Weird Things: The Tartary Lamb

This story is so peculiar that I am not sure how to categorise it! But what it does tell us is how cultures and learned people get things wrong. 

In every era, people are at the peak of their technological power. It's very easy to believe what we read or are told now - we're super-educated, and advanced, right? Well, these people thought the same! Even in my lifetime, big 'certainties' have been overturned. Columbus being the first non-Native-American to find North America, for example. Now it's been proven that the Vikings got there before him - and in fact there are probabilities that many other cultures - from Asia too - were trading and lurking in the Americas, a long time before that!

I guess an overall pinch-of-salt* is required for a lot of things. And an understanding that what we're taught is 'likely' - but that knowledge is probably fluid. Who knows what better understandings the world will have 150 years from now? The fluidity thing is quite exciting, in actual fact!

ANYWAY, 150 years ago, in Europe, people still believed in the Tartary Lamb (aka Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, Scythian Lamb or Barometz). And they'd believed it for 500 years or more. The Barometz was debated by erudite writers for centuries.

What was it? 
A plant, which had animal sheep as its fruits. Bonkers, right? To us. Well, maybe not so bonkers! Early periods of exploration to Africa and Asia had brought back tales of all sorts of amazing plants and creatures. And to be fair, if you'd never seen or heard of one before, the giraffe, or the meat-eating pitcher-plant, for example, are pretty damned weird concepts too. And people back then couldn't take photographs, or jump on planes and easily explore, to prove things yes or no. (Tartary was an old word for a vast region crossing what's now Central/Northern/East Asia, btw.)

So, anyway, reports came back to Europe of this crazy plant. It was believed that it produced lamb-fruits, connected via umbilical cord to the main plant. The lambs grew, and were flesh-and-blood, but couldn't be disconnected from the mother-plant and live. Reports were of one sheep per plant, or several (which began woolly life in pods - arranged a bit like melons or courgettes!) Still attached, the lambs would feed by grazing nearby vegetation, and when it was all consumed, they died. The lambs were only eaten by wolves, but their wool was apparently used to manufacture nice garments for humans.

Nobody is exactly sure why the belief in this plant/animal endured for so long. There's a similar mythical creature in old Jewish texts, apparently. And theories suggest explorers were further confused by seeing Indian cotton pods (which contained 'wool'), or an Asian fern with especially furry roots, which Chinese made into small, sheep-like toys.

Anyway, there are a lot of unknowns in the story of the Tartary Lamb! There are mythical creatures worldwide, of course - mermaids, dragons, unicorns, kirin, trolls. But this one seems to have garnered genuine (erroneous) scientific discussion. Below is the fern and a cotton pod - what do you think?

The furry fern: Cibotium Barometz

An Indian cotton pod - bit sheepy?

* This is a British English idiom. To 'take something with a pinch-of-salt' means that you listen to or understand something, but don't take it 100% seriously. 


Photo credits: gutenberg.org; Pinterest; Fiber Feast.   

Nosh of the Day: Bingsu

Oh yes! 

One of the things which East and SE Asia love - and which is uncommon in Europe - is shaved ice desserts. (This, alongside 'drinks with solid stuff in them' and 'hot pots on the table'.) 

And bingsu is the (now rather trendy) Korean version. When I suggested Bingsu to my local friend, he said, "But bingsu is just ais kacang*, but Korean and made much more expensive!"  He had a point, but we ordered it anyway. In fact, the Korean dessert is similar in concept to ais kacang. But it was SO MUCH MORE YUM! OK, we tried this in Singapore (which tbf has pretty good Japanese offerings for the region, so perhaps we did quite well with the Korean too?) But I can only imagine how good bingsu must actually be in Korea; because this was a bijou feastette!

The two key factors which distinguish bingsu (even from the glamorous Chinese 'snow ice' desserts I have tried) are a) ludicrously powdery, light, shaved ice b) creaminess. 

Our try was a mango one. It consisted of fluffy ice, fresh mango chunks, mango coulis, whipped cream, mango ice-cream, and sweetened condensed milk to pour over it for extra sweet-and-creaminess (+ cholesterol). I think there was some cream (and more mango) in the lower layers of the pudding too. When this lot melted down to the last spoonfuls, it was like slightly sweet milk. (When ais kacang melts down, it is like slightly sweet water). 

OK, this guy did not come cheap. It was about SGD17 (GBP9.75) for this two-person portion. (Which is much better value than a single portion, but still pretty hefty for Singapore). I think mango was the priciest choice on the menu. But it was outrageously delicious. A once-a-month treat, perhaps?

FYI traditional Korean shaved ice desserts (which use red bean as a key ingredient) are known as 'patbingsu'. Others are simply 'bingsu'. 

We went to Nunsaram Korean Dessert Cafe, Orchard Central mall, Orchard Road,  Singapore. http://www.burpple.com/nunsaram-korean-dessert-cafe


* Ais Kacang (pron 'ice kuh-chung' = Malay for 'ice with nuts' or 'ice with nuts-fruits-syrups-and-sprinkle-stuff') is a range of cheerful hawker shaved ice desserts you can pick up easily and cheaply in Malaysia and Singapore! 



More on this blog: 

Stupendous Chinese Desserts!

Sweet and soursop

Nosh of the Day: not 100% sure..

Nosh of the Day: Bijin Nabe

Nosh of the Day: Taiwanese Grass Jelly & the Rise of Michael Bublé Tea

 

Bags of Fun! Eco Practices East and West

OK, possibly not all that much fun... 

I've been in Malaysia recently, and noted with some pleasedness that plastic bags were in short supply. Now, some supermarkets make you pay if you want a plastic bag; and most other outlets will ask you ambiguously 'Plastic?' when you purchase an item. ('Plastic?' being typical SE Asian economy-English for 'Would you like a plastic bag for that?') The cutback is apparently a new national directive. And most of the time we indeed do not require 'plastic'. 

The UK and other countries in Europe have had more stringent practices for some years. Plastic bags - most of which are non-bio-degradable, but also bio-degradable ones - cause big problems worldwide. Improperly disposed-of, they clog drainage (I recently worked with a project in the Philippines, where this was the issue and put communities at huge risk during flood times) and have all sorts of detrimental effects on wildlife on land and in the ocean. Even when they're thrown away properly they bung up landfill, and the eventual breakdown releases polluting chemicals into the soil. In fact, even their ingredients and manufacture degrade the environment, and emit polluting chemicals. Bio-degradable bags are not much better. They still require manufacture - with sometimes even more toxic ingredients - and 'bio-degrading' can just mean they release their  pollutants faster. Some conditions and climates mean they won't break down at all. 'Bio-degradable', it seems, does not mean the same as 'eco-friendly'.
 
Of course, for consumer convenience, no bags can be pain in the arse. In the UK, you usually cannot answer 'yes' and get a plastic bag - you have to pay. Large chain supermarkets will charge you 5p (or 5 cents or equivalent) for each plastic bag if you have forgotten to keep a recyclable alternative in your own handbag. The big brand chains probably profit from this; the whole deal is certainly a better bet for them financially, regardless of whether they care for the environment or not (and I would hazard a guess that 'not' applies in many cases, though they might try to greenwash it!) But the cash savings are an incentive to make them comply. Some studies have also shown that if certain areas have bag bans, consumers are more likely to shop just outside that area, for their own convenience (though admittedly the source for one study was Plastics Today ^^). So, the directives have to be blanket, and nationwide. 

I am not a particular eco-warrior. I just grew up in a region where eco has been a big, legislated, educationally-supported, deal for some decades. I got used to carrying my backpack, or an extra tote, around in London. It wasn't 100% convenient, but everyone had to do it, so fair enough. (We pack our own groceries in UK supermarkets, btw - in Asia, cashiers often do it for you.) 

Having been in Asia for a while and learned a little more, I feel a bit more strongly. I am a keen SCUBA diver - which is something I highly recommend, especially in SE Asia, a world hotspot for fantastic marine life. But it's depressing to see bags (and plastic bottles) littering the shores. Or plastic wrapped around remote corals and other suffering marine life. Some are also mistaken for jellyfish and eaten, leading to death for the unsuspecting creature. These are improperly disposed-of bags, of course. And the entire bag-pollution problem is a complex mix of social, educational, economic and political factors which I'm not qualified to outline. But if there are a lot less bags circulating, one can only hope there is a lot less to 'mis-dispose' of too.

Meanwhile...
Next door to newly bag-free Malaysia, affluent Singapore is a very different story. I was shocked when I first moved there and discovered that you get plastic bags with everything - sometimes a double layer! - and in supermarkets, nearly every item will be bagged separately. For a modest six-item shop, for example, you could easily carry four separate plastic bags home. I spent months annoying queuing shoppers and cashiers alike, by trying to insist on one bag only. (I've since discovered that SE Asian economy-English 'No need!' is required for this too. A polite English 'It's OK, I really only need one bag for the groceries!' gets you nowhere! But it's still often an unpopular request.)

More perplexing still, most supermarket bags in Singapore are printed with something like 'Let's protect our environment!' or 'Use bags sparingly'. When the supermarkets practice the exact opposite! A trip to Fairprice or Cold Storage can start to resemble an ironic performance art piece.

So what's going on there? In general, wealthy Singapore tends to be a few steps head of its poorer neighbours, and things are also usually fairly smartly organised. (In fact, on balance, I'd often say better organised than in the UK). But I've not noticed much genuine eco-awareness there yet. There's a bit of 'lifestyle' eco-awareness - ie it's fashionable in some circles to be seen as modern and eco-aware; and corporates do clumsy 'bolt-on' CSR projects to pick up litter etc. But whether this translates into daily eco-aware routine and action, I'm not sure. Recycling at household level seems to be a fairly superficial process, and it's not widely done. I also remember being told off at my office several times, for not reboiling a full kettle each time I made coffee. Because somebody might want to reheat it and make a drink later in the day. This is considerate to potential coffee drinkers, but I'd been taught since teen years in the UK, that you should only boil as much as you need. To avoid waste (of fuel/energy). And be more environmentally positive. In Europe, boiling a full kettle for no direct purpose is viewed as hugely irresponsible!

In fact, Singapore is currently listed at 14 in the global Environmental Performance Index. It is the only Asian nation in the top 30! (Japan comes in next, at 39. Malaysia is no. 63)(And yes, the top 10 are all in Europe!) So something must be being done right at Singapore's higher levels. But day-to-day eco awareness, and certainly the misuse of plastic bags, seems to require some work. 


You can check out the 2016 EPI rankings and report here: http://epi.yale.edu/country-rankings


*FYI for English-learners, 'pleasedness' is not an official word. It is 'poetic license' as neither 'satisfaction' nor 'pleasure' had quite the correct meaning! 

Matcha of the Day: Franco's green tea latte float

Another from Kuala Lumpur. I'm guessing this chain is local (? I've never seen it in London or Singapore, for example - it has almost zero web presence) and it apparently serves French/Japanese fusion food and drinks. So you'd expect the green tea to be fairly good, right? And this iced matcha latte, with a green tea soft-serve float is quite presentable. It's not 100% on point, but if you're not near a real Japanese matcha outlet, it a perfectly decent choice. 

The Review  
The flavour has some matcha bitterness, although it's not tremendously creamy. The soft-serve is ever so slightly grainy, but the best aspect is that there is a generous portion of it. AND there aren't too many giant rocks of ice watering down the drink, as in some other matcha offers in the region. So over a few minutes, the melting ice-cream does contribute to a fairly rich and flavoursome experience. It's good enough that I have had it twice so far (in the absence of a Tsujiri etc, obviously). 

Price-wise, it's reasonable. This is pretty much a whole dessert, and you get a satisfying quantity for your bucks. Have sat quite happily for an hour or so, jotting notes and things, with one of these drinks slowly steeping on the table. (There is aircon in Franco, obviously!)

FYI I also tried Franco's plain matcha latte (without float) and it was extremely mediocre / a bit watery, and far too sweet. Perhaps consistency is not their thing? Either way, go for the ice-cream option!