This is not a real post! It's a reply in disguise. chocolatebark asked some of his followers to write about random topics. My assigned topic: barbeques. What follows is either (a) all true, (b) partially true, or (c) not true at all. chocolatebarkster, you should make a new post and link to everyone's entries.
Roasting meat is certainly nothing new to our world; anthropologists working in every corner of the world occupied by early hominids shows our ancestors' predilection for wood-fired meat goes back at least 100,000 years.
But the origin of the word "barbeque" is far newer to Western lexicons. A Barbeque historian with the unlikely name of Smoky Hale has traced the term to the Eastern Caribbean, specifically the French colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe, where Taino Indians were known to cook their meat in large kilns, with constant removal to baste and/or apply powdery spices. The transliteration of the native word for this practice is barbacoa. The word's first written use was by the geographer and pirate William Dampier, in the 17th century. I have written about Dampier in this journal, and even pointed out that he coined the word barbeque, though I see now that may be an oversimplification of the truth.
The Taino barbacoa was a social event -- for men, mostly. In preparation for a feast, the men would take turns tending the meat, while women did... whatever it is women do.
If that sounds familiar, it's because the modern barbeque often serves as a focus for male social interaction. This is particularly true in the southern hemisphere countries. In Argentina, Australia, and South Africa, barbeque grills are more often than not surrounded by men talking about sport(s) and drinking shite beer, such as Victoria Bitter or Castle. In the U.S. and Europe, grilling is usually a solo affair, while the other men tend to their kids so their wives don't get angry at them. Whether or not the male-domination of barbeques in some countries is the result of a culture heritage from the Taino is unknown -- and probably impossible to prove either way.
There are many ways to cook meat, of course, and the enduring popularity of the barbeque's closed- or open-fire is likely the result of two key barbeque attributes : (1) with the invention of portable grills, barbeques are convenient to perform, and (2) most humans seem to like the smell of burned flesh.
Portable grills (such as the famously rounded black kiln long ago patented by Weber) can be stashed in the back seat of cars and are easily cleaned with a garden hose. Portability is not a unique attribute of barbeques, but it is an important one.
The attractiveness of burning flesh may in fact have a biological component, as even some vegetarians and vegans will admit to having an immediate positive reaction to the odor. You know, just before making their "ew" face and telling meat eaters how primitive and depraved they are.
An innate predilection for a certain kind of food is not an impossibility, as human physiology has clearly been impacted by the species' own culture, as you can see with the prolonged expression of lactose dehydrogenase into early adulthood among certain peoples of European descent -- an evolutionary consequence of a habitual, extended nutritional reliance on cow and goat milk long past weaning. By contrast, lactose dehydrogenase production is rare in Asians past the age of 5.
Other circumstantial evidence supporting an instinctive attraction to cooked meat is the fact that the human digestive system does not possess a number of anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties that other animals do (sharks and pigs, for example). If humans were accustomed to cooking their meat -- and therefore killing potential pathogens -- it would in fact be an unnecessary waste of metabolic energy to produce a lot of enzymes and other proteins that prevent infection.
HBO Films' joint project Einstein and Eddington with the BBC was a charming movie, if a little light on the science shared between its title characters. I liked it, but one thing really bugged me! We are led to believe Einstein -- a "German" reviled by many English nationalists -- sought to prove Isaac Newton wrong. You upend Newton, you demean and demote English science.
What we aren't told is that Einstein (and most other Prussian scientists) utterly worshiped Newton. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity was never intended to replace Newton's gravitational model, but to amend it with a term that is sensitive to extraordinary conditions.
To the Master's honor all must turn, each in its track, without a sound, forever tracing Newton's ground. - Einstein
Of course, all old people get crazy. When they believe they are approaching the ends of their lives, a kind of frantic urgency to preserve their values before they die manifests as cantankerousness, bullying, and dour disapproval of just about everything they would not do or say themselves.
But the religious become afflicted with another kind of insanity -- and it is the result of the slow, inexorable realization that the things they've been taught for decades don't actually make a whole lot of sense. The meaning of life, the purpose of life, why the world is the way it is, what drives us to fail or succeed, what one must do to please a deity or deities, the punishment of the good, the rewarding of the evil, or lazy, or simply unworthy...
And while it is true that the chaos of human existence is something addressed in all religions, no religion ever proffers a demonstrable explanation for it. The devil? Karma? Loki? As capable as we are of fooling ourselves, and as flawed as the brain is, it is a logic machine.
The cancer of doubt sends its claws outward into every recess of the human mind. Eventually, doubt threatens to overtake faith, and in a bid to deny their entire lives were built upon a foundation of lies, irrationality beats doubt back, every effort availed, until there's nothing left but insanity.
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