Christmas dishes and the Christmas spirit.

I thought of writing down a list of Christmas dishes, but then discovered that the CIA-pedia (the Wikipedia thing which, or rather the English part of it at least, is run by the CIA information war thugs) already did a nasty job on Christmas.

I found a fantastic article (in English) about Christmas food in Italy. Italy is great in most respects and cooking is a pillar of its greatness. Like all great cooking traditions the one of Italy is composed of regional varieties, culinary dialects that are rich in vocabulary, expressive in their diversity and covered with layers of history, poverty, affluence and class. Although all classes can now enjoy similar foods, different historic layers remain. Great culinary traditions consists of different types of cooking, diverse by region, separated by class. That puts any major European cooking tradition apart from primitive tribal food of say Estonian humans, sort of, which is bland and uniform and in case of that miserable land consists of potatoes, fat and water mixed with flower. Now their diet is supplemented by Soviet industrial cuisine of manufactured cellulose frankfurters and frozen preparations. At Christmas Estonian lowlifes consume blood sausage (to the British that is blood pudding). Both Christmas and blood sausage are German cultural imports because these were Germans (actually probably also Frisians) who brought civilization and Christianity to what is now Estonia though civilization did not stay for long, the Christianity was always shallow, and the Germans were not divine themselves and so could not endow local soulless savages with any kind human spirit, which is still profoundly lacking in that part of the world. Thus said German Blutwurst (blood sausage) is a delectable delicacy compared to reddish industrial refuse slobbering Estonian tribesmen devour on Christmas eve. On the other hand or rather on the opposite shore, the Finns have a different tradition, at Christmas dinner they savor succulent baked ham . Good stuff. I always thought that there was something inherently unfair in the fact that though those two tribes are linguistic relatives, one group consists almost entirely of lowlifes and the other of more or less reasonable human beings.

Christmas is dead in Russia - at least in the culinary sense it is. The Bolsheviks, who for the most part were not Christians , did everything in their power to wipe off Christmas tradition. With secularization, New Year became the most important holiday, as it is in France. Another thing that did Christmas in was the calendar shift. Soviet state adopted heretical - from the standpoint of the Right Believers, so-called Gregorian calendar while the Church, by then abused and persecuted, clung to the true old one, the calendar that was introduced by Julius Caesar himself, the Julian one. Russian Orthodox Church (the name Russian Orthodox Church appeared only in the year 1943, the new name was Stalin's invention, before 1943 it bore the historic name of Orthodox Catholic Graeco-Russian Church) still uses Julian Calendar but that it turn meant that Christmas now comes after New Year or rather there are now two New Years to deal with in sequence. Because Russians enjoy about three weeks of uninterrupted New Year and Christmas holidays which became vacations, by the time Christmas arrives everyone is already exhausted. But in the past roast goose or duck, usually stuffed with tart apples and sauerkraut, was served at Christmas time. I roast ducks all the time though - no need to wait for Christmas or Hannukah to cook one.

In Bohemia and Moravia, now Czech Republic, Christmas dishes represent a bit mutated tradition from the glorious times of the very Catholic Habsburg (Hapsburg) monarchy. The principal dish here is carp. I did not make any typos. Carps are farmed in the Czech republic and the time before Christmas is when those fish are killed en masse to be served on the Bohemian and Moravian tables. A friend of mine who is not Czech but who lives in Prague says that she knows it's Christmas time by the wail of ambulance sirens. Carp is a bony fish.


Killing of a carp (my digital snapshots, click for larger versions, contact me if you want the huge ones):

The fish is pulled out of water

The henchman takes the wretched fish to the chopping block for slaughter.

The murderer then hits the victim's head with a hammer to render him or her unconscious.

The victim's throat is slit.

Merry Christmas




Here is a beautiful Christmas carol by Hilaire Belloc, a brilliant poet, not just a versifier though he classified himself as such, unfairly, and an insightful author of rare significance and immense power, still under appreciated, much maligned and occasionally slandered (I had the joy of translating two volumes of his poems for "children" into Russian - The Bad Child's Book of Beasts and the classic More Beasts for Worse Children ) here it is, the Sailor's Carol:


Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!
A Catholic tale I Have to tell!
And a Christian song I have to sing
While all the bells in Arundel ring.

I pray good beef and I pray good beer
This holy night of all the year,
But I pray detestable drink for them
That give no honour to Bethlehem.

May all good fellows that here agree
Drink Audit Ale in heaven with me,
And may all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!
May all my enemies go to hell!
Noel! Noel!!

Why do Americans hate the French? Pourquoi les Américains détestent les Français?

Why do Americans hate the French? Here's an interesting article on the nature of American animosity toward the French.

I for one after years of living in the USA must confirm that the average (white) American does dislike the French. White Americans also hate Russia and the Russians. It seems Americans collectively hate humans in general.

There are of course exceptions but I find Americans in general extraordinarily xenophobic though their xenophobia has some favorite objects of hate, the French.

I for one love France. I love everything French, culture, cities, countryside, wine, food of course, cars. To me the world is divided into two categories of people who either love everything French and those who dislike France and the French. The first category are good people. The second category are the scum of the earth. I am quite categorical at that.

Let me quote Thomas Jefferson, who is as culturally as remote from modern Americans as he is perhaps from average selection of Martians:

So ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, In what country on earth would you rather live?
—Certainly in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest & sweetest affections and recollections of my life.
Which would be your second choice?
- France.

The article is in French, so for those few unfortunate who can't read the lingua franca can most automatic translators to get the sense out of it.

Does Russophobia have an ethnic origin? It might have several. Followed by a preliminary note on the Russian parliamentary elections,

Today I received a link to this piece in the New York Times. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/opinion/russia-20-years-along.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all?src=tp

Although one can dismiss this off hand as usual Russophobe drivel from the American equivalent of Völkischer Beobachter (the equivalent of the Stürmer is based in Washington, DC, and it is called the Post) there are a few comments that I wanted to make lest people think that Ariel Cohen is a blue-blooded American who is somehow concerned with the fate of democracy in Russia. Notice the ugly illustrations that somehow alludes that Russia is Communist. 

Hello everyone, 


A few important points to make about this peace and its authorship.

Arial Cohen is Russian. He is a Russian Jew whose native language is  Russian, not American English.  He blogs in Russian and his language,  frankly, is flithy. He is in employ of   a fascist taxpayer funded and CIA-affiliated Heritage foundation.


Arial Cohen is also an active Zionist and writes on Israeli issues.  His beef with Russia is partially of Middle Eastern origin. For example he  is now  upset with Russia selling missiles to Syria.  



Although Russophobia in the US foreign policy is primarily Jewish driven, its roots are historic and to me  are not absolutely clear.    Hilaire Belloc wrote about this among other authors of repute, but wait, here  I just finished reading a work by Robert Crozier Long titled The Colors  of War. Robert Crozier Long was an Associate Press front line  correspondent in Russia during the First World War - he might have even  stayed in Russia at the time of the Bolshevist putsch that destroyed the country for good in 1917.  The Colors of War was published in 1915 and  consists of war reportage all written in the 1914. There is a phrase I  recall (the fighting was going on in Poland at the time) and there the Germans capture the town of Lublin - he writes - that the Germans brought in ethnic Jews as the administrators for the town because Poles,though were  supposedly oppressed in the Russian Empire, could be  suspected of Russophilia, of sentiment of compassion, while Jews were  not, in fact he says it is "the race that hates Russia and Russians  most".  I thought that was a curious observation that somehow foretold  the events of the so-called Russian Revolution and echoes eerily with  our day, with today's anti-Russian propaganda and the frenzied industry  of Russophobia. The latter, I am afraid, that have ethnic root (and not necessarily Jewish as anyone familiar with the situation in Estonia  would testify).


The extent of outside Jewish hatred expressed for Russia through the controlled media in the so-called West, but primarily in America, or  through actions of state apparatus of subservient  entities like the  United States (I won't call it an independent nation) is to me frankly  puzzling. Why would that be the case? Russia is itself a state  controlled by a number of Jewish clans.  Another book tells how this  happened, the Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine, Princeton University Press,  which is hardly anti-Semitic as the author is a  Soviet Jew and the book won a number of awards from Jewish organizations in the United States.  To me it looks like a match between two  clans of similar origins with traditional historic Russophobia mixed in, the Cohen's New York Times editorial is just a salvo in that ongoing  battle. 


Obviously not all foreign and domestic Jews are Russophobes but there is a trend one cannot just dismiss off hand like one cannot dismiss the  origins of the majority of so-called Russian bilionaires merely as a coincidence. But perhaps it is a coincidence. May be. 



By the way here is a curious article about Bolsheviks and their crimes in Russia: 

http://www.darkmoon.me/2011/crimes-of-the-bolsheviks-edited-by-isabella-fanfani 

all true but the comments, some of them written by obvious anti-Semites  are not large number of Bolshevik victims were Jewish including those whose  wealth was expropriated and there were numerous factors that allowed  Bolsheviks to succeed. 


A few notes on the Russian parliamentary elections.


The criminal Putinista junta would do anything to stay  in power.

There are reports of massive electroral violations in St. Petersburg  (like the commissioner in Kupchino,  one of the largest electoral  districts, left in unknown directions and took all the voter bulletins  with. Nothing is known. No electoral results announced.  St. Petersburg  is the most "normal" and well-behaving location in Russia - in the sense  of elections at least - one could just imagine what goes on in other  places.  A friend of mine who is in the loop told me that the United  Russia (a so-called party, though it has no ideology or electoral  platform of any kind) will steal 20% to 25% of votes.  As of this time 

the vote in St. Petersburg shows 29% share of the United States which  places their real "result" in something like 4% range.  Overall in  country the United Russia will attempt to break through 50% barrier  though in reality it would get about 30% of the vote. That what was  predicted and that is what is now happening.