Pasta and Cheese ft Mayonaisse
India has a peculiar way of making pasta as compared to the rest of the world, where the pasta is suffocated in a marshland of sauce. There is more sauce than pasta, and knowing this drove my Italian friends mad. I nevertheless enjoy the curry invasion on funny looking wheat shapes.
Our way of distinguishing pasta is also novel. Bechemal? No white sauce pasta sir. Tomato? Red sauce. Pesto? You mean green sauce?
I love white sauce pasta. Because it has cheese in it. And for my money, anything cheese touches with its holy hands becomes much better. Some time ago I ordered one, and ravenously devoured the first bite I get.
I tasted the blasphemy called mayonnaise.
Mayonnaise belongs to haute Indian cuisine as much as golf belongs to any set of exciting sports. Unfortunately in the past few years, it has become sort of a parasite, invading sandwiches, burgers and pizza with its greasy oily hands all over India. And it makes me mad since it is replacing the heavenly glory that is cheese.
God is no longer in heaven. Nothing is right in this world.
It is superfluous to say that what we use for consumption (food, entertainment etc) has been substituted in 'inferior' ways. Chicory over coffee. Palm Oil instead of cocoa butter. Kindles over books. Scrap off the last one, I actually enjoy using a Kindle since it allows me to read while the lights are off.
I remember this dodgy little quote from a show I watched ages back. It said that "“The fake is of far greater value. In its deliberate attempt to be real, it's more real than the real thing.” (no I won't tell you that it is from an anime).
But there is no deliberate attempt to be real with most products. That is why food and entertainment substitutes don't hit the right spots. Any recipes can easily be improved upon by experimentation. However, cheap substitution are a no-no for me.
There can be few, very few exceptions. Sometimes, a thing can be so artificial that it becomes religiously transcendent. To quote a twitter user,
Human irrationality- Changing faces.
I move from food substitutes to discuss about the substitution of our irrationality in human nature. The general consensus is that we have become more rational in our approach. However, I read about an argument that we have not become rational, but it is only our form of irrationality that has taken other shapes. Constant social media connection has left us vulnerable to emotional turbulence. Lack of proper communication has led to frustration dwelling from the core of being. Uncertainty brews anxiety everyday.
I would disagree with the thesis statement here, but feel to disagree with my disagreement. Only decades ago humans were burning women they considered to be ‘witches’ for no reason what so ever*. Such barbaric practices have dwindled over the course of the century. Less wars are being fought.
It is important to keep the following in note. Rationality is a god that doesn’t exist. You make decisions with your cognitive biases coupled with the deepest human emotion, fear, in a matrimony that has led to the survival of our species. It was never meant to be perfect, and it won’t be.
While we can never be free from irrationality, we have become more aware of it. Irrationality is here to stay whether we were burning witches ages before, or are burning our bridges and infrastructure now.
Complaining about mayonnaise replacing cheese is completely rational.
Real vs Fake
If mayonaisse is replacing cheese, then am I correct in calling it as fake cheese?
This leads to a cheesy off-tangent about the very question of 'real' and fake'. Solipsists say that reality is what you perceive it as. I would disagree. If reality is purely mental, then we could achieve anything with adroit introspection.
We know it is not true, as I cannot change the taste of mayonnaise to cheese.
The existence and nature of reality remain unaffected by our perception or understanding of it, as reality persists and maintains its inherent qualities regardless of our mental comprehension. One can then proceed to separate reality into 1. Physical and 2. Non-Physical reality. Physical reality is what you would expect. Non-physical reality encompasses things which we cannot directly perceive, but feel the effects of, e.g. kindness, electrons, thoughts etc.
Extending this, there is an idea of linguistic relativity, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, that claims that one's native language affects the cognitive behavior and ability, hence changing the perceived reality.
Will mayonaisse taste like cheese if I learn Italian today? Di Molto
This idea is debatable, as Chomsky ascribes that every language follows a universal grammar. Another point of contention is that if there is no word for a particular thing in a certain language, there is no reason that speaker of that specific language would understand the concept.
Perhaps the assertion in the beginning is incorrect. There is no reason to believe that if a thing replaces something else, it is the ‘fake’ version of that thing.
The new same old Buildings
Old buildings fall and new ones take their place. It is,however, the homogenization of architecture that seems so off-putting. Ruthless efficiency has taken away the charm in buildings. Flat glass panes have replaced intricate design. Developing cities are developing to be lusterless, dreary, non-stimulating and insipid.
Cities are losing artistry in the name of efficiency.
And they are getting swamped in the sea of billboards and advertisement by companies. Every company has the same statement to make with similar logos and visual branding.
Something about Bisleri Western Express Highway is funny and sad at the same time.
Maybe I am being spurious here, but old advertisements had a certain level of charm to them. They were longer in general, which allowed whatever going on in them to breathe and sell their product. With our reduced attention spans, even ads have had to become devoid of any personality or aesthetics. The dullness extend to corporate music, which basically seem to sing ,"We reward our employees with Pizza parties instead of pay raises when we hit record profits!"
I am surprised I got nostalgic for ads considering how I dislike them.
Why am I so focused on aesthetics? Because there is a certain language a city speaks, a way it communicates that is its own. Old building that have stood the test of time are oft-admired for their stunning visage, intricacies and grandeur. I unfortunately find understanding developing cities like Mumbai or Kolkata even more difficult. Attributed to how every new construction project seems similar.
Nietzsche remarked that, "If you crush a cockroach, you're a hero. If you crush a beautiful butterfly, you're a villain. Morals have aesthetic criteria."
So does a loss of aesthetics in our cities indicate a lack of morals? If so, then there is a severe quandary that we face:
Where has the belief and inspiration gone to build inspiring architecture? Dead because of Mayonnaise?
So what’s the deal?
Mayonnaise replacing cheese is not a problem related to ethics, virtue, aesthetics or morals. It is simply an economics issue. Mayo is cheaper, that's all. It is not the poor mayo's fault.
Perhaps we have accepted such a quality of life where bad substitutes are okay. But if I have to summarise the entire mumbo-jumbo of this disjointed essay. It would be.
”Efficiency has slowly destroyed grandeur.”
Had I been more efficient in this article, I would have streamlined it better, and made more sense out of it. But there is a charm in chaos, and going on a stream-of-consciousness for this essay felt quite good. I have not even done a proper grammar check for this.
Next Audible Coffee may have really fancy and eloquent words. It’s been a while.
*It has come to my notice that the number of deaths caused by witch hunting has actually increased around the world. While it may be argued that the proportion of population that involves in such activities may have lessened, it still speaks of cruel human irrationality; the worst kind, the one that harms others. Thanks to Dwait Bhatt for the correction.
I saw a Bakemonogatari reference...
“If mayonnaise is replacing cheese, then am I correct in calling it as fake cheese?” I believe this is a question of subjectivity. If soybean is there in my burger to substitute for meat, I call it fake meat yes! But if I don’t hold the presumption that it’s there to replace meat, it’s still simply soybean and I would not hold a grudge towards its existence in the burger.
But no, never put mayonnaise into my pastaaa