Than you for sticking with me through four hundred Selkie comics, everyone.
Also, my sister showed me this website. Have you shamed your dog today?
Stuffing is dressing.
Than you for sticking with me through four hundred Selkie comics, everyone.
Also, my sister showed me this website. Have you shamed your dog today?
How the tables have turned. Although if they were as bad as the orphanage they would probably be a Bush or poison ivy there.
Or poke weed. 😀 Totally edible when young and well-cooked, but the older plants and berries can make one very sick.
Gahh! Please don’t mention pokeweed. One of my biggest woodland fears, surpassing even bears.
Hey, at least she tried! A lot – A LOT – of people are of the opinion “You’re at my house, you eat what I eat. Period.”
Yeah, and I’m one of them. If you come for dinner, you eat what I serve. You want something else? There’s a restaurant down the street.
What about allergies?
Boy, I remember the first time I met my then-girlfriend’s parents. They made seafood, and I’m allergic to seafood. So when they served salmon, I knew they were trying to kill me.
Well, not to kill me, but when my girlfriend told them I was allergic to seafood, they weren’t listening at all.
So when I smelled the food, I quickly went to the kitchen to help my probable mother-in-law and taught her how to make a dish for me to eat and for them to sample. It was good, a simple asian-style mixture of vegetables and steak, which is not my comfort food, but is good enough to eat once in a while.
I was thinking Todd would offer himself to teach Sai Fen (got her name right?) how to make a proper salad as a way to introduce her to a new kind of food. I would have done that.
Well I don’t think it is easy finding anything that would be possible to eat for both Todd and the Sarnothi. As unlike most real earth carnivores the Sarnothis seem to be more or less allergic to plant matter.
Sai Fen did get the salad mostly right – a bit cutting and seasoning should yield something Todd would like. The pumpkin should be similarly close to the mark. Although Selkie liked raw food so far, she doesn’t seem to be adverse to most traditional food processing methods. So a little introduction into cooking probably would be educational on human customs and might even give them some ideas to get more diversity into their own dishes.
Todd seems to be too polite/overwhelmed for that.
Allergic isn’t quite the right word. It’s more like cats with grass…as obligate carnivores, cats can’t really derive any meaningful nutrition from grass but it does affect their guts in some useful ways that they’re smart enough to correlate and will use grass as a sort of medicinal dietary supplement to help keep their guts in order when they’re feeling unwell.
We use a lot of grain/plant based fill in cat food, but it’s mainly a binding agent for the useful nutrients that get milled in with it and it’s not terribly good for them in the long term, insofar as the common house cat has a long term. It’s a little like feeding someone a steady diet of specially formulated nutritional supplements…it’ll do, but it’s not quite ‘real’ food, and it’s probably going to be subtly inadequate in some non-critical ways that only crop up if they’ve been doing it awhile.
With regards to plant matter, Sarnothi appear to be a lot like cats. Not allergic per se (no histamine reaction/anaphylaxis), it’s just that their system recognizes plants and fruits as broadly ‘unfood’ and promptly rejects them rather than wasting energy trying to process them (digestion is expensive chemistry, yo). But to an ignorant orphanage staff that doesn’t actually understand that they’re dealing with a non-human physiology, let alone one as specialized as to be an obligate carnivore, allergy is probably the most obvious term to use to try to make sense of it.
I remember when I was 16, trying to explain that one of my friends was vegetarian… things went hilariously:
Me – “Oh and Andrew is vegetarian so he can’t eat meat…”
Dad – “Ok, I’mma cook him some fish.”
Me – “Fish is meat, Dad! It comes from an animal.”
Dad – “FISH AREN’T ANIMALS!” [Huntsman]
Me – “…They have eyeballs, Daddy!! And they move! They aren’t a plant are they??” [Future Biology major]
Dad – “… I guess they are animals then.”
Me – “Let’s just make a salad before we kill the poor guy…”
Such a bundle of joy, you are. I take it you don’t get many visitors? What a lousy host!
For real! Probably the same people that said I had to bring my own “weird vegetarian food” when invited over for dinner, and then complained that I was a vegetarian through the whole meal. “There’s JUST chicken broth on this.” Obviously from their family!
every year at Thanksgiving we have dinner at my hubby’s parents house and his sister who still lives there is vegan. She has her vegan Satan …at least that is how I pronouce it it’s actually really yummy. And I eat it because it makes her happy. I try what ever my host places before me. I’ve even had fish eyeballs when I was in China because my professer said they where good for women. It was like a weird grape.
Absolutely she tried. Now, all Todd has to do is ask for a bowl and a knife, and show her how to prepare it. Knowing Sai Fen, she would *love* to know how to prepare it.
If she fried the butternut squash she will have spices and oil, little of both and Voilà, salad.
And fried butternut squash will be a fine entree if she knew how to fry it. Given it looks whole, that may not be the case ;-/
She probably fried it in butter or lard, since those are of animal origin–maybe sans spices, as well. I can’t remember if the amount of vegetable matter you’d come across in seasoning is a problem or not–spices are a bit spendy to buy if you’re only going to use them once. Unless she used the whole jar. Given the appearance of the salad, I don’t think she looked up recipes or asked someone for advice, so if she did get spices, I wonder what kind of combo she came up with? Plain squash might be the best option, actually…
I don’t see why they wouldn’t have spices. Maybe not all the spices a human family would have, but also maybe some extra. Using spices is not something that only vegetarians do, and i highly doubt that an apparently civilised society would have never gotten the idea of “hey, if we put some small very strongly tasting additional stuff onto our food it tastes better”. So the main question is, will Todd politely eat that, or will he try to make something edible out of it with whatever there is in a Sarnothi kitchen. Could be an interesting experience, since he has never cooked with the Sarnothi spice selection, and Sai Fen has never cooked vegetarian.
Which actually make me think, do the Sarnothi cook in general? Apparently they do cook on land, but under the water i can see that being pretty hard.
That then leads to another question, how does a society evolve without fire? Sure, at some point they can artificially create heat, maybe electrically or with some kind of chemical compound that burns underwater, but for a long period of their history they must have basically been completely dependent on their surrounding temperatures. I don’t think there are hot springs in Lake Superior? Also those would probably be pretty toxic with all the sulfur involved.
I don’t think so. Most spices are derived from plants, and plants make them puke purple.
Reminds me of an “Alien Nation” episode 80s TV show, about extra-terrestrials crashing on Earth. They only ate RAW food. One had some human friends over for dinner, and had bought a grill and was grilling burgers.
“Is six hours long enough to cook them?” 😀
I recall an episode of “Alien Nation” where Sykes was dating the one alien lady and she attempted to make a lasagna, putting stuff into it that was traditionally in there and stuff that she could eat, then added colorful marshmallows on top of it. They couldn’t eat… I think meat? They both took one bite and she ran to the bathroom to throw up LOL. Fun times.
Congrats on 400!
Congrats on 400! I love this comic.
“We had the same problem at first.” “At first.” This is implying something, but I don’t know what.
Also: WOOHOO YOU BROKE 400
If the Sarnothi came from Earth temperate or polar regions, Pohl wouldn’t be talking about adapting to the cold. If they came from Earth tropical or equatorial regions, Pohl wouldn’t be talking about ice cold triggering hibernation.
So the Sarnothi are not native to Earth. Either space aliens, or an artifically created human/amphibian hybrid.
Yay for 400!
Well, they’re freshwater, not saltwater for one. So if they’ve always inhabited freshwater systems similar to Lake Superior in climate and seasonal change–“at first” would just imply that when they started trying to mingle with humans, a species that’s up and about year round, they’d have had to figure out ways to adapt if they were going to integrate.
At first just implies when they were first integrating into human society. Since they couldn’t feasibly hibernate in the winter (and on land, for that matter), they had to learn and adapt.
I read that as when Pohl and Sai Fen were “at first” integrating into human society.
Congrats on 400!
anyone else tempted to go archive diving to see if Dave miscounted? just me that’s evil? right then…
could be worse, that could be a cabbage head and spaghetti squash
It’s a hard life as a vegetarian :p
its just as bad for us carnivors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MElfC6ju_k
I love that this is being thrown at Todd LOL! That’s how Selkie felt!
On another note, we have a friend who comes over who has Celiac’s, another friend who is strictly Kosher, and another who can’t have potassium and a few other things due to being on dialysis. They are all under 40 years old mind you, as am I. I have yet to have all THREE over at one time and none expect us to “cater” to them but I find it a nice challenge to satisfy their requirements and still make a delicious meal:)
mixing kosher with anything is a talent in itself to pull off if you follow the prep rules strictly. unless i miss remember, it all has to be prepped with seperate cookware even.
on a side note dave, ive discovered great difficulty in going back and edit a typo in a comment when the arrow keys ignore the comment box and go back to the previous comic page x.x
I’m not sure comments CAN be edited, actually. Except by me, of course. What’cha need changed?
Kotih is not talking about editing an committed comment, but about correcting an error in the comment you are just writing. If you try to use the arrow-keys to move the cursor back to the misspelled word you get teleported to the previous comic page instead.
Yeesh. I’ll have to see if that can be fixed. Might disable the use of arrow-key navigation sitewide though. Not sure.
If you have direct access to wp-content/plugins/comic-easel/js/keynav.js
you could try adding
if(document.querySelector(‘#comment:focus,#author:focus,#email:focus,#url:focus,#mcspinfo:focus’)) return;
after
var url = false;
I’m a bit leery about altering the under-the-hood code of the site to that degree. I’m the sort who slips in an errant comma, and next thing you know nuclear warheads are flying towards Ann Arbor because reasons.
Just make a copy of the keynav.js file before changing it. Only then try the modification, if it doesn’t work out, copy the original version back.
I mixed up #mcspvalue and #mcspinfo in the previous message though. It still would’ve navigated away if you used left or right while editing the answer to the spam protection question. I should have used #mcspvalue:focus
I’ll explain what’s going on.
The original keydown function in keynav.js does its thing each time you touch a key. So currently it then checks if it was the left arrow key, or the right arrow key. If it’s neither then url is still false and nothing gets changed.
Things that could happen if I messed up (possibly depending on the browser used) :
– keyboard navigation stops working entirely
– keyboard navigation keeps working even when you’re editing a comment
Things that would happen if I did it right:
– keyboard navigation stops working when you’re writing a comment, or filling in the name, email, website or spam fields and resumes working when you click outside those boxes.
A less scary version: if(document.querySelector(‘#comment:focus’)) return;
This would only work for the big comment box.
document.querySelector
Returns null if no matches are found; otherwise, it returns the first matching element.
So if the edit cursor is blinking ( :focus ) in the comment box ( #comment ) then queryselector finds #comment:focus and doesn’t check on the left and right arrows.
Otherwise it does the checks and navigates as normal.
if(document.querySelector(‘#comment:focus,#author:focus,#email:focus,#url:focus,#mcspvalue:focus’)) return;
expands that to the name ( #author ) , email , website and spam check ( #mcspvalue ) boxes.
The commas act as or. I think you can add spaces on either side of the commas for readability, but the commas are important. And so is adding those checks before the original does
window.location = url;
Alternatively adding
if(document.querySelector(‘#comment:focus’)) return;
if(document.querySelector(‘#author:focus’)) return;
if(document.querySelector(‘#email:focus’)) return;
if(document.querySelector(‘#url:focus’)) return;
if(document.querySelector(‘#mcspvalue:focus’)) return;
instead of the single long line would have the same result.
I’m waiting on feedback from the guy who drives the plug-in before I make any changes like that. I don’t know how it might interact later, I don’t want to introduce a worse bug through my own lack of coding knowledge, ya know?
Just gave adding it in a shot, didn’t seem to help. 🙁
I asked the guy in charge of Comic Easel again and he said the script you gave me is exactly the fix he needs and he’ll roll the release out in a few days. Frumph passes along his thanks. 😀
Partial yay!
It seems keyboard nav stopped working even outside the comment section. I think the comment system changed my apostrophes into slightly different apostrophes and those alternate apostrophes were kept when copied and pasted. (See how they curl slightly up at the beginning and down at the end? that’s not supposed to happen.)
Try retyping the beginning and end apostrophe or replacing them with regular quotation marks.
Or wait until Frumph deploys of course.
He deployed last night. So whole new issue. XD
Version 1.5.7.1 is out. That should fix it. 🙂
Way ahead of you. XD
Ah. 🙂
I guess I still had 1.5.7 in my browser’s cache.
Have noticed this too! Very annoying, especially since I tend to notice errors I’ve typed and make the correct moves to fix them before my brain properly tells me to be aware of this – so I end up switching pages repeatedly in the midst of typing comments unless I slow down.
It depends on the degree of “kosher”. I eat kosher, and that just means that I don’t eat meat from non-ruminants, certain types of birds, or certain types of fish. I think only the most orthodox of Orthodox Jews do the “two sets of cookware” thing. They would probably want to bring their own food if they ate at your house, anyway.
Oh, and I don’t eat blood, either. But I tend to treat that as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” sort of situation.
bloooooood! omnomnom
XD
Blood is interesting, because in the Christian New Testament it lists blood as one of those things that Christians should not eat – but it lists it in a context of “don’t offend our Jewish brothers” so there’s a debate to be made as to how strong the prohibition is. Which means that some Christians eat blood/marrow, some avoid it altogether, and some avoid it when it’s likely to offend people at the table.
And on a pragmatic level, it’s impossible to get 100% of the blood out of the meat. So that “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing makes sense to me. It seems like more of a symbolic matter. (My grandfather used to break open bones and suck the marrow out… I don’t really care one way or the other, but it’s kinda weird to notice actual veins still in the chicken and such.)
A lot of people forget the rule with the dishes was that if you immerse them in boiling water you can switch them from meat to dairy or back.. so any modern household with a dishwasher is fine. the rule wasn’t supposed to induce two sets of dishes, but get people to wash them.
Even so, distinct dishes means less chance of error and the chance to prepare more food at the same time.
The cleanliness rules of Leviticus intrigue me, because they are so “ahead of their time” – which is part of what convinces me of the validity of the text. “Wash stuff with water.” “Don’t touch blood or body fluids.” “Touching a dead body gives you ‘cooties’ that contaminate anything else you touch.” It was a few thousand years later (1800’s) that Semmelweis started to piece together that last one, and tried to put a stop to medical students going straight from autopsy to assisting with childbirth – and he wasn’t vindicated till after his death.
People would handle dead bodies then go ASSIST CHILDBIRTH?!
That’s just wrong. XD
Yeah, that was just before the creation of “washing your hands.” Semmelweis tried but nobody believed him (“Invisible cooties that make people sick? Pull the other one!”) and it was after his death that people figured out he was right, even if he himself didn’t know the mechanism by which “germs” happened.
But his attempts at proving a difference did save some lives, and nowadays we understand that body fluids are a point of contagion so hospitals (at least in the developed world) take extra care, and we have whole ad campaigns to help people understand that touching someone else’s blood can harm you and that washing your hands helps stop the spread of disease.
Things that nobody knew until recently… except for, somehow, the Israelites.
…also, it is proving annoyingly difficult to convince my nephew (almost 10) to wash his hands after using the bathroom. He doesn’t turn on the water a lot of the time, and when he exits the room I call him on it, and I swear he goes back in and just makes hand-washing noises with the water running.
Sigh….
Update on this navigation issue, I emailed Frumph (the mastermind behind Comic Easel) about how to best fix the issue. He said it’s a bug and he’ll look into a fix for it. No timeline yet, but it’s being looked into.
There’s “catering” and there’s just being a nice friend. I’m vegetarian, but would I make a tofu meal for my friend who’s allergic to soy? I mean, you can meet in the middle. : )
Have I mentioned how much I love this comic? I really, really love this comic.
400 comics? Congratulations! I have enjoyed them all and have sung your praises to my friends. Keep ’em coming!
Stuffing is not dressing. Stuffing’s main ingredient is bread while dressing is made of cornbread. Dressing is, of course, superior to stuffing in every way.
…And that’s what I took from today’s post. 🙂 Congrats on 400!!!
Nah–stuffing’s stuffed into the bird, while dressing’s whatever wouldn’t fit and so had to be cooked outside (and shunned until the stuffing’s gone). Both can be either wheat or corn bread based.
Dressing is a synonym for stuffing, coined by the Victorians because “stuffing” sounded obscene.
This sounds like the debate on “spade” vs. “shovel.” I always understood spades to be small, hand-held things, and shovels to be ones you used standing up, but when I tried to look up the distinction I got a lot of mixed answers, including whether the digging part was flat or concave and whether it was square-shaped or rounded/pointed.
The terminology people use changes in different directions over time.
You obviously haven’t had my family’s stuffing, so I’ll forgive this. >:P
Called it with the hibernation! The way they describe Selkie slowing down in the reports reminded me of how my pet corn snakes operated when I put them into brumation (hibernation). Hibernating animals that still eat or are active when the cold comes are prone to illness and digestive problems. The adjustment to the cold makes me wonder if Selkie’s people are completely cold-blooded or not—and whether or not Dave had some exotic fish as pets. 🙂
Man that explains why I feel like crap in the winter when I try and move around when I should be hibernating!
I don’t know if it’s just me (and trust me I don’t mind at all!) But the comic doesn’t always update EXACTLY on monday or thursday, heck sometimes I find a new one up on saturday or wedensday, but I don’t care, I LOVE this comic!
Also, in response to “benjamin geiger”. that’s a really interesting tidbit! I love the Victorians and I didn’t know that!
I changed the schedule to Monday Wednesday Friday a bit ago. You’ve been missing out! 😀
heck sometimes we even get a free thursday comic with no holiday or any other special reason for it XD
What? It’s perfectly good… just requires a bit of cutting…
Congrats on 400! I discovered Selkie a few months ago, read the archives, and have been following ever since (I’ve posted a time or two before this). This is a genuinely interesting, positive, and even sweet webcomic (if that doesn’t sound too strange to say), which is rare in Internet-land. Kudos! 🙂
Thanks!
A silly comment: If there is internet to figure out the Save our Trout act, isn’t there internet to look up salads and other dishes?
Pragmatism isn’t funny. ;P
I feel Selkie’s reaction to this food SO MUCH.
I don’t have allergies, but I do have a food pickiness problem. Not as in “I like being difficult over food” but like “I literally get sick over the thought of eating approximately 80% of dishes in the meny of any random cafe or restaurant I happen to be eating at”. It’s a mixture of a taste thing and a texture thing, and I really wish it wasn’t a thing, it makes my life difficult as FUCK especially when I have to tell people “sorry, this awesome thing you cooked looks very tasty, and I’m sure you’re a great cook, but I can tell from the smell that I can’t eat it”.
And then there’s sushi.
It’s not that I think eating Japanese food is really cool. It’s not that I think everything about sushi is tasty.
It’s that I can try ANYTHING on the menu and know I’ll be able to finish the dish without getting sick. It’s that I can look at the menu with the eyes of ‘what here sounds interesting to try’ and not ‘what here sounds edible’.
Like, guys. This is a surrel experience for me.
And Selkie, who for three years had to pick at her food and probably endure disparaging comments about it, who was lucky to find ENOUGH food to it in any given meal course…
is now at the house where they ONLY cook stuff she can eat, and she doesn’t have to even CONSIDER the question.
Like, she can now wonder if she likes salmon, tuna or steak better, where before she was lucky if ONE of those was available.
Like, fucking fuck. I feel this so hard.
* surrel => surreal. Oops.