Replying to LO26953 --
Dear Organlearners.
Don Dwiggins <d.l.dwiggins@computer.org> writes:
>In the introduction to the book, it's mentioned that
>both Steinbeck and Ricketts were strongly influenced
>by William Emerson Ritter, "whose doctrine of the
>oranismal conception of life formed the zeitgeist of
>the Berkeley bioligical sciences faculty at the time.
>... Ritter believed that 'in all parts of nature and in
>nature itself as one gigantic whole, wholes are so
>related to their parts that not only does the existence
>of the whole depend on the orderly co-operation and
>interdependence of the parts, but the whole exercises
>a measure of determinative control over its parts.'
Greetings dear Dwig,
Thank you for sharing this source with us. I still have to look up what
out own library has on WE Ritter.
Now I understand why in terms of this wholeness, when I still had the time
to read novels, Steinbeck's own reminded me so much of the delicacy (dish)
called "sosatie" of my people, the Afrikaners. Allow me to let you taste
his novels (rather than describing them) with the following recipe.
You will need about 2 pounds (1 kilogramme) of meat. You can use any kind
of meat (chicken, pork, mutton, beef or venison). Cut it into pieces of
roughly 1x1x1/2 inch with the fibres of the meat along the 1/2 inch
dimension. You will also need wood dowels of about 1/8th inch diameter for
stringing up the sosatie. (Those bamboo dowels used for making baskets are
an excellent choice.) Sharpen the one point like a pencil.
I am sure that you have a preference for certain spices. Make up a thick
soup by boiling some flower with water. Then stir the spices of your
choice into that soup together with NATURAL (rock) salt and NATURAL
vinegar (made from fruit like grapes or appels). Do not go lean on the
psices. Let the soup cool off to fridge temperature as fast as possible so
that the fragrances do not escape from the mixture.
You will also need dried fruit like apricots, plums and even oranges. In
addition to that you may also need vegetables like onions, garlic and even
radishes. Use whatever is delicious to you. Weak the dried fruit in water
so that it becomes soft. Cook the vegetables for a short while in water so
that they become soft, but not mushy.
Now take one piece of meat, push the dowel through it along its fibre.
Then follow it up with a piece of fruit or vegetable. Follow it up again
with meat and then fruit/vegetables alternatively. If the meat has fat to
it, alternate lean with fatty pieces of meat. When the string has reached
a length of some 6 inches (meat and fruit/vegetables pressed closely
against each other), you have prepared a sosatie.
Arrange these sosaties in a dish and pour the spicy marinade (soup) over
them so as to cover them completely on all sides. Put a lid on the dish.
Put the dish in a cold fridge (just above freezing point) for at least 48
hours. The secret to the sosatie is not to stir the sosaties or the
marinade (soup), but to let the associativity pattern of wholeness
establish itself between the pieces of meat, fruit/vegetables and spices.
It is here where you should have great patience. Some people advise
turning the sosaties every couple of hours, but this destroy the very
emergences which you are seeking.
At last you will fry the sosatie in a pan or preferably upon an open fire.
Take care not to burn the sosaties because the carbohydrates in them may
easily be rendered to charcoal. Before serving them, you may squeeze some
"blatjang" upon them. This "blatjang" is a jam of any kind enriched up to
the limit (spareness) with spices according to your taste.
Dwig, this "sosatie" is the culinary version of Goethe's concept
"Steigerung" (a string of emergences). When you eat Steinbeck's novels
again, try to discern whether you are tasting the "sosatie" of wholeness.
I am waiting expectantly for your report or that of any fellow learner. I
suspect you will agree that in Steinbeck's art or the "sosatie" the whole
is more than the sum of the parts.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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