Pan

Works by some of the Muslims and Jews active during the age of the Arab Caliphates are translated into English, but whether the medical writings of Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonedes) or Ibn Sina (Avicenna) are on the Internet in English, I wouldn't know. I found this website on Ibn Sina pretty readily, though. Very impressive man! Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (Avicenna) Here are some biographies of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon: The Ramba'm – Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides) This one is more complicated and contains some obvious spelling errors, but talks more about his work as a doctor and writer of medical treatises. One can find many other articles, but what Maimonedes is now most famous for was his Torah commentary and philosophical writing, so that's what's most covered on most of the sites. However, he was considered a major medical authority in the Arab world.

I did, fifi, as indeed I usually do every day, but she's too busy to get into this kind of stuff over the phone. Besides, though my mother knows about all humoral systems, her real expertise is in the Malay humoral system. And anyway, there's no reason for me to monopolize this thread. I started it, but I hope to read contributions from other eGulleteers who know about the Indian, Chinese, Latin American, and Arab versions of this system.

My mother is the expert in the family, but I was with her as a 5th- and 6th-grader, so I did experience some of it and understand many things about the rural Malay culture I was a part of for that period of time. The remarks I wrote to start this thread weren't based on any particular article, except for the quote, but come from knowledge that I obtained over 26 years ago and have retained. The thing is, too, that the website I referenced has just an abstract from one article, and my mother has written much more than that. If you have a question, shoot, and I'll try to answer it. Perhaps later at night New York time, some Malaysians may chime in.

Indeed. And it dates to times B.C. in ancient Greece. "Wet" and "dry" eventually mostly disappeared from the system, however.

There are foods that are more or less hot or cold. The Chinese do traditionally have a humoral system, one which developed independently from the ancient Greek system, to my knowledge. Whether or how hot and cold may be related to yin and yang, I simply don't know. My anthropologist mother probably would, but she isn't an eGulleteer. However, I'm sure someone who knows will pipe up before too long.

fifi, I can't see how chilis would be anything but hot. I'm not sure about tomatoes or mint. Squashes are generally cold. I've never seen an avocado in Malaysia, but I think it might be hot, on the basis that it's rich in fat as is durian (I can't remember, however, how they categorize the ubiquitous coconut - coconut milk, coconut water, etc.). Come to think of it, I saw avocados for sale in Sumatra and had a wonderful chocolate/avocado ice juice in Berastagi, in the Karo Batak country, but I have no idea how they categorized them humorally. Nick, I'm not very knowledgeable about the Chinese humoral system, but I hope some more knowledgeable people post a reply to your question.

In the Digestion is Divine thread, the topic of the Humoral System came up (actually, I mentioned it first). Until the late 19th or early 20th century, belief of one kind or another in a Humoral System was held by a very large majority of human beings, including in the United States and Europe. In the West nowadays, belief in the biomedical system has supplanted belief in the Humoral System based on the Four Elements of the Ancient Greeks (or in China, Five Elements), as expounded in print by Galen and his followers in the Arab world, Indian Ayurvedists, etc. In that other thread, Nick said he would like to know more about the Humoral system. So I'm starting this thread in order to solicit comment about its relevance to food, digestion, digestive health generally, and food interactions with medicines and edible herbs. To get this thread started, I'll say some things I know about the humoral system as practiced in rural Terengganu, Malaysia, c. 1975: They had three primary humoral categories of food: Panas (hot or "heaty"), sederhana (medium), and sejuk (cold or "cooling"). These categories referred not in any instance to temperature - which, to make things more confusing, can also be described as "panas" or "sejuk" - but described what were held to be intrinsic qualities of a foodstuff or medicine. My mother's studies (you can see one abstract under the name of "Laderman C." here [scroll down or do an Edit-Find as appropriate]) demonstrated that these categories were to a large extent based on empirical experiences by individuals, but that there were certain foodstuffs and medicines that were more or less invariably considered hot or cold. For example, alcohol, because it makes the throat feel hot, is naturally considered hot, even if chilled with ice. On the other hand, anything that brings up phlegm or is itself phlegmy(considered by the ancient Greeks and other humoralists to be the "cold humor") is considered cold (yes, that includes okra, of course, which was called "phlegmy bean" [kacang berlendir] in the local dialect ). This only scratches the surface, but the fact is that, on the margins, there was a lot of variation among different people in terms of what category they put foodstuffs into. The traditional Malay belief is that hot and cold should be in balance, but somewhat to the cold side. If a Malay says that a Sultan's reign was "sejuk" ("cold"), that means there were no "heaty" things like war, famine, or other natural or man-made disasters. If his reign is "panas" ("hot"), you can be sure that all Hell broke loose. And "hati panas" ("hot liver," with liver analogous to "heart" as the seat of emotions for Malays) means bad-tempered while "hati sejuk" ("cold liver" - clearly not analogous to English "coldhearted"!) means contented. People warned us not to eat too much durian during durian season because they consider it a hot food, and I think the reason for that designation, at least in part, is that it's so rich and can upset the stomach (the bile is the "hot humor" in ancient Greek cosmology). Meats were considered hot but many vegetables were cold or medium. I hope to hear from many of you. There are well-established humoral systems in China, India, and Latin America, among other places. To my knowledge, Malaysia and Indonesia are the only places to have a "medium" designation in between "hot" and "cold" for foods, and, as my mother explains in the above-referenced article: (A woman giving birth should be humorally cold to help ensure a good birth, just like we would hope for a Sultan's reign to be cold to help guard against disaster.) Finally, I would hope that we can have an interesting and informative thread without debating the legitimacy of these beliefs or their superiority or inferiority to modern scientific explanations - not because I think it's illegitimate to make such arguments, but because I don't think it would be interesting, and do think it would sidetrack this thread. The Humoral System is of great historical importance and of great cultural significance to, I daresay, a majority of the world's people today. So let's discuss its relevance to the lives of those eGulleteers who practice or have come into contact with beliefs about "hot" and "cold" foods and medicine and its relevance to food history. I'd love to hear from any of you who think of some foods as "hot" and others as "cold," or whose parents or grandparents did. Please tell your stories here.

Pan - If you got into that while you were in Malaysia, and learned something, maybe you could write some more about it. I have a very small understanding and am always interested in learning more. Since this topic deals with digestion but goes beyond it to help people determine what to eat with what, what is dangerous to eat too much of, and how medicines are perceived to react to one another and to foods, among many other things, I've started a new topic here: Food and the Humoral System

And may your establishment still be around and flourishing when that comes about!

Let's not think about that now, but believe me, if they have the flu, you don't want to be around them. This flu almost hospitalized me.

I recall Italians talking a good deal about digestion and not overtaxing the liver as relevant to eating and drinking. My experience in Malaysia in the 70s was that they talked about humor (the intrinsically hot/medium/cold quality of something, regardless of temperature) more than digestion as such. Humor does encompass the health or sickness of the digestive system, but only as part of a wholistic concept of bodily and spiritual health.

Sam and Rachel, I can really empathize with you. Rest a lot and don't overexert yourselves, and keep track of your temperatures, because you might run a high fever, God forbid, without realizing it. I hope both of you get well quickly, but don't rush it.

For one thing, most water was dangerous, and people regularly got cholera and all manner of other noxious and commonly fatal diseases from their wells.

nessa, do you think they changed the name for PC reasons (puttanesca = in the style of the whore, so-called because it can be prepared quickly, for those times when you just have to get back to your clients )

I'm going to bring up something that has yet to be discussed in this thread: I've drunk pomegranate juice on and off for years. I forget the brand name, but there's an organic pomegranate juice that's available in various health food stores in New York. Is POM Wonderful superior to organic pomegranate juices that have been sold for many years, and if so, how?

Love those pictures, Sun-Ki! They make me want to go to Hawaii even more than the frigid temperatures here in New York.

DRC?

Not too many checker cabs in New York anymore...

If he did, do you suppose he'd learn some things about you he doesn't know?

I happen to like much of the music he plays and if he drones on, he does so gently and doesn't bother me the way many other announcers do. I'm not a devoted fan, but if I happen to tune him in, I may listen for a few minutes at a time. I prefer the Blanco & Blanco show on WNYE-FM, however. They play jazz and popular music from the teens through the 50s or so, but mostly from the 20s and 30s. Such sweet, beautiful music: Click here and do an "Edit/Find" for "blanco" to find their listing. And now, I'd better stop talking about music, I suppose.

Whoever that is. I guess it's time for another Google search.

You can read about Joe Franklin here.

Thanks for the report, Sheri. Is there any other Mexican place in New York that you'd compare this place to?

Funny stuff about grinding horseradish, Irwin. These were my favorite lines:

I appreciate that you used a word I didn't know, because now I know it.