One day at the local market in Aix I saw this stall. Have you ever seen this much asparagus for sale? There’s a whole wall of it here!
I think asparagus is really tasty, but I don’t remember ever tasting it as a child. Do you have any foodstuffs which you didn’t taste until you became an adult but which you discovered you really enjoyed?
I decided to check out wikipedia and see what I could find out about asparagus before I posted this photo. I was interested to read that it has certain medicinal properties – not least that it can bring on an attack of gout, but that it’s been a traditional medicine for the treatment of urinary tract infections and stones.
There was one surprising fact I discovered though – it’s about the way asparagus consumption changes the smell of your urine! Apparently Marcel Proust commented on this claiming that asparagus “…transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume.” It’s something I’ve been very aware of since I first ate asparagus, but the one thing I didn’t know was that only 40% of the population have the genes needed to be able to smell it! This may be something peculiar about the way my mind works but that fact suddenly made me think of the old zen puzzle – does a tree falling in the forest, where nobody is present, make a noise?
Isn’t it interesting that a smell might only exist if the person doing the smelling has a certain gene? Oh, and what on earth are we doing with a gene for smelling the metabolites of asparagus in the urine?
Heroes Not Zombies 
That’s a LOT of asparagus.
My mother spoiled A LOT of things for me. I grew up what we around here call “white trash.” My family was poor working class, and my mother was a terrible (TERRIBLE) cook, so most of our food came from boxes and cans. The only veggies I had until I moved out were iceburg lettuce and canned vegetables cooked beyond all recognition. It took me a long time to admit that I actually LIKE veggies (and it’s likely that my girls will cook their veggies far longer than I do – I just threaten them with heat; they’re really just hot and raw).
I think that a tree falling in the forest DOES make a sound. It seems a little self-centered of us to think that something is only real if we’re around to witness it, doesn’t it?
Ah, sadly, I think your childhood veggie experience is a common one mrschili!
Yes, you’re right, it does seem a little self-centred to think something only exists if we witness it but the actual experience of a sound, or a smell, or a colour……..to use the technical term – the “qualia” – interestingly only exists for the individual. It’s the uniqueness of YOU that is an essential component in the creation of RED, or ASPARAGUS URINE SMELL, or TREE FALLING SOUND, as a qualia – none of these phenomena fully exist without being experienced! Weird thought, isn’t it?
It’s a thought I can’t quite wrap my brain around, actually. I mean, I get it on an intellectual level – there’s that whole idea that something can’t possibly exist unless there’s someone (or something – I’m sure the tree makes a noise for a hummingbird or a monkey or something) to witness it; how can we prove otherwise. Still, though, I can’t get around the idea that we are so important that nothing actually happens without our being around to witness it.
This sort of thinking makes me feel how I feel when I get caught up in the time-travel stories and all the conundrums they present. If I go into the past to fix a problem – and I succeed – then the Future Me will have no reason to send myself back to the past to correct a problem that never really existed in the first place… drool…..
here’s a wee hankie…..now wipe away that drool! That made me laugh! Thank you. This thing about qualia……….let me push this a little further. It’s not that something doesn’t actually happen without us being around to witness it. Let’s return to the asparagus which sparked off this post in the first place. There are breakdown products from asparagus excreted in the urine. That’s a physical phenomenon. That physical phenomenon only becomes a smell when a person perceives it – has their olfactory sensors stimulated by the molecules in the urine – then that stimulus sets off an electrochemical cascade in the brain and you have the experience of the distinctive smell…….or you don’t! (cos it appears only 40% of the population have a gene which enables them to smell this particular scent) – so the phenomenon of the smell-inducing substances exist without anyone being there to witness it, but the actual phenomenal experience of the smell needs a smeller!! (OK, I know, there is NO such word!)
Does that help? Or will I pop into my time machine and meet you somewhere for a chat? Where do you fancy? The past or the future?