@sunstone-citrine / sunstone-citrine.tumblr.com
A gif for Mermay!
This gif actually, literally made me laugh out loud and send it to every group chat I’m in just to get yelled at. Thank you.
I checked the notes looking for these exact frames and was not disappointed.
The fishy shenanigans continue unchecked
A pair of cherry blossom ravens~
So pretty!
Childhood can be scary.
A collection of some of my hand-drawn horror looping animations!
and that’s how it’s done.
what if i told you that a lot of “Americanized” versions of foods were actually the product of immigrant experiences and are not “bastardized versions”
That’s actually fascinating, does anyone have any examples?
Chinese-American food is a really good example of this and this article provides a good intro to the history http://firstwefeast.com/eat/2015/03/illustrated-history-of-americanized-chinese-food
I took an entire class about Italian American immigrant cuisine and how it’s a product of their unique immigrant experience. The TL;DR is that many Italian immigrants came from the south (the poor) part of Italy, and were used to a mostly vegetable-based diet. However, when they came to the US they found foods that rich northern Italians were depicted as eating, such as sugar, coffee, wine, and meat, available for prices they could afford for the very first time. This is why Italian Americans were the first to combine meatballs with pasta, and why a lot of Italian American food is sugary and/or fattening. Italian American cuisine is a celebration of Italian immigrants’ newfound access to foods they hadn’t been able to access back home.
(Source: Cinotto, Simone. The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City. Chicago: U of Illinois, 2013. Print.)
I LOVE learning about stuff like this :D
that corned beef and cabbage thing you hear abou irish americans is actually from a similar situation but because they weren’t allowed to eat that stuff due to that artificial famine
<3 FOOD HISTORY <3
Everyone knows Korean barbecue, right? It looks like this, right?
Well, this is called a “flanken cut” and was actually unheard of in traditional Korean cooking. In traditional galbi, the bone is cut about two inches long, separated into individual bones, and the meat is butterflied into a long, thin ribbon, like this:
In fact, the style of galbi with the bones cut short across the length is called “LA Galbi,” as in “Los Angeles-style.” So the “traditional Korean barbecue” is actually a Korean-American dish.
Now, here’s where things get interesting. You see, flanken-cut ribs aren’t actually all that popular in American cooking either. Where they are often used however, is in Mexican cooking, for tablitas.
So you have to imagine these Korean-American immigrants in 1970s Los Angeles getting a hankering for their traditional barbecue. Perhaps they end up going to a corner butcher shop to buy short ribs. Perhaps that butcher shop is owned by a Mexican family. Perhaps they end up buying flanken-cut short ribs for tablitas because that’s what’s available. Perhaps they get slightly weirded out by the way the bones are cut so short, but give it a chance anyway. “Holy crap this is delicious, and you can use the bones as a little handle too, so now galbi is finger food!” Soon, they actually come to prefer the flanken cut over the traditional cut: it’s easier to cook, easier to serve, and delicious, to boot!
Time goes on, Asian fusion becomes popular, and suddenly the flanken cut short rib becomes better known as “Korean BBQ,” when it actually originated as a Korean-Mexican fusion dish!
I don’t know that it actually happened this way, but I like to think it did.
Corned beef and cabbage as we know it today? That came to the Irish immigrants via their Jewish neighbors at kosher delis.
The Irish immigrants almost solely bought their meat from kosher butchers. And what we think of today as Irish corned beef is actually Jewish corned beef thrown into a pot with cabbage and potatoes. The Jewish population in New York City at the time were relatively new immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe. The corned beef they made was from brisket, a kosher cut of meat from the front of the cow. Since brisket is a tougher cut, the salting and cooking processes transformed the meat into the extremely tender, flavorful corned beef we know of today.
The Irish may have been drawn to settling near Jewish neighborhoods and shopping at Jewish butchers because their cultures had many parallels. Both groups were scattered across the globe to escape oppression, had a sacred lost homeland, discriminated against in the US, and had a love for the arts. There was an understanding between the two groups, which was a comfort to the newly arriving immigrants. This relationship can be seen in Irish, Irish-American and Jewish-American folklore. It is not a coincidence that James Joyce made the main character of his masterpiece Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, a man born to Jewish and Irish parents.
Ahh, similar origin to fish and chips in the UK then.
That meal came about either in London or the North of England where Jewish immigrant fried fish venders decided to team up with the Irish cooked potato sellers to produce the meal everyone associates with the UK.
Because while a bunch of stuff from the UK was lifted and adapted from folks we colonised (Mulligatawny soup for example, was an adaptation of a soup recipe found in India and which British chefs tried to approximate back home), some of it was made by folks who actively moved here (like tikka masala, that originated in a restaurant up in Scotland).
Super interesting.
And that’s BEFORE we get into replacing a staple crop! So in the Southern US, you have two groups of people, one who used oats and one who used plantains, and they BOTH replace their staples with corn. And then you get Southern food.
For those interested in a really deep dive on Chinese food in the United States, I cannot over-recommend Jennifer 8 Lee’s Fortune Cookie Chronicles.
One of the questions I get hit with a lot is “If I’m getting into Irish Mythology, what sources do you recommend?” It’s a sad, sad truth about the field that a lot of really valuable info is kept locked away in books and journals that the lay person wouldn’t know about (and then we wonder why information about the field is so bad.) So, I decided to compile a list of sources that I’ve personally used and found helpful in my time. It’s not a complete bibliography because, frankly, that would take up a TREMENDOUS amount of space and you’d be scrolling forever to find what you wanted, and I don’t AGREE with every single thing they say, and it’s by no means exhaustive (keep in mind: scholars from all over the field use mythological texts to study things as diverse as law, geography, tribal names, material culture, etc. and here I’m mainly focusing on sources that are JUST mythological-focused) but they’re a good starting point to forming your own opinions. The journal articles are, tragically, generally kept confined to academia, but….perhaps….if you were to ask around, someone might be able to provide you with a copy. As a whole, Celticists tend to be quite generous when it comes to sharing articles.
List subject to change, check back as time goes on to see if I’ve added anything. Also, as always, feel free to either drop me an ask or a pm if you’re curious about digging further into a given text/figure. I can’t act as a consultant on a religious question; I’m a very firm atheist with all the spirituality of a dull spoon, except with the existence of ghosts. My interest in the Tuatha Dé is purely scholarly; all that I can say is what I know about these topics from the perspective of the medieval sources, but I can definitely do my best on that one front, and I won’t reject anyone who has a different interest in the Tuatha Dé from contacting me.
This list only deals with the Mythological Cycle, not the other strands of the literary tradition that is generally if not uncontroversially referred to as “Irish Mythology”. For Fenian Cycle traditions, a similar bibliography has been compiled by Dr. Natasha Sumner of Harvard, here.
Editions/Translations of Texts (many of these are available at UCC’s CELT archive or on Irish Sagas Online):
Tochmarc Étaíne, Osborn Bergin and Richard Best
Cath Maige Tuired, Elizabeth Gray (If you can and you’re serious about the field, I highly recommend getting the actual Irish Text Society Edition, which includes a wonderful index of every time a given figure shows up in other sources. An absolute must for a mythographer.)
Lebor Gabála Érenn, J.R.S Macalister, 5 vols. (The entirety of this is available on archive.org. Personally…while the rest of it is obviously important and worthy of study, if you’re interested in just the mythological stuff, I recommend Volume IV, which includes both the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha Dé. Unless you really, really want to read five volumes of medieval Irish pseudohistory, the last volume of which was finished posthumously.) i ii iii iv v
The Metrical Dinshenchas, Edward Gwynn. (5 vols.) (These are difficult, with many scholars outright ignoring them except when absolutely necessary. These are in a later form of Irish, which means that, while some of the contents in them could very well be Pre-Christian in nature, they very much do reflect a later medieval world. Some of them are just as much about contemporary politics as they are about mythology, and many of them also bring in content from the Ulster Cycle and the Fenian Cycle. My personal favorites to look up are Tailtiu, Carn Hui Néit, Duirgen, and Carmun, though there are MANY others.) i ii iii iv v
“The First Battle of Moytura”, John Fraser (Note: It’s a VERY late text, with the question of the Fir Bolg/Tuatha Dé battle and how far the tradition really goes back being one that’s very important to keep in mind. It’s a personal favorite of mine. But it’s very late.)
Baile in Scáil, Kevin Murray (Thurneyson also did an older edition that’s more readily accessible, hence why I linked it here, but Murray is the most recent and up to date.)
“How the Dagda got his magic staff”, Osborn Bergin
Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann, Richard Duffy (This is an Early Modern Irish text, so it was written down comparatively late. That doesn’t mean that there’s NO mythological content here, it’s a personal favorite of mine, but it means that it very much reflects the cultural context of around….the 15th-17th century or thereabouts. It’s very chaotic, very violent, and the heroic figures are….not….heroic.)
Scél Tuáin Meic Chairill, John Carey
Echtra Nerai, it’s available in a fairly recent translation by John Carey in Celtic Heroic Age (pub. 2003) , listed below, though Kuno Meyer also did an edition/translation for it that I’ve linked to here.
Books:
Proinsias Mac Cana, Celtic Mythology (Personally, I’d recommend this one first - It’s designed for someone who isn’t a specialist and, while a lot of what he’s saying has been disputed back and forth, it’s still a handy primer and will get you into the myths.)
John Koch and John Carey, The Celtic Heroic Age (Once you have an idea of what you’re looking at, I recommend this one, since it’s a sourcebook. A TON of material from across the Celtic world, featuring classical sources, medieval Irish sources, and Welsh, all of it in one place.)
Mark Williams, Ireland’s Immortals (I personally recommend you read this one after you read CHA, giving you a bit of context for what Williams is saying here.)
O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology (note: A lot of what he says here is no longer considered recent in the field, but his knowledge of his own sources is, frankly, without any other peer. Use with a grain of salt)
John Carey, The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature
Kim McCone, Pagan Past, Christian Present
Koch, Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia
Articles:
John Carey, “Myth and Mythography in ‘Cath Magh Tuired’”
John Carey, “Donn, Amairgen, Ith and the Prehistory of Irish Pseudohistory”
Proinsias Mac Cana, “Aspects of the theme of King and Goddess in Irish Literature”
Máire Herbert, “Goddess and king: the sacred marriage in early Ireland.”
Gregory Toner, “Macha and the invention of myth”
Elizabeth A. Gray, “Cath Maige Tuired: myth and structure“
Thomas Charles-Edwards, “Tochmarc Étaíne: a literal interpretation”
Tómas O’Cathasaigh, “Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth”
Joseph Nagy, “Close encounters of the traditional kind in medieval Irish literature”
Mark Scowcroft, “Leabhar Gabhála. Part I: the growth of the text”
Mark Scowcroft, “Leabhar Gabhála. Part II: the growth of the tradition”
Joseph Nagy, “‘Talking myth’ in medieval Irish literature.”
John Carey, “The Location of the Otherworld in Irish Tradition”
Máire Bhreathnach, “The sovereignty goddess as goddess of death?“
John Carey, “Notes on the Irish war-goddess.”
Veronica Philipps, “Exile and authority in Lebor gabála Érenn”
tangerine snail 🍊
Aaaaaaah so cute!
I am Moniquill, Goddess of the time I was going to be in the office. Fear me because I was going to be there at work and I didn't want to.
I am Sunstone, goddess of the light vault 4th floor space. Fear me because at the end of it all I have to do it myself.
P.S.: Bringer of course I am going to get with this.
This scam made the California University study 124 imported oils and found that over 70% of samples failed the tests.
These failed:
These brands passed:
Also, test the olive oil yourself at home. Put the bottle out when cold, or in the fridge for 30 min. if it gets solid, it is pure and has monounsaturated fats.
The lies!!!!
*throws out all the bertolli*
IM SO PRESSED/SHOOK RN
this is a real scandal
Ain’t that a bitch
They selling fake olive oil.
they been selling fake olive oil from the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/13/slippery-business This is a cool article on how they do it now and what they tend to substitute it with.
In 1997 and 1998, olive oil was the most adulterated agricultural product in the European Union, prompting the E.U.’s anti-fraud office to establish an olive-oil task force. (“Profits were comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks,” one investigator told me.) The E.U. also began phasing out subsidies for olive-oil producers and bottlers, in an effort to reduce crime, and after a few years it disbanded the task force. Yet fraud remains a major international problem: olive oil is far more valuable than most other vegetable oils, but it is costly and time-consuming to produce—and surprisingly easy to doctor. Adulteration is especially common in Italy, the world’s leading importer, consumer, and exporter of olive oil. (For the past ten years, Spain has produced more oil than Italy, but much of it is shipped to Italy for packaging and is sold, legally, as Italian oil.) “The vast majority of frauds uncovered in the food-and-beverage sector involve this product,” Colonel Leopoldo Maria De Filippi, the commander for the northern half of Italy of the N.A.S. Carabinieri, an anti-adulteration group run under the auspices of the Ministry of Health, told me.
In Puglia, which produces about forty per cent of Italy’s olives, growers have been in a near-constant state of crisis for more than a decade. “Thousands of olive-oil producers are victims of this ‘drugged’ market,” Antonio Barile, the president of the Puglia chapter of a major farmers’ union, told me, referring to illegal importations of seed oils and cheap olive oil from outside the E.U., which undercut local farmers. Instead of supporting small growers who make distinctive, premium oils, the Italian government has consistently encouraged quan-tity over quality, to the benefit of large companies that sell bulk oil. It has not implemented a national plan for oil production, has employed a byzantine system for distributing agricultural subsidies, and has often failed to enforce Italian laws and E.U. regulations intended to prevent fraud. The government has been so lax in pursuing some oil crimes that it can seem complicit. In 2000, the European Court of Auditors reported that Italy was responsible for eighty-seven per cent of misappropriated E.U. subsidies to olive-oil bottlers in the preceding fifteen years, and that the government had recovered only a fraction of the money.
I’ve been reading Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller, and wow, the things that get sold as ‘extra virgin’ olive oil are kind of scary, especially if you have any allergies. Or if you’re trying to use olive oil for health reasons – you’re likely paying a premium for something with none of the benefits you’re looking for.
Also, you could write at least 8 different genre novels about skullduggery in the olive oil trade, starting with a murder mystery and working your way out, because there’s just so much to unpack.
Well, that explains the rash of migraines/respiratory issues I had last month. I was cooking everything in whole foods oil and couldn’t figure it out. If it was cut with canola oil then there’s my answer. Son of a bitch.
(“Profits were comparable to cocaine trafficking, with none of the risks,” one investigator told me.)
YO FUCK THESE GUYS my mom is allergic to corn and some of them were cut with corn oil. We very aggressively research any oil we purchase now.
I tried to click on the original article and got sent to a weed site, but here’s a Forbes article from 2016
Some of these old games go wayyyyy back… :/
I checked out "Under the Tamarind Tree" by Niger Alam from the library. It is told achronologically, but with clear dates in the chapter titles. But, I am finding the prose rambly and confusing. The protagonist, Rozeena, just started out as a pediatrician, and also runs a free clinic out of her house. The setting is Karachi, Pakistan, 1964. Rozeena is checking the lungs of one of her patients, who took Datura on their own. Here are "Rozeena's" thoughts on the subject:
"Whether people called it datura, thorn apple, or jimsonweed, the folklore medicinal plant was a poisonous analgesic and hallucinogenic. Yes, a paste of its crushed leaves could soothe and heal burns. Inhaling the smoke of burning leaves did relax muscles and could rid [the patient] of an asthmatic spasm. Rozeena didn't deny the medicinal properties of natural remedies. Many medicinal came from plants after all, even aspirin. But regulation was needed, and formulas and dosages had to be monitored."
This paragraph flicked me in the forehead and removed me from the story entirely. It felt like the author talking to the audience, not the character's thoughts. And that was only page 17.
I might not continue this book. It seemed interesting from the summary on the jacket, but it is not living up to my expectations.
talking to people while holding a beverage is awesome because you don't have to know what to do with your hands and when you don't know what to do with your face you can just take a sip
Y'all, the world is sleeping on what NASA just pulled off with Voyager 1
The probe has been sending gibberish science data back to Earth, and scientists feared it was just the probe finally dying. You know, after working for 50 GODDAMN YEARS and LEAVING THE GODDAMN SOLAR SYSTEM and STILL CHURNING OUT GODDAMN DATA.
So they analyzed the gibberish and realized that in it was a total readout of EVERYTHING ON THE PROBE. Data, the programming, hardware specs and status, everything. They realized that one of the chips was malfunctioning.
So what do you do when your probe is 22 Billion km away and needs a fix? Why, you just REPROGRAM THAT ENTIRE GODDAMN THING. Told it to avoid the bad chip, store the data elsewhere.
Sent the new code on April 18th. Got a response on April 20th - yeah, it's so far away that it took that long just to transmit.
And the probe is working again.
From a programmer's perspective, that may be the most fucking impressive thing I have ever heard.
I miss the customization options and proper conversation threads of Livejornal. Unfortunately, my existence is against TOS there, due to the site being owned by a Russian company. I doubt they would ban me but I'd rather not risk it.
Dreamwidth exists. It doesn't have as many users as LJ back in the late 2000s, but maybe I could start cross-posting and see what happens. I need to examine their TOS in detail though...
Pigeon attempts to court falcon
For all those in the notes - peregrine falcons hunt by dive-bombing their prey; this falcon however is currently stationary and cannot dive-bomb much of anything. In this moment, the pigeon is safe. The falcon however may not recover from the embarrassment.
I can't tell if that's a giant pigeon or a tiny falcon
Tiny falcon
this struck me
Mechthild's wisdom of the day: "I was born in an urn at Pompeii. I am made out of ash and lint. My mother will not let me drink toilet water, despite how wise I am."
Owning a cat is doing what literal years of therapy could not do for me. This little animal routinely keeps me from spiraling, just by flopping her stupid little body on my keyboard. I love her with everything.
We are holding hands
