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philaretus
2/06/2003
13:29:10
[ report this post ] |
 Subject: The World's most disgusting nation
Message:
I nominate the FRENCH. You may have different ideas, but first read the following:
"If guilt is a flavour, and it definitely is, then l'ortolan is one of the world's greatest dishes. The lemon-coloured songbirds, called buntings in English, originally appeared in French songs as symbols of innocence and the love of Jesus. Then a tribe near Bordeaux began trapping them as they migrated south to Africa, pulling them out of the sky with little wooden traps called matoles hidden high in the treetops.
The birds must be taken alive; once captured they are either blinded or kept in a lightless box for a month to gorge on millet, grapes, and figs, a technique apparently taken from the decadent cooks of Imperial Rome who called the birds beccafico, or 'fig-pecker'. When they've reached four times their normal size, they're drowned in a snifter of Armagnac.
This sadistic mise en scene has transformed the bird from a symbol of innocence to an act of gluttony symbolic of the fall from grace. In Collette's novel Gigi, for instance, the tomboyish main character prepares for her entry into polite society with lessons in the correct way to eat lobsters and boiled eggs. When she begins training to be a courtesan, however, she is said to be 'learning how to eat the ortolan'. Not that it was only courtesans who indulged. The tradition of covering one's head while eating the bird was supposedly started by a soft-bellied priest trying to hide his sadistic gluttony from God.
Cooking l'ortolan is simplicity itself. Simply pop them in a high oven for six to eight minutes and serve. The secret is entirely in the eating. First you cover your head with a traditional embroidered cloth. Then place the entire four-ounce bird into your mouth. Only its head should dangle out from between your lips. Bite off the head and discard. L'ortolan should be served immediately; it is meant to be so hot that you must rest it on your tongue while inhaling rapidly through your mouth. This cools the bird, but its real purpose is to force you to allow its ambrosial fat to cascade freely down your throat.
When cool, begin to chew. It should take about 15 minutes to work your way through the breast and wings, the delicately crackling bones, and on to the inner organs. Devotees claim they can taste the bird's entire life as they chew in the darkness: the wheat of Morocco, the salt air of the Mediterranean, the lavender of Provence. The pea-sized lungs and heart, saturated with Armagnac from its drowning, are said to burst in a liqueur-scented flower on the diner's tongue. Enjoy with a good Bordeaux.
What could be more delicious? Nothing, according to initiates, who compare the banning of the ortolan to the death of French culture and continue to eat them at the risk of being fined thousands of pounds.
'It is a most incredible thing -- delicious,' says Jean-Louis Palladin, a French chef who once smuggled 400 ortolans into the United States for a dinner at his restaurant in Washington's Watergate Hotel (he hid them from customs in a box of nappies). Palladin sneers at the idea that the covering of the diner's head is to hide their shame from God.
'Shame? Mais non! It is for concentrating on the fat going down the throat. It is really like you are praying, see? Like when you take the Mass into your mouth from the priest's hand in church and you think about God. Now that is what eating l'ortolan is really most like.'"
I rest my case.
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snowdog
2/06/2003
15:12:21
[ report this post ] | If this is enough
Message:
to make a nation disgusting, how would you call nations where death penalty is contemplated by law?
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philaretus
2/06/2003
15:49:57
[ report this post ] | snowdog
Message:
I would call it a nation where the victim is placed ahead of the criminal, and sentimentality about the criminal. How terrible to be put to death (liberals say) --- except, of course, when it's a murderer who is putting people to death.
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snowdog
2/06/2003
15:59:06
[ report this post ] | If this is enough
Message:
to make a nation disgusting, how would you call nations where bulls are tortured and killed?
P.S.: I changed example because I don't want to start a discussion on death penalty here.
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philaretus
2/06/2003
16:14:19
[ report this post ] | snowdog
Message:
Why not just nominate SPAIN, and post your evidence, as I did?
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hennybogan1953
2/06/2003
17:59:29
[ report this post ] | I NOMINATE
Message:
CANADA, why:
because Curling is so stupid, I can't believe they consider it a sport.
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drcorbett
2/06/2003
18:19:44
[ report this post ] | :-|
Message:
Well. How about you put your head on the button and see how many "stupid sportsman" hit it?
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komei
2/06/2003
19:02:08
[ report this post ] | USA, closely followed by france...
Message:
...nuff said
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joda
2/06/2003
19:59:23
[ report this post ] | Italy
Message:
Italy is either the worst or the best I cannot decide.
I ask myself...how can a country have both the milanesi and the calabresi and still have any self respect?
If this is not enough, they allow two other states to exist within their borders...one of these countries has a Pole as president (or whatever he is called) this guy then tries to tell the Italians how to live..and not just the Italians...everybody...but these Italians..they laugh, they joke, they love it... is this sanity??? These people are crazy!!!
What about the genovese??? does anyone remember Cristofero Colombo? I can tell you we would not be discussing Iraq and george Bush if it had not been for this insane man!!!
Unfortunatly now I have to mention Sicily and Naples. They invented politics and crime as we know it...not only that... they married them together and had many children.....When Nixon said "I am not a crook" all Italy laughed....In Italy a polititian is a crook and any respectable crook is a polititian.
Look at Venice..Venezia... what can be said?... it is the most beautiful creation know to humanity...it is like a dream an incantation, a palce of dreams....but guess what...it is built on a cesspool, if you lived there in former days you died of the plague, malaria, croup, or a hundred other maladies...and today.. it is swamped by excrement and overrun by tourists. It is falling into the sea, from whence iit sprung as a dream of the gods. Now the gods are dead and venezia is an incubus.
Rome!
More has been written about Roma than any other city on the planet...there will always be a Rome. We will all perish, but Rome will prevail until the very end...and even then there will be w****s and cats in the streets.
Rome is the beginning and Rome is the end...No one controls Rome, no one can change Rome...Rome lives more than I live or you live..Rome is the best and the worst of civilization. If you are a saint Rome laughs at you..if you are a tyrant, Rome laughs at you. Come Ceaser, come gods...Rome will swallow you alive...and you will be grateful, for in death you will find the meaning of life that Rome has given you. Think of the footsteps that still walk the streets of Rome. The great philosophers, conquerors, saints, popes, artist, scientists...are they now the w****s and cats that wander the streets without sleep. If so they are glad, for once again they can smell the rancid air of centuries of human life and joy and pain that eternally hangs over the eternal city.
Italy is the worst...for lookat what Florence has become...is it a disney world, is it an american sitcom set? Are Giotto, Michelangelo, Bruneleschi now just there to amuse the masses of middle class boors who have never seen testacles presented with pride in the town square!!! Testacles? Yes Florence is the city of testacles, and all the beauty that goes with the nude male...if John Ashcroft ever goes there Iraq will be safe from attack until the US clenses the world from the evil and sinful ways of florence.
Yes it is the place of sin...it is also the place that invented fundamenatlist teaching...at least perfected it..Savanorola!! Jerry Falwell is an amature compared to him...so I guess Jerry will not meet the same end...too bad!!!
Dante created the perfecy image of where sinners go...only a fiorentino could know so much about it.
Michelangelo created the image of the damned and the saved that many still today find a convincing scene. He also looked into the depths of the heart of our souls...and we are not yet...still after so many centuries ready to look ther with him...
Enough....Italy I curse you and I love you. You give us the best and you wrap it in excrement...you show us beauty in death and death in beauty...you have no mercy.. you give us the sublime to drive us mad with extacy and the worst horrors to drive us mad with fear.
You are hevean and you are hell. No...you are us.
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astinkyfart
2/06/2003
22:09:52
[ report this post ] | i nominate
Message:
anartica.. to date they have done nothing worth while to contribute to the betterment of mankind.
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komei
2/06/2003
22:15:43
[ report this post ] | I assume you mean antarctica...
Message:
...well your right - its just a bunch of Americans sittin round doin nuttin in a building on the south pole.
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astinkyfart
2/06/2003
22:50:49
[ report this post ] | yea thats it
Message:
my spelling is bad i went to american school
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legion
2/06/2003
23:28:11
[ report this post ] | Phil
Message:
I wonder who penned the piece on the eating - and the sensations thereof - of l'ortolan
We Londoners could do with him "talking up" the delights of jellied eels. ;-)
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snowdog
2/07/2003
01:42:13
[ report this post ] | philaretus
Message:
I didn't nominate Spain just because is not only Spain.
So Spain, Portugal, France (not sure of this), and many Central and South American countries have corridas.
Stinky, Antarctica is not a nation.
Joda (big applause)
"Italy is either the worst or the best I cannot decide."
Neither can we, so let's say that Italy is both the worst and the best.
Clearly, you have spent too much time in Italy, and now Italy as taken your soul ....... FOREVER!!!
P.S.: I really enjoyed your post
P.P.S.: Really it was great
P.P.P.S.: wow!
P.P.P.P.S.: I can't stop laughing
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snowdog
2/07/2003
01:51:22
[ report this post ] | Joda
Message:
Another thing
When Nixon said "I am not a crook" all Italy laughed....In Italy a polititian is a crook and any respectable crook is a polititian
Well, when the Clinton/Lewinski scandal came out all Italy thought "Hey, he is the president of the USA. Can't he find anyone better?"
We like JFK he had an affair with Marylin Monroe!!!
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joda
2/07/2003
05:12:56
[ report this post ] | snowdog
Message:
Have you noticed how much Monica looked like Bill's mother....???? This explains a lot.
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a_professional_idiot
2/07/2003
16:15:59
[ report this post ] | Canada must be the most disgusting
Message:
For several reasons:
1) It is the only country in the world in which an official language is illegal
2) When early settlers wanted to play hockey and had no rubber they turned to the cow
3) Like Bill Clinton the mayor of Toronto had an affair. Unlike Bill Clinton he didn't wear a condom
4) BC: Picking quality premiers
5) Toronto, where the air is green and the snow is grey
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drcorbett
2/07/2003
16:22:40
[ report this post ] | :-|
Message:
Well. You're probably right.
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