Friday, July 31, 2009

Cooked vs. raw

A friend pointed out on Facebook this piece from Salon.com, about cooked vs. raw food. The person who originally posted it noted that Newburyport is slated to get a raw food restaurant soon.

I had not heard that, I don't think. Reminds me of that episode of "Sex and the City" where the character Samantha eats yucky raw food entrees because she's hot for the waiter.

"Anthropologist Richard Wrangham has a provocative theory on human evolution. It starts with food and an open flame"

Anyway, the article goes on to have Wrangham say, among other things, that how in every society - ever - women cooked for men.

In every single society women cook for men. And, what's more fascinating, in many societies you can really say that food or domestic promiscuity is far more serious than sexual promiscuity. In other words, it's more of a breach of social convention for a woman to feed the wrong man than it is for her to have sex with him.

Interesting, huh? I know I had this long, involved conversation on FB with a man and some of it involved cooking. I think I said I wasn't that good at cooking (which is not strictly the case - I do just fine with a recipe), which if Wrangham is to be believed, explains a lot.

That may have been my 'strike two.' I'm not saying what 'strike one' was (it's nothing thrilling, believe me).

I know that from our perspective in the West, where we tend to focus even more than other societies on questions of sexual morality, it's rather an immoral suggestion that I'm making -- basically that men set themselves up with wives in order to have the freedom to be men, as it were -- and then go ahead and design their sexual strategy from that point on.

So - if a man doesn't have to worry about feeding himself, he can be free to be a man (whatever that entails these days).

I was going to point out some instances in my (extended) family of women who were married but who couldn't cook for shit. Then I remembered that their husbands may not have been that interested in women, good cook or not.

My mother and my sisters are all excellent cooks, btw.

Should I sally forth with a hunk of roast beef strapped to my chest? Apparently the roasted meat would be of more interest to a man than my chest.

Very interesting ...

4 comments:

Dan Sweeney said...

Gillian,
Stay away from fictional comedy, you are way too funny and could make money there!
LAMO

Dan

Bubba said...

Off topic, but I thought you might enjoy this one.

MEXICO CITY — Surprised tourists found their little piece of Cancun beach paradise ringed by crime-scene tape and gun-toting sailors on Thursday.

Environmental enforcement officers backed by Mexican navy personnel closed off hundreds of feet (dozens of meters) of powder-white coastline in front of a hotel accused of illegally accumulating sand on its beach.

Mexico spent $19 million to replace Cancun beaches washed away by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. But much of the sand pumped from the sea floor has since washed away, leading some property owners to build breakwaters in a bid to retain sand. The practice often merely shifts sand loss to beaches below the breakwaters.

"Today we made the decision to close this stretch of ill-gotten, illegally accumulated sand," said Patricio Patron, Mexico's attorney general for environmental protection. "This hotel was telling its tourists: 'Come here, I have sand ... the other hotels don't, because I stole it.'"

Patron said five people were detained in a raid for allegedly using pumps to move sand from the sea floor onto the beach in front of the Gran Caribe Real Hotel. The hotel is also suspected of illegally building a breakwater that impeded the natural flow of sand onto other hotels' beaches, he said.

An employee of the hotel's marketing office said nobody was available to comment on the allegations. Authorities said the hotel owner ignored previous orders to remove the breakwater.

A knot of angry tourists gathered around the closed beach.

Some were irked by the sight of police tape and "Closed" signs.

Maria Bachino, a travel agent from Rocha, Uruguay, said by telephone that she had booked a beachfront room in Cancun, only to find herself cut off from the clear, bathub-temperature waters that lure millions to Cancun each year.

"They promised us a beach," said Bachino. "This is very unpleasant, we feel bad. This is intimidating," she said of the armed navy personnel who participated in the raid.

Patron said he regretted any inconvenience for tourists, but said the government is planning projects to restore beaches throughout Cancun in an orderly, environmentally responsible way.

"I apologize to the tourists for this problem, but it is a question of enforcing the law," Patron said.

Gillian Swart said...

Thanks Dan & Bubba.

Bella said...

You should be careful were are when you sally forth with a hunk of roast beef strapped to your chest! I would not walk in the woods! Now should meat that cooked or raw! Dan is right , you should write a book on this subject!