Welcome to my blog, City of Pigs.
What’s with the name?
Socrates: “They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves… drinking of the wine they have made… of course they must have relish—salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation” (Republic 372).
The above is an initial description of how people in Plato’s ideal state would eat. After providing this description, Glaucon chastises Socrates for the diet, saying that it is identical to the food one might provide for “a city of pigs” (Republic 372d). Socrates then agrees to add cakes and other luxuries, all the better to see how injustice will arise in the state. “In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life” (Republic 372e-373a). John Stuart Mill famously invokes both pigs and Socrates some 2000 years later, “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question” (Utilitarianism Ch 2). Apparently Socrates would have been quite satisfied with the pig’s diet (though perhaps not its intellectual life).
I tend to agree with Socrates. Bread, cheese, olives, and figs? Sign me up! This penchant for (or, perhaps, idealization of) a simple diet is somewhat common among philosophers. Jean-Jacques Rousseau writes of his own preferences, “I did not know, and do not know even now, better cheer than a country meal. Anyone may feel sure of entertaining me handsomely with milk-food, eggs, vegetables, cheese, black bread, and tolerable wine” (Confessions Book 2). This blog title (like all of philosophy, says Whitehead) is just another footnote to Plato.
Who am I?
I like to eat, cook, and learn about food. I am also getting a PhD in philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I call myself a foodie, but only in the sense indicated by the first sentence of this paragraph. I don’t eat meat, by the way. I suspect I ought to give up eggs and cheese, too.
What will I write about?
Restaurants: Boulder was recently named America’s Foodiest Town and I like to get out and experience what the town (and environs) has to offer. This blog will serve as a discussion and review of restaurants, new and old.
Recipes: I like to cook when I don’t go out for food and sometimes I’d like to share my successes with the world and get tips from others. I bake sometimes, too, but I'm considerably worse at baking than I am at cooking.
Other: I don’t know, we’ll see where it goes. Maybe I'll even take up some philosophical questions regarding food! Or, maybe I won't.
