What is a muffin anyway?

Doc rang me the other night for a bit of a chat and asked what I was up to. 
"Baking muffins", I replied, at which she sighed loudly as though there were no nobler pursuit than that. 

Doc works too hard; she thinks that eating dinner is a luxury, so the thought of having time to bake muffins is almost too much for her to bear. 

"Muffins", I explained down the phone, "are disgusting and always have been.  There's nothing worse than them that falls within the category of cake."

"True," said Doc. "I don't know when the good old bun was relegated to the scrapheap.  But, Cow, if you hate them so much, why are you making them?"

"I need some sugar and that's all I had ingredients for."

"Why didn't you go to the shop and get a Dairy Milk like a normal person?"

"I can't go out there", I said, "it's too frightening."

"I see, it's like that, is it?"

"The thing is, Doc, that I didn't really have the ingredients for muffins.  I'm substituting everything in the recipe for something similar but different."

"Like what?"

"Well, I've swapped plain white flour for strong brown flour, for example."

"Hmm", said Doc, "what else?"

"I've used honey instead of sugar."

"What else?"

"I don't want to tell you the rest.  I don't think you'll understand."

"I'm in no position to judge you, Cow, I had a banana and crisp sandwich for dinner."

"Okay, I'll tell you, but promise you won't freak out."

"I won't, come on."

"Well, instead of butter ...

"... oh no, I can't tell you, you won't understand, I know you won't."

"Oh God, how bad is it?"

"It's bad, Doc, it's bad.  I used ....

"...olive oil."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"I know, Doc, I know, I couldn't help it, I had to have muffins.  I needed them and I didn't have any butter in the house.  It's a hangover from the Celtic Tiger, Doc, it's not my fault.  It's not my fault that olive oil became the household staple instead of Kerrygold."

"This is worse than I thought, Cow.  Have you put them in the oven yet?"

"Not yet, I still have to put in the egg and soya milk and the two other ingredients.  I have the oven set to 180."

"I am going to pretend you didn't just say soya milk.  What are the two other ingredients?"

"Well, there was supposed to be oats in there, but I didn't have any so I thought I'd just put in a few - just a few mind - a few Quinoa flakes."

"I'm going to be sick.  You have to stop, Cow, before you hurt yourself."

"And then I was just going to use Bicarbonate of Soda instead of Baking Powder and stick it in the oven and --"

"I don't believe you.  You wouldn't dare.  You're brave, Cow, but you're not that brave.  How could you possibly do such a thing?  It's a rookie mistake.  Don't do it, Cow."

"It's too late, Doc, it's gone into the mixture.  There's no going back now."

"I'll be down in 10 minutes, Cow, just hold on tight. I have a defibrillator in the back of my car.  Just hold --"

"No, don't come down here, Doc, I need to be alone with my muffins."

"Those are not muffins, those are nuffins.  Nuffins.  How can you call a muffin a muffin when nothing that's in it is in a muffin?"

"That's a very profound question, Doc, I'll think about that while the muffins are in the oven."

"Hold tight, Cow, I'm coming."

So while Doc was speeding over ...

... I decided to think about the nature of a muffin.

What, I wondered, is a muffin anyway?  And the first place I looked for an answer was my trusty dictionary.

muffin 1. Brit. a circular flat cake made from yeast dough, eaten toasted and buttered. 2. N.Amer. a small spongy cake made with eggs and baking powder.

Shit, I thought.  If only I'd used baking powder like Doc said I should, I would have muffin instead of nuffin in the oven right now.  Still, it's always good to get a second opinion on these matters.  I wonder what Foucault would have to say about this. 

"I think you should have gone to the shop and bought a Mars Bar", he said.  "But if you're asking what a muffin is, I'd have to say that the concept of a muffin hasn't always existed.  It's a concept that we, the eaters, have constructed.  What we now perceive of as a muffin could disappear in the future and be replaced by a different concept of muffin."

"Are you saying that what I have in the oven could be a muffin, even though I used Bicarbonate of Soda instead of Baking Powder?"

"I guess so.  The word muffin conjures up a set of beliefs about its production, circulation, classification and consumption.  Now, what do you think of when you think about muffin?"

"I think of an over-sized, dry bun to be consumed with a cup of tea."

"And what's going to come out of your oven?"

"An over-sized, dry bun to be consumed with a cup of tea."

"There you have it then."

"Thanks, Michel, that was very helpful."

The doorbell rang then.  It was Doc.

"You won't need that yoke after all", I said, pointing to the defibrillator. "It turns out that I have muffins in the ovens.  Not nuffins like you said."

A moral dilemma

I am looking up a word in the Oxford English Dictionary when I see, out of the corner of my eye, a spider, rodent-sized, skittering across the tiles towards me and I leap on top of the table.  Dense-legged, bulbous-bodied, Antipodean, she casts thick shadows on the floor and she’s coming at a sprint.  Doubtless she’s some refugee from tropic climes who, nesting in a box of fragrant spices packed in some hot-aired foreign wharf, was shipped around the world to berth in blustery Dublin Bay and stretched her legs upon the gang plank, then stowed away beneath a sailor’s ironed cuff and jaunted with him to the early bar, got all het up on liquor fumes and ran away.  She hasn’t eaten in many days, a pendulum of poison sways udderlike beneath her heavy frame and I sense she wants to deposit this load into the nearest living flesh that she can see.  Which is me.  I pray she can’t negotiate the table’s varnished legs and cast about for some reprieve.  She stops dead in her tracks, a foot away, crouched, poised to strike.  I wonder how high she can jump.  

I would say it was even bigger than this in the flesh.  And it had beady little eyes.

    

This flat is a haven for spiders.  They Tarzan through the living room on delicate silken fronds, weave silvery webs between legs of chairs and nurse sacs of eggs in gloomy corners and I never so much as grumble or aim the hoover in their direction.  I tolerate their skittish presence in each undusted cranny of the room, wiping the threads from my face each time I nose through invisible webs in my search for a book.  All this by way of explanation that I am no arachnophobe, but that, cripes, this monster perched beneath me as I quaver on the coffee table is in an altogether different league.  I cannot contemplate cohabitation with this killer, so, slowly, gingerly - God forbid I should antagonise it - I crouch and slide the dictionary towards me.  Hoist it in an overheaded grip, and think to myself, thank heavens I’ve lugged this tome from flat to flat instead of modernising with a CD-Rom.    I must have sensed this day would come, its hulking mass a murder weapon in the making.  And then I lean over the lip of the table and …

I know it's lame, but I love my dictionary so I had to get a picture of the exact one.  It's very weighty and very informative - perfect for killing spiders. 

But, wait.  My internal moral compass starts to blare.  You cannot kill this beastie just because you are afraid.  You lentil-eating hypocrite, you leather-shunning fraud.  You should trap her gently in a cup, release her in the countryside, feed her with pickles and find her a mate.  The spider senses my internal disarray and makes a dash for it.  I panic, drop the book and feel the dull, vaguely satisfying thud as spider splats upon the floor beneath 10,000 empty words. 

I can’t say I shed a tear as I deposited the mangled, leggy corpse into the bin.  But I did take a moment to reflect, albeit with a wry little grin, that according to all I profess to believe in, the crime I’ve committed is equal to eating a burger.  Or is it?  Does a spider equal a cow?  Is a dog or a pig more worthy?  Why will we munch on the breast of a chicken but curdle our lips at the thought of its foot in our mouths?  Why are pigs safe in Israel and cows worshipped in India and horses fair game for eating in France?  Why won’t we sample a tableau of grubs, but relish the mouldy, the smelly, the rank when it comes to a cheese?  And when did eating a meal become more complex than an algorithm?