Psychophant's Rants
30.4.09
More Food
We organised a pseudo-Eastern meal for some of our roleplaying friends. Just by doing it at home it becomes Fusion food, as the ingredients come from all across the place. Also we were mixing countries and regions, so only in a place far away from their origins would you find Miso soup, duck nems, beef chow mein and chicken curry in the same meal. Or, following with the previous post, we used those names for food that only has an approximate relationship with the originals.
Of course that would require that we accept the existence of a platonic ideal for a chicken curry, and then we have to take into account that most people will have varying ideals for such a dish, both from the constituents to its preparation. So in the end the name becomes a shortcut for "The dish with chicken and curry that she prepares in a certain way", with some caveats, as it will not be the same when she mixes apples and bananas or when she only has bananas, or (heresy!) when due to supply difficulties she makes do with milk cream and sugar instead of coconut milk.
So, language meets food and confusion follows. Except within a small group that tends to eat together. So actually fusion food is taking that confusion and doing good things (and a few bad things) with it. Or doing food you like and having no shame on how you label it.
Is it really important if your carbonara has no egg while mine has two? No, what matters is if it is good and they have some points in common. If your carbonara has tomate and mushrooms, then I will feel you are deceiving me with the name, the label has not been well chosen, but that does not imply any deficiency in your cooking, just a deficiency in your use of language. Which is a minor deficiency in my book, as I tend to do that anyway with any foreign language.
By the way, the meal was a big success, as six people ate food for nine (we had prepared food for twelve, a defect of mine that explains the extra fifteen kilos when I started cooking). ¶ 11:55 AM
We organised a pseudo-Eastern meal for some of our roleplaying friends. Just by doing it at home it becomes Fusion food, as the ingredients come from all across the place. Also we were mixing countries and regions, so only in a place far away from their origins would you find Miso soup, duck nems, beef chow mein and chicken curry in the same meal. Or, following with the previous post, we used those names for food that only has an approximate relationship with the originals.
Of course that would require that we accept the existence of a platonic ideal for a chicken curry, and then we have to take into account that most people will have varying ideals for such a dish, both from the constituents to its preparation. So in the end the name becomes a shortcut for "The dish with chicken and curry that she prepares in a certain way", with some caveats, as it will not be the same when she mixes apples and bananas or when she only has bananas, or (heresy!) when due to supply difficulties she makes do with milk cream and sugar instead of coconut milk.
So, language meets food and confusion follows. Except within a small group that tends to eat together. So actually fusion food is taking that confusion and doing good things (and a few bad things) with it. Or doing food you like and having no shame on how you label it.
Is it really important if your carbonara has no egg while mine has two? No, what matters is if it is good and they have some points in common. If your carbonara has tomate and mushrooms, then I will feel you are deceiving me with the name, the label has not been well chosen, but that does not imply any deficiency in your cooking, just a deficiency in your use of language. Which is a minor deficiency in my book, as I tend to do that anyway with any foreign language.
By the way, the meal was a big success, as six people ate food for nine (we had prepared food for twelve, a defect of mine that explains the extra fifteen kilos when I started cooking). ¶ 11:55 AM
8.4.09
Fusion Food
Yesterday I enjoyed an excellent red tuna tataki that had very little in common with what I think a Japanese would call "tataki".
I do not wish to discuss the merits of the plate, which was exquisite, nor the morality of eating an endangered species, which I believe is pointless at the individual level and is a problem to be discussed at the whole environment protection level, choosing environments to focus on, rather than the hopeless effort of saving individual species without a sustainable population and environment.
This is just a reflection on the power of names, and the fallacies of them, when applied to one of the areas where there is a greater cross pollination between cultures, and therefore between languages, as language is one of the strongest cultural pillars.
Misunderstandings are unavoidable when two languages start to interact, but food is one of the areas where there is more than usual imports of full foreign words, usually with little knowledge of the original meaning, and even the original food that it refers to.
Rather than a problem, I see it as an inspiring concept, even if I often cringe when I see Spanish words misapplied in foreign menus and wonder how others will react to our own abuse of their own language.
Inspiring because adopting a foreign name does not bring with it the whole load of meaning and preconceptions that it has in its own language, but it just offers a new idea, something new to experiment on. To continue with the example of the "tataki", you may focus on the seared, almost raw block of fish meat rather than the marinade, or the slicing, or the ginger paste that is the original reason for the name. The name becomes a personal code with an individual meaning. Like Fusion, that everyone assigns the meaning they want.
That also requires an open mind as a restaurant goer, as what you get may not be what you expect, but that has actually been an undercurrent in the cutting edge of restauration, recovering a sense of wonder and surprise in the customer.
I mentally classify restaurants in two kinds, those that I go to learn, to be surprised, to be entertained, which are those that I do not know in advance what I am going to have. It may just be a new restaurant, those first times when you explore the menu and the abilities of the kitchen and the rest of the staff. Some places I feel I know what to expect the first time, others still surprise me after a dozen visits.
Then a few reach the second level, those restaurants that I feel I know well, and where I go to eat something in particular. One where I go when I feel like having roasted kid, or sukiyaki, or fresh pasta, or simply a donner kebab. When the food itself, or just a single dish, is enough to keep me coming round.
In the last case, the restaurant and I share the meaning for the dish, so maybe that sukiyaki is different from those I had in Kyoto or Himeji, or the one I enjoyed the most, in Granada, but I know what to expect when I order one, and they know (if only because they already recognize me) what I expect too. A common language, built through custom and use. ¶ 10:54 AM
Yesterday I enjoyed an excellent red tuna tataki that had very little in common with what I think a Japanese would call "tataki".
I do not wish to discuss the merits of the plate, which was exquisite, nor the morality of eating an endangered species, which I believe is pointless at the individual level and is a problem to be discussed at the whole environment protection level, choosing environments to focus on, rather than the hopeless effort of saving individual species without a sustainable population and environment.
This is just a reflection on the power of names, and the fallacies of them, when applied to one of the areas where there is a greater cross pollination between cultures, and therefore between languages, as language is one of the strongest cultural pillars.
Misunderstandings are unavoidable when two languages start to interact, but food is one of the areas where there is more than usual imports of full foreign words, usually with little knowledge of the original meaning, and even the original food that it refers to.
Rather than a problem, I see it as an inspiring concept, even if I often cringe when I see Spanish words misapplied in foreign menus and wonder how others will react to our own abuse of their own language.
Inspiring because adopting a foreign name does not bring with it the whole load of meaning and preconceptions that it has in its own language, but it just offers a new idea, something new to experiment on. To continue with the example of the "tataki", you may focus on the seared, almost raw block of fish meat rather than the marinade, or the slicing, or the ginger paste that is the original reason for the name. The name becomes a personal code with an individual meaning. Like Fusion, that everyone assigns the meaning they want.
That also requires an open mind as a restaurant goer, as what you get may not be what you expect, but that has actually been an undercurrent in the cutting edge of restauration, recovering a sense of wonder and surprise in the customer.
I mentally classify restaurants in two kinds, those that I go to learn, to be surprised, to be entertained, which are those that I do not know in advance what I am going to have. It may just be a new restaurant, those first times when you explore the menu and the abilities of the kitchen and the rest of the staff. Some places I feel I know what to expect the first time, others still surprise me after a dozen visits.
Then a few reach the second level, those restaurants that I feel I know well, and where I go to eat something in particular. One where I go when I feel like having roasted kid, or sukiyaki, or fresh pasta, or simply a donner kebab. When the food itself, or just a single dish, is enough to keep me coming round.
In the last case, the restaurant and I share the meaning for the dish, so maybe that sukiyaki is different from those I had in Kyoto or Himeji, or the one I enjoyed the most, in Granada, but I know what to expect when I order one, and they know (if only because they already recognize me) what I expect too. A common language, built through custom and use. ¶ 10:54 AM
2.4.09
Myers-Briggs
This is a quite popular personality test, a particular weakness of mine. I have tracked my results on the same one for quite a long time, as well as trying different versions as I come across them in the internet.
It is part of my particular search for integration and normalcy, to be reassured that there are others like me around, that I am not an alien. The need to belong to some group.
For most of that time I have been classed as InTp, strong Introverted, weak Intuitive, Strong Thinker and weak Perceiving. Depending on mood, the different tests available, but specially on personal circumstances, both weak traits can flip, so I am for a while a weak Sensitive or a weak Judge. Kersey calls INTP type "Architect", while the other two types I alternate with are the "Mastermind" (INTJ) and "Crafter" (ISTP). Although it would be theoretically possible, I have never scored as an "Inspector", ISTJ. Certainly it is the one description that does not fit at all with my self image.
Because that is a typical criticism to this kind of tests, that they show not how we are, but how we want to be, or how we see ourselves. However I have found that the persistent changes to my score are associated to changes in my own circumstances.
When my big research project went so well that half the research department was indirectly working for me, and I had technical meetings with big companies and big names in the field, I drifted to INTJ, typically more of a controlling mindset than the hands-on approach of an INTP. Now that the project has collapsed on Intellectual Property concerns and the big crisis in the automotive sector, I find myself concerned with less ambitious and more concrete problems, and the N weakens and I am doing more and thinking less. Even now, as soon as I finish this, I am going to disassemble several complex machines, an activity that I suppose will take me the rest of the day. More a crafter than an intellectual.
Actions speak louder than words, I suppose. Or what we do influence how we think. Indeed I have noticed a strengthening of the Introverted component, as my social interaction and the volume of my correspondence has steadily declined. Now, with a few exceptions, I deal only with old friends rather than the many acquaintances of years past. It is an active choice, but I find it interesting to see some numbers drift as well.
As a curious afterthought, I used to be active in a forum where all the regulars scored as Intuitives. All. Most were thinkers, but that N in the scores was a constant. Now that I am often on the other side of the fence, on the sensitive side, I wonder if my recent disinterest on it could be linked to a change in attitude. Just a little extra to reinforce my appreciation of the Myers-Briggs personality model. ¶ 11:37 AM
This is a quite popular personality test, a particular weakness of mine. I have tracked my results on the same one for quite a long time, as well as trying different versions as I come across them in the internet.
It is part of my particular search for integration and normalcy, to be reassured that there are others like me around, that I am not an alien. The need to belong to some group.
For most of that time I have been classed as InTp, strong Introverted, weak Intuitive, Strong Thinker and weak Perceiving. Depending on mood, the different tests available, but specially on personal circumstances, both weak traits can flip, so I am for a while a weak Sensitive or a weak Judge. Kersey calls INTP type "Architect", while the other two types I alternate with are the "Mastermind" (INTJ) and "Crafter" (ISTP). Although it would be theoretically possible, I have never scored as an "Inspector", ISTJ. Certainly it is the one description that does not fit at all with my self image.
Because that is a typical criticism to this kind of tests, that they show not how we are, but how we want to be, or how we see ourselves. However I have found that the persistent changes to my score are associated to changes in my own circumstances.
When my big research project went so well that half the research department was indirectly working for me, and I had technical meetings with big companies and big names in the field, I drifted to INTJ, typically more of a controlling mindset than the hands-on approach of an INTP. Now that the project has collapsed on Intellectual Property concerns and the big crisis in the automotive sector, I find myself concerned with less ambitious and more concrete problems, and the N weakens and I am doing more and thinking less. Even now, as soon as I finish this, I am going to disassemble several complex machines, an activity that I suppose will take me the rest of the day. More a crafter than an intellectual.
Actions speak louder than words, I suppose. Or what we do influence how we think. Indeed I have noticed a strengthening of the Introverted component, as my social interaction and the volume of my correspondence has steadily declined. Now, with a few exceptions, I deal only with old friends rather than the many acquaintances of years past. It is an active choice, but I find it interesting to see some numbers drift as well.
As a curious afterthought, I used to be active in a forum where all the regulars scored as Intuitives. All. Most were thinkers, but that N in the scores was a constant. Now that I am often on the other side of the fence, on the sensitive side, I wonder if my recent disinterest on it could be linked to a change in attitude. Just a little extra to reinforce my appreciation of the Myers-Briggs personality model. ¶ 11:37 AM
