Gloomy sundays - and an essay on baking

Sundays are gloomy, my hours are numberless, slumberless, and meaningless. Nothing happens on sundays. There is no news, no mail, no activity, no nothing. Blah. I look forward to mondays (I must be the only person in the world that does so).

Someone asked if I was "political." I have been a lifelong Democrat. I am probably closer to a socialist (except in the U.S. you can't be a socialist because a socialist is a liberal and we all know how terrible they are). The terms socialist and liberal have been so poisoned by the Republican media they probably should be abandoned. Republican is now merely a euphemism for fascist, but of course no one would admit to that. Being political in North Idaho is like being low chicken in the pecking order. This is the redest of the red states. The most Republican stronghold. The armpit of rational thought. The vast Republican majority here where I live do not read and apparently get their news only from Rush Limbaugh. I attend meetings of the local Democratic party. As there is no point in voting Democratic in Idaho I trade my vote somewhere else where it might do some good. It is frustrating to say the least. I believe things are improving slightly but entering the 20th century is proving difficult. There are a few liberals here. Actually, I think there are quite a few closet liberals as well. As my wife is the head of the local Democratic party, and she is tough as can be, there is hope. You can see why I indulge myself like the following nonsense.


This is another of those things I ponder even though it has no practical significance whatsoever. I don’t worry about it. I think about it and become confused. What, for example, is the difference between baking and roasting? I put this question to my wife (who is a super cook) and she said baking usually has to do with things like pies, cookies, and other pastries. That is obviously not definitive. I looked it up in a dictionary and found that: bake (cook food) in dry heat, like an oven. No exposure to flame.
Under roast: cook (especially meat) in an oven or exposed to open heat. This, of course, doesn’t get one very far. Clearly, if something is exposed to open flame it can be considered roasting rather than baking. But what about other cases? Potatoes are a good example. If you put a whole potato, skin and all, into an oven you are clearly baking. But if you peel that same potato, put some olive oil on it, and stick it in the oven, you are roasting it, no? What if you held a potato over an open fire, peel on or not? Obviously no one would do that because it would take too long. But hypothetically, would it not be roasted? How about if you wrapped it in something and buried it in the hot coals from an open fire? Baked or roasted?
It appears that you don’t bake vegetables in the oven, you roast them. If you put a piece of pork in the oven you are said to be roasting pork, always. No one ever says baked pork. Except in the case of ham. No one roasts ham, they bake it. Always. Both of these items are put in the same oven, most probably at the same temperature, so why is one roasted and the other baked? Similarly, you rarely hear of baked chicken, even though it goes into the same oven as the roasting chicken. You never hear of a weenie bake. It’s always a weenie roast. But the marshmallows you put on the same sticks and hold over an open fire are not described as being roasted, merely toasted. See, it does get confusing. Now what if you had a really hot oven with no open flame and you put your weenie on a stick and held it in the oven. Would it still be roasted, or would it be, could it be, baked? How about the marshmallow? Would it be toasted or baked? Bread is always baked. No one ever suggested roasted bread.
It is always roast beef, roast pork, roast leg of lamb, roast chicken, and so on. But what about baked fish? No one ever says I’m roasting a fish, do they? If you put the fish on a stick and held it over an open flame would you be roasting it? I guess. How come when eggs are cooked in an oven they are said be shirred rather than baked or roasted? Would it be possible to roast an egg? Apples and pears are always baked, never roasted. Anything cooked on a spit over and open flame is certainly roasted. But what about these new ovens that include a turning spit but there is no open flame. Is the stuff being baked or roasted? Maybe that’s what they mean by “broasted?”
It does seem clear that bread, cookies, pies, cakes, and such things are always baked. But why is it that when beef, pork, lamb, chicken, and such are actually being baked, they are said to be roasted? Apparently it has less to do with the actual mode of cooking as it does with what the item being cooked is. It is all much too confusing for me. It reminds me of the Bush/Cheney administration. In the case of cooking I confess it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference whether or not something is baked or roasted. In the case of politics and torture I think it does, so I worry about it a lot. So should you. Cheers.


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