Today is the day of the Spanish tomato throwing festival... it's called 'La Tomatina'.
Well, according to Answers.com, it is.
It also tells me that the tomatoes are mostly 'over-ripe', which I'll interpret as being almost rotten. Which is quite as good as rotten, really, once it's been splattered all over the streets and your hair, and it's 95 degrees out in the Mediterranean summer sun.
It's interesting that bad artists/musicians get rotten food thrown at them. In a world where parties and gatherings usually involve the host providing food of some sort for the guests, and where giving food to others is culturally a sign of caring, throwing food at a singer is one sign of utmost disregard for their work onstage.
Food is almost always something that brings people together. Families to the dining table, friends to the corner restaurant, white collars to the business lunches. Yet, this is a prime example of another use of food. The Tomatina in using food as a sort of weapon in this huge food fight, and the throwing of rotten vegetables at bad performers as an indication that the audience is not enjoying the show, at all.
Albeit, people are still gathering together to throw tomatoes at each other, so the food is still bringing everyone to one place. And perhaps all the people that throw rotten food at onstage performers have some sort of club as well. I know I wouldn't go to the trouble of bringing rotten food to performances just to throw onstage in case I disliked the performance. Or maybe it's all fake, and I've watched too many cartoons.
Aug 29, 2007
Stereofood
National cuisines are a worrisome thing. The talk of a national cuisine is worrying. Everything about it is worrying. poopy.
There are very few nations that are actually singular in culture enough to be able to legitimately come up with a set of foods and call that their national cuisine, and still have it be representative of the vast majority of cultures and foods present and prevalent within that nation.
Thus, when speaking of things such as Chinese or Italian cuisine, it is much less an actual representation of the nation than a representation of the most popular and well known food-related aspects in regards to that nation. Chinese food is certainly not all about fried rice and Gen. Tso's Chicken. There's no such thing as Gen. Tso's chicken in China.
This is worrying because once these standards are established throughout the world for what is an what isn't 'supposed' to be in a national cuisine, then there is no turning back. People nowadays are oh so crazy against stereotyping and only taking things at face value. Then why is Chinese food represented by such ridiculous things as egg-drop soup (never had it at any restaurant in China before, nor did I see anyone else ever order/ingest/talk of it), Tso's chicken, and the ever-famous fortune cookie (never have seen one in China before, nor have I seen anyone else ever order/ingest/speak of it).
Certainly, names with such rich histories as China (ancient China, 5000 plus years of history) or Italy (ancient Rome, Etruscans, and beyond, etc) should represent more than just the occasional dish of fried rice or stir-fried spinach, pan pizza and pre-fabricated lasagna dinners?
There are very few nations that are actually singular in culture enough to be able to legitimately come up with a set of foods and call that their national cuisine, and still have it be representative of the vast majority of cultures and foods present and prevalent within that nation.
Thus, when speaking of things such as Chinese or Italian cuisine, it is much less an actual representation of the nation than a representation of the most popular and well known food-related aspects in regards to that nation. Chinese food is certainly not all about fried rice and Gen. Tso's Chicken. There's no such thing as Gen. Tso's chicken in China.
This is worrying because once these standards are established throughout the world for what is an what isn't 'supposed' to be in a national cuisine, then there is no turning back. People nowadays are oh so crazy against stereotyping and only taking things at face value. Then why is Chinese food represented by such ridiculous things as egg-drop soup (never had it at any restaurant in China before, nor did I see anyone else ever order/ingest/talk of it), Tso's chicken, and the ever-famous fortune cookie (never have seen one in China before, nor have I seen anyone else ever order/ingest/speak of it).
Certainly, names with such rich histories as China (ancient China, 5000 plus years of history) or Italy (ancient Rome, Etruscans, and beyond, etc) should represent more than just the occasional dish of fried rice or stir-fried spinach, pan pizza and pre-fabricated lasagna dinners?
Aug 23, 2007
Gathering
Today is dumpling day.
Dad will make the dough, two hours ahead.
Mom will make the filling. Today it'll be pork and celery. Lightly doused with soy sauce, two tablespoons of salt. Mix well...
She'll also roll out the dough and cut it, then roll the small pieces into flat, round little cakes for the skins of the dumplings. Then the kids gather round, everyone gathers round... and we all make dumplings. Each person's dumplings are diferent, Mom's are delicate and crafted, Dad's are big and sturdy, the kids are just plain unpredictable.
But they're dumplings, and everyone is making them together on this night.
The water boils!
Plates of dumplings, all shapes and styles of dumplings, they slide off the plates and plop into the bubbling water below. They begin to eminate their dumpling-aroma. Everyone waits...
And then, out they come, one by one, two by two, three by three... Shining and glistening. Plates and plates of homemade dumplings.
Some are broken, some are perfect. Everyone made them together on this night, Chinese New Years' Eve. In the background, the TV, tuned into the Chinese national TV station via satellite, announces the break of a New Year in the venerable Lunar calendar.
It's the year of the Horse, or perhaps it was the year of the Snake?
The dumplings await; we gather 'round again, the dumplings at the center of our table.
Dad will make the dough, two hours ahead.
Mom will make the filling. Today it'll be pork and celery. Lightly doused with soy sauce, two tablespoons of salt. Mix well...
She'll also roll out the dough and cut it, then roll the small pieces into flat, round little cakes for the skins of the dumplings. Then the kids gather round, everyone gathers round... and we all make dumplings. Each person's dumplings are diferent, Mom's are delicate and crafted, Dad's are big and sturdy, the kids are just plain unpredictable.
But they're dumplings, and everyone is making them together on this night.
The water boils!
Plates of dumplings, all shapes and styles of dumplings, they slide off the plates and plop into the bubbling water below. They begin to eminate their dumpling-aroma. Everyone waits...
And then, out they come, one by one, two by two, three by three... Shining and glistening. Plates and plates of homemade dumplings.
Some are broken, some are perfect. Everyone made them together on this night, Chinese New Years' Eve. In the background, the TV, tuned into the Chinese national TV station via satellite, announces the break of a New Year in the venerable Lunar calendar.
It's the year of the Horse, or perhaps it was the year of the Snake?
The dumplings await; we gather 'round again, the dumplings at the center of our table.
Aug 22, 2007
Potatoes
Hi.
Potatoes are dangerous things...
I once read something saying that "The potato of a group of people is someone who is mostly useless, but liked by everyone - no one finds it possible to hate the potato". In the wide world of vegetables and things that grow from the gound, I don't think I've ever met a person who disliked potatoes enough to not eat them. I've heard of people disliking lettuce, swearing against tomatoes, or hating broccoli. But not the good ol' potato.
And that makes it the most dangerous.
Potatoes tend to enjoy being cooked and prepared in fashions that ultimately further their (anti)nutritional value - calorie content especially, I guess - by many hundred percent. One prime example is the french fry (or, for patriotic sorts, the Freedom Fry). Every potato ever to be grown and harvested by the hands of man must yearn to become a basket of fries, freshly scooped out of sizzling oil, steaming and glistening formidably in the plates of ravished restaurant-goers.
They do seem to plunge into the frying oil oh-so eagerly. You can sometimes almost hear them exclaiming, "weeeeeee!". Splash, sizzle~
They don't even complain when they're being cut, for the cuts they endure, they know are specific to their most dreamed-of role: Fry. Companion of the burger, friend of ketchup, favorite of the masses.
One serving McD's Large Fries:
570 calories, 6g Sat fat, 8g Trans fat (ooooooooooh, that's 4 days' worth of Trans for the average person. ahhhh)
Potatoes are dangerous things... So round and harmless.. and they do smell so tasty once they're cooked -
Potatoes are dangerous things...
I once read something saying that "The potato of a group of people is someone who is mostly useless, but liked by everyone - no one finds it possible to hate the potato". In the wide world of vegetables and things that grow from the gound, I don't think I've ever met a person who disliked potatoes enough to not eat them. I've heard of people disliking lettuce, swearing against tomatoes, or hating broccoli. But not the good ol' potato.
And that makes it the most dangerous.
Potatoes tend to enjoy being cooked and prepared in fashions that ultimately further their (anti)nutritional value - calorie content especially, I guess - by many hundred percent. One prime example is the french fry (or, for patriotic sorts, the Freedom Fry). Every potato ever to be grown and harvested by the hands of man must yearn to become a basket of fries, freshly scooped out of sizzling oil, steaming and glistening formidably in the plates of ravished restaurant-goers.
They do seem to plunge into the frying oil oh-so eagerly. You can sometimes almost hear them exclaiming, "weeeeeee!". Splash, sizzle~
They don't even complain when they're being cut, for the cuts they endure, they know are specific to their most dreamed-of role: Fry. Companion of the burger, friend of ketchup, favorite of the masses.
One serving McD's Large Fries:
570 calories, 6g Sat fat, 8g Trans fat (ooooooooooh, that's 4 days' worth of Trans for the average person. ahhhh)
Potatoes are dangerous things... So round and harmless.. and they do smell so tasty once they're cooked -
Aug 21, 2007
green eggs and ham
humpty dumpty sat on a wall
had
a
great
f
a
l
l
Humpty Dumpty and Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham are two stories that I grew up hearing.. one is about an egg that fell off a wall, the other is an absurd story of green eggs and ham and how Sam doesn't like them. These are particularly easy to remember, I don't know why, but they have one thing in common: they involve food, and in fact they revolve around food and what kinds of interaction story characters engage in with them. Humpty the egg had a great fall, straightl off a wall, and was cracked and shattered - as eggs are wont to do. He was never put together again, even with all the King's men coming to help... and so I knew that eggs cannot be dropped if they are to be cooked later on, for they need to be cracked over a bowl or pan, not splattered all over the kitchen floor. Green eggs and ham is just ... green. Green foods usually include vegetables and such, not eggs and ham, so this is a memorable story not because it teaches a lesson or has anything like that, but because it's such an unusual account of one character's interaction with food that would have been normal - but isn't, because of its awesome color.
image made by someone else
had
a
great
f
a
l
l
Humpty Dumpty and Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham are two stories that I grew up hearing.. one is about an egg that fell off a wall, the other is an absurd story of green eggs and ham and how Sam doesn't like them. These are particularly easy to remember, I don't know why, but they have one thing in common: they involve food, and in fact they revolve around food and what kinds of interaction story characters engage in with them. Humpty the egg had a great fall, straightl off a wall, and was cracked and shattered - as eggs are wont to do. He was never put together again, even with all the King's men coming to help... and so I knew that eggs cannot be dropped if they are to be cooked later on, for they need to be cracked over a bowl or pan, not splattered all over the kitchen floor. Green eggs and ham is just ... green. Green foods usually include vegetables and such, not eggs and ham, so this is a memorable story not because it teaches a lesson or has anything like that, but because it's such an unusual account of one character's interaction with food that would have been normal - but isn't, because of its awesome color.
image made by someone else
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)