Livestock, Methane, and Facts; Or, Nitwittery Is Not My Friend

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Indeed, nitwittery may end up sending me screaming right over the edge. Or maybe today I just like the word "nitwittery."

In any case, breathless excitement today in the "profood" world over a new report that livestock (read: cattle) and therefore meat-eaters are to blame for all the world's woes.

The short version is here.

But please, see this for a more balanced, nuanced view.

Guess which version is gonna set the world afire?

In the Kitchen: Spinach-and-Pasta In A Hurry

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Tonight I planned to make risotto with spinach and porcini mushrooms. But husband came home and announced he was going to an evening event and had to leave early. Okay. No problem. Had a crap day and wanted to relax with the risotto, but truly, no problem. (Because why make a bad day worse?)

Made this instead. Think of it as a fake pasta carbonara. (In this case inspired by a recipe from Lynn Rossetto Kaspar's Italian Country Table

  • 1 box frozen spinach
  • a bit of diced red onion
  • a bit of chopped garlic
  • a quarter cup or so of grated romano and parmesan cheeses
  • 2 eggs
  • pasta (I used fusilli) (or however that's spelled)

I put on a pot of water to boil. Thawed the spinach in the microwave (isn't modern life amazing?). (Am not sure what's more amazing: the convenience of frozen spinach or the microwave.)

While I waited for the water to boil, I put the eggs, most of the cheese, and some salt and pepper in a bowl and mixed it with a fork. I heated some olive oil in a saute pan and added the onion and garlic. After about two minutes, I added the spinach and some salt, pepper, and dried pepper flakes and cooked it over medium-low heat for five or six minutes.

When the pasta was done, I tossed a quarter cup or so of its water in with the spinach and cooked it a minute. Added the pasta and tossed. Then added the eggs and cheese mixture and tossed gently and cooked it for a couple of minutes, just enough to cook the eggs.

Dished it up in a couple of bowls, sprinkled the rest of the cheese over it, poured some Shiraz. And the day's woes vanished. As did my husband not long after. Leaving me with the dishes. Hey! Life's not perfect.

A Historian At Work: In the [Secondary] Research Grind

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I love my work. I know, I know: Sometimes I grouse. But honest: I love my work.

But it can leave my brain feeling like an old sweatsock that's been hit by a Mack truck.

Like today. For the past week, I've had my elbows planted on my desk, reading stacks of books. Stacks of 'em. My elbows are numb and so is my brain.

So: I'm taking a break. Which brings me to my point: How do historians find all those pesky facts? (You know: Those facts that allow us to tell stories.)

As I noted here in another rumination on doing history, historians engage in two kinds of research: Primary and secondary. Most of my work is based on primary sources and if I'm not writing, I'm usually reading those (newspapers, diaries, letters, government reports, legal documents).

Sometime I spend weeks reading nothing but primary sources. But at some point, I have to turn to the secondaries. It's the least  favorite part of my job.  I just can't get as enthused about secondary sources. But they're necessary --- indeed, fundamental --- to the process.

For example: I'm writing a history of meat in modern America. To do so, I need to know about property law, anti-trust regulation, federal land policies, food legislation, and seventy-five other topics that are not directly related to the main topic of "meat." That's where the secondary sources come in.

Take anti-trust regulation. (Please!) Anti-trust laws play a crucial role in the history of modern American meat processing and distribution. But I'm no legal historian, so to learn about anti-trust, I turn to scholars who specialize in its history. (Bless their geeky hearts.) I've waded through several scholarly books and articles on the topic, trying to get a sense of what happened when (and, with any luck, why).

Now that I've done that, I have the background I need to turn directly to the anti-trust cases themselves. Put another way, I use the secondary sources to ground myself so that the primary sources in a specialized field like the history of law make sense. If I tried to just read the anti-trust rulings on their own, I'd be lost. Once I've got some basic background, however, I'm confident I can make my own judgments about the primary material.

But these mini-crash courses are exhausting. Scholars tend to assume their readers are already experts, so I spend half my time decoding their jargon. (That's especially true of legal and economic historians. Jargon City.)

Anyway, that's what I've been doing for the past ten days: Taking crash courses in law, federal land policy, and changes in cattle ranching in the early twentieth century.

And yes, I know what you're wondering: "How do historians know when to focus on primaries and when to rely on secondaries?" "How do they know what's "tangential" to their topic and what's not?" Good questions! I'll answer them later.

Shawn Connelly

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I admire Shawn Connelly: he's smart, talented, and  engaged with the world around  him. And --- he acts on his passions. What's not to like? (Some of you already know him. He's the brain behind Aleluminati and Beer Philosopher.) Naturally I was glad to see this three-part interview with him. (The link is to part one; links to parts two and three are at the bottom of the first installment.) Enjoy!

Minor Update (On My Absence, If Nothing Else)

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Am not around much because I'm  deep into it (the new book, I mean). I just started a new section of the project, which means reading tons (not quite literally, but almost) of material and getting myself up to speed on homesteading laws, property law in the 20th century, the nature and meaning of "modern" agriculture, more in anti-trust legislation, and other matters that probably don't sound interesting. (Although I intend to make them not just interesting but fascinating for the people who read the book).

I'm also at the point of the project where, for better or worse (and I can never decide which) that my sleep at night is wracked with dreams about the book. When I wrote the beer book, for example, for several months running I dreamed about Frederick Pabst and Adolphus Busch. We took carriage rides together, enjoyed long dinners, shared long conversations. (Yes, it was interesting. Although the meals contained an insane amount of heavy, rich food.)

The new book involves also involves people although  none of them enjoy the several-chapters-long central role played by Pabst and Busch. So my current dreams tend to revolve around Congressional hearings, city streets clogged with livestock, and anonymous ranchers and livestock commission agents.

But that's okay. My dream-mind is enjoying lively conversations and I'm listening to people debate and argue and sometimes shout at each other, and in general go about the business of letting me understand their world. (Although frankly I could do with less shouting; the other night, a heated Congressional investigation of some sort kept waking me up. Maddening.)

I know. I know. It's weird. But it's how my mind works when I'm deep into a subject. So --- back at it. I'd say I'll see you in my dreams, but I dunno. I kind of doubt you'll show up there --- and I bet you wouldn't like it if you did. Back to work.