My omnivore’s 100

I was surprised how few of these I’ve eaten – only 49 of the 100.  On the other hand, it has a slightly North American in flavour – there’s brands here that aren’t that represented in Europe.  I was therefore surprised to discover the list was created by a Brit.  The discovery’s put me in a slightly better mood about the whole thing.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison – yes, mainly in Sweden, well, rude not to
2. Nettle tea – yes, though I prefer tea tea
3. Huevos rancheros – no – I’m a European so that’s through lack of opportunity more than anything else
4. Steak tartare – yes - I do rather like the flavour of raw meat – carpaccio’s a favourite too
5. Crocodile – no – I’ve never been anywhere where crocodile is part of the cuisine and I’m not that fond of novelty meats such as kangaroo and ostrich in places where they aren’t part of the heritage, like the uK
6. Black pudding – yes – an English Breakfast’s not complete without it
7. Cheese fondue – yes
8. Carp - no – I’m not sufficiently fond of fish to try carp in a restaurant, though I’d be happy to eat it if it was served by a friend
9. Borscht – yes
10. Baba ghanoush – yes – I had to look it up, but it turns out I have eaten it – it’s seasoned aubergine dip or spread and I do love Lebanese food
11. Calamari – yes
12. Pho – no, but only through lack of opportunity, I cannot think of a single Vietnamese restaurant that I’ve come across outside London, though I do hope there are some in Manchester and places like that
13. PB&J sandwich – no – Peanut butter and jam sandwiches? – I am not a teenager – I feel no need to eat this
14. Aloo gobi – yes
15. Hot dog from a street cart – yes, mainly in Sweden
16. Epoisses – probably not, though going from the picture, it’s a ‘maybe’
17. Black truffle – no – not sure if I’ve had truffle flavoured oil or truffle scented something
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes – yes, but not very willingly
19. Steamed pork buns – I’m not sure if I’ve eaten this or not, if I have it would have been in Europe because British chinese restaurants tend not to serve it
20. Pistachio ice cream – yes – I’ll match your pistachio and raise you chili,  black pepper flavoured, and cardomon (though not all at once)
21. Heirloom tomatoes – yes - wasn’t any other kind where I grew up
22. Fresh wild berries – yes - just last week, and am contemplating making rowan jelly if the berries aren’t over when I get back from my hols
23. Foie gras – yes – indefensible but irresistible
24. Rice and beans – yes
25. Brawn or Head Cheese – yes – my Ma used to make it when I was a child
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper - no – I like hotter food than most, but I’m not actually stupid
27. Dulce de leche – no – I’ve not eaten it, but only through lack of opportunity
28. Oysters – yes
29. Baklava – yum
30. Bagna cauda – no, surprisingly
31. Wasabi peas – yes
32. Clam Chowder in Soudough Bowl – no – again this is a North American dish
33. Salted Lassi – yes, and it’s one of the few things I don’t really like, though I do love mango lassi
34. Sauerkraut – yes
35. Root beer float – puhlease.  No.  I’m not saying ‘never’ but my life is rich and full and varied without adding this to my list.
36. Cognac – yes
37. Clotted Cream Tea – yes
38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O – yes
39. Gumbo – no, but only through lack of access
40. Oxtail – yes, but not since BSE
41. Curried goat – yes
42. Whole insects – no, and I’d only eat them properly cooked
43. Phaal – no – see note on item 26 – mind you, my view on what’s hot was formed in Bradford and Birmingham, so I do have high standards for heat
44. Goat’s milk – yes - raised on it, since you ask
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more – that’s sixty quid or so, isn’t it?  Call it a yes, though I’m not fond of scotch
46. Fugu (aka pufferfish) - no, this strikes me as being stunt food, like crocodile and insects and I’m only ok with stunt-food in the places where it comes from – it always seems like it tries too hard when it’s exported
47. Chicken tikka masala – yes
48. Eel - not sure, but probably not more than once
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut - no
50. Sea urchin – no, again this strikes me as being a stunt food
51. Prickly pear – no access
52. Umeboshi – very probably
53. Abalone – no, but more through lack of chance than anything else
54. Paneer – yes
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal – yes, actually maybe not the ‘meal’ since I don’t like the drinks
56. Spaetzle – no
57. Dirty gin martini – no, but mainly because I’d never heard of a dirty Martini though I loathe the smell of vermouth
58. Beer above 8% ABV – no, I’m not fond of beer of any description, which suggests that the answer to whether I’ve tasted beer above 8% may in fact ‘yes’
59. Poutine - no, but that would be worth emigrating for
60. Carob chips – probably not
61. S’mores - no, this is a tad culturally specific, doncha think
62. Sweetbreads - probably no
63. kaolin – no, we were a milk of magnesia household
64. Currywurst – yes
65. Durian - don’t think so
66. Frogs’ legs – no, but they don’t turn up much in the UK, and there are better things to eat in France
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake – I’m calling this a ‘yes’ because I do eat ring donughts from fairs, and other fairground food, though all the examples given are specific to North America
68. Haggis – yes, love it
69. Fried plantain – yes, though it’s hard to find in northern Europe
70. Chitterlings – not entirely sure, I think I may have had a mouthful once, if it’s what I think it was, then it was one of the few things I didn’t take to
71. Gazpacho – yes
72. Caviar and blini – not the real stuff
73. Louche absinthe – no
74. Gjetost or brunost – yes
75. Roadkill – yes. Well, fox-kill, which I suspect counts.   Carrion, anyway.
76. Baijiu – no, but only because I’ve had very little chance
77. Hostess Fruit Pie - no – they’re not available on this side of the Atlantic and I’m not a great eater of factory-made desserts
78. Snails – yes
79. Lapsang Souchong – yes
80. Bellini - no
81. Tom Yum – yum yum
82. Eggs Benedict – yes
83. Pocky – yes
84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu - no, dammit
85. Kobe beef – no, again, this strikes me as a novelty item
86. Hare - no, and with complete irrationality I consider hares too magical to eat
87. Goulash – yes, it used to be my absolute standby when I had people round for a meal
88. Flowers – yes
89. Horse - not knowingly, though you never really know when you’re in France, do you?  I’ve not avoided it.
90. Criollo chocolate – no, though I do eat boutique chocolate
91. Spam – yes
92. Soft shell crab – no
93. Rose Harissa – no
94. Catfish – no
95. Mole Poblano – no, but it sounds good
96. Bagel and Lox – yes
97. Lobster Thermidor – don’t think so, which slightly surprises me
98. Polenta – yes
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee – no, coffee gives me stomach cramps
100. Snake - no, and again that strikes me as a novelty item away from where it really is food

I’ve only eaten 49 of the 100, but then I’ve not travelled in North America, which is probably shown by the fact that I had to look up 36 items.  Mind you, I’ve eaten 6 of the 36 I had to look up, so I’ll try things even if I don’t know what they are!

You are what you read – II

“What books have changed how you think about things?” I’ve mentioned already that the one who asks me these sorts of questions asked me this particular one the other day.  These are the books that have changed my opinions over the years.  Here, in date order, is a selection of the books that influenced my opinions and changed my mind.

A book I cannot now find about Washoe – the chimp who could talk. The book recounted animal experiments done in the 1970s when some young chimps were taught American Sign Language.  The Wikipedia article includes a number of skeptical challenges to the interpretation that the chimps had mastered language.  But what ever way you chop the logic, this book led me to believe that animals and humans are not qualitatively different – we just appear to be brighter than they are.  At first I concluded that all creatures are equally spiritual, now I conclude that we are all equally animal.

Games People Play – Eric Berne – this turns up here in the “what” list because it demonstrates so clearly that most of the time we aren’t driving our own bus, we merely think that we are.  Call it confirmation bias, but I’ve rarely come across anything that’s challenged my opinion on this since it was first formed by this book and its rather peculiar sequel What do you say after you say ‘Hello’?:  I honestly believe we are 99.8% unconscious chimpy-instinct and only 0.2% conscious human intelligence.

The Heartland – Stuart Legg – Almost impossible to find these days, Legg documents the heartbeat of Asia pumping people out from the central grasslands century after century into China, Russia, India, the Baltics and Europe.  It inverted my historical map of the world.  It is a book which should have done much better and which certainly deserves re-reading now that China and Russia have opened up.

Green Pharmacy – Barbara Griggs – This is a history of herbal medicine and a scathing indictment of modern medicine which set me firmly on the path of mistrusting medics and following in my grandmother’s alternative footsteps.   However, I am now won over by the fact that evidence-based medicine is based on evidence and so I plan to re-read this to see what I make of it 20 years on.

Why me, why this, why now – Robin Norwood – this book is immensely comforting if you are willing to accept its basic premise, that reincarnation is the mechanism by which unfairness is balanced out across lifetimes, in other words, that shit happens because it’s meaningful shit.  It’s articulate, sane, solidly argued, tough-minded and encouraging.  Unfortunately I now think it’s all lies.  Oh well.

The Healing Power of Illness – Thorwald Dethlefsen and Rudiger Dahlke – This multilayered book argues that the illnesses we get are expressions of who and what we are.  It’s a bizarre book with interesting things to say about the dangers of polarised thinking but it goes sliding off into discussions of reincarnation and karma.  I gave it to my homoeopath, my osteopath, my cranial-sacral therapist, my NLP practioner, my pet medical student, all of them.  However, it’s worth noting that scientifically- trained medics are also exploring the idea of illnesses which benefit the patient.  So call it co-incidence, but it may be right about the effect if not the cause.

An assortment of Discworld books by Terry Pratchett – It is rather embarrassing to admit this, but Pratchett has articulated a lot of what I think and feel about belief, about cause and effect, about duty, responsibility and the balance between “personal” and “important”, and even about the casually murderous nature of cats.  I’ll spare you the specifics though.

The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins – this should be essential reading.  This is Dawkins on his own subject and it’s fascinating.  His argument comes down to the idea that a chicken is an egg’s way of making another egg.  This is a bit of a mind-fuck which is what makes the book so challenging.  He explains why evolution works like this, and a lot else besides.  Dawkins may be a scientist, but he can certainly write.  This helped me form my view of the world and our entirely incidental place within it and it was probably the pivotal point on my journey away from flakiness.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors – Carl Sagan
Billions and Billions – Carl Sagan
The Demon-haunted World – Carl Sagan
In fact – everything I have ever read by Carl Sagan. Sagan leads us through a wide variety of subjects with simplicity, honesty and lucid clarity.  Forgotten Ancestors is almost impossible to get hold of, but it explains why it is inevitable that mankind should pick stupid vicious and pointless fights, and why it has been inevitable since the first piece of RNA replicated itself.  Billions and Billions comprises essays on a wide range of subjects including the simplest clarification of the abortion debate I have ever read.  The Demon-haunted World looks at contemporary superstitions and compares them with those of our ancestors.  We don’t come out of it well.  They are all, however, optimistic and inspiring books.  If I could, just once, form a thought as clear and apparently simple as any of the thoughts in any of these books I would sell tickets.   These have taught me to value clear, simple, logical, evidence-based thinking.  I unhesitatingly recommend any piece of non-fiction Sagan has ever written.

Snake Oil – John Diamond – this one put the nail in the coffin of my preference for alternative medicine.  Diamond’s insistence that medicine should be evidence-based is hard to argue with.  He acknowledges the sincerity of many alternative practitioners but his rage with their follies as he was dying of cancer flames through the book.  Oddly, I now think alternative practitioners provide a real service by curing psychosomatic illnesses with placebos (I was that nutter, I took an imaginary treatment for an imaginary illness and suddenly the crippling pains I really felt really went away) but that’s another thing altogether.  I strongly recommend this book.

Reincarnation: a critical examination – Paul Edwards – This was recommended to me by anticant, and it finally put paid to any ideas I had that we live in a spiritual world.  I’m still working through the implications of this one.   Life actually is a bitch, and then you do die.  Bummer.

So there you are, a journey from a world-view which assumed that we are just the material aspect of a spiritual universe quite possibly perfumed with scented-candles and flower-essences, to a world-view which accepts, however unwillingly, that we are no more than the culmination of four billion years’ of evolution, and bloody impressive it is too.  I’m embarrassed by the gaps – very little history, no politics, no actual science, just a reluctant journey towards empiricism.

Have you seen the blackberries this year?

And I’m not talking about little electronic emaily gadgets.  Ho no. I’m talking about the food for free that I picked by the canal on the way back from work the other day.

It’s been a perfect mix of rain and sun this summer, with very few days that were dull but dry.  Though the blackberries are a little early, they are absolutely splendid: 3/4 of an inch across and surprisingly sweet.  Bake ‘em up with apple and a crumble topping.  It takes ten minutes to put together with a food processor, and five of those are spent looking for the apple peeler.

Crumble topping is demerara sugar : butter or marg : self-raising flour in the ratio 1 : 2 : 4.  If you weigh out enough flour first, you can add the others to suit.  You want your topping to be at least 3/4 of an inch deep.

Whizz the dry ingredients in the blender and sprinkle in a cinnamon or ginger if you feel like spicing it up.

Peel the apples and wash the blackberries and put in their cooking dishes.  If you are using cooking apples sprinkle with brown sugar, but I think blackberries are nicer with coxes or braeburns and no sugar.

Pour the crumble mixture  on top of the fruit and bake in a medium/hot oven for half an hour or twenty minutes depending on if you set it to medium or hot.  Creme fraiche is the perfect accompianment, though there are those who like ice cream of course.

You are what you read – I

“What books have changed how you think?”  The one who asks me this sort of question asked me this the other day.

I don’t know if it’s a meme or not, but if it isn’t out there it damn well should be, so I’m asking Anticant, Charlotte, Hairy Farmer Family, Teuchter, Reed, SoRB, Sol, the Singing Librarian, whether they would like to consider this one, and share with us the books that have changed how and what they think.  It’s an arduous process and an impertinent request, and I know that each of you are busy or pressured at the moment, so please ignore it if it’s not appropriate.  And of course, anyone else who feels like it is more than welcome too.

Anyway, I asked him if he meant how (as in processes) or what (as in content) and he said “both really”.  But the whole list is too long to bore you with in one session, so I’m splitting it in to two.   I’ve listed the books in the order I read them.

Books that have changed how I think

Games People Play – Eric Berne - the whats, whys and hows of how we get stuck with the same old patterns of behaviour with strangers and with our nearest and dearest.   My Ma read this when I was in my teens and promptly started playing more games rather then fewer.  However after thirty or so years of trying, I am now reasonably good at not playing games, though not perfect by any means.  This definitely changed my thinking processes, and it is a book I would recommend anyone to read today.

The Earthsea Trilogy – Ursula le Guin - I’m putting this in the “how” list rather than the “what” list because even though they are fantasies, these books helped me accept that reality isn’t cosy and reduced the amount of denial and surprise I go through.  I still get shocked, but I’m less frequently surprised.  Their impact has lingered and deepened over the years; Le Guin is one of the least self-indulgent writers I have ever read, and I guess these books introduced me to Kantian ideas about about responsibility, obligation and duty, you do what you do because that’s what you should do.  I’m not really a Kantean at all but I try to out-stare reality even if it’s always me who blinks first and looks away.

Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit – Adelle Davis – Davies points out that the devil is in the detail, when she calls one of her chapters “Which apricot, grown where?” in reference to the statement “apricots are a good source of Vitamin A”.  The book itself is a collection of rather dated nutritional advice that I’d hesitate to recommend.  However those four words kicked off a professional lifetime of listening out for what’s not said and poking around for data that isn’t there.  It’s a phrase that definitely honed my thinking tools.

How to Master the Art of Selling – Tom Hopkins – The simplest and most accessible introduction to questions that I’ve come across, whether you want to influence people or discover things.

The Phoenix Seminar – Brian Tracey – a set of tapes and not a book, but this self-help course has given me the tools I use when I have to pick myself up, dust myself down, and start all over again.  I still occasionally listen to these tapes even if I’m more sceptical about some of his approaches than I was at the time.  There is a lot of sense here, and some powerful techniques.

NLP for Lazy Learning – Diana Beaver – I’ve undertaken various forms of NLP training and this was the book that introduced me to NLP in the first place.  I feel very conflicted about NLP: it is cultish, anecdotal and subjective and everything I dislike with my critical thinking head on.  But on the other hand NLP techniques have helped me learn presentation and public speaking, given me a whole bunch of linguistic tools, and taught me a lot of techniques I use at work in problem-solving and analysis.   Diana Beaver is as clear-eyed and un-cultish as you would ever want, and this is a grounded and sane introduction to NLP.   It’s wholesome and healthy even if it might become a gateway drug.

The British Medical Journal – Yeah, I know the BMJ’s not a book, you know the BMJ’s not a book, let’s move on from that, shall we?  This is the first scientific journal I’ve read regularly, if intermittently, and it encouraged me in the habit that Ms Davis started of prodding information to see what it was made of and of going to the sources.  It’s also a journal for generalists and is full of really ikky pictures.  The ones of dental abcesses so bad they’d worn right through the cheek were particularly gross.

Eating Less – Gillian Riley – I’ve written this up elsewhere, but this book and Riley’s weekend course have helped me tackle my addictive eating.  This book has changed how I think in a very literal way by tackling thoughts and habits right there where they occur, in the well-worn paths my synapses created in my brain.  I strongly recommend this book if it is relevant to you.

The Tiger that Isn’t – Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot – an accessible introduction to how numbers are misreported by journalists and turned into lies by politicians.   This book has given me tools to help with my habit of prodding statistics to see what gives.  I’m not sure if its influence will last with me, but I certainly recommend it right now.

So we have the book that taught me how to be honest in my dealings with people,  a set of tapes that helped me manage my emotions and the book tthat’s helping me control my addiction to food.   On the thinking side, there are the books that taught me reality’s real, several that turned my insatiable curiousity into a tool, one that started me on a journey which enriched my linguistic and analysis skills, and one that I’m using to hone my numeracy.

You?

The purpose of god

One of the functions of god is to give us something or someone to direct our anger at.

A friend of mine has just died unexpectedly but of natural causes at the age of 48.  As well as feeling shocked, I am angry, but there is no-one to be angry with.  It is no-one’s fault, and it isn’t even an act of betrayal by a deity.  It is just the shit that happens.  It would be so much easier if I could rage against a deity.

Shula Archer’s 50

Shula Archer’s 50. So is her twin brother Kenton of course, but he was always a light-weight with nothing like the dangerous sexiness of Nelson Gabriel whom he appears to have been modelled on.  And he was, mercifully, abroad for decades.

No.  Of the two of them, it is Shula who has grated on our nerves for all these decades.  She’s been in the background of my life since my late teens: gettng inappropriate with Nigel in the days when he was stupid as well as posh, messing around poor old Mark Hebden, milking her widowhood for all it was worth and then marrying that drip of a vet and making his life hell.  Poor fool.

Shula’s leit motif is self-pity. Her theme song should be Warren Zevron’s “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me”.  But in fact she’s a selfish, self-righteous, self-admiring cow.  When I was a teenager, she was just enough older than me for me to be slightly wide-eyed and trusting about her.  I’m not entirely sure when I realised how much I dislike her, and her whining, patronising ways.

No-one would believe that I don’t actually listen to the Archers.  I’ve just caught the odd episode off and on since my mid-teens.  There are whole swathes that I missed by being abroad or finishing work at 5.00 instead of 6.30.  For example: Where the hell did Lilian appear from?  Is Alice Aldridge really that age already?  When did Ruth have her mastectomy and when did her kids arrive?

They’re like cousins that I meet or hear news of at weddings, christening and funerals.  I catch glimpses of their lives and then we all retreat back home.

But I still find it oddly shocking that Shula, so untouchably admirable when I was in my teens, so smugly irritating ever since, should be menopausal and 50.

Absconding dogs accused of cloning Surrey missionaries by South Korean Mormons

I guess everyone has a moment when they realise that the news is beyond satire.

So: Without googling, where do you think this came from?

The woman who had her pet dog cloned by South Korean scientists flatly denied early today that she was a bail abscondee accused of sexually assaulting and kidnapping a male Mormon missionary more than 30 years ago in Surrey.

What?!

Where?!!

South Korea? Dog cloning?  Mormon missionaries? Women sexually assaulting men?  Surrey?

You wouldn’t think it’s a news item from the Times though I prefer the Mail version which includes deaf-mute mime artists; well you would if you could, wouldn’t you?

Personally I don’t think it’s a news item at all.  I think it’s a parlour game:  Write your own headline

• Missionaries kidnapped in South Korea sexually assault cloned Mormon dogs
• South Korean Missionary dogs absconding Mormon clones in Surrey sexual assault
• Mormons dogging in South Korea abscond after sexually assaulting cloned Missionaries from Surrey

You have a go.  It’s fun.

More Eating Less

Some more notes about Eating Less.

• I’m less averse to exercise than I was, and will voluntarily walk a mile or so instead of taking a bus.  So far it’s always been the bus I’ve skipped in favour of walking and not the car, and it is summer.  Even so, this physical habit is based on a an attitudinal change; the first time I did this recently I was attending Gillian Riley’s Eating Less course when I walked two miles on the evening of the first day.  Riley doesn’t talk much about exercise, so I wasn’t doing it at her explicit behest.

• I found myself planning a smaller portion of breakfast because a smaller portion would feel better than a larger one. That is a first.  Up until now limiting portion size has been a rational matter of self-awareness and self-control.  This was the first time I spontaneously associated a smaller portion with a better experience.

• I weighed myself the other day.  This is not necessarily a good thing because the whole emphasis of Eating Less is on dealing with one’s addiction to food – which is a life-long challenge – not on losing weight which is by definition a temporary one.  Gillian Riley reports that she’s lost count of her clients who did well until they weighed themselves, but my trousers are baggier and I really wanted to know how I’m doing.  It’s difficult to tell, though, because I hadn’t weighed myself for a couple of months before I went on the course.  I’m nervous that I’ll lose my way, having succumbed to thinking in terms of weight lost rather than in terms of eating less.

• It’s harder when you do something for the first time since the last time.  I’m wedging the tip of the chisel into the gap between the stimulus and the pavlovian or habitual response.  I had a habit of eating a packet of crisps at 4:00pm, so when it was 4:00pm I’d crave a packet of crisps.  The wonderful thing about pavlovian responses is that if you ignore them or sit them out, they fade.  The things you did daily fade away the fastest because you get a chance to build new neural pathways every day.  But if you don’t do a particular thing for a while – like eat out in a restaurant or visit your auntie – then the pavlovian responses associated with that particular activity are sitting there waiting to pounce.   I knew that intellectually, but I spent the weekend doing things I hadn’t done for a while, and suddenly it was harder all over again.

• It’s possible to not order food at lunchtime in a pub if other people are eating but there’s nothing you fancy on the menu.  No-one else really cares.  Who’d have thought!