Music recs
Aug. 12th, 2011 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieMore Arvo Pärt!
The entire Berliner Messe is lovely, but my favorite movement is undoubtedly the Credo. It's just...I don't even know. Joyful, but in a relatively quiet way.
Variations for the Healing of Arinushka. A simple, but terribly effective, solo piano composition. (I kind of want to make a Fringe vid to it. A really melancholy one.)
In the non-classical genre, another song by Karine Polwart: Follow the Heron.
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I got Stalking the Wild Asparagus out of the library yesterday, thinking, "Wild foods! New and interesting tastes! All for free!" Annnnnd then I realized exactly why ancient humans developed farming and modern ones came up with grocery stores, as well as why our staple foods are the ones they are. It takes hours of boiling and leeching, for example, just to get acorns to a state where you can grind them into meal, which you then bake. Apparently you have to cook everything to death to make it edible, and then you can actually prepare a dish out of it. So much easier to just bite into an apple.
The entire Berliner Messe is lovely, but my favorite movement is undoubtedly the Credo. It's just...I don't even know. Joyful, but in a relatively quiet way.
Variations for the Healing of Arinushka. A simple, but terribly effective, solo piano composition. (I kind of want to make a Fringe vid to it. A really melancholy one.)
In the non-classical genre, another song by Karine Polwart: Follow the Heron.
*
I got Stalking the Wild Asparagus out of the library yesterday, thinking, "Wild foods! New and interesting tastes! All for free!" Annnnnd then I realized exactly why ancient humans developed farming and modern ones came up with grocery stores, as well as why our staple foods are the ones they are. It takes hours of boiling and leeching, for example, just to get acorns to a state where you can grind them into meal, which you then bake. Apparently you have to cook everything to death to make it edible, and then you can actually prepare a dish out of it. So much easier to just bite into an apple.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-13 07:11 am (UTC)Alas, you will never have the fluffy tail and beady eyes of our squirrelly friends.
I read somewhere that no modern (or fairly pre-modern) cultures follow a 100% raw diet, and that there's a reason for that: cooking and agriculture have made us wimps.
Proud to be wimpy! Wimps get fewer diseases!
But you'd think there'd be some interesting wild stuff you could just grab and eat, right? Herbs, at least? ...Dandelions?
There are chapters on blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and persimmons (which I have had straight from a tree, and which are FOUL even when ripe), so yes, there are a few things you can eat right off the vine. And there are some other plants that don't need to be cooked forever with multiple changes of water to get to an edible state. Like CATTAIL POLLEN. Apparently it can be substituted one-for-one with flour, and the author likes to make baked goods with half-flour, half-pollen. I sneezed just reading about it.
There's also a chapter on crawfish which I am not going to be foolish enough to read.
To be fair, I suppose wheat takes a lot of processing to turn into food, it's just that we don't do it ourselves.
It does take considerable processing, but less than acorns; wheat is just ground to make flour, while acorns have the whole boiling-for-hours-to-leech-out-the-tannins step before they can be ground. (I recall reading somewhere that as soon as the Native American tribes who used acorns as a staple crop were introduced to wheat flour, they abandoned the acorns with great glee because wheat was way easier, but I have no idea where I read it or if it's really true.) Though still not something I'd like to do myself every time I wanted something with flour in it, for sure.
(Did you see the article in the NYTimes about how Central Park authorities are getting mad at foragers eating all their plants?)
No, but that is hilarious.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-14 11:45 am (UTC)But my eyes are so close to being beady!
Proud to be wimpy! Wimps get fewer diseases!
Hooray for fire!
Like CATTAIL POLLEN. Apparently it can be substituted one-for-one with flour, and the author likes to make baked goods with half-flour, half-pollen.
aoiwhgoihwebwuh?
There's also a chapter on crawfish which I am not going to be foolish enough to read.
I feel like if it has legs to run away from you with, it's no longer strictly "foraging."
they abandoned the acorns with great glee because wheat was way easier
Lol, I can just see them chucking acorns over their shoulders and being all, "TO HELL WITH THAT." Acorns as a staple crop = recipe for sadness. How hungry did their ancestors have to be, to think, "Hm, when I boil this the fifth time, it's not quite as disgusting as the first four times around!"
No, but that is hilarious.
It says they were thinking about putting up "Git off mah lawn, you little punks!" -type signs, but then decided that that would just tell the foragers where all the good spots were...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-15 01:32 am (UTC)My reaction exactly!
I feel like if it has legs to run away from you with, it's no longer strictly "foraging."
I agree. To be fair, the book doesn't claim to be a howto for "foraging," specifically, but rather on how to get one's food from the wild. Presumably including fishing and hunting. (There are chapters on both.)
How hungry did their ancestors have to be, to think, "Hm, when I boil this the fifth time, it's not quite as disgusting as the first four times around!"
SERIOUSLY. Gibbons claims it's tasty after the second hour of boiling. I don't see me ever finding out. (Although come to think of it, somewhere like Whole Foods probably has acorn meal for sale for $63 per pound.)
It says they were thinking about putting up "Git off mah lawn, you little punks!" -type signs, but then decided that that would just tell the foragers where all the good spots were...
Bwahahaha! Perhaps they should just plant a bunch of poisonous plants instead...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 01:45 am (UTC)Would you call that "antagonistic foraging"?
(Although come to think of it, somewhere like Whole Foods probably has acorn meal for sale for $63 per pound.)
Uhhhhhhh I'm pretty sure I've seen mention of commercially available acorn flour on some vegan blogs somewhere...
Perhaps they should just plant a bunch of poisonous plants instead...
"Well, it's not our fault New Yorkers aren't good at differentiating among mushroom species, now is it??"
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 05:25 am (UTC)Perhaps "adventure foraging"?
Uhhhhhhh I'm pretty sure I've seen mention of commercially available acorn flour on some vegan blogs somewhere...
Not surprised at all.
"Well, it's not our fault New Yorkers aren't good at differentiating among mushroom species, now is it??"
They could start a side business selling mushroom identification guides!