I Only Have Eyes for You?

Well, I know the other way around. The croissant is shaped like it is because of a victory (and I can't recall whose, but I think it's from the Crimean War) over the Turks. That is, the croissant is meant to symbolize the Islamic crescent.

Well, I'll be, Jes.

Interesting stories.

Well, Edgar. I finally learned the difference between catsup and ketchup.

There was a wonderful book a few years back, can't remember the author, but it was a history of chocolate. I read it in sittings over white choc mochas at Bauhaus on Pine Street in Seattle.

Hey, hobit. Did they have the history of Lady Godiva Chocolates? Most overrated bon bons I have ever eaten for the price.

Hmmmm--Bon bons--French again?

Sugar, tobacco, cotton, quinine and coffee have all had profound effects on the human race for their various reasons. I read a fascinating, if very badly written, history of "plants that changed the world" once, but it was sufficiently forgettable that i don't recall the author, nor did i keep it around to read again.

Morning all,

Well, Setanta, I won't bother to track down that book.

.

Please explain!

truth
Letty, right now I only have ears for you.

I've heard this book is much recommended: Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

It wasn't quinine, it was tea. And the book is worth reading. I'll get back to ya with a citation.

Good morning all.

Hi, Patri. I'm not certain that I can explain my remark about catsup/ketchup, cause I have to catch up a bit.

Hey, J.L. Can you hear me?

One thing that I am looking into about the potato has to do with the potato famine in Ireland.

Back later, folks, and thanks for the information ...

Patri, the word "ketchup" was Siamese in origin. Catsup was probably just another way of spelling it. Scroll down in the link towards the bottom.

I tried everywhere to find the idea that the Irish potato famine might have been caused by an overproduction of potatoes. It seems to me that it was on the Discovery Channel at one time, but I have failed to find it.
Can anyone enlighten me?

here is a pretty detailed account of the potato famine. long reading tho.


http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/irish_pf.html

Thanks, Mikey. I saved it to favorites for reading: one potato--then two potato--then..

and speaking of putting two and two together, perhaps the relationship between the potato blight--overproduction--famine has to do with the fact that when the fungus hit and the potato was decimated, the land was no longer fit for growing other stuff, ergo-------

Many explanations have been advanced as to the cause of the Great potatoe Famine. Over production and contrary weather are frequently mentioned. The actual cause is less widely known.

As civilization and the Christian faith gained ascendancy on the Continent, and then in England, the Fairy Folk were driven into ever smaller wild places. Once they ruled absolutely every wooded glen and rushing stream, and human kind ventured into those secluded places only at the sufferance of the Folk. They were revered for their skill at forging the minerals of the earth into beautiful and useful treasured objects. The wild things of the forest knew them, and lived in harmony with them. Those humans who knew the Fairy Folk and their ways were wizards and witches.

Priests came into the isolated hamlets and soon the fragile bonds between the two races was shattered. Forests were cleared and the streams dammed up. The ground was broken by the plow, and wheat replaced flowers. The sound of church bells and chanted hymns drowned out the music of the Fairys and the melodies of the soft east breeze. Gradually, the Little People and their familiars moved away.

Ireland was the last stronghold of the Fairy Folk of Old Europe. There wild places still existed, and the rock strewn mountain sides resisted the plow. The Irish still respected the Fairy Castles and stone circles where on Mid-Summer's Eve the Fairies gathered to sing and dance the night away. The Fairies lived comfortably among the wild Irish. In exchange for a cup of milk and an occasional dram of Quesqueba, the Fairy Folk taught them how to make glorious music. The Irish were kind to the Fairies and respectful of their privacy.

All that began to change when Patrick landed after being converted by the English. He drove the snakes out of the Island, and founded monasteries everywhere. Though the Irish took to the new religion with some enthusiasm, they never forgot to treat the Little Folk with respect. The Irish might attend mass four times a day, but in the gloaming they walked softly and avoided places that might offend their little neighbors. When someone forgot, and moved a sacred stone or cut a tree favored by the elves, misfortune was quick to follow. And so it went for hundreds of years.

The Christianized Anglo-Saxons, however, have conquest bed into their bones and blood. They appeared on Irish shores, and drove the Irish into those remote rocky places that had previously been left to the Little People. The good, rich and most productive soil was placed under the cultivation of the new Lords. Sacred Groves were cut so that the new farmers could increase their yield, and stones were torn from the earth and stacked up to make new fences. The land was cut up, and protests fell on deaf ears. Potatos from the New World were introduced, and quickly became the staple food of Ireland. Yet the Irish never had enough food to eat because the English shipped most of it away to feed the growing population of England.

The simple fact of the matter is that the Fairies were also being hounded from their last refuge by the domination of the Anglo-Saxons. Finally, they could take no more. The Fairies, in a last desperate stand against the inroads of Christian Civilization, worked their magic. Their dominion had always been beneath the sod, and there they touched the potatos. Wherever the Little People found a potato, they touched it and it died of the mold. Unfortunately, and probably unintentionally, those who suffered and died most of the blight were the impoverished Irish who lived bare subsistence existence. The great landowners, drove the starving Irish off the land that no longer produced so well. The little crops that managed to escape the Blight were still shipped to England where it could generate money. The Irish were left to starve, or immigrate, and the land become fallow again.

Some of the Little People got on those crowded boats that left the Old for the New World. Some came to live in the sewers and underground places beneath New York City and Boston. Others traveled further hidden amongst the little bundles carried by Irish laborers when they built the railroads.

Today, there are little communities of the Little People still. Those who remained in Ireland eventually realized that their Blight had struck the wrong enemy, and the potato famine gradually went away. In the New World, the Fairy Folk found new wild places where they could exist without interference. There are places high in the Rocky Mountains, where the air is crisp and clean, that now are enchanted. Beneath what was once called the Great American Desert the Fairies found homes beneath the grasses of the Great Plains. It was the Fairies who caused the agricultural bounty that has fed the world for so long. In the fields of corn and wheat one can sometimes hear the whisper of the Fairies as they gather to celebrate a Fairy wedding, or wake. In remote forest glades, on clear Mid-Summer's eve, one can still hear the music of the Little Folk.

The above information was taken from the confidential files of the CIA pursuant to provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. This is one more little bit of evidence of a vast governmental conspiracy to keep the American People ignorant of the basic facts that describe the world we live in. By publishing this so openly, I risk being visited in the hours before dawn and taken to some secret location to insure the silence so necessary to keep the Anglo-Saxons in power.

WOW, Asherman. I may not agree with what you say, but I damn well like the way you say what somebody else has said.

(watch your back, anyway)

I may read back into this.

I've not read Letty's link yet, but the British buggered up vast tracts of the world moving crops around: wool, sugar cane, breadfruit, rubber, cotton, heroin.
(for the astute, I know wool does not come from a plant, but sheep farmed intensively change landscape, and cause migration)

But I really came on to say that Ricky Tomlinson cracked a gag which went:

"And now I'd like to sing a song entitled 'I've Only Got Eyes For You, But You Should See What I've Got For Your Sister!'"