From Sardines to Anchovies

I. 

 

I've nothing against the humble sardine; that small, oily fish in the herring family, which some people refer to as pilchards and which Aristotle is thought to have loved eating; though presumably not on toast, which is how the British traditionally serve them. 

 

And there's no denying that they do make a tasty and nutritious meal, even when enjoyed straight from the tin, rather than fresh from the sea; full of protein and fatty acids, sardines are also low in contaminants, such as mercury, unlike some other larger fish commonly consumed by humans.

 

However, push comes to shove, and my preference is for the anchovy ... [1]

 

 

II. 

 

The anchovy is another small, oily fish, belonging to the same order as the sardine (Clupeiformes), but to a different family and they have been happily swimming around the world's temperate oceans for tens of millions years; i.e., long before there were any people to catch them in nets and stuff them into jars.     

 

Anchovies are pretty little things; slim-bodied, and silvery greenish-blue in colour, with a stripe running along their backs. But they also come with tiny sharp teeth, so anyone handling a live fish should beware.

 

I'm particularly fond of the European anchovy, which is found in the Med and which has been fished by the peoples fortunate enough to live on the coasts of Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, etc., for untold generations.

 

The place that I mostly associate with them, however, is the picturesque small town of Collioure, on the Côte Vermeille, just over the border from Spain, in the region of French Catalonia where they are known as anchois or anxova depending to whom you speak. 

 

Katxu and I went there once, initially because we wanted to follow in the footsteps of Matisse and Derain and experience the astonishing quality of the light that inspired Fauvism a century earlier, but we soon ended up at the anchovy museum like everyone else who visits [2].

 

After the visit, I was so enchanted by the story of these little blue fish and the folk who depend on them, that I even wrote a short poem on the back of a postcard:

 

  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I know that many Brits do not like anchovies, due to their characteristic saltiness and strong flavour; i.e., pretty much the same objection that is often raised against olives. But then the British are a people who privilege fish fingers and pickled onions over most foreign delicacies.

 

[2] Technically, there are two family-run anchovy businesses in Collioure, rather than a museum as such: Anchois Roque and Anchois Desclaux. Both were established in the 19th century and each is open to the public, so that one can watch as the fish are processed, preserved, and packaged in the traditional way (by hand, not machine). 

      As well as regular tastings, there are all kinds of old objects and photos to look at that allow one to appreciate the historical and cultural importance of anchovies for the inhabitants of the town. Click here, for further details. 

 

 

For a sister post to this one on oranges and lemons and the politics of citrus fruit, click here.      

 

 

On Pareidolia and Prosopagnosia

Still from the classic silent movie Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902)

Torpedo the Ark means: Take that Man in the Moon!

Pareidolia is the psychological term for the all too human propensity to see ourselves - particularly our own grinning faces - in nature. A well-known example of this is the man in the moon phenomenon. 

In other words, pareidolia is the visual form of apophenia or the will to meaning that interprets purely random patterns or events as being in some way significant, thereby displaying evidence of intelligent design, or the hand of God. 

It's thus thanks to pareidolia in combination with other forms of apophenia - or what Michael Shermer has termed patternicity - that primitive mankind was able to organize chaos and make the universe not only intelligible, but also loving and divine; a manifestation of the sacred. Even today, there are believers who see the face of Jesus on a slice of burnt toast.        

And this is why torpedo the ark means rejecting all forms of correlationism and all attempts to locate agency, whether in heavenly bodies, or loaves of bread. In fact, I'm only half-joking when I say that the philosopher today is obliged not only to cultivate innocence and forgetfulness, but also prosopagnosia or face blindness. 

Perhaps then - and only then - will we be able to know objects as fully independent of ourselves.

Note: I am grateful to Azucena Gómez for suggesting this post and bringing some of the technical terminology to my attention.  

My Night in Raval with Ken and Barbie - A Guest Post by Katxu

El Raval is a notorious neighbourhood in the Ciutat Vella district of Barcelona. A place where - I'd been told - anything goes and gender is completely fluid. This, apparently, placed me under a compulsion to visit. And so, despite my doubts concerning the validity and, indeed, desirability of such a claim, I decided to venture forth one night and take a peek. 
 

The first liquid bodies I encountered were puddles of piss left by drunks and stray dogs. Sidestepping these and the unfortunate beings that made them, I made my way to a restaurant which boasted haute cuisine on the menu and low-life outside its doors. Wealth and poverty never really meet; they simply ignore one another even whilst living side-by-side (though sometimes the rich like to slum it and the poor like to riot). 
    

I watched the parade of people pass by: tourists from the UK; immigrants from South America and Asia; prostitutes from Eastern Europe; and a colourful assortment of home-grown queers. I suppose the latter best exemplified the fluidity of gender I'd been promised, but I couldn't help thinking that they seemed more fixated by - and fixed in - sexual rules and roles than the most conventional boy and girl next door.

I also thought of all the writers who have described such scenes and the painters who have depicted these very streets - the Carrer d'Avinyó is in the nearby Gothic quarter. Is it really so transgressive and so liberating to celebrate all that mushrooms beneath a red light and to unconditionally love everything that flows like Henry Miller?

Feeling a little tipsy, I went to powder my nose in order to clear my mind. When I got to the washrooms, I found that the doorknobs on the two doors facing had been replaced with dolls' heads; an ironic gesture of postmodern barbarism. One had long blonde hair and one had short dark hair - I'm not sure, but I think it was Barbie and Ken, both looking decidedly worse for wear. 

As I was in a hurry and in no mood to try to puzzle out which head to turn, I decided to reach for Barbie. But before I could place my hand on her poor battered head, a man shouted and said that the Barbie cubicle was reserved for cross-dressers and transgender individuals only; that I should wait for Ken's cubicle to become free.      

I was going to challenge the curious reasoning - I was going to ask about fluidity - but instead I just decided to turn on my heels and go home with my un-powdered nose in the air. 

Katxu is a keen observer of life in Barcelona. Originally from Burgos, she likes to read, to paint, to cook, and to enjoy the company of her plants on the balcony of her apartment overlooking Sants Estació and from where she can smile at the Sony sign.

Katxu appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for her kind submission of a text written especially for this blog, and, indeed, for permission to use the photo taken of her last year in Sitges.