Finches and Pizza

Over a couple week period I had two separate people (other than my wife who has said it for years) tell me that a Hawaiian pizza is blasphemous and sacrilegious, which as a member of the Hawaiian pizza faith I was rather insulted.  Now one of these people was from Napoli and as such has some authority on the subject.  So as you can imagine this lead to a heated exchange.

However, I have since realized that pizza is just a good example of a phenomenon that we have observed in other foods.  Pizza adapts to its region.  When I lived in Grenoble the pizza was more Italian style, but with potato on it.  While you can only presume that the Hawaiian pizza is the result of pizza arriving in a land obsessed with pineapple and spam (I assumed the ham came from when the Hawaiian pizza came back to the continental US and us not liking spam).  Of course, I can't explain Chicago deep dish pizza or explain (defend) stuffed crust, but evolution is like that sometimes.  So just like finches evolving pizza evolves too.  And just like finches pizza kept the original name (lets call it a Genus or Family name).   Of course, this principle applies to all kinds of foods and not just pizza.

One of the things that my wife and I have come to enjoy about traveling so much is going to an "ethnic" cuisine restaurant in different countries and noticing the differences.   The two most common cuisines were Sushi and Chinese.   What is interesting about Japanese cuisine is that in two cheese countries (France and Holland) they have found a way to include cheese into the notoriously lactose intolerant Japanese cuisine (cheese and meat skewers).   And while we were in France we tried to find egg drop soup and were unable to do so.  In fact, when we talked to the cook at a Chinese restaurant he made something for us that we were fairly sure was the origin of American egg drop soup.  So both are strong examples food evolution.


In fact my wife and I have been living this theory.  While we were in France and then Holland we (really she) made French and Dutch style enchiladas.  In fact when you include Real enchiladas (from New Mexico), Mexican enchiladas, TexMex enchiladas, and the Greek enchiladas my wife is experimenting with and we are well on our way to a full enchilada cook book.  Therefore, you can do Evolutionary genetics of enchiladas just from us (if our theoretical book ever becomes famous).

So the next time you call food blasphemous remember that it is just a difference species of the genus pizza or sushi.

living in France

So when I moved to England 8 years ago (was it really that long ago) the UNM group that organized my exchange told me that I will experience very high highs and very low lows.  And they were right.  I did, but in the end I had a great time made great friends and in general had a great experience.  This time around I thought I was ready because I had lived in England and because I wanted to learn the language.  Wow - how wrong I was.  This time around is much much harder and I go through phases of depression that make it hard to do things.  Between this and the fact that doing anything in french (especially the first time) at least 10x harder it  can be very hard to be motivated to do things.  Of course all this is effected by the fact that I have been married for 3 months and have yet to live with my wife (aside from our ~3 week honey moon and a couple trips to see each other).

However, I am making friends and doing exciting things.  I have a couple groups of friends I like to hangout with. (Actually I need to give a couple of them a call today).  I have been to Paris 3 or 4 times, been to London, and Berlin,  went to a workship in Swisserland,  been climbing in the Alps, canoed down the Ardeche (sp) river, and am returning to Hambourg for the second time next week.  Not to mention that my french is getting better.  When I have the energy (aka not depressed or sick or too lonely  for my wife) I can talk a slow pretty broken French - enough to open up a bank account.  So there are the highs that make up for the lows.

Beth (my wife) and have talked about this acclimation to living in a new place.  Even if it is just across the country it takes time to get comfortable and make friends and adjust.  Of course I do think that living internationally speeds up the process a little bit which is good, but of course does make it a bit more painful.
 So while I think it is a little tough sometimes (mixed in with the good times) I think when I leave I will miss it and will want to stay.  Of course the whole bit about getting comfortable in France will get a lot easier when I finally move in with my lovely, smart, funny, beautiful, caring, prankster of a wife.

So this is just me just downloading some thoughts I have been having  - almost blog like if you will - sorta to clear the attic and so I am not tagging anyone but if you read it i hope you keep that in mind.  - Have a nice day!

(And this is the last (actually it was posted first) post copied from Facebook - it had some good comments too but alas I was too lazy to transfer them)

Adventure

So our landlord just broke the glass barrier between the shower and the toilet.  I was writing my first post (actually editing the tags) and I hear a short stream of french and CRASH!!! and lots of falling glass.  He was hear because since we moved in last week water had been running around the italian shower (fancy word for a 1/2 glass wall) and flooding around the toilet (not our fault it was just set up badly - not properly caulked).  So he was adding the caulking and - bag.  So it was interesting enough to have a conversation about why the bathroom was flooding in french (especially if you don't know the work leak).  Now the evening has gotten even more interesting.  We will see how things go.