#hidden-but

so, basically, this approach doesn't treat executive (dys)function as one thing, but as a series of steps, that all have to be made for the Function to happen. In my case, the steps I struggled the most with was task initiation (aka, "what is the first step of making coffee and how do i start?") and prioritising ("do i chop the onion or wash the pot first?") and then other things kinda spiraled from that.

If I use a crude definition of dyscalculia as "looking at a number and having trouble actually comprehending the information the number is denoting", i can easily imagine that the time management/time blindness step being extra challenging for the proper functioning of the executives - especially in an environment with digital clocks. (my personal experience is that i got a watch without numbers for my 10th birthday, so i kinda ... feel time as a piece of a pie chart? like, it's connected a lot in my mind to the angle of the hands of the watch, which makes life easier for me, but might be even harder for someone with a different flavour of neurospiciness).

Anyways, brains are fun in their diversity (uggghhhhhh)! Best of luck with yours.

Thank you so much for taking your time to share this! 😊

The realisation that there can be a dyscalculia/time-blindness/executive dysfunction combination was a bit of a galaxy brain moment yesterday.

A friend of mine struggles with all three, but so far they only looked into time-blindness/executive dysfunction and ADHD, disregarding the dyscalculia as irrelevant. Which it obviously might not be at all.

So - I’m going to share your ask with them and we’ll also do some more research!

First thing is to remember that Asterix is a comedy, and an easy source of humour is to turn national traits up to 11. So the Ancient Britons stop fighting at 5 PM every day to drink hot water with a spot of milk in it (putting tea in the hot water comes later, thanks to Getafix the Druid). They also drink warm beer, drive on the wrong side of the road, have a long-standing plan for a tunnel to France Gaul, say things like “Jolly good show, what?” and to Obelix’s disgust eat their wild boar boiled, with mint sauce.

Oddly enough, the historical English preference was for roasting. In “Beef and Liberty”, Ben Rogers provides lots of period quotations from European travellers about England’s roast-centric cuisine being “simple, but hearty and good”. They were less complimentary about attempts at more elaborate cooking, but IMO a lot of that was just a return serve in the still-ongoing match of xenophobia tennis.

As for mint sauce...

...it looks like grass-clipping soup - an appearance shared with numerous other green sauces more common in Europe than the UK - but the unsubtle nose-stinging whiff of pickled toothpaste is all its own.

In Britain it’s almost the last survivor of historical herb-based sauces - coriander (cilantro), lovage, sorrel, parsley etc. - but most commercial mint sauces, based as they are on vinegar, are far harsher than originals which would have used verjuice, the juice of sour fruit like unripe grapes, green apples etc. This is available from various sources, and is well worth having in the cupboard.

Mixing a spoonful of modern mint sauce with yogurt, sour cream or even mayonnaise is a definite improvement; so is 1 spoonful of it with 3 of basil pesto; anything to reduce its minty, vinegary one-note aggression.

According to FoodsOfEngland.com, mint sauce is mentioned in 'The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy' by Hannah Glasse (1747), though without a recipe, which suggests the sauce was so familiar and easy to make that instructions weren’t needed. Oddly enough, both mentions are in connection with cooking and serving pork in the style of lamb. There’s also a recipe for making pork taste like venison - I’d have thought making it taste like wild boar would have been easier, but never mind.

These are scans from our Prospect Books facsimile copy:

Mint sauce for lamb is one of a group of this-for-that sauces which include apple sauce for pork, cranberry sauce for poultry or game, and parsley sauce for fish (here in Ireland it also goes with boiled bacon and ham), while mustard and horseradish, the traditional accompaniments for beef, aren’t really sauces when used alone. So what are they?

It’s easy to get into a tangle about what to call a thing from a jar which goes with meat: it’s not a gravy, so is it a sauce, a condiment, a relish, a preserve or a pickle? There should be one thing to name them all, one thing to find them, one thing to bring them all and in the pantry bind them...

Sorry, got a bit distracted.

“Tracklement” fits the bill. Though it sounds old, FoodsOfEngland suggests it 'appears to have been invented’ in 1954 by Dorothy Hartley for her book “Food in England”. However since it’s a social history as well as a collection of recipes, what it may have done was pin a dialect word down in print for the first time. 

In addition, William Tullberg, founder of “Tracklements”, which makes mustards, pickles, chutneys etc....

...said that ‘tracklement’ was what his Lincolnshire grandmother called accompaniments to meat; he was born in 1932, which suggests that Granny’s word goes back into at least the late 1800s.

it’s canon that the Lans take their headbands off only around their s/os as a sign of relinquishing control, so I’m POSITIVE that would spill over to marriage traditions

and I’m also having the time of my LIFE imagining WWX staring at that lotus seed pod in LWJ’s hand and experiencing war flashbacks to the time he received one a week from every respectable young lady in Yunmeng, and just mournfully ate them with Jiang Cheng complaining about never wanting to get hitched

Ain’t Gonna Drown - Elle King