HUNGRY GERALD

Contemplating Mitt Romney and the current condition of American thought has put HG in a misanthropic frame of mind. Therefore, HG has been thinking of various food dislikes. As noted, HG will be visiting Montreal this year. HG will shun poutine, a Quebecois obsession; Nay, perversion would be a better descriptive. Montreal takes pride in its bagels. HG has learned that in that city bagels get a bath in honey water before boiling and baking. This strikes HG as a major error on par with the dreaded Cinnamon-Raisin Bagel. The Philadelphia specialties of cheese steaks and soft pretzels with mustard have many fans. HG is not among them. St. Louis Italian restaurants offer fried ravioli. Awful. New England clam chowder is glop (except at the Downy Flake Cafe on Nantucket Island). Chicago beef sandwiches are unpleasant. Soggy bread. Tasteless meat. Greasy gravy that drips on your clothes. Chicago deep dish pizza is an aberration. Southern hush puppies are little grease bombs and pecan pie sets HG’s teeth on edge with its overpowering, gooey sweetness. Only good pecan pie was made by HG’s late, beloved sister. Southern fried chicken is overrated. Koreans and Chinese fry chicken better. Despite some fear about reprisals from Texas good ole boys, HG states, emphatically: SJ’s Brooklyn barbecue is better than any HG ever tasted in Texas. HG despises all cream sauces. The only good hamburgers are the hamburgers HG makes at home. All others range from vile to borderline okay. In the area of exotica, HG, a lover of Japanese food, cannot stomach monkfish liver. HG does not like haute cuisine restaurants (especially in Paris) and tasting menus (too much food and HG always feels queasy after this overindulgence). HG hates all fast food chains (with the exception of Chipotle) and believes that fast food bears the same relationship to nutrition as the Tea Party does to civilized, rational thought.

HG will pause in HG’s musings about food and yesteryear dining. The crazed zealotry of the Tea Party, the religious right and all the Republican collaborators has made HG fear. Let us heed the words of Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address: “Let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”

Misanthropy is defined as a generalized dislike, distrust, disgust, contempt or hatred of the human species. Contemplating the Tea Party crazies, Syria, Somalia and the assorted knaves, incompetents and ideologues running the world these days, HG would have to be defined as a misanthrope.

HG’s misanthropic tendencies were heightened by a recent reading of A.J.P. Taylor’s “The First World War–An Illustrated History.”. Misguided fools — known as Generals — fed millions of men into a military meat grinder of death. Senseless, avoidable slaughter. Assailed by all these gloomy thoughts, HG mused: Life is short, brutish and the end is terrible.

Sooo, in the meantime, let’s have a good meal. Last night it was daughter LR.’s sublime fishcakes accompanied by local Prince Edward Island asparagus and tiny, new potatoes. Plus Theresa’s tomato chow-chow. The cloud of gloom was vaporized.