and he’d look at me, staring deeply into my barely-awake blue eyes with his beady black insinuating eyes, turning his brown head with scarlet beak from one side to the other, surveying the scene as I drowsily awoke. If I turned away to burrow into the covers, “Keetkeetkeet!” he’d start again.

Stray cats are my specialty. And when we lived out in the countryside on a lot of acres with a lot of hay and big pond, stray dogs. Stray birds. I never knew they existed.

This guy was not a housebird, not an escapee from some dreadful tiny cage with a bar to sit on and a bit of salt cud to chew, imprisoned within wrought metal walls with a piece of removable paper to poop on. He was a real bird, a free-winged bird who lived by his wits and his instinct. And his instinct, just like the instinct that had led many a stray cat or dog straight to my door without bothering to stop elsewhere, had led him to my window.

But as I looked into his beady little eyes, I knew something about him. First, I knew he was a he and not a she. That was the simple part. The rest of it came upon me in a flash – as if he had sent it from the center of his bird-brain directly into my eyes for clear and unyielding comprehension. He was not just a bird, a mere bird. He was a guy, a human guy – who had somehow gotten trapped in the bird’s body. It was also clear to me that he was a Jewish guy from New York. Brooklyn, to be exact.

Would I have known if he was Catholic, or Southern Baptist, or Hindu? Yes, of course. This is not about religion. It was just who he was.

“Keetkeetkeet!” his beak hit the window.

I fed him breadcrumbs that day, tossing them onto the ground straight from the fresh bag of bread, feeling them soft and dense between my fingers as I crumbled them. I was freezing, standing there in socks no shoes with a coat hastily tossed over my nightclothes. Running back inside to my window, I watched as he ate them – then was surprised to see him fly quickly in a little darting motion, back up to the window to look in for a minute. “Thank you, that was good!” His head angled right then left, as he offered a polite little smile.

It was clearly my duty to feed the guy some decent food, so I went to the market and bought some birdseed and suet – along with a birdfeeder to hang from the tree that was growing so close that it seemed to embrace my window. Once in a while as he dined he would look in at me, but it was only on those days when the seed had been all eaten up, the feeder empty – that he would fly back up on the outside windowsill and knock. “Keetkeetkeet! Keetkeetkeet! Hey!” he’d say. “This thing is empty! What’s the deal here?!” and naturally I would fall sleepily out of bed and out into the chill early morning air to give him breakfast. I had no choice, really. He would just keep knocking at the window till I answered his demands.

When we moved out of that house, I wondered what would happen to him. But he was a pretty savvy guy, having escaped the noise and smells and down-drafts of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to carve out the life of a free-winged bird who could knock on the bedroom window of a house just as if it were a take-out food place and actually get fed a decent dinner. I don’t think I need to worry.

Sometimes I think about him, and wonder how and why he became a man inside a bird’s body, and whether he would like to be a human again.

I believe he’s quite happy as he is.

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Oops. Do excuse me! It’s dear old Svankmajer.

Wiki Doodle Dandy has this to say about the dear man:

Švankmajer’s trademarks include very exaggerated sounds, often creating a very strange effect in all eating scenes. He often uses very sped-up sequences when people walk and interact. His movies often involve inanimate objects coming alive and being brought to life through stop-motion. Many of his films also include clay objects in stop-motion, otherwise known as Clay Animation. Food is a favourite subject and medium. Stop-motion features in most of his work, though recently his feature films have been including much more live action sequences rather than animation.

A lot of his movies, like the short film Down to the Cellar, are made from a child’s perspective, while at the same time often having a truly disturbing and even aggressive nature. In 1972 the communist authorities banned him from making films, and many of his later films were banned. He was almost unknown in the West until the early 1980s.

Today he is one of the most celebrated animators in the world. His best known works are probably the feature films Alice (1988), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), Little Otik (2000) and Lunacy (2005), a surreal comic horror based on two works of Edgar Allan Poe and the life of Marquis de Sade. The two stories by Poe, “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” and “The Premature Burial”, provide Lunacy its thematic focus, whereas the life of Marquis de Sade provides the film’s blasphemy. Also famous (and much imitated) is the short Dimensions of Dialogue (1982), selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the ten best animated films of all time.[2] His films have been called “as emotionally haunting as Kafka’s stories [3]

If one meal is not enough, there is more to watch on YouTube. Just whistle. You do know how to whistle, don’t you?

Just pucker up and blooooooooowwwwwww

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Eating Poetry

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs bum like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

by Mark Strand

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