Kaiser Talk, Eat, and See the World

Fireside chat and corona therapy
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-3-7526-5694-7
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten

"Talk, Eat, and See the World" is a collection of autobiographical short-stories and personalized cooking recipes. It does not pretend to be great literature, or fine gastronomy. Rather it is more like the fireside chat between friends, and the exchange of experiences in the kitchen among foodies. In these times under the rule of the Corona virus, our private spaces became deserted, and our social world became stripped to the bone. We need to re-invent the private sphere, and experiment with an open-door environment, if only virtually. Our current online events and meetings catapult us directly into the living rooms of the others, celebrities included. And this book invites the reader to be entertained at the author's fireside, and to be inspired in his kitchen. Hopefully the reader returns to his or her world with a smile and some new food for thought.

Matthias Kaiser was born in Leipzig, East-Germany, in 1951, grew up later in West-Germany, and lives now in Bergen, Norway. He works at the University of Bergen as professor of philosophy of science, and his interdisciplinary research has brought him to many places around the world. He is divorced since 2011, and has three adult daughters, and one grandson. Apart from talking and cooking, he likes to play the electric blues bass guitar. His description of himself is: A refugee and immigrant, rather chaotic and all about ambiguity and uncertainty, in life and work, and otherwise a hardcore liberal European to the bone.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kaiser, Matthias

Leseproben

Prologue
I need to start this book with a confession. My real motto in life is: “Talk, Eat, and Love!” In a sense, it would have been logical to follow this thread for the composition of this book. No problem about the Talk, no problem about the Eat either, but Love? Hey, this is quite private! Very private, indeed! And: all those who figure in this hidden chapter of my life are still very much alive – as far as I know at least. And then, this whole love-thing is so complex, I still struggle with it! I do not think I am ready to share my thoughts and experiences in this department widely. Therefore, I figure I better wait with putting down in writing the Love-part until perhaps sometime later in my life. Hopefully, I will eventually feel ready someday to cast my love-life and its stories in a form which communicates to others, and at the same time does not leave me deeply troubled. But I am not there yet! Therefore, it is “Talk, Eat, and See the World!” This is not too bad either, it might serve as a substitute motto for me quite well, too. The Talk- and the Eat-part I shall comment on in a moment, but let me just explain the See-the-World-part. I always loved travel, and I think this is due to the influence of my father. He often repeated the story of a friend of his, who told him that he is rich, though not rich with material goods, but rich because he has seen the world, and this wealth of impressions is something that nobody can take from him again. That had a ring of deep insight for me, and it sounded as if it came from a very wise man. Another motive for my travels is certainly due to me being a refugee from a communist country, where being able to cross a border and see another culture remained ingrained in me as a basic wish for freedom, since the Communist State did everything in its power to make this impossible. I still marvel at the fact that Europe is now without any visible borders, and one can travel from the icy and windy planes of Northern Scandinavia, via the artist and loud city life of Berlin, to the bubbling street life in front of the Spanish Steps in the heart of Rome, without any questions asked or any passport shown. As a young boy I read the story of the travels of Marco Polo, the story about the discovery of Timbuktu, the travels of Alexander von Humboldt to South America, and the story of James Cook’s travels; I basically devoured these books. Would I ever be able to see some of these or other exotic places myself? Well, by now I have seen many of them, and they have accumulated this wealth of impressions in me which make me feel privileged and lucky. There is nothing so enriching as meeting other people, see how they live their life, share experiences with them, and being challenged by the confrontation with their culture. Also, there is nothing so humbling and character building as learning about the history and culture of other people. In sum, talking about travels is right up my alley. But I should say something more about the Talk- and the Eat-part of this book as well. First, I am definitely a talker! I realized this at least after I had moved to Norway. Norwegians do not talk much, and when they tell stories, these are usually quite dark and morbid. I, on the other hand, love to talk with people, not necessarily to people, but with people, in the sense that good talk implies also good listening. Good talk will typically also include stories, stories with a beginning and an end, and a point that sticks out of the story, a pointe. Then you engage in a narrative. Our whole life is composed of these narratives, or stories if you prefer. Actually, this is how we compose our Ego, we weave together the stories of our life, let them settle in our memory, and some of them we share publicly. Without our narratives we lose ourselves, and we lose all orientation. Since we are afraid of losing orientation and fumbling through life, we cherish and continuously work on our narratives. The super-narrative with just everything in it, which we break down into several smaller narratives, with simpler story-lines – this is our life. Sometimes we re-work them, when we have discovered a new layer in them, when we become wiser with age. But our stories always define us. And the good stories are invariably personal, stories that feature us somehow, stories that we certify as genuine, as true, at least subjectively so. Our good stories engage often other people precisely because they show how these stories engaged us, with the full battery of our senses, intellect, and emotions. Therefore, the short stories that I tell in this book are all autobiographical. They are my stories in the sense that I have taken possession of them long ago, as markers in my life. None of the stories is world-shattering, or elucidating deep and significant insights into the “meaning of life” or a profound philosophical quest. My stories convey small events and observations of various kinds. They are the kind of stories that are easily shared in the good company of friends on a late winter evening, sitting at the fireside, preferably with a good glass of wine or a single malt whiskey. I hope they are entertaining. Now to the Eat-part. That part would never have been written were it not for the fact that I married into a family where my father-in-law was a Grand Chef. I am talking about the late Hans Jebsen, a highly decorated cook and chef, and the educator of quite many of the current Norwegian chefs who now get our attention on national TV and international competitions. He served royalty and ambassadors at important occasions. His family typically escaped into another room when Hans was working in the family kitchen. They did not like to be treated as kitchen personnel for the Grand Chef. He was, after all, mainly their Dad, not their chef! I, on the other hand, did not mind at all, and he also treated me differently since I was not immediate family. I often sat in the kitchen on a Saturday or Sunday morning, discussing politics or classical music with him, and as a side I learned how he prepared the food for the day. The two most important lessons I picked up from him were the following: (i) Relax! There is no need to get all stressed out because you have not learned the trade! You can work on it, and you can find your own style and taste eventually. Practice your cooking, and start with the simpler things! (ii) When you prepare a meal, you plan it in your mind first, and work on it methodically afterwards. Form a picture in your mind what it is you want to make, and if possible, consult several cookbooks about it! Timing is always important. Then check your refrigerator and see what you have got! You take what you have, and sometimes you improvise. There is no such thing as the only and true way how to prepare a dish, it all can be negotiated in your mind! These lessons were quite similar to how I perceived scientific research, I thought. I still think so. In any case, they removed the inbuilt barriers and fears of failing in the kitchen which I carried in me as a boy, a boy who was used to the mother and grandmother doing the cooking in the kitchen, without any male interference. I discovered cooking as an art, and as a very relaxing activity. I also discovered that sharing meals with friends and family was one of the most rewarding and genuine activities, expressing respect and love for those whom you serve. In this sense, the Eat is intimately connected to the Love, even though not overtly so. All the recipes presented in this book are in a sense my personal recipes. True, many of them are inspired by one or the other cookbook, some were written down from Hans Jebsen’s instructions, but most of them I changed in the course of time and personalized. And none is really very fancy. Some of them are good enough to be served during a festive dinner, but most could be coming from a rural kitchen rather than a fancy metropolitan restaurant. And I freely travel with my taste as much as I travel in life, and therefore you find dishes from different countries in the book. In the last 30 years I have become a champion of food ethics, meaning that I think we all should be critically aware of the values that follow our food from farm to folk, values that connect our environment, animals, our primary food producers, our food industry, our retailers, and us as consumers. We need to change our foodways if we want to improve our health, save our planet, and act responsibly for our future generations. As a true liberal mind, I prefer to be what is nowadays called a flexitarian. I do eat meat and seafood, but less so, and I also want it certified as sustainably or organically produced. Sometimes I have been asked by reporters how I can make sure that what I eat is ethical. My answer was always to refer to two of my personal guidelines. First, always ask critical questions about where the food comes from, and how it is produced. Force the suppliers to greater transparency! Second, make a food plan for your week ahead, like e.g. twice a week meat, twice a week seafood, twice a week vegetarian, and at least once a week left-overs! I hope that the stories and the recipes collected in this book will entertain you, and hopefully also inspire your foodways. There is no particular inner logic in the sequence they appear in this book, it is all pretty much rather accidental, as if it would happen were we sitting at the fireside together and just having a nice chat, a conversational evening together. When you leave my home of narratives again, I want you to leave with a light and happy mindset, with...