Maverick Philosopher

Of Brussels Sprouts and Professor Mondo

Professor Mondo describes himself as follows:

I am a medievalist at a small college in a small college town. I like reading, writing, music, and thinking — practicing any of these individually or in combination. Turnoffs include Brussels sprouts, bad music, and creeping totalitarianism.

Excellent, except I simply do not understand food aversions.  Nothing edible is foreign to me.  Pursuing the Terentian parallel into the precincts of (bad) humor:  I am edible; nothing edible is foreign to me.

Brussels sprouts were on the menu at Thanksgiving, and mine were pronounced delicious by all parties to the feast.  But you have to steam the hell out of them and then drench them in a good Hollandaise sauce, itself laced with Tabasco, that marvellous Louisiana condiment simply unsurpassed in its class.

The same steaming-and-saucing treatment works wonders with broccoli and other stink-weeds.

Spiritual Center of Gravity

A man with a big belly hanging over his belt betrays not only his physical center of gravity but his spiritual one as well.

Another Silly Expression: 'Junk Food'

There is no such thing as junk food. Food is food. When I go backpacking, I eat crud I would never eat at home, stuff loaded with fat, salt, and sugar. Dinner might consist of couscous with ‘Vienna’ sausages. If you are an American you know what the latter are: morsels of mystery meat laden with fat and sodium. But when you are schlepping 40-50 lb loads over 12,00 foot passes, all the while sweating like a pig, this is is exactly what you need. You need fat, sodium, sugar, and strong coffee laced with more sugar. The frou-frou salad and green tea can wait for later.

Tell the food fascists of San Bancisco and elsewhere to shove it.

Heart Attack Hill and Heart Attack Grill

I'd rather toil up Heart Attack Hill than put away one of these bad boys.  It would take about 80 miles of hiking to burn off the calories from just one of these burgers if you have the fries and milkshake as well.  Up for an 80-miler?

Nanny-state liberals would use the power of the state to shut down restaurants like this.  That is the trouble with contemporary liberals: they do not understand or value the liberty of the individual , a liberty which includes the liberty to behave in ways that many of us consider foolish.  If you grant the state the power to order your life there will be no end to it.  Right now, in Germany it is illegal to homeschool one's own children!  Every day brings a new example of governmental overreach.  We do not exist for the state; the state exists for us.  Our wealth is ours, not the state's.  We don't have to justify our keeping; they have to justify their taking.

Please no liberal nonsense about an 'epidemic' of obesity or obesity as a public health problem.  True, we Americans are a gluttonous people as witness competitive eating contests, the numerous food shows, and the complete lack of any sense among most that there is anything morally wrong with gluttony.  The moralists of old understood something when they classified gluttony as one of the seven deadly sins.

Obesity is not a disease; so, speaking strictly, there cannot be an epidemic of it.  I know that 'epidemic' is used more broadly than this, even by epidemiologists; but this is arguably the result of an intrusion of liberal ideology into what is supposedly science.   Do you really think that 'epidemic' is being used in the same way in 'flu epidemic' and 'obesity epidemic'?  Is obesity contagious?  If fat Al sneezes in my face, should I worry about contracting the obesity virus? There is no such virus.  Obesity is not contagious and not a disease.   I know what some will say: obesity is socially contagious.  But now you've shifted the sense of 'contagious.'    You've engaged in a bit of semantic mischief.  It is not as if there are two kinds of contagion, natural and social.  Social contagion is not contagion any more than negative growth is growth or a decoy duck is a duck. 'Social' in 'socially contagious' is an alienans adjective.

Why then are you fat?  You are fat because you eat too much of the wrong sorts of food and refuse to exercise.  For most people that's all there is to it.  It's your fault.  It is not the result of being attacked from without by a virus.  It is within your power to be fat or not.  It is a matter of your FREE WILL.  You have decided to become fat or to remain fat.  When words such as 'epidemic' and 'disease' are used in connection with obesity, that is an ideological denial of free will, an attempt to shift responsibility from the agent to factors external to the agent such as the 'evil' corporations that produce so-called 'junk' food. 

There are public health problems, but obesity is not one of them.  It is private problem resident at the level of the individual and the family. 

Food and Sex

We have it on good authority that man does not live by bread alone. To which I add: nor by bed alone.

Are You an Archevore?

Ah yes, the wonderful world of dietary controversy!  So bitter at times as to spoil one's appetite.  If you aspire to archevorial status, here is the diet.  This site was recommended to me by a very astute fellow who says it works for him.  Although I don't recommend  becoming a paleo-fresser (my coinage),  it is worth considering.

National Donut Day

Celebrate it by eating a donut or engaging in some other politically incorrect act such as smoking a cigar.  Tell the 'food fascists' to shove it. 

Soul Food

People are generally aware of the importance of good nutrition, physical exercise and all things health-related. They understand that what they put into their bodies affects their physical health.  Underappreciated is a truth just as, if not more important: that what one puts into one's mind affects one's mental and spiritual health. The soul has its foods and its poisons just as the body does. This   simple truth, known for centuries, goes unheeded while liberals fall all over each other climbing aboard the various environmental and health bandwagons. 

Second-hand smoke the danger of which is negligible much exercises our leftist pals while the soul-destroying toxicity of the mass 'entertainment' media concerns them not at all.

Why are those so concerned with physical toxins so tolerant of cultural toxins? This is another example of what I call misplaced moral enthusiasm. You worry about global warming and sidestream smoke when you give no thought to the soul, its foods, and its poisons? You liberals are a strange breed of cat, crouching behind the First Amendment, quick to defend every form of cultural pollution under the rubric 'free speech.'

As Beer to Bukowski

Coffee is to me as beer to Bukowski.  And morning's to me as night to him.  He brags that he never wrote anything while sober.  Me, while drunk.

This is Why You Are Fat

where dreams become heart attacks.

The Metaphysics of the Martini

Ed Feser expatiates.  I checked in at W4 to see whether there was any commentary on the the recent liberal-left hysteria over Arizona SB 1070.  Nothing.  But Steve Burton's E pur si muove! held my interest.

How to Lose Weight

I don’t doubt that Americans are the fattest people in the world. Some years back I landed at New York’s JFK airport after a year in Turkey. Walking from the plane into the terminal, and without having given any thought to the matter, the first thing that struck me was how obese Americans are.

Many are now speaking of an ‘epidemic’ of obesity in the USA as if obesity were a disease. This is liberal nonsense, of course, and needs to be exposed as such. It is nonsense raised to the second power when calls are issued for Federal programs to combat the problem. First of all, obesity is not a disease, but a condition caused and maintained by the voluntary act of overeating. No doubt, some people have more of a propensity to put on weight than others: basal metabolic rates and other factors vary from person to person. But this does nothing to change the fact that one’s weight depends on the quality and quantity of what one freely shovels into one’s mouth. Second, obesity is a personal problem to be solved at the personal level. The last thing we need are more Federal programs.

I’m here to give you the straight skinny, in four monosyllables, and with my famous double your money back if not entirely satisfied guarantee. Eat less, move more.

CORRECTION (12/28): Here.

Addicted to Food?

Can one be addicted to food? If yes, then I am addicted to exposing liberal nonsense. What I have said more than once about the non-addictiveness of tobacco can be applied mutatis mutandis to food 'addiction':

The Seven Deadly Sins of Pasta

One of my dinner partners last night chopped up his pasta with a fork.  I registered my disapprobation, and demonstrated the correct technique, but to no good effect.  He complained that doing it right was too much work.  So I had to write him off as unteachable in this particular despite his manifold excellences in virtually every other particular. The incident did, however, put me in mind of an old post from 7 April 2005 which richly deserves reposting.  One cannot say these things too often.

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The following are the Seven Deadly Sins pertaining to the cooking and eating of pasta. Infractions may incur a visit from my New Joisey cousin Vinnie and his pals Smith and Wesson.

1. Using too small of a pot. A capacious pot is essential for the proper cooking of pasta. For most purposes I use an 8 quart pot. When I make my famous lasagne, however, out comes the monster 16 quart job.

2. Insufficient water. Be sure the pot is filled three-quarters full. With a big pot, there is little chance of a boil-over. But in case of the latter, a little olive oil added to the water will quell any uprising.

3. Adding the pasta before the water is boiling. Wifey once broke this rule. I instructed her to add the pasta when the water boiled. She claims she did, and that led to a discussion of the meaning of ‘boiling.’ I hereby lay it down that water is not boiling unless it is ROILING and JUMPING. To put it a bit more scientifically, pure water at sea-level is not boiling until it is at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Since our tap water is pretty good, I use it, not wanting to burden my reverse osmosis purification system.

4. Breaking the pasta before putting it in the pot. This criminal act is particularly repellent to the true connoiseur, and a sure sign of a pasta greenhorn. It defeats the whole purpose of the eating of (long) pasta, a tactile experience that requires the twirling of the strands around the fork, and, therefore, unbroken strands. Deadly sin #4 usually follows upon sin # 1, as drinking upon gambling.

5. Overcooking the pasta. Pasta must never be overcooked. It is to be prepared al dente. That’s Italian for to the tooth, meaning that the pasta should put up a bit of resistance to the tooth that bites into it. The pleasure of pasta consumption is largely tactile: the stuff by its lonesome does not have much taste.

6. Failing to properly drain the pasta before the addition of sauce. The result of this is a disgusting dilution of the sauce. Proper drainage requires the proper tool, the collander. Invest in a good one made of stainless steel. Plastic is for wimps. And if you try to drain pasta using the pot top, then you mark yourself as a bonehead of the first magnitude and may scald yourself in the process.

7. Chopping pasta on the plate. When I see people do this, I am tempted to make like al-Zarqawi and engage in an Islamo-fascist act. Let’s say you are eating capellini, ‘angel hair.’ (This is the quickest cooking of the long pastas.) There it is on the large white plate, richly sauced, anointed with a bit of extra virgin olive oil -- why buy any other kind? -- besprinkled with fresh hand-grated Romano, (not something out of a cardboard cylinder), artistically set off with a small amount of finely chopped parsley, and awaiting your attention. It is a thing of beauty. So what does a bonehead do? He starts chopping it up.

Learn how to do it right. Take some strands in the fork tines, twirl, and you should end up with a ball of pasta at the end of your fork. Practice makes perfect. Now enjoy the tactile delight along with a glass of Dago red.

Ever Wonder Why You Are Fat?

Where dreams become heart attacks.  The Taco Town Taco looks quite tempting.  The next time you are out with your philosopher cronies, you should consider starting your symposium with an appetizer.  May I recommend several meta-pizzas?  An excellent choice for main course would be the Sandwich of Knowledge here depicted.