ELOÏSE LIKES WRITING: HORSESHOE THEORY OF DINING
Proponents of the horseshoe theory in politics argue that the far-left and the far-right resemble each other. I have my own personal horseshoe theory in a different domain: the horseshoe theory of gross animal parts. It goes like this:
Both the poor and the rich eat gross animal parts. The poor, tongue, tripe, and oxtail. The rich, foie gras, escargot, and caviar. But tongue and escargot aren't different in kind, they're just eaten by different groups for historical reasons and economic happenstance. In a world where escargot had been easy to farm at scale and easy to process, it would be eaten by the poor instead of the rich. In fact, something similar happened to both lobster and oysters - they used to be poor people’s food, until overfishing transformed them into scarce delicacies.
Yesterday I stumbled into more evidence for my theory, in a Michelin star restaurant. (I'm cheap so I thought I'd never go to one, but I got to go for free!) One of their courses featured plankton. Yes the little floaty things that live in the ocean. Yet another win for the horseshoe theory. I could imagine some destitute fisherman settling for plankton on days he doesn't manage to catch a fish.
