From the Oxford Companion to Food, a bit of doggerel from Horticulture. It helps to know that Alfred Russell Wallace was extremely fond of the stinking fruit. The durian–neither Wallace or Darwin agreed on it. Darwin said ‘may your worst enemies be forced to feed on it’. Wallace cried ‘it’s delicious’. Darwin replied ‘I’m suspicious, …
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Atlantis??
Frankly, if this were any lesser journal than Nature I’d be VERY skeptical. But…. “In a recent paper in Geology, Marc-Andre Gutscher of the European Institute for Marine Studies in Plouzané gives details of one candidate for the lost city: the submerged island of Spartel, west of the Straits of Gibraltar. “The top of this …
Rich Writers?
And while we are on doom and gloom– where does the idea that writers are rich come from? 2Blowhards sent me to Conversational Reading’s post on Writing and Money that has some true and funny things to say on the subject. “They had their names on the cover of a book, thus they were wealthy. …
Pessimism and gloom
The indispensible Derbyshire found this quote from Macaulay on Dr. Johnson that perfectly describes the pessimistic cast of mind, which I think he and I (often) share, and cheerfully offers it up for our inspection: “A deep melancholy took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and …
Killer ‘Pillar
A caterpillar from the forests of Hawaii that eats land snails. Libby wishes we had some in our garden, where the escargots have run rampant this year. Hawaii is full of strange and unique creatures– see here. One can only wonder it was like before humans came– and no, the aboriginal Hawaiians were no better …
Mongolian Freedom
More from the always thoughtful Nabetz at New Mongols. I have made extensive excerpts, but as the Professor says you should Read The Whole Thing. (Actually you should read the whole blog). I really like Nabetz’ undogmatic take on private property– perhaps a Mongolian heritage. I know I have seldom felt as free as when …
Naadam Wussies
In the spring, on the steppes outside Ulaan Bataar in Mongolia, thousands of people gather to witness a wild 20- mile childrens’ horse race. Now U.N. bureaucrats want to force the kids to wear helmets. Nabetz of New Mongols, a Mongolian- American blogger (?– he grew up in Montana, but has relatives in Mongolia) so …
New World Founding Fathers (and Mothers)
This highly technical genetic paper, from the excellent Public Library of Science online, seems to suggest that the entire “native” population of the New World may decend from only seventy or eighty people! Of course that doesnt mean that there weren’t others who may have left no descendants, as Matt Mullenix has suggested… I’d be …
“Because of the morals of the maids”…
Davidson’s book also sent me to my battered copy of David Arora’s Mushrooms Demystified — the one book you must have if you want to hunt mushrooms– for this anecdote by the Victorian memoirist Gwen Raverat about the smelly, phallic, stinkhorn mushroom. (“Aunt Etty” was Darwin’s daughter!) “In our native woods there grows a kind …
Cordyceps
I have been slowly reading Alan Davidson’s The Oxford Companion to Food, a delightful, encyclopedic, opinionated, (and sometimes wrongheaded) book, and came across what I believe is the single weirdest food I have ever heard about. To quote Davidson: “…..the only English name for fungi of the genus Cordyceps. These grow, oddly, on live insects …