Check out this article on Slate today:
Historical Fiction
Quote:
“While a Medieval Times castle seats anywhere from 900 to 1,500 people a night, and the Excalibur’s Tournament of Kings about 2,000 (a thousand at each seating), no present-day medieval feast comes even close to approaching the enormity of some of the Middle Ages’ heavy-hitters. We don’t know exactly how many people attended the marriage feast of Henry III’s daughter in 1251, but we do know that they gorged on 1,300 deer; 7,000 hens; 170 boars; 60,000 herring; and 68,500 loaves of bread. Feasters at the enthronement party for England’s Archbishop of Neville in 1465 consumed 1,000 sheep; 2,000 pigs; 2,000 geese; 4,000 rabbits; and 12 porpoises and seals. No less than 11,000 eggs were eaten at a 1387 feast for Richard III.”
12 porpoises and 12 seals, or 12 combined? Greenpeace demands to know.
Category: Food
The Glass Is Half Empty
This isn’t a good picture, but you can clearly see why I hate ordering draft beer in Japan sometimes. Where many would argue the aesthetic value of a 70/30 (in this case 50/50) beer to head ratio, I would say that it looks good in a commercial but otherwise I want a full glass of beer. If I saw this in America, I would conclude that the bartender set the CO2 pressure on the tap too high and ask for another. Whoever poured this beer needs to learn how to tilt the glass sideways when they’re pouring, or be put in charge of working the bottle opener.
Not Syrup Of Ipecac, But It Might As Well Be
Creamy wasabi dipping sauce??? No thank you.
School Lunch In Rural Japan
I just wrote an entry about kyushoku, or school lunch, on Higo Blog. I would have to say that the school lunches that I had in Ubuyama were much better than the school lunches back in SoCal, but you can’t really compare soggy burgers wrapped in foil paper to rice and a broiled slice of mackerel. Then again, in high school I could buy personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut. Those pizzas were about the same size as Japanese pizza, more filling, had real pepperoni and sausage (instead of this mayonaisse and corn bullshit! WTF is up with that???), and cost only 3 bucks!
The worst things about school lunch in Japan that I have experienced:
The small candied fish served on top of rice.
Liver stew.
Pickled hotaru ika (firefly-squid).