this is literally – LITERALLY – the plot setup of Edgar Allan Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" https://t.co/o7hFFgsfTj
— claire says STAY INSIDE (@clairewillett) March 31, 2020
(Paywalled, unfortunately, at The Information: Pandemic Spawns Escape Communities Promising Self-Isolation—in a Group)
HOLY HELL IT JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE. This article is a ride and a half. pic.twitter.com/h8leeo4PoU
— Aaron Reynolds (@aaronreynolds) March 30, 2020
OOF pic.twitter.com/SaFg69v9ue
— Aaron Reynolds (@aaronreynolds) March 30, 2020
The Decameron, but for coronavirus. https://t.co/ElrId1rJpd
— Maryn McKenna (@marynmck) March 31, 2020
Also they think they are the Decameron but it's more like the Bro-cameron
— Phoebe Ayers (@phoebe_ayers) March 31, 2020
If they had any sense (ha!), they’d claim it was all a big troll. Because, TBF, overconfident ‘Masters of the Universe’ will never achieve the capital-K KLASS of the true elites:
Thai king self-isolates in luxury hotel with harem of 20 women amid coronavirus pandemic https://t.co/qTjKhCXIeC via @etaKatetaKate
— Max Walden (@maxwalden_) April 1, 2020
Switzerland, once again profitably neutral during a global conflict. Here’s another fine Alpine hostelry, per the Washington Post:
… “In beginning of March, revenues had dropped significantly,” said Alexander Hübner, co-founder and chief executive of Le Bijou Hotel & Resort Management AG, which operates properties in Basel, Geneva, Zurich and other cities around Switzerland. “We said, okay, we need to react immediately to that.”
Before the outbreak, Le Bijou catered to high-end clientele who could afford its rates, which ranged from around $800 to $2,000 per night. According to Hübner and the Le Bijou website, that guest list has included the royal family of Saudi Arabia, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and “The Wolf of Wall Street” author Jordan Belfort. Yet Le Bijou’s guest reservations and events bookings plummeted just the same after the disease reached Europe.
Hübner, though, was getting new requests: from people who wanted to stay somewhere upscale where they could cook their own food, or hire doctors who perform house calls, or who didn’t want to go to the hospital for their medical needs while the pandemic was making local facilities more risky.
In response, Le Bijou began marketing quarantine-friendly perks, such as automated check-in (so that guests don’t have to interact with strangers) and in-room medical services provided by Double Check, a private health clinic in Switzerland.
The in-room treatments can be purchased a la carte: Coronavirus testing is available for about $500, twice-daily nurse check-in for about $1,800, and the round-the-clock nurse care for about $4,800. The properties are still providing food delivery and personal chef services, but they’ve cut daily cleanings and only sanitize rooms before and after guest checkout. (Staff performing those cleanings are required to wear masks and gloves, per the Swiss government’s guidelines, Hübner said.)
Since the company promoted its new offerings on Facebook, demand has been increasing steadily…
Or, if that’s too spendy, you could self-lockdown in Botany Bay! (Assuming you could get there, of course.)
… Across Asia, hotels are promoting self-quarantine packages promising reduced rates for 14-day stays, room service delivered with special handling and transportation to local hospitals when necessary. And in Australia, the Novotel Sydney Brighton Beach is advertising a 14-day “Home Away from Home” package for self-quarantining guests that promises rooms with balconies…
NotMax
“Send up some more of those little soaps. About 300 of them.”
Adam L Silverman
In regard to the King of Thailand: obligatory!
joel hanes
For people who have never encountered the concepts “false positive” nor “latency”
Baud
I just slum it at a quarantine-friendly blog for free.
prostratedragon
Been watching Foyle’s War. For those who don’t know it, the war in question is WWII, and Foyle is a police detective in England.
I learned (season 2 episode) that such retreats were called “funk holes,” and those who holed up in them were, shall we say, not highly regarded.
Gin & Tonic
In other not-so-good news, my daughter became aware that she has to lay off 60% of her team tomorrow. She has no experience with this sort of thing.
Duane
Meteor target acheived!
The Dangerman
Breezes aplenty last couple days and my hay fever is blowing up. This is so NOT the time for hay fever. I sneezed outside yesterday and thought, shit, I’m getting figuratively voted off the island…
…which is literally what would happen for anyone that sneezed in that group.
I’ve give them credit for entrepreneurial spirit, however. Lemons/lemonade, etc.
Amir Khalid
It seems this King of Thailand is not as respected by his subjects, or as beloved, as his dad was.
Brachiator
The Harbor retreat people will get “one-way tickets.”
Maybe they should re-think that.
It’s good to be the king. However, can you really “self-isolate” with 20 other people? And the wording treats the women as non-persons.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: 60% of her team, that’s brutal.
If I could tell her one thing, it would be for her to keep reminding herself that this isn’t about her, it’s about them.
Is this lay off as in for the next short little while, or the other laid off, which is permanent and should be called “fired” or “let go”?
TS (the original)
I think Rachel is running out of words about gross mismanagement by the administration – and the absolute lack of knowledge by the southern governors who are grudgingly announcing their state stay at home orders.
And .. I’m so busy cleaning house – my mother’s solution to handling stress. It seems to be working.
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: Watching it for the first time?
NotMax
@Brachiator
They sit six feet apart and talk dirty to one another.
;)
mrmoshpotato
@Duane: Sweet Meteor o’ Death has a campaign stop to make.
whomever
For those unfamiliar with Sydney, while I’m sure Novotel Sydney Brighton Beach is a lovely hotel, the location is…um, well imagine “Hotel Elizabeth NJ” or “Hotel Alameda CA”. That neighborhood has got a lovely view of the airport, the container depot, etc. To be fair unlike the other two it’s actually a decent-ish beach, but still, it’s not where I would want to self quarentine (if you look at a map you will see what I mean).
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: Given the nature of the business I don’t think they’re coming back for a long while.
She got what she termed a battlefield promotion.
Brachiator
@prostratedragon:
Really enjoyed that series. Foyle quickly became one of my favorite fictional characters.
And I loved the little historical notes like “funk holes” that would be woven into episodes.
mrmoshpotato
@TS (the original):
Does Dr. Maddow need to have a conference call with some linguistic PhDs?
Or is she nearing “Fuck all these bastards!” territory?
Duane
@Brachiator: Until your comment I read that as self-imolates. Crazy is the new normal.
Gin & Tonic
@whomever: Alameda has a really good distillery, though.
mrmoshpotato
@whomever: Who doesn’t enjoy a lovely view of shipping containers as far as the eye can see?
Calouste
IIRC everyone, including Australian citizens, must self-quarantine for 14 days when they enter Australia, so the last paragraph is actually fairly sensible, specially if it is only one person out of a family that needs to go in quarantine.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
Southern Governors: It’s that deeemon Siaaaanance thet gawd warned us aginst.
Us: No, it’s reality coming as predicted to bite you idiots in the ass. Sure, keep the beaches open, and blame New Yorkers for your native’s infection rates.
Go eff yourselves, with a rasp. Why the hell should we compensate you for your stupidity
While we’re at it, is Trump in stage 3 clap, or dementia, or both?
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
“Look, look! It’s a red-banded Yellow Freight!”
dmsilev
@NotMax: That’s basically the framing story of the Decameron, so there’s precedent.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I think so. People are treating the “self” in “self-isolate” to mean you’re doing it for yourself rather than at someone else’s orders, and isolating just means cutting off from the outside, not necessarily from all other people. So a small group could self-isolate. My suspicion, though, is that this won’t be quite so well isolated as they think it is, because they just don’t think about all the servants needed to keep the thing going. Though I suppose the harem could cook and clean as well as providing more intimate services.
CarolPW
@Gin & Tonic: The first (and thank goddess only) time I had to do that I cried as I told them. At least they knew I cared.
dmsilev
From the WTF files:
Man charged with intentionally derailing train near hospital ship Mercy over coronavirus concerns
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@dmsilev: Could we arrange for Samuel L. Jackson to question this asshole?
Jay Noble
Apparently the BBC is running a Monty Python marathon. From my beleagured step sister “What was BBC thinking?? They are having a Monte Python marathon!! I’ve got a couple of teenagers that are already stir crazy and watching the marathon is adding to the stupidity in my house. They are galloping around the house and trying to synchronize their clapping.”
those teenagers are two strapping young wrestlers of about 6′, 185 lbs.
bwahahaha
geg6
Jesus fucking Christ, where are the goddam torches and pitchforks?
dmsilev
@Jay Noble: Today is the anniversary of one of the BBC’s finest moments.
Suzanne
RIP Adam Schlesinger.
Everything is terrible all the time.
Uncle Cosmo
In the spirit of the classic Scottish pay toilet: Free to get in, a pound to get out…
(I have it on good authority that there is no truth to the scurrilous rumour ;^D that the dance known as the Limbo was invented by a Scotsman trying to enter a pay toilet…)
middlelee
@Brachiator: And I fell madly in love with Michael Kitchen. At one point I realized I was actually starting to walk like him. Not kidding.
dmsilev
@geg6: Well, funny story. See, torches give out a lot of sooty smoke and usually dust masks are recommended…
Jeffro
We seem to learn nothing from history, literature, or science these days, and only places that are good at math seem to be successfully “flattening the curve”. Ai-yi-yi
Sorry, Fro kids: your dad is bad at the wrong subject! 0_0
Uncle Cosmo
@dmsilev: This time it’s the Casque of the Dread Breath…
Barbara
@dmsilev: Let me guess. He spends a substantial part of his income on foil. Where do these people come from?
rikyrah
Evil_Paul
I’m surprised no one else has mentioned it yet….
….Fyre Festival pt 2!!!!!
James E Powell
@prostratedragon:
Absolutely love Foyle’s War. That’s what got me started watch nearly every UK police procedural.
UncleEbeneezer
I’ve seen people saying Tiger King is the whitest bullshit ever.
Harbor says “Hold my beer”
Amir Khalid
@Jay Noble:
Better to expose the young’uns to the Argument Clinic and the Dead Parrot Sketch and the Fish-slapping Dance than to the Coronavirus.
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
RIP Ellis Marsalis.
Adam L Silverman
@The Dangerman: The pollening is killing me!
CliosFanBoy
@Amir Khalid: he’s always been a rich playboy jerk.
danielx
@mrmoshpotato:
I vote for door #2.
Uncle Cosmo
@dmsilev: A few years later Jack Parr light-fingered the concept (& perhaps the actual film, I’m not sure) for his show. IIRC there were several segments, none of them on 1 April – & Italian food was unusual enough in Stateside cuisine** that a lot of viewers swallowed it hook, line, and semolina…
** As late as 1967. when Mom had me invite a few of my college friends over for a home-cooked meal (so that the folks could scope them out), she made lasagna – & none of them (two Jews & a German-American) had ever eaten it. Mannaggia!
Jay Noble
@dmsilev: A good one!
Krope, the Formerly Dope
Thanks for reading my mind, Anne Laurie. I have been obsessed with The Masque of the Red Death in the past week. Ever since my friend and I were talking about a small cadre of people isolating as a group.
I found this really enjoyable animated version the other day. 11 minutes, no words, but it gets the point across.
Jay Noble
@Amir Khalid: Yes it is! And better yet that they “get it”
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
So sad. We’re going to lose a whole lot of soulful music folks in this dammed thing!
Thanks, Donald J Trump……
Elizabelle
@dmsilev: Love it. The spaghetti weevil.
Note that the BBC could use “depredations” in 1957. Le sigh.
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: This is true.
danielx
@dmsilev:
Well, they do sell flamethrowers over the internet now.
lgerard
From the Department of Small Victories
Patricia Kayden
The Harbor retreat sounds like that Fyre Island fiasco — only potentially deadlier.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: That’s sad. RIP Ellis Marsalis.
Incidentally, WRT the 39 year old social worker from New Orleans found dead in her kitchen maybe 2 weeks ago: second test for COVID came back and she did not have it. (The first test she took, five days before her death, was also negative but they distrusted the results and ran it again.)
RIP Natasha Ott. May be another month before they have a cause of death. Los Angeles Times story.
Duane
@danielx: The good news …. Cheap Gas!!!
JAFD
RE: #16, Whomever
There actually is a ‘neighborhood’ in Elizabeth, NJ – the Ikea next to the turnpike is one edge of it – of that shopping center, the Jersey Gardens outlet mall, some chain restaurants, and half a dozen hotels, all surrounded with acres of parking lots, and in which getting anywhere without car would be hazardous. Probably hotel rooms that’ll give you views of both EWR and Port Newark Channel, with the New Jersey Turnpike as well. For ‘grown-up kids’ who find planes and ships fascinating…
Note that while NJTransit runs buses from ‘downtown’ to both Ikea and Jersey Gardens, they’re different routes, no bus that hits both. Sometimes inconvenient. There oughta be someone running NJT who actually depends on public transit.
Stay healthy and happy, everyone ! Have a good April, and a joyful spring-festival-of-your-tradition.
TS (the original)
@mrmoshpotato:
Using her own words – that is exactly where she is
danielx
@Duane:
Truth. One of the denizens of this dive was planning a road trip with gas at $1.75 a gallon.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: : ( RIP, Ellis!
I used to play Marsalis family marathons on my jazz show, back in the day when I was a pubic radio DJ.
TS (the original)
@whomever:
I learned to swim near Brighton Beach – there were sea baths nearby – back in the day when olympic style swimming pools did not exist. We all learned to swim in rivers, creeks, the open sea with or without enclosed bathing areas. The beach is on botany bay which is the centre of much industry in Sydney – very different beaches to Bondi, Manly, Cronulla areas.
joel hanes
@Uncle Cosmo:
I am told by reputable sources that as late as 1960, there was no establishment in New York City where one could purchase a taco.
The US craze for “Mexican food” started, IIRC, about 1962, and it was a major cultural experience for me in 1964, when, traveling with my father, we ate dinner the only Mexican restaurant in Des Moines.
joel hanes
@lgerard:
The White House had overruled the WHCA and told the minders that OANN was to be allowed to be present.
Remember Jeff Gannon/Jerry Guckert?
He was a more legitimate reporter than Chanel Rion.
frosty
@Brachiator:
@prostratedragon:
I rely enjoyed Foyle’s War. They wove in a bit of WWII history in many of the episodes and it was all accurate.
Villago Delenda Est
I suppose vaginal eggs and healing crystals are also part of the package?
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: It also has nukweear wessels.
Miss Bianca
@Villago Delenda Est: Hahaha, I’m so old I got *that* reference! : )
“Too much LDS”
Still cracks me up, particularly since we’re really close to Mormon country out here…
Martin
Data time. Another rough day. JH had a problem with their US/Canada data feed resulting in data for 26 hours being reported, and tomorrow will be 22 hours. So, I won’t give my normal detail today and tomorrow, but the Italy data is still +727 for today. That’s the 13th straight day in the 600-900 range. 70% of fatalities in Italy have come after their lockdown benefits have kicked in.
The US at around +1000 will likely grow to +5K by Tuesday and +10K before the first state lockdowns kick in. And whatever that peak daily fatality rate is, we’re likely to stay there for quite a while. China was 11 days, Italy is 13 so far. That’s a long time with a LOT of deaths, and no sign of relief.
Duane
@danielx: Someone has to transport those flamethrowers.
danielx
@Duane:
You doubt Amazon? That’s a thought crime.
eddie blake
@Villago Delenda Est:
“noo-cle-arr WESSELS.”
good shit.
Another Scott
ICYMI, DeLong’s Coronavirus Update for April 1, 2020 (22 page .PDF of Keynote presentation). Includes modeling and rumination on what to do next (with links to original research).
tl;dr – Sensible policy decisions will depend on more testing of all types (positive for infections, asymptomatic, recovered). Too much is still unknown to know the course.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
Good Atlantic piece.
This is what we in CA discovered years ago. Give the GOP a single veto opportunity, and they will take it and ride to the end of the line. As soon as we took away that tool, magically, all of the gridlock vanished.
Another Scott
@Martin: As another datapoint:
Worldometers.info daily data rolls over at 0 GMT.
USA 215,003 total cases +26,473 cases in last 24 hours
5,102 total deaths +1,049 deaths in last 24 hours
https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections latest had:
874 US deaths on 3/31/2020
806-970 projected deaths on 4/1/2020 (899 “expected”)
So the healthdata.org numbers already seem to be far too optimistic. (But maybe they’re working from different sets of numbers…)
Cheers,
Scott.
Duane
@danielx: Okay then. Have the flamethrowers delivered to Cole’s house. He’ll know what to do.
Elizabelle
@Martin:
Whoa. Shrill. And published by The Atlantic. But Adam Serwer is absolutely correct.
phdesmond
@rikyrah: dang.
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato:
Yes — which is why I’m just getting back to this thread! I like mysteries, and have developed a taste for the English countryside subgenre with lots of social detail. This one fills the bill.
Edit: Actually, I had seen one episode when it ran, the one in which Foyle is suspended and a Scotland Yard guy moves in and turn Foyle’s unit upside down for a time. It’s in season 2.
glc
@Krope, the Formerly Dope: And Cory Doctorow has a short story called “The Masque of the Red Death” in his Radicalized collection (© 2019).
Whomever
@joel hanes: some would say you still can’t (I kid, but NYC isn’t where I’d go for good Mexican, though there are some good places if you know where to look). I had a “oops I’m a snob” moment a few years ago when I overheard someone having falafel with their parents from squaresville and the parents had never had falafel before and were “oooh this is so exotic”. I thought “never had falafel???” before realizing a) I was being a snob, b) there is a first time for everything for everyone and c) they were clearly enjoying it so who was I to judge?
BR
It’s about time — Los Angeles is asking everyone to wear masks, and California will soon:
https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1245529208220196864
Zeynep Tufecki has written several great pieces and twitter threads on the importance of masks:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.html
Even ordinary dust masks, or homemade masks, are still useful as studies have found, because people can be spreading the virus even when not symptomatic.
Whomever
@JAFD: oh I know, my roommates sister back in the day actually lived in Elizabeth. I was just trying to find the rough US equivalent. And NJ transit, let’s just say even my LIRR riding co workers have started realizing it’s the Shinkansen by comparison
joel hanes
@Whomever:
Have you no taco trucks?
mrmoshpotato
@Evil_Paul: LOL
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: I got season 1 from the library months ago and loved it. They were missed 1 or 2 seasons, so I had to buy the box set. I should watch it again. It’s sooo good.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@joel hanes:
Huh. It’s hard to imagine a large metropolis like NYC without any Hispanic restaurants. It’s also weird to know that Ron Howard was like 5 years old in 1960 on the Andy Griffith Show, and 1960 was only 30 or so years removed from the 1929 Stock Market Crash and the Great Depression of course
Time is really weird thing. It’s hard to think about the shows I liked to watch when I was younger and a kid are now 20+ years old now, as old as old 70s Scooby Doo episodes I also watched at the same time.
I feel like we can only appreciate the significance of a moment in time after it’s already passed
Jay
Krope, the Formerly Dope
@glc: Thank you, added to my reading list.
prostratedragon
@rikyrah:
Ellis Marsalis tribute from Jazz at Lincoln Center
Includes a nice clip with Branford and Delfayo(?) at Mr. Rogers’s neighborhood.
“Heart of Gold,” Ellis Marsalis Trio
JAFD
@Whomever:
Hello again !
Recommendations for Mexican food in NYC sought.
Oneovdezedaze we’ll have another NYC Meetup, hope to see you there. (Or were you at the last, and I’ve forgotten ??? )
(Let’s see if the ‘Reply’ button works this time…)
mrmoshpotato
@joel hanes: Have you no sense of taco trucks, sir?
frosty
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Time is a strange thing, but brace yourself because it’s going to go faster. I think we perceive it as a fraction of the time we’ve experienced.
So when I was 20 a season went by in the same amount of perceived time for me as a year for my 80-year old grandma.
eddie blake
@JAFD:
cinco de mayo on cortelyou road. small, but really good food.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@frosty:
Oh definitely. It already seems to move faster than when I was much younger
joel hanes
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
My mom’s 87
The United States is about 244 years old
Mom often marvels that she’s witnessed more than a third of our nation’s entire history.
Duane
@frosty: Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Jay
James E Powell
@Martin:
What’s sad is that Mann and Ornstein already wrote about this in 2012. The only impact it had on the press/media is that they all started ignoring Mann and Ornstein.
Another Scott
ICYMI – Drum – US Goes Full Denmark:
It’s a shame we had such a loooser in Chuck Schumer heading the Democrats in the Senate.
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
We’ve got good people leading our teams in the Senate and the House. We need to have their backs.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
sfinny
@Gin & Tonic:
This is way late, but it may help if she can provide information about applying for unemployment insurance and the extra $600/wk .
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James E Powell: Ornstein wrote a follow-up piece about the media, as in The Village, reception of that piece. I’d dig it up but I’m too damn tired. From memory: Readership of their op-ed broke the Washington Post website, it was by far the most-read piece on the site up to that time and for a while after. They waited for calls from Sunday shows and cable networks to discuss it and… nobody called. As I recall, Ornstein asked his friend Bob Schieffer of CBS about it, Schieffer hadn’t read the piece, and when Ornstein told him about Schieffer scoffed at the premise
ballerat
@TS (the original): Has she tried “genocide” yet?
Wapo doesn’t say that either but sure seems to describe it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TS (the original):
I keep trying that solution, but I find myself on the couch with this machine instead…
PJ
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I was not alive or in New York in the 1960, but I bet you could have found Spanish, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Dominican restaurants in NYC then. In fact, I just looked up El Quijote, an old school Spanish restaurant, and found out it had opened in 1930: https://ny.eater.com/2018/3/30/17176932/el-quijote-closing-last-look-chelsea-hotel-nyc
Ethnic restaurants in this country are largely (but not always) tied to immigration. The East Coast historically never had much immigration from Mexico, and large scale immigration from Central America didn’t really start until we started supporting wars there in the 1980’s.
NotMax
@PJ
In NYC could be found. In the suburbs, not so much. Pizza was still considered an exotic choice there then.
Not uncommon in 1930s movies for people to approach spaghetti as they might a visitor from Barsoom.
Duane
@NotMax: The Strawberry Blonde was on TCM last night. Rita Hayworth’s character couldn’t pronounce the word spaghetti.
PJ
@NotMax: I grew up in the middle of nowhere on the East Coast in the 70’s and 80’s, and, aside from Taco Bell and Jack in the Box, the only ethnic restaurants were Italian and Greek. There were probably some Chinese restaurants somewhere, but I never saw them.
Jay
columbusqueen
@NotMax: I’m still amazed at how many times I meet people who’ve never tried Indian food. WTF? Columbus has a ton of good to great Indian restaurants, yet they don’t eat at any? Sigh.
Jay
prostratedragon
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Plenty of Hispanic restaurants, but the population there was much more Caribbean until recently.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: No kidding! Sending her good thoughts.
Jay
Sloane Ranger
@mrmoshpotato: Speaking of which several years ago I took a cruise which called in at Casablanca. I was so looking forward to visiting this exciting exotic location. The morning we arrived I jumped out of bed and flung open the curtains – to see a view of miles and miles of containers. Such a disappointment!
Villago Delenda Est
@columbusqueen: Ethiopian food is also not common, but VERY interesting. We’ve got an Ethiopian restaurant in nearby Springfield (I live in Tracktown, AKA Shelbyville) that serves it the traditional way, very very tasty!
Villago Delenda Est
@Jay: Yeah, sensitive to the incompetent fool in the White House and all Rethuglicans. Fuck Google.
Uncle Cosmo
@Whomever: A lot of Juicers need to have more “oops, I’m a snob” moments. Because they are. Take food: a lot of the cuisine yinz squee over is nothing more (& nothing less) than peasant food designed to keep poor folks alive. Why are “classic” Mexican dishes so emphatically spiced? Because the meat the peasantry could afford was so often less than fresh, and anyone could grow hot peppers to mask the off taste.[1]
And those wonderful “Eye-talian” pasta dishes aren’t even considered a proper meal in Italy – they’re the second course (which is why the appetizers are called antipasto, “before the pasta”), to be followed by the entrée.[2] (And of course, there is no such thing as “spaghetti and meatballs” on the Boot – meatballs [polpette] are served separately as a [fairly non-standard] entrée.[3])
Homemade pasta? Knock yourself out – you’re spending 3x
Notes:
[1] Before the home icebox in the 19th century, many spices were pricier per pound than gold – because they were critical for preserving meat (salt) and masking the flavor when it had “turned.” In Europe, salt mines were valuable enterprises; cf. the expression “not worth his salt.” And wars large & small were fought over the spice trade with the Indies.
[2] My father used to get quite exercised if Mom served pasta for supper more than once a week: “Don’t I bring home enough money to put meat on the table instead of this peasant food?” (He’d grown up dirt poor in Appalachia & most of the time all they had was flour & all they ate was pasta.)
[3] In point of fact, none of the components of the “classic” Italian-American spaghetti with meatballs is native Italian: The noodles that evolved into pasta were brought back from China by medieval traders, tomato sauce had to wait for tomatoes to be found & brought back from the Western Hemisphere, and if ground meat ever appears with pasta, it is crumbled in the sauce & not as meatballs.
low-tech cyclist
“The ticket into the house is a one-way ticket.”
It’s a roach motel!
JDM
@Amir Khalid:
Not even close.