Alexander Chancellor and Sarah Lyall
First of all, Sarah, I see it is Valentine's Day. I know this because somebody out there in cyberspace has been bombarding me for days with offers of Valentine songs and poems to e-mail to people. I listened to one or two of the songs, and they were hideous and rather creepy. The only Valentine song anybody knows is "My Funny Valentine" from the Rodgers and Hart musical Babes in Arms, but I find that creepy, too. I'm a great admirer of Rodgers and Hart, but that is their worst song ever--ghastly words, ghastly tune, and always mawkishly sung. I don't understand why it is so popular. For that matter, I don't understand why Valentine's Day itself is so popular. Today's papers are full of it. The Daily Mail devotes seven pages to a Valentine special that consists mainly of advice on seduction techniques. "How To Be a Sex Kitten at Any Age" is the title of one feature, which wisely ends with advice on how to handle rejection. (It suggests you practice this by going for a walk and smiling at every passerby. This gets you used to being ignored.)
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StumbleUponI notice that this Valentine special is entirely addressed to women. I was brought up to think that only men or boys sent Valentine cards, but that isn't so at all, judging from the Valentine's Day messages in the classified sections of the newspapers. Just as many are from women as from men (though you can't always tell, as in "Ickle Pooky loves Big Pooky" in today's London Times). It may be that women have come to regard Valentine's Day as the one time in the year when it is acceptable for them to be the first to declare their love. Is that right? In her column in the Daily Telegraph, Susannah Herbert writes as if sending Valentine cards and gifts is still an exclusively male thing, and she doesn't like it. "Flowers and loving speeches given on February 14 automatically mean less than they would if offered on any other day," she points out, adding that "no woman can forgive a fellow who imagines this lets him off the hook." Yet the wretched tradition thrives, perhaps because people long to go public once a year about the sexual urges they brood about every other day.
How it all started is another matter. According to the Roman Martyrology, two St. Valentines were martyred in Italy on the same February day in the third century A.D., though they could possibly have been the same person. In any event, neither is reputed to have been in the least romantic. Their (or his) association with the love industry seems to be because birds are traditionally supposed to pair on February 14. Chaucer encouraged this link when he wrote in his "Assembly of Fowls": "For this was on St. Valentine's Day/ When ev'ry fowl cometh to choose her mate." Anyway, I am happy that not a single church in England has been dedicated to St. Valentine. Nevertheless, I would be interested to know what kind of day you have been having. Did you receive any cards? Did Robert make you a special breakfast? Have there been jolly japes in the London office of the New York Times? I sit alone and forgotten in my Hammersmith basement.
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Highlights from The Fray:
I'm somewhat stupefied over the choice that your magazine made regarding this week's Breakfast Table. Frankly, as an American political junkie, I find it unfathomable that, with one of the most exciting, compelling presidential primary weeks in recent electoral history upon us, you saw fit to have as your Breakfast Table guests this week two expatriates who spent their time debating the fascinating details of British table condiments.
--Lonnie W. Neubauer
(To reply, click here.)
(But not everyone agreed - Doug Richardson replied that
A dollop of painless prattle about condiments is becoming, day by day, more appetizing than the great trough of swill served up by the four cretins who have captivated every marginally literate person with a word processor--I look to Slate for a little of everything on my plate.
And other Fraygrants were happy to deal with the whole wide range of Breakfast Table subjects:)
It's nice to find amidst the stuff about ketchup, Americanisms, Bush vs McCain, and salad cream, an admission of the problems of the British National Health system [Wednesday's entry]. Throughout the great healthcare "debate" of 1992-1994 we were told over and over again that the single-payer system was the way to go, with Britain and Canada cited admiringly. Now who's ready to admit that rationing would be necessary in any kind of scheme to extend healthcare to everyone in the U.S.?
--Edward Brynes
(To reply, click here.)
To Edward Brynes:
Don't you think that the current American health-care system rations access? It is, in practice, unavailable to approximately 43 million people.
--June Thomas
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In reply:
Medical care is not actually unavailable to people without insurance, but certainly it is very costly. That's not the same situation as rationing, which to me implies a deliberate policy of allocating treatment according to medical need and feasibility of treatment.
Normally someone in the U.S. with insurance coverage is assured abundant care and little waiting even if there is reason to believe that with all the care in the world he or she won't live more than a few months anyway or will live a greatly impaired life. There is a different philosophy in Britain. Many people, not heartless monsters, have asked what value there can be in maintaining, by complex expensive technology, people in such a situation. Rationing has the effect of freeing up resources.
--Edward Brynes
(To reply, click here.)
Norway is not a member of the European Union [Tuesday's entry].
--Marian
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What I've always wanted to know is: Is catsup the same as ketchup? [Wednesday's entry] I've always had a suspicion that catsup was more "U" than ketchup - wasn't there a British, ie non-Heinz variety, called catsup in the '50s? Don't know what the fuss is about salad cream, incidentally. It's just bottled mayonnaise--not very good mayonnaise, sure, but that's not the point. The point is the name; you wouldn't have got my Mum buying something called mayonnaise, but salad cream was nice and homely.
--michael elliott
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This is a dreadful error of culinary history: no the British did NOT invent catsup. Like many things adopted during the Imperial years, it is an Indian condiment. I have read various spellings of the word, but "ketchep" will do. It is a kind of chutney, not always tomato, but sweet rather than hot, like lemon pickle. My favorite recipe is one that uses sweet red peppers, roasted, skinned, and macerated into a pulp which is then simmered with vinegar, sultanas, onion, garlic, ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon. My private joke is to then blend it all (not really authentic) and serve it with an East Indian meal, in a Heinz pourable catsup bottle. It is just a bit more orange, but no one notices. It tastes nothing like the American product of course, and is tangy and delicious. Bon Appétit!
--Apollonius
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(2/18)
St. Valentine [Monday's entry] is the patron saint of MESSAGES, because while he was imprisoned he threw little messages out of his cell to cheer up the Christians. Hence St. Valentine's Day is a day to send messages to those important to you. Since the Christian message is "Jesus loves you" and "see how they love one another" and so on, "love" notes come immediately to mind. Since we use only one word for all of the kinds of love (unlike the Greeks), and since we needed a February holiday to buy cards and gifts for (really, study the history of Valentine cards), the target for and meaning of the Valentine changed to more physical ones. The arrows business may come from St. Valentine's execution by being shot through the heart with many arrows.
--tony zapf
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(2/15)