Here's my quibble with restaurant reviews, as a genre, so no offense to Mr Wells, who I think is a sparkling writer who has found his metier. In cultures where the local food ways have become more or less set, all of the chatter about them has stopped. Mealtimes are spent discussing other things besides what is on the plate in front of you. In this way, food takes its unique place at the table, uniting everyone through channels other than speaking and hearing, and never through writing. Of course, dining in restaurants is also alien to the people and places I have in mind; if one goes to one, it is often done so begrudgingly, so perhaps it is the restaurant, and not the restaurant review, that is my true target. My point, however, that people who appreciate food do not really talk about it all that much, especially while eating it, stands.
In support of my rather questionable claim that to speak about plants is to speak about anything and vice versa, I here submit my most recent comment on a piece in the New York Times, a restaurant review by Pete Wells, who always a delight to read.
What makes me think that I can use it to talk about plants is that it resonates so well with an earlier post I made on fetishization through language. In my comment above, I complain that something as essential to life as a meal is made precious by too much talk about it. This kind of excessive chatter, a tavola, as an Italian might say, can be annoying at best and offensive at its worst. Need I say that it is often a plant that is on the plate?
So, of course, my simple admiration of a flower (might I one day drop even that simple nomen?) is degraded, not enhanced, by applying the elaborate popular and scientific naming conventions and systems. So, I avoid it.
Following the model of Michel Serres, I will stop here, and let others work out the connections as they see fit.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/dining/king-restaurant-review-soho.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-2&module=inside-nyt-region®ion=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region
In support of my rather questionable claim that to speak about plants is to speak about anything and vice versa, I here submit my most recent comment on a piece in the New York Times, a restaurant review by Pete Wells, who always a delight to read.
What makes me think that I can use it to talk about plants is that it resonates so well with an earlier post I made on fetishization through language. In my comment above, I complain that something as essential to life as a meal is made precious by too much talk about it. This kind of excessive chatter, a tavola, as an Italian might say, can be annoying at best and offensive at its worst. Need I say that it is often a plant that is on the plate?
So, of course, my simple admiration of a flower (might I one day drop even that simple nomen?) is degraded, not enhanced, by applying the elaborate popular and scientific naming conventions and systems. So, I avoid it.
Following the model of Michel Serres, I will stop here, and let others work out the connections as they see fit.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/dining/king-restaurant-review-soho.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&moduleDetail=inside-nyt-region-2&module=inside-nyt-region®ion=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region
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