Print

---

Dear Eduardo

that is interesting and i admire your imagination. but i have a confession or
reconciliation as it is called now in the catholic church ... a perfect thing
to do on a friday afternoon.

i still like reading philosophy but something changed me in the past few
months as i watched the visible review unfold at the EAD06 website.

in a world full of different and often conflicting opinions and ideas, the
best form of argument seems not to be linguistic/intellectual, but rather
demonstrative (for a lack of better word).

is this related to what Perice taught us?

rosan
p.s. Peter: this is also a reply to yours as well.




Eduardo Corte-Real wrote:

> The question about rice and potatoes can go a little bit further. The
> question is size and scorch. Rice has an atomic expression. You cannot
> think of a grain as food and you can think of one potato as food.
> The suggestion of mixing rice and potatoes underlines the possibility of
> dealing with opposite approaches in producing knowledge. Admitting that
> knowledge can be simply described as valid logic substitutions of reality,
> rice, as a conglomerate of presumably equal entities that only can exist
> functioning as rice by aggregation, has only parallel in the study of
> societies. Rosan point out that briefly reminding the discussion on
> qualitative and quantitative methods in Social Sciences.
> Rules and Laws in societies regulate situations in which unequal is
> permitted. Social contracts regulate differences because they admit basic
> equal origins of humans.
> In research you can produce knowledge by identifying the power of
> aggregation of similar entities and thus promoting a logic discourse about
> it. There is a limited amount of entities that you can aggregate as well as
> a minimum number of entities to legitimate the discourse. This is very much
> what we do, also, in holistic approaches. The same with rice. To call it
> food you must have at least a hand full (aprox. the same size of a potato).
>
> My younger daughter used to eat bits of raw potatoes and hide the leftovers
> under her sister’s mattresses. This is no method of eating potatoes, not
> even a method for identifying princesses.
> Normally we take out the scorch, although there are a lot of recipes with
> the scorch, and slice or chop the potatoes. Of course, when the potatoes
> are small you can eat one full size but most of the times you cut it in
> pieces.
> The difference between humans and small children and mice is that humans
> admit that there is a veil that covers reality that must be removed to
> understand it. This is a remote platonic stigma very difficult to escape
> from. Of course that onions could jump to the discussion, but sticking to
> potatoes, the nice tubercula represents very much a Modern paradigm of
> Science. We must slice and separate parts of the same problem in order to
> solve it.  Italo Calvino gives a powerful poetic description of this
> paradigm in “The Cloven Viscount”. The bad half of the viscount slashed in
> two explains to his nephew that beauty is achieved in slashed things since
> a veil of mischief covers the “whole things”.
> Mixing rice and potatoes would mean, in fact, something that we must do if
> we don’t want to leave leftovers. I’m thinking of research strategies for a
> whole institution (school, research centre, bunch of people).
> Portuguese are the Europeans that eat more rice per capita. An ordinary
> Portuguese meal will include a soup first, a dish where you can find salad,
> rice, potatoes, meat or fish, all together. This would be heretic for an
> Italian. In the North of Portugal you have rice in every meal that you mix
> with whatever, even spaghetti. Rice levels the flavours; you use it almost
> to clean your mouth from different tremendously succulent greasy salty or
> sweet flavours.
> The metaphor of mixing rice and potatoes doesn’t work that well with us.
> Maybe that’s why we like chaotic and erratic conversations like this one.
>
> To have a mouth full:
>
> Wash and dry a bunch of small potatoes with the scorch and put it on an
> oven tray. Pre heat the oven at 200º and let it cook for about 15 min. Time
> to time refresh with a little water. Take the potatoes out and give each
> one a punch so that they break in the middle. You will probably smash too
> much the first one or two, but you will get the grip of it.  Smash 6 cloves
> of garlic and distribute them over the potatoes. Shower a few leaves of
> thyme and some salt over it. Pour generously olive oil and little pieces of
> very greasy bacon over it. (If you have problems with pork use smoked
> salmon. If you have problems in eating animals you must start up with cubes
> aubergine altogether with the potatoes).  Back to the oven for five
> minutes.
>
> Aside: chop half an onion and smash a clove of garlic. Put it on the bottom
> of a pan with a bit of salt and pour olive oil until the bottom is covered
> and then pour a little bit more. Put it on fire until the onions start to
> be transparent. Pour a large teacup of clean white rice and let it fry a
> little bit stirring delicately. Pour two teacups of water and let on strong
> fire until it boils. Then reduce to minimum fire and let it cook until it
> appears to be dry. The pan must be almost covered.
>
> Eat all together with red wine.
>
> Bon apetit,
>
> Eduardo
>
> P.S. For all Brazilians abroad: I went to a “picanha” restaurant yesterday…
> P.S. for Italians: What about Sicilian Aranci?...