g.johnson

This is explained by the range of climate and consequent diveristy of agricultural practices within France itself.

He also said that 'P' had an 83" waist which seems to narrow it down a bit.

Fanny and Johnny Craddock. And yes, that is what they wore to cook.

I have used the stuff but in it's concentrated state it's too reminiscent of Bovril for me to be entirely comfortable with it.

Is this not aioli?

That does not mean that their final conclusions are influenced by politics. Personal taste (including political taste) will partially determine an individual scientist’s beliefs only when the evidence is ambiguous. With enough data, however, an apolitical consensus is reached.

This might be true in the humanities. It is not true in the sciences.

Does anyone have any real evidence that the liver is any more toxic than other meat? It sounds to me, if you’ll forgive the technical jargon, like a load of bollocks. It’s true that one of the functions of the liver is to filter toxins out of the blood. But these toxins are then degraded and excreted as bile. It sounds unlikely that there would be significant accumulation of undegraded toxins since they would, presumably, destroy the liver.

Etymology: Middle English, from of (off) + fall, i.e., detritus or waste product.

Auto-trepanning.

Half a duck per person. The legs as a confit, the breast seared and still pink in the center (natch). With a duck stock, red wine and green peppercorn reduction. Served with mashed potatoes with a ton of cream to finish off any arteries that are still open.

In translation? Lightweight.

Extracting spoonfuls of brain from a living monkey should not cause pain since there are no appropriate nerve endings within the brain. (Neurosurgery is often performed on patients who are awake since it is desirable to receive feedback when cutting into areas that might affect speech, movement, etc.) Removing the scalp and cranial cap, on the other hand…

It’s not exactly midtown, but there’s a bar on the roof of the Met with superb views.

Yes. Since all perceptions correspond to a physiological state (pace Descartes), a change in perception must cause a change in that state. For example, different areas of the brain are active when a particular shape in a picture is perceived as figure or ground (See a recent editorial by a sometime collaborator of mine -- Rubin, N. Figure and ground in the brain. Nature Neuroscience 4, 857-858; 2001).

I'm probably missing something here, but a couple of comments. Though the physiological response at the input end (the retina, the primary visual cortex (PVC)) will be the same to duck or rabbit, the response in the higher processing regions will be different. There are indeed 'mental images' that correspond (at the retina and PVC) to the physical images in a one to one fashion. At a higher level, the retinal image is broken apart for processing in different regions that detect, edges, color, movement, etc. By some mysterious synthesis the right combination of color, edges, etc. is recognized as a rabbit or a duck. That recognition too is a physiological response (except to an unreconstructed Cartesian dualist). This is, in a way, an act of imagination, but there is no other way of imposing meaning on what we see.

That's worse. A sin against snobbery and socialism.

Two more food-related words with which the grammar school educated have difficulties: Serviette is pronounced napkin. Dessert is pronounced pudding.

You're clearly both oiks.

Like you're throwing up.

Macrosan: I quote the American Heritage Book of English Usage This French loan word, which has been recorded in English since the 16th century, is traditionally pronounced (vallet), although the pseudo-French pronunciation (valay) are also common, especially in American English, as in the compound valet parking. (You might be right about filet, though.)

Americans are arriviste by definition.

The two American pronunciations that annoy me are coupé pronounced as if you keep chickens in it and 'bleu' pronounced 'blue'. Two deliberate English mispronunciations of French words are 'filet' and 'valet' where the t is sounded. However, anyone who says 'valay' is clearly an arriviste.

I fear that the Finns and Russians have us beaten at drinking. Football hooliganism, on the other hand...

Absolutely. I've started drinking already. And I will spend this evening priming the hip flasks to avoid those tedious gaps in alcohol consumption that occur between bars.