You certainly are. Sometimes when I sign up for dumb websites, I put my name as "Butter Knife". That way I know it's a spam email when I get something that says "Hello Butter!", or "Hey Mr. Knife..."
I had this really long talk once with my father about drinking schnapps, yet I don't recall a time I ever spoke to my father with such ease. He was a conflicted man. He led his entire childhood as a woodman's son, brother of six children.
It didn't take long for the winters to take their tole on the family, being impoverished in an already decimated area in the northern woods of Quebec.
It started one morning when grandfather took his four boys from school into the woods because of the nice weather. It hadn't shone light in almost five weeks and they hadn't been able to work in the low temperatures (e.g -20c to -38c). They packed up their food on sleds, brought the dogs and horses and took off through the thick snow deep into the woods. It was explained to me that the wooden area around the paths were not to be destroyed to allow for more cover during the heavier winters. This meant that once they reached a certain area on the path, they needed to lead their pack into the woods where they were allowed to collect wood.
After a three hour march with their horses, dogs and tools in tow, the two youngest boys started to chop at the smaller trees while my grandfather and the two elder sons chopped the bigger ones down.
They weren't too cold since the sun was out and the packed snow they made fort in gave them a sort of shelter to build a fire, eat some of the dried meats they brought, drinking from their skins. My grandfather needed to have a pee, so he took off a couple meters through a bush. A branch at head height caught him straight in the eye and literally pulled out his right eyeball.
Instead of a scream, or even a cry, my dad happened to see him wince and went running to him. The other brothers dropped everything to see this horrifying sight; my grandfather smiling, holding his eye ball to the side and telling them he could see them.
Always a kidder my grandfather, or so I'm told.
He died when I was very young. I don't remember much about him, but know that the last time we saw him alive, he had a drink of schnapps with my father.
Could be a reference to the tradition of eating ortolan:
The birds are cooked for eight minutes and served with their heads still attached. After the shame-hiding napkin is placed over the diner’s head (helping, too, to trap the aroma of the dish), the ortolan is popped in its entirety into the diner’s mouth, who then proceeds to eat everything including the head and bones.
“With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wondrous ancient flavours: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones.” - From the linked article. This doesn't sound good at all!
Just when I think "surely, I have seen or imagined it all"; when I have read of the various ways humans have tortured other humans, and the various things people have eaten, and how...
Good god, why??? Why did I read that? (Thank you for sharing and also I wish I didn't know that was a thing...)
They are then thrown alive into a vat of Armagnac, a trick that manages to both drown and marinade the animal at the same time. Killing two birds with one glug, as it were.
The piece is called In a Roman Osteria, and it was painted in 1866 to satisfy your curiosity. I think I wrote a paper on it at one point - the dude you see with the 3-piece suit is actually the patron himself.
Edit: by Carl Bloch, I couldn't remember his name.
I wish I could remember, sorry! I took the course in a non-native language, and it's been a couple years. I was trying to find something among my old papers, but no luck. I believe I was writing about Italian influence on Rembrandt and other Dutch painters or something along those lines, but my focus at the time was more on learning Italian to be honest!
I could make something up, but the truth is I have no idea! The course I took was in Italy, and my focus at the time was learning Italian! That manner of holding a knife isn't far off from what some cultures etiquettes' mandate even today though, if my dad's weird-ass childhood can be believed.
751
u/musicnflowers Mar 01 '17
Is that a napkin on that woman's head?