Kikujiro

Jin, thank you, as ever. With your nasu dengaku, just to be clear, is the method and timing you're describing what you'd do for the tiny Japanese aubs?

An evening of random experimenta, to which, luckily, I subjected only myself. Not hugely successful, but you live and learn. Several (clearly not all) of the below were attempts to mimic stuff Jinmyo has posted on at various points: 1. Frozen potstickers from Chinatown. Scrumptious. Came in a huge bag so now I can have junk food at home any time I want. 2. Shiitake mushrooms, reconstituted from dried, brushed with chiu chow chilli oil and grilled. (I didn't have the hua gu that Jin referenced so I kept them whole.) Seemed to go from chewy (despite long period of reconstitution) to dried out without a sweet point in between. Damn. 3. Sort of attempted baby nasu dengaku. Some of those tiny Asian eggplant, sliced in half, brushed with sesame oil and grilled; then the cut half spread with a paste of miso, sake and sugar and grilled again. Not a complete failure but the little bastards shrivelled up somewhat by the time they were soft, and ended up rather dry. Maybe need to precook? Or give up even trying to do with baby aubergines? I liked the idea of working this into a kind of finger food. 4. Grilled polenta with parma ham and new season evoo. And a couple of glasses of red wine. I managed not to screw this one up. Inspired by prosciutto thread. 5. Dashi games, one. Soup made with soaking liquor from shiitakes, dashi, sake, soy sauce, salt, white pepper, reduced with a couple of thinkly sliced mushrooms in. And a last-minute kick of Marie Sharp's chilli sauce. Not bad, presumably with better mushrooms and longer soaking would have worked better. 6. Dashi games, two. Chawanmushi. Problem: despite several opportunties, forgot to buy crab meat I had intended to incorporate in this. In last-ditch bid, tried to persuade the Yo! Sushi round the corner to sell me a small quanity, but they refused. Ah, they suck anyway. Had plain with a little soy and scallion. Not bad, but I think I might have preferred a poached egg. Looked extremely pretty. That'll do for tonight. I note, incidentally, very mild incidence of CSR symptoms, but these could be psychosomatic.

Ed, ah. Thanks for the detailed explanation. There are various packs of dried shiitake (with no helpful labels) in Chinatown, as well as some fresh. The dried ones I have are certainly crinkly around the top, but I don't know if that's what you mean. How big in diameter are we talking about for dried hua gu? Edit: ah, sorry, I think I found a picture of what you're talking about. Not what I have, but will know what to look for next time.

Well, I got a brand called Hime, allegedly produced in Japan, at the Japanese store in Soho. £3.70 for 85g. Ten minutes later I saw the exact same product in Chinatown for £1.59. This annoyed me.

Thanks. I don't know what brands there are here either but will report back. Tangentially, I've noticed that the organic supermarkets over here (a growing sector) carry a disproportionate number of Japanese ingredients. I don't know if this is a reaction to the fact that a lot of Japanese stuff available otherwise is GM, which is a big no-no for many people here.

Jin, Am off shopping soon. Any tips on buying konbu? Is some better than others?

Bumped 'cos I still want to know the answer ...

Yah, that freaked me out the first time.

Thanks. Any simple uses?

How do you make it? What simple things can you do with it? (Obviously this question is directly partly at Jinmyo, who mentions it often, but y'all should feel free to pitch in ...)

A nice box of chocolates is a much more affordable indulgence than a three star tasting menu. (I'm not saying better 'value'.)

Kiku can't remember his argument and can't check it without crossing London, so don't worry about me.

Think you could make a case for that, yeah.

g., it was an aside that I'm beginning to regret having made I can't remember the details of the argument any more (it's been a long time since I attempted it) but I think it had partly to do with systems of looking. It's not a morphing of one to the other, it's an appropiation of some of the discourse around sacrifice to turn martyrdom from a dismissal of Christianity into an affirmation. It was also to do with accounts of early Christianity that suggested an absolute bullheadedness around any compromise with pagan ritual and an apparently fervent desire to be martryed that suggested it was a useful transformational phase. But you got me on what the actual arguments were. edit for illiteracy; am losing it

Well, I'd prefer you to argue that that's their effect as opposed to their intention (whose intention would that be?), but we're getting there

Steve, while I think you have a point about the effect of the separationist elements in the laws, I don't think the problem is that they are 'not rooted in mainsteam logic'. The issue is effect, not cause. Compare behaviour based on religious faith to behaviour rooted in infancy. If because of someone's childhood they want to get spanked by their partner, that's between them and their partner. If because of their childhood they want to kill people, it's a problem.

Wilfrid is down with it.

Who said anything about human?

Schematic version of my point: paganism in the ancient world was not to do with 'belief' but about public ritual. Christianity comes along and is apparently very little to do with ritual and all about internal belief. Martyrdom is a physical manifestation of this funny concept in terms comprehensible from a pagan mindset. Now, can we get back to the Aghoris?

Of course, of course. I think one of the more interesting elements of religion is where it tries to manifest belief somehow in the physical world: from self-castration and martyrdom through not cutting your hair or eating beef or whatever. In that the question of how these relate back to the main elements of the belief system (where these exist) can be fun to pursue. Example: I think matryrdom in early Christianity was among other things a reimagining of pagan sacrifice in the context of the Christian belief system.

Macro, I think I could differentiate between Leonidas and the class of chocolate made by, say, Maison or Artisan. I'm not, like you, a huge fan of Belgian chocs anyway but I confess I haven't tried the really recherche ones. Does anyone know what Artisan say about their sourcing, given Marcolini's claims? What is Artisan's price per kg? I've certainly bought Maison (and other French) and Artisan (and, years ago, Gerard Ronay, much missed) chocs on several occasions, and feel I'm getting what I pay for.

Alright, here's a couple of bones for contention. 1. The discussion seems to me to be substantially preoccupied with dead-end questions, such as how dietary laws came into existence. This smacks of authorial intention. The various causal explanations being advanced (divine intervention, Darwinian evolution of public health policy) are all well and good but they're not going anywhere. 2. On the other hand, not enough attention is being paid to the more productive investigation of how dietary laws function in terms of the ongoing construction of religions and religious identity. 3. In this respect, no little credit is due to SteveP, because his harping on segregation as an effect of laws is at least connected to the above. 4. In fact, it seems to me that segregation has to be part of the answer, even if the word choice is a bit emotive. Or at least: dietary law is an important part of constructing a religious identity in opposition to the other. To make any sense, it has to assume a context in which it's possible to eat without reference to itself. 5. Dietary law functions to individual members of a religion as one of a number of ways of constantly renegotiating their own place vis-a-viz that religion (viz. the endless variations of positions on kashrut expressed by individuals above). That is, the working through of an individual's relationship to dietary law is every bit as much a part of the experiencing of that religion as the actual (perhaps optional) following thereof. 6. Thus dietary law helps you negotiate your position vis-a-viz not only members of other religions (and people without religion), but also members of your own. 7. In kashrut, for example, the explicit invocation of the Other (e.g. in laws concerning the keeping separate of utensils that have been used with non-kosher food) makes this fairly clear. 8. I'm curious to know whether there's any sense in suggesting a link between the relative complexity of kashrut and Judaism's self-construction around a people in exile, that is, of introspection and generational continuity under external threat rather than, the more expansionist and proselytizing history of Christianity and Islam. In this context I don't know what to make of the apparent complexity, per VivreManger, of Hindu dietary law. 9. And what do we make of the dietary practice of the Aghoris?

Yes, I've seen someone very alarmed by the discovery they've been served pork in Goa.

Sorry for facetious previous post. I'm nearly done catching up with this thread and agree with others it's very interesting. Before wading in, however, I have a question: do people generally agree that Jewish dietary laws are substantively more complex/elaborate than those of the other major religions?

Hm, must get me some o' that purifi action.