this claim rests on a premise which i did not in fact put forward. i do not argue that eggplant possesses an immutable, ahistorical tendency towards grossness; only that a real, existing dish containing eggplant, under the current historical circumstances, cannot be considered by any but the ignorant or the wholly unscrupulous to be yummies. on the frontier of scientific development, advances in genetic engineering, or the invention of new quality culinary techniques, may well lead to breakthroughs producing entirely new categories of yummies in the future. but we are not utopians, and so we make a clear distinction between such speculation, and the material conditions of the present. just as the real science of nuclear chemistry had no relevance to the false claims made by pre-modern alchemists of transmuting the elements, we should not allow the invocation of what might be possible under a higher stage of development to misguide us. for by this rhetorical sleight-of-hand, i.e., hinting coyly at a form of eggplant which, by some unknown technological process, takes on the true nature of yummies, jiejie implies thusly that the dish which is right now in front of our eyes may constitute such an instance, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary! whether eggplant could be converted into yummies in theory is entirely beside the point. the dinner of tomorrow, while a compelling topic in its own right, must not blind us to the dinner of today.
here, jiejie draws upon that loathsome notion of 'the healthy diet', an unscientific sham invented by bourgeois medical professionals in order to give women eating disorders,
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
amandla
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
