Roger’s View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!

Image of a Budge Book in the 1999 movie "The Mummy!" CLICK on the picture above to read about this fun movie!

Book recommendations come from some fun places. In the 1999 movie the “Mummy”, our heroine was carrying a book by  Sir Wallace Budge  that I had avoided. I think it was an arrogant presumption on my part that the book was too elementary; but as a primer — I would learn – it was fantastic. “The Dwellers of the Nile” is not a particularly long or expensive book as rare books go, so it was fun to pick up a first edition (1885). In the movie “Mummy”, Evelyn ‘Evy’ Carnahan can read and write heiratic, demonic and heiroglyphics and this book is a bit out of place as it addresses none of this; however, it does discuss how ancient Egyptian was finally decifered. Part of the fun was Sir Wallis’s amusement that the reason it took so long to decifer the language is that so many academics were approaching the subject with much bias and superstition.

However, if Evy was indeed joining the many British travelors of the time, she might actually have ‘The Nile” by Sir Wallis Budge for those taking ‘the Cooks Tour” with Thomas Cook and Company.

Want to take a modern day 'Cooks Tour" then CLICK on the picture above and see where they are going today!

“The Nile” is a wonderful and virtually complete little book that reminds even the most steadfast travelors to bring their ‘block and tackle’ before venturing to some of the more remote locations!

One can find history, travel and adventure …. in a book!

Share on Facebook

Tonight Greg Lukianoff is announcing the coming of his new book with F.I.R.E. : ‘Greg’s book will explore how today’s college students are “unlearning liberty,” and discuss what happens to our society when students are taught in a campus environment that is marred by speech codes and censorship. Greg’s book will also cover FIRE’s work on hundreds of cases involving student and faculty rights over the past decade..’

Greg writes the following on the  Huffington post:

“This brings me to my big project for 2010: I’m working on a book highlighting the literally hundreds of cases I’ve worked on involving crazy abuses of student and faculty rights. I intend to demonstrate how campus censorship, far from being a niche concern applicable only to those on campus, is a threat to the functioning of our democracy as a whole.”

Greg discusses this tonight at his alma mater Stanford!

Roger Freberg

Share on Facebook

There was a time when the theory of Atlantis was considered real, it was a time of achievement and optimism. Kings and scholars read “Atlantis; the Antediluvian World” with a captivation seldom seen even today outside of Harry Potter phenomenon. However, before we sound too cruel to ‘Atlantis’, allow me to present the last paragraph of the book to help you better understand their enthusiasm:

“We are but beginning to understand the past: one hundred years ago the world knew nothing of Pompeii or Herculaneum; nothing of the lingual tie that binds together the Indo-European nations; nothing of the significance of the vast volumes of inscriptions upon the tombs and temples of Egypt; nothing of the meaning of the arrow-headed inscriptions of Babylon; nothing of the marvelous civilizations revealed in the remains of Yucatan, Mexico and Peru. We are on the threshold. Scientific investigations is making great strides. Who shall say that in one hundred years from now the great museums of the world may not be adorned with gems, statues, arms, and the implements of Atlantis, while the libraries of the world shall contain translations of its inscriptions, throwing new light upon all the past history of the human race, and all the great problems which now perplex the thinkers of our day?”

Ignatius Donnelly (1882)

Here is a fairly good , but brief, synopsis of Donnelly’s book.

Interestingly enough, some recent theories postulate a rather sudden flood of the Mediterranean which may be associated with the legend. In any event, it is from our discarded theories that we learn something of value…. if not be entertained. This reminds me that it is not the theories that we embrace that cause us to falter, but our unwillingness to give them up that continues to haunt us.

“It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.” — Konrad Lorenz

We can look all around us today and see ‘scientific theories’  in the free marketplace of ideas; they should be allowed to be debated and not censored, for only in this way can we eventually discover the truth.

Roger Freberg

Share on Facebook

I have found that few things transform you in time quite like an old cookbook. We get wonderful hints as to what it was like to live and dine in another era. Recently, I came across a fascinating little book that you can still find a few recent reprints if you look around. “The Virginia Housewife or, Methodical Cook” was first published in 1831. The author wrote her book:

‘from the want of books sufficiently clear and concise… to reduce every thing in the culinary line, to proper weights and measures… for, when the ingredients employed were given in just proportions, the article made was equally good.”

This was in an era when the culinary skills were truly a ‘learn by doing’ activity and normally little was ever written down and everything committed to memory. It appears that this cookbook was a widely reprinted reference well into the civil war.

We all wonder what recipes might be popular enough with ingredients commonplace enough to be placed in a cookbook of that time? Many of the recipes are very basic: on how to clean and dress various animals, sauces, puddings and desserts, preserves, pickling and the making of beer and cordials. But what it does include that might surprise you is a nice recipe for ‘Curried Chicken’. As you know curry powder is a blend of spices and she even includes a recipe for her ‘curry.’ Who knew?

TO MAKE A DISH OF CURRY AFTER THE EAST INDIAN MANNER

Cut two chickens as for fricassee, wash them clean, and put them in a stew pan with as much water as will cover them; sprinkle them with a large spoonful of salt, and let them boil until tender, cover close all the time, and skim them well; when boiled enough,take up the chickens, and put the liquor of them into a pan, then put half a pound of fresh butter in the pan, and brown it a little; put into it two cloves of garlic, and a large onion sliced, and let these all fry till brown, often shaking the pan; then put in the chickens, and sprinkle over them two or thee spoonfuls of curry powder; then cover the pan close, and let the chickens do till brown, often shaking the pan; then put in the liquor the chickens were boiled in, and all stew together until tender; if acid is agreeable squeeze the juice of a lemon or orange in it.

CURRY POWDER

One ounce turmeric, one do. coriander seed, one do. cumin seed, one do. white ginger, one cayenne pepper; pound all together, and pass them through a fine sieve; bottle and cork it well — one tea-spoon is sufficient to season any made dish.

Sound Familiar? YUM!

Roger

Share on Facebook

The book entitled “Atlantis the antediluvian world” was received as ‘fact’ when the book was released in 1882. Kings and heads of state reviewed with awe the tale of Atlantis, and with the recent discovery of Troy and the continued exploration of Egyptian antiquity, who could blame anyone from being captivated? We often don’t admit to being hoodwinked which is why you seldom hear about this book, but it is fun to read!

Which brings me to a curious point, one of the things that are quickly vanishing out of libraries and large private collections and into the hands of many everyday people are thousands and thousands of books. If you haven’t been to a library recently — and few have — there is one thing missing… books!  Personally, I am not sad to see the library go the way of the dodo. Libraries are the clerics of an ancient technology.

However, the challenge we have today is sifting through the interpretations of others and never seeing the original source. If you don’t read the original books, you might believe  that Abraham Lincoln’s overriding passion wasn’t to free the slaves. You might not be aware that many believe he was influenced by an account of the capture and slavery of a seaman in North Africa in the early 1800′s.

By building your own library, you can see for yourself what people thought about their times and the people in them. Just as any good chef will own hundreds of cookbooks ( although there are those who won’t admit it!), how can you really know your field if you have not read their founding books?

Find something you enjoy and buy some books!

Roger Freberg

PS. Laura has started her own  Psychology Library

Share on Facebook