Fifty Weeks, Fifty Curries: Week Eleven: Addendum

This is somewhat unusual circumstances, since usually eating curry leftovers isn't really deserving of its own special post, but this time I actually changed the recipe so I figured I'd write a bit. Last time, I found out that schoolpsychnerd had left the oil out of the recipe, so I wondered if that had anything to do with why I didn't like it so much. So instead of just microwaving and eating the leftovers that way, I put two cups worth or so in a pot, added three and a half tablespoons of olive oil, and simmered it for about 20 minutes. I was a bit worried about how the olive oil would make it taste, since we get our olive oil from Oh Olive, but I figured I couldn't possibly make it taste worse, so it was worth a try.

It looks creamier to me. It might just be delusion.

After I put it in a bowl, I took a bite and was immediately surprised with how inoffensive it was. That surprising sourness was completely gone, and while the curry still didn't have any real kind of depth--pepper was by far the strongest flavor, bursting out and then vanishing and blotting out much else--it was certainly tolerable now. I ate the whole thing with a side of basmati rice and didn't complain at all.

schoolpsychnerd tried a bit and said she still didn't like it, and I don't really blame her. There's a reason for my word choices above, because I wouldn't describe the result as good. But it's vaulted past the initial bad impression so that at least I'm willing to eat the rest of the leftovers now instead of throwing them away, and that's more than I expected.

Ritual is important!

In which I'm kind of a fuddy-duddy.

schoolpsychnerd and I went to services tonight after having not been for a while. We weren't sure anyone would be there, and indeed, the rabbi and the cantrix (chazanit, if you prefer) were both gone, so the music director led the service. And perhaps because of that, it was totally different than I was used to. It was described as a Boomer service, and a lot of the familiar prayers were left out in favor of songs like Hallelujah or Turn, Turn, Turn or If I Had a Hammer or In My Life. I was...not a fan.

Urgh. It's difficult to criticize this kind of thing without it being read as "[X] suqs 'cause u suq," but that's not what I mean. I'm pretty sure I was the odd one out, since everyone else looked like they were having a great time, but there's a comforting rhythm to tradition that I found completely absent tonight. Part of it might just be that I didn't grow up listening to the radio and so I barely knew any of the songs, but I think there's value in tradition. In knowing you're doing something the same as generations past. As a friend put it, tradition shouldn't be the reason to do something, but it can be a reason, and it's one I put some weight on. I'd much rather be singing the Amidah than You've Got A Friend.

I'm aware that a lot of honored traditions are not actually that old, but as with a lot of human activities, what "really happened" in the past doesn't actually matter. It doesn't really matter that one of the Children of Israel probably wouldn't recognize anything if they were put in a modern synagogue, or that all the evidence shows that the Exodus never happened and the Children of Israel split off from indigenous Canaanites. What matters is how people relate to what's happening now, and the lessons they carry forward from their interpretation of the past. Mythically true does not have to be literally true.

(There's actually a rabbinic story about that, where G-d shows Rabbi Akiva teaching his students to Moses and Moses has no idea what's going on. And then G-d yells at him for asking about it.)

I suppose I am one of those core grognards that make it impossible to change anything to match the times. Or I'm a vanguard against the homogenizing tide of modernity. Choose as appropriate.