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I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

theguardian.com

541–550 of 780 posts

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#541
post #470
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's fine, however, to eat nothing but meat and many societies did this for hundreds of thousands of years. Other than those who live in the arctic, which societies did this? You have sources? Thanks!

I think it's false. Hunter gatherer communities (no societies back there) lived by what they could find - either hunt animals or look for fruits, plants and mushrooms. Then there was a shift towards agricultural societies, where people relied on their plantations and domesticated cattle. I don't think the cattle meat would be enough for most of their meals, probably the most of them would be bread and soup. This is j…

Even ancient hunter gatherers probably ate a diet of more (wild) plant than meat. Catching animals is hard work, with the technology of the time.

But in general, I think we know a lot less about the lives of people so long ago than many people (including academics) like to think. Research methods are often based on either assuming modern people's lifestyles are "just like" ancient people, or big leaps from extremely limited archeological evidence.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#542
It seems a lot of this comes down to personality differences, particularly with regard to novelty or sensation seeking. There's no right or wrong, but it's interesting that both groups don't really understand the other.

For me personally, I have a very high inclination for novelty, even if that novelty comes with the risk of a bad experience. I just can't imagine doing, seeing, eating, working on, or talking about the same things my whole life. Heck, I work in tech but keep floating the idea of opening a restaurant to my wife (which promptly gets shot down).

For other people in my family, they know what they like, and that's that. Why fix what's not broken? I can't relate to that viewpoint one bit, but I can respect it.

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it some more, my desire for novelty might depend on the topic. I rotate between about three colors of T-shirts and wear the same brand of jeans every day and have no desire to branch out beyond this. Maybe openness is not a personality trait that applies universally to everything.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#543
post #366

Happiness - he's found it. Sure, he's an extreme and very few want to emulate it because there's a mild element of delusion. But, he's found the thing so many of us work our entire lives for only to never find. Part of life is letting happiness find you, part of life is finding happiness, and part of life is pushing away things to find happiness in what you have. I say, well done.

I feel like us (hyper connected city dwellers, constantly chasing personal growth or success or novelty) are the deluded ones. Why do you say he seems deluded to you?

The farmer has a lot of ideas about what it would have been like to leave or do something different and why there was no point in doing so. Having never left, these ideas are not based in experience, and there is likely an element of self-justification. It is very very common for people to come up with reasons to justify their choices. To the extent that these reasons are unexamined and not evidence-based, they are deluded. That doesn’t make them bad or even ineffective, just not fully based in reality.

It’s likely mild, and he’s likely genuinely happy with his life despite.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#544
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your body was probably carving some nutrient not found in your dish

Yes, I agree, but I'd like to know what it was. Best guess so far is fat.

Easy enough to add a little fat into that meal with a bit of full-fat yogurt! Although there's already some fat from the chicken, no?

I admit, that sounds like a great meal to me!

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#545
post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you just keep it on the refrigerator for the whole week or do you freeze it ?

Why freeze it if you keep it in the fridge for just one week? Depending on what it is, but generally most things last just fine for a week or more in the fridge.

They're probably asking because it depends on the quantity they're making.

I had a friend who asked me if he could freeze the soup recipe I sent him and while confused I told him it shouldn't be an issue.

Later on I'm visiting and he tells me he's making that soup. I walk into the kitchen to see a 40qt/37L pot being cooked. No wonder why he was asking if he could freeze it because the poor fella would have needed to eat 3L of soup a day to finish before it went bad if he didn't freeze it.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#546
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 onion 2-3 carrots 2 potatoes 2-3 celery sticks 1 fennel heart 1 red pepper 1-2 tomatoes (optional) Canillini beans 2 bayleaves salt and pepper suit to taste. 2qt water cook/simmer for 1-2hr I muck around with it sometimes... thrown siracha, hot peppers, sausage in it to varying degrees of tastiness. I generally sauté the onions, celery and fennel together then add the rest. It can all be done in one pot for conveni…

You could easily tweak this to be similar to something I grew up with, from Slovenia: https://www.tasteatlas.com/manestra Maybe cook longer and blend some of it to thicken it up. Ours typically had pork and Polish sausage added, plus this type of pasta: https://www.google.com/search?q=Ditalini&safe=off&source=lnm... It's similar to what Italians would know of as Pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) but obviously varies…

I'm italian and thank you for reminding me that we have that deliciousness. I don't know why I don't make it more often.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen what China did to all their farmers in the last few decades?

I’m not too lazy to search but is there something specific?

I am alluding to the forced migration to city life (including malls to spend money at). This was simultaneously done while razing the villages and all of their history, interestingly, China as we know it, with all of their history erasing going on, is only about 70 years old.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#548
post #399

Ah, the simple life... My grandfather would take me along and we'd go to the neighbour to fetch eggs. He had a plastic bucket that he put them in with some old newspapers scraps in the bottom. I heard that before the war they didn't even need money. He'd simply bring a bucket of milk, and he'd get a bucket of eggs in return. But it was of course a lot simpler to bring money. It was far cheaper than in the store too.…

I grew up rural. I buy into a lot of the “bird” wisdom. Science is discovering dogs can smell disease. Our modern world isn’t more complex, just more distracting with asinine theory chasing. It’s always been ridiculously complex in ways we can’t imagine, we’ve just started realizing it in detail. Turns out animals with their “lesser” cognitive powers are tuned into the hidden complexity in ways we barely understand.…

That's trial and error knowledge gathered through billions of years and quintillions of individuals from multitude species. Hard to compete with that.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#549
post #529

"This valley is cut in the shape of my heart". I've known farmers like him, bachelors who are mild mannered and love their lives and the extended family that comes with living an entire life in one valley. He maybe goes to Sunday service for socialization and the local pub to watch the game, and as long as his sheep are healthy and the sky does what it promises (because he knows the day before always if it will rain)…

Ah, legacy. It always makes me happy to listen to Carl Sagan's words on his text "The Pale Blue Dot": From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregat…

Thank you for your comment and the video link. I really enjoyed it.

The delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#550
post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the romance, but those of us who have children leave behind much more than stone walls we built in our 20s. He’s a 72 year old Batchelor who’s once stepped foot outside a Welsh valley. If happiness is a lobotomy then credit to us who don’t choose it.

Children are not the penultimate achievement of humanity. In fact, they're one of the core things that take zero learned skill and can be created and raised entirely via instinctual means. I would argue that those who leave the most behind are those who are kind and thoughtful to those in their lives. They leave behind one of the most important and precious things that anyone ever could - pleasant memories in the min…

Penultimate means “second to last”. But what is your message, that children are the most precious heritage or not?
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