Posted By Russ Emerson on March 19, 2005 at 6:09 pm
Well, this BBC item is cool:
South Korea’s spicy fermented cabbage dish, kimchi, could help to cure bird flu, according to researchers.
Scientists at Seoul National University say they fed an extract of kimchi to 13 infected chickens – and a week later 11 of them had started recovering.
Kimchi is a preparation of pickled and spiced cabbage (radish and cucumber are also popular) which is then fermented (though it is quite good fresh, too.) By “spiced,” I mean hot — hot red peppers seem to be the main spice, though garlic is also involved.
I first sampled it when I was a student at the Defense Language Institute back in ’86, and there was no looking back. My subsequent 2½ years stationed in Korea were gustatory heaven for me. Korean food remains one of my favorite cuisines.
And now here in North Carolina, I can get kimchi by the jar at the nearby Lowe’s grocery store. It goes great on hamburgers, though when I have it I usually eat it straight, as a side dish with pretty much anything.
I am safe from the bird flu. [Not that we humans actually get the bird flu… uh… do we? Oh, dang.]
Just don’t stand downwind of me.
Update: I see Kevin at Wizbang has also noted the story.
Category: Miscellany |
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Posted By Russ Emerson on March 17, 2005 at 10:24 am
Is there enough green on this page?
Being Dutch on my Mom’s side, I grew up with the notion that we were supposed to wear orange instead of green on Saint Patrick’s Day. Perhaps that’s a by-product of the intense anti-Catholicism of the Dutch Calvinist camp. That sort of attitude is understandable, given the anti-Reformation persecution conducted by Rome in centuries past.
But those centuries are past. The differences between Catholicism and mainline Protestantism are not actually numerous, though they are doctrinally profound… but burning at the stake does not exactly remain a threat to those of us who dissent.
In Ireland, sectarian differences are used as rallying cries for partisans on both sides, though I think it’s been fairly well established that the IRA is primarily not a religious group but a Marxist-leaning political group that cynically uses anti-Protestantism as a surrogate for its anti-British agenda. In turn, their political opponents have turned to anti-Catholicism to energize their followers. As a result, honest Catholics and Protestants both suffer.
There is much more that binds Catholics and Protestants to each other than separates them, and many people would be better off if we all started acting like it. Compared to the differences between Christianity and (e.g.) Islam, denominational differences within Christianity are nearly trivial.
Category: History, Miscellany |
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