--
-Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like a banana. Stranger things have -
-happened but none stranger than this. Does your driver's license say Organ
-Donor?Black holes are where God divided by zero. Listen to me! We are all-
-individuals! What if this weren't a hypothetical question?
steveo at syslang.net
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 05:55:07 -0500
From: Quote of the day editor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Quote of the day mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Quote of the day for February 3, 2003
[The submitter comments on this quotation: A group of men struggle in
survival mode in the mountains of Norway during World War II. This
is a longer quote that you usually use, but I thought it was
interesting. The sabotage account itself is fascinating.]
During the weeks that followed, as more reindeer migrated onto the
Hardanger Plateau and hunting them became more successful, the eating
habits of the men gradually changed. Living, as they were, under
survival conditions, on a diet limited to venison, they began to
prefer the parts of the animal they had in peacetime ignored, and to
disdain the parts they had previously prized the most. Tender
reindeer steaks, for example, a top peacetime item in the finest Oslo
restaurants, they found dry and unsatisfying unless combined with
suet and marrow. Reindeer fat, a thing they had avoided before,
became a routine part of every meal, for the good reason that it was
essential to the digestive process itself, given the sub-zero
temperatures and the high protein content of the meat. Besides, with
such fat equivalents as sugar and starch absent from their diet they
discovered subtle differences in fat, as well as in bone marrow, and
soon became experts in the fine variations in the flavor of both.
The most delicious fat they found to be just behind the eyes; the
clearest and most delectable marrow they discovered in the small
bones nearest the hoof. In this same slender part of the hind leg,
just below the kneecap, they also found a small but special lump of
fat, and, between the bones themselves, the most luscious meat.
In time, like experienced hunters of the north who live exclusively
on game, they began to judge meat by its flavor rather than by its
tenderness. Except for the barren female reindeer, whose meat is a
gourmet's delight, they found the bulls the best eating, especially
the old bulls, with their rich, fatty, tasty meat. The cows came
next, then the calves, with their tender but bland, less flavorful
meat.
As to the different cuts of meat, the men disagreed in a way that
added zest to the passing of time while they awaited the arrival of
Gunnerside. They all agreed that the head of the animal was best,
for it contained the brains, the fat behind the eyes, the nerves of
the teeth, the tongue, the nose and lips, with their oddly delicious
chestnut flavor, and the eyes themselves, which they fried in fat
until brown and crisp. The brisket, ribs, and vertebrae came next,
in that order. Some preferred the heart to the kidneys, others
preferred the meat near the bone in the neck or the shoulders if it
was not cooked too long.
Kidney fat was chosen over brisket fat, which in turn was preferred
over intestinal fat. Last, and least agreeable, they all agreed, was
back fat, which also made the hardest tallow. The tastier the fat
indeed, the softer the tallow it made.
Of course, these distinctions did not deter them from using the
entire animals, from hoofs to horns, even including the pelts, which
they spread over the floor boards to help keep out the cold.
Leftover bones were pounded, then boiled with the hoofs in a kettle
for forty-eight hours. When the resulting liquid was strained and
allowed to cool it turned into a thick, protein-rich gelatin that
they always added, every morning at breakfast, to the porridge they
made of the blood, the tissues of the larynx, and the vitamin-rich
contents of the stomach.
"When it's a matter of survival," Poulsson said, "your taste and
appetite change to fit your body's needs. One day someone killed a
yearling. Well, no one liked the contents of the yearling's stomach,
because when reindeer graze in winter, the yearling is relegated to
the thin, outer edges of the reindeer moss, where the earth is sandy.
But when we started to eat the animal, we ate the stomach contents,
too. It was like eating sand, but what else could we do? We needed
the vitamin C."
- Thomas Gallagher, in Assault in Norway - Sabotaging the Nazi
Nuclear Bomb (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975).
Submitted by: Michael Cook
Jan. 31, 2003
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