This belongs in a Neil Postman book somewhere.

This has been itching at the back of my mind all week:

People who come from the humanities and science, they have a view that if you present the facts quietly to people in power, they will make rational judgements and people will change. And it’s not true. The people on the other side, who go to business school, they understand how the brain really works and how public opinion really works. So they’re talking about values and moral narratives and imagery. They’re good at it. So it’s an out of balance situation. (from here)

Translation: you silly humanities people; you think you can reason with people and change the world. Well, we know better. We know you have to manipulate your way to the top. 

This is the perfect example of a well-intentioned marketer (yeah, OK, "communications." Fine.) who doesn't understand that the medium is part of the problem. Advertising culture is not only dangerous because of the message; it's dangerous because of the ways it trains us to think: superficially, irrationally, and almost sub-linguistically. It's a medium where clever catchphrases substitute for rational thought, where ease and convenience trump all.

It's a medium that creates people in its own image. When we engage in that culture, we are learning to think on advertising's terms. Advertising does not create people who can do things like make sacrifices for the good of future generations. Advertising creates people who live only in the present and think only about their immediate desires. They will respond to campaigns about any kind of social justice issue only if it's easy and trendy.

Advertising will only be able to promote action on global climate change (or anything else) insofar as that action is easy, rewarding, and communicable in one-syllable words. But very specific individual campaigns notwithstanding, any effective and systemic action on climate change is going to be difficult and inconvenient. It will require protracted effort and serious thought. We will have to do things that are not fun, easy, or fashionable, and we'll have to do them consistently and thoughtfully.

If we're going to make systemic changes - the changes that really count - we need a society capable of thought far above the level of advertising. And we can't achieve that society by manipulating people through ad campaigns for the sake of different causes. Personally, I'm skeptical as to whether we can achieve it at all, but if it's even possible, it will be through changing the medium, not just the message.

That's why I insist on doing something so unspeakably naive as engaging in rational conversation. It's not because I think that's the dominant register of discourse - of course it isn't! It's because we learn to think and argue that way by doing it. Social justice advocates can sink to the level of Burger King and political smear campaigns, or we can help people develop their capacities for empathy, long-term thinking, reason, and critical analysis. The former is absurd: you cannot manipulate people into rational behavior. The latter may be impossible, but at least it isn't inherently ridiculous.

This is why I don't trust advertising people even when they claim to be on my side. As long as they're pulling marketing tricks on anyone - no matter what the message is - they're not truly working in the service of social justice.

Dill Potatoes in Schmaltz

Success (Kinda) on the Cockscomb Front

As soon as I opened the first package of cockscombs, I knew I was in for trouble.

They're rubbery. They're floppy, tough, gristly at the bottom and shoe-leather at the top. Charming!

I tried poaching them, but to no avail: it was still like eating a rubber band. I couldn't even stick a fork into them: they'd sproing right off the tines.

Then I tried soaking them in salt and poaching them: still nothing. Odd Bits, you have failed me!

But then, I remembered how making broth with pigs' feet turns the rubbery bits into irresistible creamy gelatin bits. And I stuck the last of the cockscombs in the slow-cooker today for 6 hours, then took them out, sliced them thin, and tossed them with broccoli, butter, salt, and pepper.

Success! They're not the most exciting things in terms of taste, but they're certainly tender enough, and that was really half the battle! I have one serving left; I think I'll try to cut them up as noodles in some kind of cockscomb noodle soup.

Also: I bet they'd make some darn good broth if you tossed them in there with a few bones. I fully expect my gut to be running at 150% after eating so much gelatin the past few days :P

Balsamic Sweetbreads with Capers

Next up on my list of bounty from the awesome butcher shop: sweetbreads! Perhaps the only 100% Paleo food with both "sweet" and "bread" in the title!

They're kind of a pain to make - you have to soak them, and then poach them, and then for some reason let them sit in the fridge under a weight (I strongly suspected Jennifer McLagan was just messing with me until I Googled it and saw that everyone was doing it!), but the result is totally worth it: mild and tender, with a creamy texture - it made me think a little about biting into a cloud. A++ would nom again. And an excellent choice for restoring my faith in offal after the cockscombs turned out so rubbery.

Balsamic Sweetbreads with Capers

Ingredients

• Sweetbreads
• Balsamic vinegar
• Half a lemon
• Salt
• Capers

 Directions

• Soak the sweetbreads in cold salted water for 4-6 hours in the fridge.
• Take them out, put them in a pot with a squirt of lemon juice and some salt. Bring to a boil slowly, and take out the sweetbreads when they're just a little solid but still jiggly.
• Peel the membrane off the sweetbreads...or don't. I did a little and then gave up and they tasted fine.
• Put the sweetbreads in a bowl, wrap them in a towel, and weigh them down with something heavy for another few hours. 
• Take them out, slice them into pieces about 1/2 an inch thick, and pan-fry them in oil until they're brown on the outside. 
• Deglaze the pan with vinegar; add lemon and capers (and butter if you're me and need the calories). Add some stock if you are not quite as much of a vinegar freak as I am. Pour the sauce over the sweetbreads and om nom nom!

"Extreme Moderation" and other Food-Related Linguistic Nonsense

While writing or attempting to write a story that's still too embryonic to get a snappy "about ____________________ line," I found myself confronted with the phrase "extreme moderation."

Extreme moderation.

It bubbled up to the top of my head while I was trying to flesh out a particular character, and before I even thought it through, I knew it would be perfect for this woman. And even worse, I knew I'd heard it a hundred times before, mostly in Paleo circles, and mostly applied to sugar, chocolate alcohol, or some other "borderline" food (occasionally even fruit): "to be eaten in EXTREME moderation."

Google it yourself: people appear to be saying this completely in earnest. Words and meaning, as Orwell says, have almost parted company. On the other hand, it's an interesting little psychological window into the Paleosphere, where moderation itself has to be extreme.

I also had a guy on Reddit a few weeks ago who started off telling me that white potatoes were "harder to digest" than sweet. When pressed, he revised this to the familiar nonsense about the glycemic index, and then, after agreeing that both sweet and white have their nutritional pros and cons and may be good/bad for different people, and furthermore that GI loses much of its meaning in the context of a mixed meal, nevertheless firmly asserted that sweet were "Paleo" while white were "not Paleo," for reasons known only to himself (he stopped responding). It was like trying to argue with a greased eel.

To console myself, I made cockscombs for dinner, but they were disappointing: it was like chewing on rubber bands.

World's Worst Blogger Reporting for Duty

...sigh.

I've decided to give myself a break on the "I have to think of something profound to post about" front and just start posting all the weird odd bits and real food recipes that I eat because I want someplace to post about them. Whatever; cooking with worms totally counts as a radical act of anti-corporate resistance.

Currently in my freezer: liver, brains, sweetbreads, cockscombs, shrimp shells (for seafood stock), and lardo. In the fridge, there's a jar of homemade pickles getting tasty and there was a package of duck's tongues until I ate them for dinner. I think that officially makes me an honest-to-good food weirdo.

The duck tongues were delicious. Mild, but fatty - like little explosions of delicious crispy flavor. A little like duck-flavored lardons. The only issue is that each one has a bone that you have to deal with, so they're pretty messy to eat. 

Totally Unscientific Pseudo-Pasta a la Duck Tongue Recipe