The holidays will soon be on us: school is out for Xmas break in Chicago, and I’ll be spending the holidays and my birthday in sunny India, visiting friends, traveling, and consuming mass quantities of one of the world’s three great cuisines. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s cuisine is solely rodential, and here she frets about the non-decimal system used to enumerate noms in other countries (Poles don’t use the “dozen” unit of 12):
Hili: What is “half a dozen”?
A: The five mice you ate plus the one you left for us on the veranda.
Hili: Who counts like that?!
In Polish:
Hili: Co to jest pół tuzina?
Ja: Pięć myszek, które zjadłaś plus ta, którą nam zostawiłaś na werandzie.
Hili: Kto tak liczy!?
Has Hili dumped Cyrus the d*g? Cats are notoriously fickle…
Oh, no! They are best of friends. Just now they are cuddled together on the sofa – fast asleep both.
If duodecimal counting blows Hili’s mind, wait till she finds out there are thirteen in a dozen baked items.
Are eggs sold by 5 or 10 in Poland, rather than by 6 or 12? Eggs are the last item that seems to hold out for duodecimal.
Better convert the mice to cat fat now than let them die from food shortage over winter …
Eggs (and everything else) is sold in 5s and 10s.
How long has that been so?
Eggs in the States are so universally sold by the dozen / half-dozen that we practically don’t even have the language to describe any other option. “When you’re at the store, remember to pick up ten eggs” doesn’t even sound like grammatically-correct English!
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I tried to find an answer, but all I found is that in Middle Ages we had a dozen eggs and even a name for five dozens eggs (kopa). But it was a long time ago…
Eggs & beer…
Astrophysicists. What’s a few orders of magnitude between friends when trying to find the strength of a magnetic field on the surface of a neutron star.
I must agree, Indian cuisine certainly ranks among the worlds best; if not the best. So varied and how they manage to obtain such complexity of heat and floral in the same dish…
Now that’s my idea of heaven!
Post lots of pictures as I plan to eat vicariously through them.
Bon voyage for a well deserved trip upon the completion of your book.
I agree that Indian cuisine ranks amongst the best in the word but I am curious as to which are the other two.
I’d place French, Italian and Chinese together with Indian in a top four (not sure about ranking them within that).
All four, if poorly executed, can produce mediocre schlock but in skilled hands they can all be sublime.
I am also very partial to middle eastern cuisine which may be less sophisticated than the other four but includes some delicious dishes.
How lucky we are that the best of so many different countries’ cuisines are available to us to sample!
Hope you enjoy the best India has to offer!
I am also curious as to Professor Ceiling Cat’s take on the other two great cuisines. I am guessing French and Italian. But I am partial to the comfort food style of German food (and the beer!).
French and Chinese (esp. Szechuan and Hunan). I’ve heard Italian food is great, but, sadly, I’ve never been to Italy long enough to form an opinion.
Maybe it’s like bird watching?
When asked what my favorite bird is I often reply
“The one I’m looking at now.”
So maybe Prof Ceiling Cat’s favorite cuisine is “the one that I am
eating now”.
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This picture of Hili is so cute; you just want to give her smooches!
Looking forward to the dispatches from India!