It is my birthday today (^_^)
May is my favorite season of the year!
Anyone else have a birthday comin up????

Already had mine last month^^ Happy Birthday to you👍🎂🎉

I suspect donwynne is a spammer :D

It's March afterall… May is over a month away.

Yeah, but I thought: “Even spammers deserves a happy birthday now and then”^^

Andreas_Helixfinger wrote:
Yeah, but I thought: “Even spammers deserves a happy birthday now and then”^^

Hahaha!

If I knew it was your birthday I'd have baked a cake.
With a lovely spam filling.

Ironscarf wrote:
If I knew it was your birthday I'd have baked a cake.
With a lovely spam filling.

Could just put icing and a candle on the Spam fresh from the can. Is very cake shaped.

Love the spam, wonderful spam–

Agreed. Thankfully the rise of the spam filter has done them no harm at all. 2021 was apparently the seventh year in a row of record sales for the brand. Eric Idle should take some of the credit for this - a hugely underrated songwriter in my opinion.
Who among us has not gleefully sung along with the Spam chorus, or whistled along with Brian's crucifiction, or dressed in suspendies and a bra while eating buttered scones for tea?

Ironscarf wrote:
Agreed. Thankfully the rise of the spam filter has done them no harm at all. 2021 was apparently the seventh year in a row of record sales for the brand. Eric Idle should take some of the credit for this - a hugely underrated songwriter in my opinion.
Who among us has not gleefully sung along with the Spam chorus, or whistled along with Brian's crucifiction, or dressed in suspendies and a bra while eating buttered scones for tea?

He wrote a whole musical you know. You can get the offical Spamalot commemorative Spam.

Funny, I've always hated the taste of ham and the taste of Spam just made me hate it even more XD


I wonder why Spam is still a thing (the food), when it's always been so universally hated… I mean I can see why it was bi once- when people had poor access to real meat because of rationing that would have seemed acceptable, but now? O_o

But I suppose shitty foods tend to last on forever in some kind of boutique stasis even though we all know they're terrible… because of nostalgia, icon status or misplaced exoticism or nationalism (looking at you Baltic countries and your stinky rotten fish XD)

Back to Spam- it's based on Ham, which is a pretty horrible meat anyway. I mean there are two whole religions based around how shitty it is. Pigs used to be used for human toilets… Yeah, so there was obviously the hygiene angle as a reason some despised it, granted, but also they were a peasant food. Anyone could keep a crappy pig and feed it up and slaughter it to have at a special feast.

I read once that most meat from pigs is heavily flavoured and altered because if it wasn't no one would want it - It's used cured, smoked, glazed, mixed with all sorts of other things and turned into sausages of many kinds and then often smoked or cured again…

In short, Pigs taste horrid!
They make better pets.

Happy birthday, Don Wynne.

On the other hand, who says those sentences are connected? Your favorite season doesn't have to be your birthday.

My birthday is summer solstice, and I loathe summer with every fiber of my being.

My favorite season is November.


Anyway, happy birthday, Don.

Ozoneocean wrote:

In short, Pigs taste horrid!
They make better pets.

Pigs make great pets because they eat your poop. Just like cats moved in to take care of rodents and then just never left.

Ham and bacon are two of the greatest foods ever. Just because Bronze Age nomads didn't eat them – well the whole rest of the world does. Listen, the Polynesians put them into canoes and paddled them across the Pacific and not because they were lonely. They're a low maintenance source of protein.

You're trying to rationalize a personal distaste for a food animal used by cultures from Europe to Java. Doesn't work. Now excuse me but I'm having some ham for breakfast. 😉
;)

He also put a different birthday in his account details when he signed up. According to that it's not till a few days away…
So yeah: Signs up. First thing he does is post in the main forum about his Birthday being on the very day he posts and the love of May, meanwhile he listed his birthday as a few days after he posted…

Could be a confused person but most likely a spammer. It's what they do to seem real.

bravo1102 wrote:
You're trying to rationalize a personal distaste for a food animal used by cultures from Europe to Java. Doesn't work. Now excuse me but I'm having some ham for breakfast. 😉
;)

Oh it's not my rationalisation. I read about that in a book from a noted author. The rest are all just facts.

Ozoneocean wrote:.

bravo1102 wrote:
You're trying to rationalize a personal distaste for a food animal used by cultures from Europe to Java. Doesn't work. Now excuse me but I'm having some ham for breakfast. 😉
;)

Oh it's not my rationalisation. I read about that in a book from a noted author. The rest are all just facts.

It's based on a distaste for pork and ham and you sought out other opinions that reinforced your preexisting point of view. This is rationalization and even cognitive dissonance. :p :D

And the author is another person who never liked pork as a child. It flies in the face of any number of studies of the diets of various historical cultures going back to the first domestication of the pig. All things considered chicken isn't all that great either.

Been reading a lot on human prehistory. Goblecki Tepe and such. Part of studying up on the whole alternative history (pseudo history) movement.

And my background in Medieval history. Pigs were very important in Medieval agriculture. By the way pork can be cured and lasts longer than other meat so it was practical. Pigs are also among the easiest animals to care for. They don't need tending or shepards but can often care for themselves. One of the reasons the Polynesians liked them so much.

By the way. I grew up on pork and don't like it either. Pork is relatively cheap and the only meat available to poor peasants and immigrants.

Love ham though. It's in my Virginian blood. One of earliest structures built in Jamestown was a smokehouse. Have to eat beef right away. Cured pork will last all winter.

Brits traditionally love pork so much we're not satisfied with just eating it for breakfast, we combine several helpings on one plate to create the Full English Breakfast. You've got your pork sausages, your rashers of bacon and for the truly dedicated among us, several slices of black pudding, the contents of which I won't expand on in polite company.

The following link shows an example, which some may find offensive:
/media/users/Ironscarf/assets/full-english-7355w-2.jpg

Ironscarf wrote:
Brits traditionally love pork so much we're not satisfied with just eating it for breakfast, we combine several helpings on one plate to create the Full English Breakfast. You've got your pork sausages, your rashers of bacon and for the truly dedicated among us, several slices of black pudding, the contents of which I won't expand on in polite company.

The following link shows an example, which some may find offensive:
/media/users/Ironscarf/assets/full-english-7355w-2.jpg

Because Pigs are inexpensive and very easy to raise in Britain's climate. It was an easy way to provide protein to the population because anyone could keep a pig. Cows were hard and horses even harder and very expensive. Cattle was often community property among a village. Pigs? Anyone could get them. Cure the meat and eat well into next spring. Can't do that with beef before railroads and refrigeration. Two thousand years of history doesn't lie.

Reading a book about the Anglo-Saxons now. How much is so familiar from my classes 35 years ago but all still new.

Ironscarf wrote:
Brits traditionally love pork so much we're not satisfied with just eating it for breakfast, we combine several helpings on one plate to create the Full English Breakfast. You've got your pork sausages, your rashers of bacon and for the truly dedicated among us, several slices of black pudding, the contents of which I won't expand on in polite company.

The following link shows an example, which some may find offensive:
/media/users/Ironscarf/assets/full-english-7355w-2.jpg

I tried the Full British Breakfast when I was on vacation in London back in 2013. Greasiest breakfast I've ever had in my life^^

Ironscarf wrote:
Brits traditionally love pork so much we're not satisfied with just eating it for breakfast, we combine several helpings on one plate to create the Full English Breakfast. You've got your pork sausages, your rashers of bacon and for the truly dedicated among us, several slices of black pudding, the contents of which I won't expand on in polite company.

The following link shows an example, which some may find offensive:
/media/users/Ironscarf/assets/full-english-7355w-2.jpg

Thus was the Empire forged.

LOL! I didn't seek anything out Bravo, nor even cherrypick, I just mentions simple facts :)

Like When Ironscarf brings up how much the British love pork he also lists a bunch of products that have their taste altered- Sausages and bacon, black pudding etc are all processed. XD

There's not difference with beef, it doesn't have to be eaten right away. It can be cured and processed the same as pork- you can do all the same things. You just don't do it as much because it's far better tasting so it's a waste to process it so heavily unless you really need to. Beef is much higher value meat.
To get the same value from a pork you have to process it. That's just how the meat industry works (on value).

I've also had the full British breakfast when I was in the UK Quite an experience.
A lumberjack breakfast is lighter by comparison with its hashbrowns and stack of pancakes and only one serving of pork.

But the Waffle house fresh Smithfield ham with the bone in cannot be beat.

And what's the difference between cured beef and leather? It's easier to chew leather.

Taste is not a fact and is subjective. You're assuming what the tastes of people in the past were and even projecting your tastes on them. The passage cited has been heavily criticized by others as it is based on modern meat. Cattle two hundred years ago was different let alone during the Middle Ages and earlier when these practices originated. It's said the Medieval steak would taste like modern rump or even stew meat. Lots of people live for pork and are not fond of beef. And beef historically has not kept as well as pork.
At one point I was going to reference a lot of this in my comics as characters complain about the food. It's one reason my berserker character (who was also a good cook) was known for carrying spices wherever he goes. Being Norse he had access to a wider selection of condiments than others and knew how bland most food was. Even beef. Most beef was stewed not roasted or fried. When roasted it was often raw as the outside cooked and the inside didn't so before modern cooking (and animal husbandry) beef could be pretty nasty.
I've had period recipes. One Provencal dish was basically want some beef with your mustard? It was that heavily seasoned.

Ozoneocean wrote:

Like When Ironscarf brings up how much the British love pork he also lists a bunch of products that have their taste altered- Sausages and bacon, black pudding etc are all processed. XD

I should add that we also love our unprocessed pork so much that I wrote this song on the subject many years ago:

Porky chops, porky chops,
You know you want ‘em so get down the shops,
You can fry ’em and grill ‘em and stick’ em in th'oven,
Or chuck ‘em ont’ barbie and Aussies will love 'em.

I can't remember how the rest goes, but you get the general idea.