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Why is weird food important?
Maybe 6 years ago, I was working quite late, even on the weekends. The project was going smoothly and under budget, so as my boss headed out the door, he told my co-worker and I that we could grab dinner and bill it to the project. Somewhat mischievously, we chose the quite good (but recently closed) Italian place across the street from our office. As I recall, I was wearing Chuck Taylors.
Anyway, we settle in for a long, rather expensive meal that included veal sweetbreads - which were delicious. But I did not expect them to be. I didn't know what they'd taste like - the gamey, mineral-y taste of liver, I guess is what I had in mind. So shortly after that dinner, I found a taco truck and had my first tongue taco.
Weird food is obviously about opening yourself to new experiences, etc, etc, but more than that - it is about trust (yourself, other people, the cooks, etc) and an odd kind of inward-looking humility. It is really difficult to say "Oh gross" and then taste it, and allow the sensory part of your brain to win the argument with the risk-awareness and reasoning/analytical parts of your brain.
Eating is emotional, and most often it is about warmth, comfort, communion. But weird things, because they are somewhat unknown, can give you a certain level of fear and anxiety. Great meals often have a narrative - the chef might weave a common thread through it, something like that. But there's tension and mystery and suspense to weird food, and it is a story that exists entirely inside your own head. Which is awesome.
That's my very amateur, unlicensed food psychologist lecture and the coda is this: eating or drinking (like going to high school proms, investing, sex and many other things) is often far more about thought - before, during, and after - than it is about the actual act itself.
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Guatemalan claim to Belizean territory
Interesting article about positional/'status' goods and inequality
"Hermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the Hellenistic Egyptian pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus." It has nothing to do with hermits ("Christian hermits... tended to be sought out for spiritual advice and counsel; and some eventually acquired so many disciples that they had no physical solitude at all.") or hermetically-sealed things, but it is still kind of interesting.
The case against awards. I like the part about the teacher: "Her proposed special project on the [space] shuttle calls for running up �the biggest telephone bill in history� by contacting children at their homes and having her puppet talk with them, maybe even help them with their homework." Fucking rad.
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