From A Tramp Abroad, By Mark Twain
To make this excellent breakfast dish, proceed as follows: Take a sufficiency of water and a sufficiency of flour, and construct a bullet-proof dough. Work this into the form of a disk, with the edges turned up some three-fourths of an inch. Toughen and kiln-dry it a couple of days in a mild but unvarying temperature. Construct a cover for this redoubt in the same way and of the same material. Fill with stewed dried apples; aggravate with cloves, lemon-peel and slabs of citron; add two portions of New Orleans sugar, then solder on the lid and set in a safe place till it petrifies. Serve cold at breakfast and invite your enemy.
I admit that this is not the recipe I employed to make my apple pie this year, but I thought it would be more interesting to share this one with you.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean.
- Will Durant
I enjoy this quote immensely, and, as I did not quite know how to begin this inaugural post, I am glad to have the excuse of employing it here. My father said it to me the other day, and it made me laugh.
As modern people, when we use the term epicurean, we are referring to something very different than that which Epicurus intended.
Here's part of the Oxford English Dictionary definition of an epicure:
1. a. A philosopher of the school of Epicurus. Obs.
The distinctive doctrines of Epicurus were, 1. That the highest good is pleasure, which he identified with the practice of virtue. 2. That the gods do not concern themselves at all with men's affairs. 3. That the external world resulted from a fortuitous concourse of atoms.
b. loosely. One who disbelieves in the divine government of the world, and in a future life; one who recognizes no religious motives for conduct.
2. One who gives himself up to sensual pleasure, esp. to eating; a glutton, sybarite.
3. (The current sense.) One who cultivates a refined taste for the pleasures of the table; one who is choice and dainty in eating and drinking.
I suppose all this is intended as a sort of introduction. I love wordy definitions and satire as well as living well on a starving artist's income. I advocate only the most appealing forms of epicureanism. If your interests are similar, we will be in good company together. All I have left to say is welcome.
I enjoy this quote immensely, and, as I did not quite know how to begin this inaugural post, I am glad to have the excuse of employing it here. My father said it to me the other day, and it made me laugh.
As modern people, when we use the term epicurean, we are referring to something very different than that which Epicurus intended.
Here's part of the Oxford English Dictionary definition of an epicure:
1. a. A philosopher of the school of Epicurus. Obs.
The distinctive doctrines of Epicurus were, 1. That the highest good is pleasure, which he identified with the practice of virtue. 2. That the gods do not concern themselves at all with men's affairs. 3. That the external world resulted from a fortuitous concourse of atoms.
b. loosely. One who disbelieves in the divine government of the world, and in a future life; one who recognizes no religious motives for conduct.
2. One who gives himself up to sensual pleasure, esp. to eating; a glutton, sybarite.
3. (The current sense.) One who cultivates a refined taste for the pleasures of the table; one who is choice and dainty in eating and drinking.
I suppose all this is intended as a sort of introduction. I love wordy definitions and satire as well as living well on a starving artist's income. I advocate only the most appealing forms of epicureanism. If your interests are similar, we will be in good company together. All I have left to say is welcome.
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