By H.C. Johns

Hello all! As John said yesterday in his extremely generous introduction, I will be guest blogging here (and at own my blog, The Other Right) for the next few weeks while he is on vacation. This is very exciting for me, as I’ve been reading Upturned Earth since quite a ways back and it’s been one of the major reasons I started blogging myself.  So I am very pumped to be here and hopefully I’ll be able to provide some content on par with what you’ve come to expect from UE.

While we’re working out whatever kinks may exist in the software, you should all go read this lovely piece on gastronomical outlook of the Pythagoreans. Though their geometric accomplishments were considerable, the Pythagoreans were arguably the first of a long line of cranks attempting to out-reason culinary tradition. How crazier were they? Pretty crazy.

They abstained from meat and fish. For some reason red mullet is singled out for especial prohibition, and Plutarch notes that they considered the egg taboo, too. Pythagoras and his followers also inherited from the Egyptians a strong revulsion to beans, because of their apparent resemblance to the genitalia. Apparently, “bean” may have been a slang term for “testicle.” But there are many other possible reasons for this dislike of beans.

It gets weirder. This is the kind of detail that makes me glad to study philosophy; for all that can be learned on the path to truth, its the flaming car wrecks by the side of the road that really make the trip worthwhile.

     Filed under: agriculture, personal, philosophy