THE ZEN OF COOKING

 

Most Buddhists are vegetarian.
The Buddha was an atheist and definitely did not believe in
religion, idol-veneration or reincarnation.
But he did not think we should eat sentient beings.

Now we know how right he was - for the hideous agribusiness
of providing meat for psychopathic carnivores
produces a large percentage of the Greenhouse Gases
which will cause the 'Sixth Extinction of life on this planet
and render most of the earth uninhabitable to us
before the year 2100.

So why are well-informed people still breeding ?
I had a vasectomy as soon as I became aware of human overpopulation
and its effects thirty years ago.

It is already too late to rectify the situation,
but vegetarian cookery is much more interesting, stimulating
and creative than cooking with meat, fish or shellfish.
So I am a vegetarian.

Dogs, too, can be vegetarian - but uncommittedly so.
Most people (especially men) have problems about Strange Food.
But what you eat is the most basic art form
and one of the surest definitions of your personality.

What is so unforgivable about meat-eaters in the consumer society
which has probably only 100 years or less to go before global melt-down
is the sheer quantity of meat that they eat (especially in carnivorously-fundamentalist countries
like France, whose cuisine is mostly disgusting).

If animals and their meat were regarded with respect, they (and it) would be eaten
perhaps just once a fortnight, or once a month. Then we would not live, as I do,
in countries speckled with the pox of hidden death-camps for beautiful
and sensitive animals (such as pigs) - hog-farms of thousands upon thousands of beautiful beasts
who never see light (let alone earth),
and almost-secret abattoirs of undustrialised death-production, where,
as in the British and French and German concentration camps,
photography is forbidden.

I avoid meat-eaters.
Thus I have been unemployed most of my life,
and have few 'friends'.
My best friend, my Teacher,
was (ironically) a dog to whom butchers gave free bones,
who was largely vegetarian by my choice (not his)
and loved avocados, squash-skins, custard-apples, pear-skins, blackberries,
'Chilean Guavas' (Ugni molinæ), potatoes, porridge - and even lettuce.

If I were (as in a dream) invited to a banquet where I absolutely had to eat meat
(on pain of Everlasting Torture - for I have a low Pain Threshold),
but could choose any meat at all,
I would ask for Roasted Human Baby, stuffed with wild apricots and pistachios,
and served on a bed of watercress or rocket or chervil or, most delectably, with

Karela

( Momordica charantia or 'Bitter Gourd') pictured above ,
for which I give the recipe below.

There is more poetry in a dog-turd than in most of us.

Karela is a very bitter vegetable
and looks like a thin, spiny courgette or cucumber
or a green dildo for the desperate.

Needless to say, it cleanses the gut and the liver (as do most bitter
herbs and vegetables) - notably Artemisia absinthum (Wormwood)
which should be eaten straight off the bush - but just one leaf!

Most Western Europeans and people from the Anglosphere
would find it uneatable.

But here is a delicious recipe:

Cut the Karela as you would courgettes (zucchini)
either longitudinally or transversely.
There is no need to remove the seeds.

Sauté them in butter (as you would courgettes/zucchini) with garlic
and, when it they are cooked, pour in cream and a little port or sweet sherry
or other sweet wine.
Allow them to simmer briefly.

Add to leeks similarly sautéed to which cardamom seeds and a crumbly
cheese are added when cooked.

Serve with a salad of rocket or anything green and tasty
tossed in good olive oil with Szechuan pepper and toasted sunflower seeds.

Figs or apricots go well with this dish.

To drink: a nice rich white Burgundy, or a smoky, armpitty Chilean Malbec
(or old Spanish Garnacha) - even a Monbazillac or a Gewürtztraminer...

Vary according to taste and inclination.
Or just have a boiled egg with a glass of Gaillac Perlé !