31: Beyond Texture
[CW: Food, Meat]
This week I read a tweet by someone who had been researching futuristic non-animal meat-like products for an article. They said that thinking about the texture in detail was making them queasy. The fake meat had been created so faithfully in meat's image that its structure was exactly like that of animal muscle. For this person thinking about this in a synthesised food product is what tipped the balance from an expected texture into something grotesque.
While I treat meat as a luxury rather than a necessity, I do eat meat, and meat and what it represents doesn't gross me out. I've realised recently that these two things don't necessarily always go hand in hand. The idea that meat is something that was once alive, now dead for your enjoyment, is something people try not to think about. Understanding that the fibrous textures of a chicken breast are direct evidence of the use they once had is difficult. It demands, immediately and uncompromisingly, that you pay attention to the fact that what you are enjoying was once living its own life. That's a difficult thought.
What's been turning around in my head all week is the idea that made-in-a-lab plant-based meat substitutes could be what turn some people off meat altogether. The naturalness of tissue and sinew, which we see on a daily basis everywhere we go, when given the stark backdrop of scientific intervention suddenly becomes a form of biological horror. And the idea of this really fascinates me.
[CW: The food/meat part is now over, thanks for bearing with me!]
Other Stuff:
The Go Compare opera singer is actually the nicest man in the world. Read this interview where he talks about online abuse, dealing with a difficult career and being happy with your life and you'll see.
What do you know about sperm whales? This thread on their daily grind by one of Twitter's best people really is beautiful.
Stained glass! We've not had much of that on here lately, have we? Southwark Cathedral's website has a perfect section on their stained glass windows, with tons of info on each of them.
This piece on servers still having nightmares about waiting tables ten years prior really resonated. TREAT YOUR STAFF BETTER. BE NICER TO SERVING STAFF!
If there was anyone in the world who's article on crisp flavourings I'd want to read, it'd be Amelia Tait. And oh as luck would have it, she's written about crisp flavourings this week.
Reclaiming rural queer culture in the USA with trucks. TruckSlutsMag is awesome. [h/t Lily Waite]
11 ways women are the future of Philadelphia's food scene. Thanks to BeerDetective who has been showing me good things about their hometown of Philly. I love hearing about good things from people's hometowns. Please do this more.
This Twitter thread was my favourite thing I've seen on there in ages. A dad showing their son how photoshop works, incorporating a love for search and rescue vehicles.
Why is food in Berlin bad? I wouldn't know, I've never been. But this article makes me feel like I'm an expert, and I love an article that makes me feel smarter after having read it.
A story about Roberto, Helen Rosner's bean, sausage and kale soup. I make a similar soup (without the sausage) every so often and it's lovely to read about how something so simple and comforting has tied so many people together online.
I feel like if you don't know about a place, finding out what beer they drink there is a good place to start. Lucy Corne is such a champion of S. African craft beer and her first piece for Pellicle is a great deeper look into one of the bastions of her scene.
My Stuff:
This week I failed to hand in a short story for a competition because I got the deadline date totally wrong. I'm still really fucking angry with myself about it so every time my brain tries to show me a positive ("look on the bright side! You've completed a short story!") I'm still getting even more mad. But I suppose now is as good a time as any to say -- and therefore commit myself to the idea -- that I'm writing a collection of short stories themed around food, drink, greed and lust. It's still early days yet, but I'm excited about cracking on. But I'm still pretty fucked off about the competition.
I tried to make kombucha and instead started freaking out about responsibility. And then I wrote about it for Ferment mag.
ICYMI: I wrote about my sheepish forays into wine a couple of months ago and actually, I really like this piece. So here it is again.
Lepanto cycle (with a lifeboat)
Cy Twombly (and Andy Doe)