Food gifts: a long synthesis (1)

Speech is an oral symbol, by some means a tautological paradox. Gifts, instead, are tangible symbols, which lose part of their effectiveness if taken out from the environment they were thought for: try to give your mother’s perfume to your father and you won’t achieve the same exact goal! Speech and language (or gifts) are not the produce of individual identities, called men and women, but they are something higher than that, because they aren’t linked to subjectivity, as many would think. So speech is neither a human activity - as Wilhelm von Humboldt stated more than one century ago - nor a mean of expression - as Aristotle used to postulate more than two thousand years ago. Subjectivity is indeed a form of violence we impose on language: we limit, we enclose, we describe, and classify according to our momentary need, but we fail severely when we refuse to make the effort to pierce through the veil of true meanings. Today (27 January) is also the genocide remembrance day, in memory for those millions of people seen as a form of otherness with no dignity or status, exploited as derogatory objects and slaughtered:

A torment inflicted to a slave	Spectacles stack in Auschwitz.
Gradual genocide of the North American Indians, there are profound considerations by Noam Chomsky on this subject.	Concentration camp of Bosque Rotondo, USA, New Mexico, 1864.

Let's return to less suffering topics, hoping to cast a light also on the idea of mankind. What should speech be then? If speech does is not directly a form of representation of Reality, it must be something different, a dimension of the spirit, a viewpoint and an aptitude toward the same Reality. At the same time, gifts are specific units inflated with extra-meaning. Offer a tie to someone who appreciates only tracksuits and you will allegedly identify perplexity on his face! This winter holidays have been characterized by a wide interchange of gifts with my friends: food have been combined with imagination, taste with elegance. Here are some results:

Portuguese tuna from Carolina	Deer bolognese to Carolina
Pecorino cheese from Sardinia with fig compote for Lou	Organic spreadable chocolate, luxury, but healthy, to Simone

Harrod's tea from Andrea and a deserved wok from Michelle-ma-belle

Martin Heidegger suggests that speech should be an act of listening and listening up, but to what? Mankind – in spite of pandering its tendency of seeking for definitions and technical observation of phenomena - has the mandate to do something else, i.e. paying attention and let speech speak, so to say. Nature (and for instance dreams) is somehow able to speak to us even without the implement of words. Our mandate is that of being attentive, to open our ears and receive the gift of speech. The world, in which we are absorbed in, has its own voice of beauty that poetry is able to dig out. When we listen to the inner voice of things, we also actually develop our sensibility and care of what surrounds us. To make an example, a natural lake might be a perfect place where to listen to the freshwater waves and have picnics. At the same time, the same very lake can be seen (by engineers and scalpers) as a source of energy and might be latched inside a concrete dam. The landscape will naturally suffer of this human intervention, unless it is carried on with a considerate series of criteria, which often aren’t even taken into account. I offer here four dams examples:

Santa Rosalia dam, Ragusa, Sicily: a low dam well integrated in Nature.	Beaver dike in Canada: it is incredible how they help the ecosystem. They are re-introducing beavers in Northen Scotland as well for this very reason.
Scary dam in Shasta, California, Colorado River: in my opinion this human works should be avoided	Whales (UK), Lake Vyrnwy victorian dam: built in the second half of the XIX century is particularly efficient and well crafted without being too massive.

The nomothetic act of Adam of giving names to things is the innocent antecedent to what has become our world, where everything is measured, catalogued and spoiled as a source of income. In the Greek tradition the passage from ignorance to knowledge is slightly different and more rational: there is no archetypal man such Adam. Distinct creators forged in several occasions and of different natures men, that’s why we have the five ages of gold, silver, bronze, heroes and nowadays men. Gaia (Earth or the Great Mother) burgeoned out unconscious men, because of her fertility: whereas Gods are rational Titans enact the emanation of instinctual impetuosity, they literally emanate a sort of will force. Prometheus’ allowed men gifts, through which start developing, he showed them how to stand on their legs, to benefit of gods’ meat leftovers, and to use fire, which is the chance to direct the light of intellection autonomously where needed. The fire is the tool through which men were able to cook (we need fire in a culinary blog!) and to see things plunged into darkness. Prometheus was a Titan, therefore not a proper god, that’s why Zeus could chain him to the Caucasus for 3000 years, since Hercules freed him. What differentiates men and gods is the destiny (mòira), ones are mortals, and the others aren’t, moreover men can become slaves, because with death they lost a battle of supremacy.

Prometheus Being Rescued by Hercules  by Christian Griepenkerl (1839-1912)	Ring of fire as Johnny Cash sings
Laetitia Casta depicted as Mother Earth	Illumination of Adam naming the animals, Parker Library, Cambridge (UK)

Heidegger suggested going back to a different form of orienteering into Nature. We have to reconsider the hermeneutic circle, i.e. the circular process of interpretation of Reality, as an act of meditation, expectancy, holding and anticipation. Nature then offers us a gift – that of leading us to the authentic interpretation of Herself – and through this mirroring, we will be able to deal better with ourselves and our counterparts. The only way to reciprocate this gift is that of understanding and feeling how we can actively respond to our authentic needs and claims: we cut our nails when they are too long, but we wouldn’t amputate a foot to prevent nails to grow. Then why should we tear down entire forests, if we can just trim the branches?

Deforestations always made me sad	Reforestation
Cactus gift	Small pots garden tools by the French brand Pylones

Speech is then beyond good and bad – moral instances are created by language in a second instance –, authenticity is more connected with what makes us feel better, in a range of actions, which do not include at all shooting at people, only because we are insane or lunatic. Things around us are and are not, there is a being dwelling in them - a daímon or character - which could produce a resonance with the metaphorical diapason we have inside ourselves: Hottentots won’t recognize Botticelli's works as pieces of artistry! This vibration might be called perception and it is the basilar quality of speech. Then the development of speech produced language, and with language we are now able to communicate with others and persuade others. Nonetheless, this ramification should be subordinate to the first operation of staying next to things to understand their inner being and to receive it as a given-gift, not as something we should ransack.

DeAgostini visual dictionary, how to improve your vocabulary in five different languages	A diapason
Venus' semblant (detail of the Birth of Venus), Botticelli, Uffizzi Gallery, Florence, Italy.