Temperate · Ruminations

In my well-spent youth, which is sweet to me now that I recline gracefully in the seat of old age, I had within my modest companionship an aspiring painter. I must digress here that it is a habit among young men, though perhaps one that is no longer practiced and which may be seen as quaint by the people coming of age today, to acquire for themselves certain associations of an artistic or literary nature, a social toolkit of eccentrics and misfits, in order to (or so they suppose) add color to their society, and also to exploit that time in a man's life when he is not so much judged by the company he keeps, but rather by other more obtuse accomplishments. Once a man gets to a certain age, and especially after he has sired sons, it is no longer considered respectable for him to associate with men of poor society or women of free morals. For a younger gentleman however these things are easily forgiven, and even in some cases encouraged, for when a young man's good character prevails in the midst of bohemians it is taken as a sign that his decency is true and his judgment sound, rather than the reverse.

In any case, I had in my midst this painter-friend, whom we will call Krause. He was a great admirer of the Orientals. "In those centuries when Europeans looked only to Christ, the Apostles and Angels in his artwork", he would tell me, "the Orientals had been busily and steadily perfecting an appreciation for the paradise He had left for us on Earth." It would be uncouth of me to call him a landscape painter or even a naturalist, for due to ailments of various stripes he did not venture outdoors too often, but in my opinion this accentuated rather than reduced the acuity with which he appreciated the forms of nature. These forms, well-practiced in both his studio and in the luminous interior of his mind, had an overbearing power over his daily affairs, from the way he arranged his hair, to his selection of furnishings, even the way he composed and positioned the morsels of food on his plate. He was an astounding fellow.

One spring, after I had spent most of the autumn and all of winter in the Grenadines, I made a surprise visit to Krause's studio and was shocked to find the place nearly abandoned. He stored there his unsold paintings, a few works in progress, but most of his equipment had been taken away and a thick layer of dust covered his brushes and paintboxes as though it were a tomb. "I realized that I can not become a painter", Krause told me, "for the medium carries less power for me than life. Finally I have understood that for the painter, it is the medium which must always prevail."

Well, then, it is upon life's medium that I dwell.

On the matter of “dining out”, which is something I confess to doing regularly for various reasons of convention, I can only express my contempt, for it is a modern vice which denigrates the well-bred man’s soul, his natural inclinations and instincts, and the name of his family.

“But Gerard”, a puzzled acquaintance -- for my friends would know better -- might ask me, “how can you love fine food, yet disdain the practice of eating in public houses, restaurants, etc.?” ... to which I might answer, “Friend, how can you love your wife, yet disdain the practice of going to brothels?”

The offenses against the person of modest self-respect that are routinely made by attending a public eatery are numerous and unforgivable, and I shall attempt to briefly illustrate them here, if you will allow me a few brief prefatory remarks. In the redoubts of hoary antiquity, the act of taking a meal – meals which I must add were more modest than the humblest fare of today – was a sacred thing of no small importance. There are several reasons for this, the first and obvious one being that the means by which men of those early days lived were meager and unreliable, and each meal – however sparse and wanting it may be – was a gift from the Gods. A second matter to consider, and in my opinion the most important, is the relationship men of that vaunted age had with the land, their lives, and their food. One did not simply enjoy one’s bread, or the process of baking it; one cared for the land upon which the thickly-stalked wheat grew. One did not simply enjoy a little wine or oil with one’s bread, either; a man kept careful attention throughout the year to his vines and to the trees, watching the newly-formed growth with great perspicacity, pruning a little here, grafting there, so that at the proper time the boughs may be heavy and rich with fruit. And on those very rare occasions that man ate meat, he killed the animal himself and said a prayer before doing so; civilized man, knowing how precarious life truly is, does not take it from another easily or lightly, much less with the wanton ignorance and unsparing gluttony so characteristic of moderns. In any case, we might say that classical man’s relationship to his food – for all it may be wanting in terms of gastronomic subtlety – was an incomparably richer experience than what we have customarily have access to today, for the simple reason that it was bound up in a unique and unbroken relationship with the concrete conditions of man’s world; any gardener can tell you that eating one’s own produce provides a more complete experience of food, and the same knowledge will be repeated by any cook. The third, last, and related point has to do with the surroundings and circumstances of taking a meal. Naturally this includes the family and close friends, and I should add here that the art of eating at one’s own home is as undeveloped as the art of going to and being entertained at the home of another; you will find among the most civilized peoples of the Earth a deep respect and tradition of hospitality, and I need not bemoan how lacking it is in the United States, Americans being an inexplicably paranoid and ill-mannered people. The bonds between friends and family are made stronger and deeper when a meal and drink are shared at home, for the home and the work that goes on there to entertain guests expresses a certain honesty, demands a sense of respect, and expresses a form of mutual care which one seldom finds elsewhere. You will quickly find these qualities being reflected in the comportment and conversation of your guests and family members. If you have offspring, this is most essential to remember. Hiring a “babysitter” and “going out” to dinner with friends is perhaps one of the silliest things a parent can do when it comes to socializing their brood. At a relatively early age, fix a place at your table for your children when entertaining company, and treat them with (and demand of them) the same character, good-will and respect you extend to your adult companions. They will chafe a bit at this, as children do at first, but they will thank you dearly for it later in life, when they have acquired a firm sense of decorum, when they are precociously skilled at conversation with their elders and peers, and when carrying oneself with unscrupulous dignity has become second-nature to them. This is perhaps one of the simplest and finest gifts a father can bequeath his progeny. But I digress – this is just one of the many things which are lost when one “goes out” to eat questionable food, in a strange place, served by incompetent hirelings, surrounding by obnoxious strangers.

Which leads me to the main thrust of this polemic – the problems of dining out. Let us begin with the public house. Most restaurants exercise a profound stupidity when it comes to the design and decoration of their establishment. First of all, one can be certain that the American restaurant is overcooled in summer and overheated in winter. It very well may be an ordinance in some cities, and perhaps even a federal statute. I can not tell if this is simply a common error on the part of restaurateurs, or if it reflects the perverse preferences of the American public; in any case, it is not enough to be comfortable, one must be “more” than comfortable in a restaurant, meaning: it is not enough to be reasonably cool on a hot day, it is a mark of luxury to be freezing on a hot day. Similarly, it’s simply insufficient that one be warm in winter; no, one must be sweating in spite of the cold outside, there is a deranged sense of satisfaction and empowerment when dining in these bizarre artificial climates. I can neither explain nor tolerate it.

Secondly, American restaurants are notoriously loud, for two principle reasons. The first and easiest to explain is that they tend to be populated by Americans. For those readers who haven’t had frequent intercourse with Americans, let me explain how they see themselves, and how they conduct themselves in public: Americans tend to believe, and tend to believe ever more strongly in this age of “reality television”, that their lives are the subject of a publicly-consumed drama -- a sort of magical, narcissistic bubble in which they are both individually (and collectively) the centers of an irresistible attention. Hence there is nothing an American loves more than introducing selected aspects of their private lives to an unwilling public; indeed, turning the other patrons of a restaurant into a captive audience for one’s obnoxious conversation and behavior is, for some people, the closest thing they can get to being “on tee-vee”. Not all Americans are like this, but even in an uncrowded but reasonably populated establishment, one only needs a tenth of the clientele to subscribe to this attitude in order to make dining into an avoidable experience. The second reason this is problematic has to do with the way restaurants are designed. Linear seating (symmetrically aligned tables in an open space) prevails over booths, alcoves, and clusters, mainly because restaurateurs want to be able to pack as many people into as small a space as possible – remember, in spite of how carefully it may be hidden, you are never a guest at a restaurant, but a means to an end, and usually you will be treated as such. It is also has a great deal to do with the flooring; tile and especially hardwood floors reflect sound back into the air, making a crowded restaurant a kind of cacophonic echo-chamber in which it is nearly impossible to have a conversation without screaming. I’m puzzled as to why this is. The most likely reason is that the people who design restaurants are tactless idiots, but there’s also an argument to be made that it’s easier to clean wood and tile as opposed to something which absorbs sound (like carpet), but I don’t think this holds. Modern carpets are very resilient and easy to clean, but even they were more difficult, this would be a small price to pay for allowing your customers to dine in a civilized and tranquil atmosphere. Then, of course, there is the staff. On this I will say little, simply because they are the least worthy of blame, and indeed if they were better paid I’m sure it would be easier to attract and keep people capable of expressing tact and courtesy with their customers; furthermore, the problem with being waited upon has less to do with the quality of the work, but more to do with the character of the relationship of service itself. It’s unheroic. A man does not like having to pay to be treated with courtesy, nor does he like having to pay for empty and unnecessary conveniences which he could easily carry out himself; a man does not wait patiently for some pipsqueak to bring him a pitcher of water, he fetches it himself, and unless he is an invalid, a man does not need some little hireling to take away his coat, he will put his coat where he damn well pleases. Furthermore, restaurant staff rarely get it quite right when it comes to how much or how little care their “guests” require – either they are buzzing around like mosquitoes, interrupting every attempt at conversation, or they are nowhere to be found. But so much for the help.

The most important problem with dining out, naturally, is the food. It is so rare that a restaurant is able to offer a tasteful, skillfully-prepared dish (even a simple one) at a reasonable price. It’s almost unheard of. Either it’s plate of thoughtless plebeian swill, or it’s some pretentious, overworked, overpriced culinary shenanigan – rarely is it ever a good honest meal. Most restaurants either offer food fit to feed a chain-gang, or they have some overthought “gimmick” to their menu which gives them a license to serve convoluted, substandard dishes. “Fusion” restaurants are the most common example of this, and cater to a very a singular American trait – the unique combination of uncompromising ignorance and a superficial fascination with the “exotic”. The result, naturally, is garbage. Often a “gimmick” restaurant will tie their menu into the decor and layout of the establishment; this is always a bad sign, because it expresses a “strategy” on the part of the restaurateur and his investors to focus on something other than good food, not as a matter of incompetence but as a matter of course. This can only work in America and in certain other parts of the world that harbor a severely uncultured bourgeois class, where a social appearance of having taste is vastly more important than actually cultivating and enjoy it. This makes American restaurants extremely problematic, because owners and chefs know that they can get away with nearly anything – and an American will happily eat it. Which brings me to the second major problem with food: quality, hygiene, and preparation. First of all, fresh food is virtually nonexistent today. The American stupidly bites into a tomato, finds it crisp, and concludes that the tomato is “fresh”. In reality, the tomato has been picked unripe and sprayed with a preservative which forces it to change color on a truck as it crosses hundreds and usually thousands of miles to your plate. Of the dozens of breeds of tomato, with their various and unique flavors, only a few are commercially grown. Are they grown to be nourishing? Well, of course not. For taste, then? Nay. Almost all tomatoes today are grown for a single reason: to be large, and to be able to withstand a drop of three feet. That’s it. Anyone who’s ever grown their own tomatoes, especially from heirloom seeds, knows how radically different the taste of a truly ripe tomato is. It’s spectacular. The same is true for the other vegetables, and it’s especially true of meat and poultry. For the sake of brevity, I will simply say that the ingredients used in most modern cuisine are most often a pale and pathetic shadow of what food should actually taste like, and this doesn’t even get into the problem of the chemical, antibiotic and hormone content of many modern foods.

Lastly, I will offer a few brief remarks on the general problem of hygiene when eating in public. We must begin with an examination of the mentality and purpose of the modern restaurant, which seeks to serve the maximum number of clients, in the smallest possible space, for the highest possible price, while paying the least amount necessary for ingredients and good staff. The kitchen staff, usually being underpaid and overworked, with little job security or stake in the quality service, is given no incentive whatsoever to pay attention to potential hygiene problems which very often go unadressed by the minimal and ineffectual mandate of the local health codes. Rats, cockroaches, et cetera, play a relatively minor role in the proliferation of food-born illness; the vast majority of problems come from the improper storage and handling of food itself. In addition to this, the addition of chemicals and allergens by commercial growers will often produce toxic reactions which are simply impossible to control. Food poisoning is far more common than many people think it is, and many cases of influenza are simply misdiagnosed instances of food poisoning by the patrons of indifferent or incompetent restaurants. Secondly, there is the general problem of interacting with the public in a closed space for any period of time. Simply put, most Americans are completely oblivious to the existence of other human beings, and think nothing of going to a restaurant while “under the weather” and permitting themselves a prolonged coughing fit without hand or handkerchief. This kind of behavior is very common, of course, but in most public places (in a store, on a train, etc.), one can simply avoid it, and walk away from the person who has volunteered to become a public disease vector; it’s much more difficult to exercise this kind of control in a restaurant, and it only adds to the problem of the restaurant being – regardless of the “class” it caters to – a den of disease, poor manners, and infirm morals.

But let us take a step back from the myriad horrors I’ve enumerated here, and recall instead the simple joy of preparing a modest meal for oneself, the pleasure of entertaining a few friends with some wine, bread, cheese, and other wholesome fare, in the congenial atmosphere of the home, where the standards of civility are not set by hirelings and usurers but by the man and his chosen guests, where there is no gimmick or chicanery, just the simple practice of hospitality which is steeped in the richest traditions of civilized life. By the Gods, why would anyone settle for less?

Nothing pleases the soul so much as a bit of coarse and hearty bread, olives flavorful and ripe, soft cheese, grapes, spring greens, and for the ethically daring some choice piece of meat. The sensitivity of the palette, the temperance of one's course of digestion, the strength of the bowels -- these throughout the years, accompanied by wholesome and tastefully prepared foodstuffs, shall be on the whole the greatest of man's pleasures.

Youngsters often prefer something racy and flavorful for breakfast -- "pop tarts", for example. This is a horrid way to start one's day, a day that shall never be repeated again for as long as one lives... no, such a sugary shock to the system will not do, as I tried to advise my sons in years past. Toast and tea, that is the order for the day. I advise against white bread and even whole wheat, for these make for a poor and flavorless toast, one without character or distinction. For those of weak constitutions, a rye toast will suffice, but I much prefer a full-bodied German dunkelbrot. Bread with seeds is preferable, as these (fennel for example) can greatly aid in the digestion. Breakfast tea, whether English or Irish or Arabic, is to be strong and dark, but not as overpowering as coffee, which though delicious ought not be imbibed at any hour earlier than five in the afternoon.

Allow me a brief digression on the subject of coffee. If you must drink coffee in the morning, make absolutely sure that it's pure unlblended coffea arabica and never coffea robusta, and preferably a lightly roasted Harar or Yemeni Mocha. First of all, coffea arabica has a flavor which is universally accepted as being far superior to robusta, which is probably fit only for consumption by the armed forces and prison inmates. Arabica beans also contain less than half of the caffeine, which is my main complaint about drinking coffee at all. The caffeine is too disruptive. But why someone would dark-roast arabica beans is unfathomable -- I have such a strong mistrust of the entire process that I sometimes have to roast my own beans in the oven. One completely looses the distinctive regional terroir in a dark roast, and this is especially egregious when dealing with a distinctive and very ancient cultivars of arabica. This is the sort of thing one finds going on in Starbucks; they offer you a wide variety of beans on their coffee menu, but they all taste the same because they over roast them. It's pure folly. One might as well be drinking an 80-cent cup of Maxwell House.

In any case, back to the problem of breakfast, I must conclude that toast and coffee is generally unsuitable; one does not dunk toast in coffee, as one can do with dunking a dark piece of toast in an English breakfast tea, a taste which is entirely enjoyable. You might suppose that dunking toast and tea would give you something soggy and flavorless, but a well-toasted dark bread in a fine cup of tea will give you something to remember. Sometimes, when going on a journey, or when one knows that one will have to skip lunch, it's wise to eat something a little more filling. On this matter I conclude that black beans, eggs, and a dark toast make for the superior breakfast.

Naturally, some will find this controversial. Eggs, for example, contain cholesterol. The argument against eating eggs is somewhat similar to the one against eating salted foods -- neither cholesterol nor salt will present impassable obstacles to your overall health and longevity so long as one eats right and exercises properly; these things only make a deciding difference in cases of people already suffering from a number of other excesses. In any case, the other primary objection to beans and eggs at breakfast is that it produces gas.

Allow me to say a few things on the subject of flatus. When it comes to the digestion of beans, the allegation that beans and other legumes cause gas is a terrible oversimplification. This would akin to simply saying that "meat causes food poisoning", on the grounds that eating uncooked meat will make one sick. But this is nonsense, of course; if you prepare your meat properly, you will not be poisoned. Similarly, if you prepare your legumes properly, you will not get gas. The gas is caused by the presence of carbohydrates the human body can not digest; anaerobic bacteria in the intestines feed upon it, producing gas. The most delightful remedy for gas is the inclusion of spices in the cooking. Turmeric, asfoetida, cumin and caraway all counteract digestive gases. You'll also find that most of these spices are part of traditional meals in the legume-heavy cuisines of the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. In Mexican and Latin American cooking, where beans also figure prominently, you'll find them using a spice called epazote for the same effect. Another remedy is to include acidic substances in the meal in which the beans are served. Again, it's no surprise this practice being used heavily in traditional bean dishes: lemon juice is a primary ingredient in hummus, foul madamas, and all sorts of other bean dishes. In this case, the acidic action would be caused primarily by the tea with lemon, and naturally you would spice your beans properly. And so beans and eggs make for a lovely breakfast, good for a day when one must be active, and gas is not a problem for the wise.

Such is the modest and hearty breakfast befitting of a day of virtue.

I must admit that I find the roots of both woody and herbaceous plants to be exhaustively fascinating. There they lay beneath our feet, growing and respiring while we go about our daily toil, ever ignorant of their search for water, base nutriments and minerals, their tireless quest for every nook and cranny Earth might open up for their quiet and unseen exploits...

I wax poetic. What are roots? A root is differentiated from the other diverse tissues of a plant or tree in that it lacks nodes, that is, points of undifferentiated cells by which a plant might grow new limbs, leaves, and such-like. At the bottom, or end, of every root is a covering of tissue called the root cap. It consists of undifferentiated tissue, much like what you would find in the nodes of the plant. The root cap protects the growing cells as the root advances through the soil, its cells worn away but quickly replaced by new cells generated by cell division within the cap, and hence the root grows downward into the Earth, attracted by nutrients, in much the same way that stems might grow above-ground.

But this is all too preliminary. There are fibrous roots and there are tap roots. The latter are good for structural support, especially in very tall trees, and for breaking up the Earth, but the former are the ones in which I take the greatest interest and pleasure. Fibrous roots are amazing structures to look at -- the complexity, delicacy, and beauty of these webs can only be compared perhaps with the complex capillary structure within the bodies of animals. Yet these capillaries can be seen, transplanted, manipulated, pruned, regrown, etc., and can provide a great variety of biological functions, from storing energy to extracting nutrients to producing new plants.

Why this beauty, these diversities of form? Can a man's mind truly grasp the answers behind any of it? Of all the forms of roots, the functions and patterns of which you think are well-known and quite common, you will be surprised to find diversity and oddity at every turn -- you come across a strange above-ground parasitic root, for example, just as among men you can scour all the world, finding the characters and appearance of man to be quite uniform, until finally reaching, say, Africa and its blacks, whose appearance and way of life would appear totally unique.

Why, Nature? Why such great diversity in your forms? I can not fathom the answer; at every turn I am reminded of my own ignorance, beaten back into boyish modesty by the complexity and richness of this world.