I've been following both the beer and the smoking threads with great interest. I thought both debates were, overall, responsibly and respectfully conducted. I learned a lot more about where people with opposing viewpoints (to my own) are coming from (particularly on the smoking issue), and I'm glad of that.
Whenever topics that include both objective and subjective criteria are involved (and that includes food), opinions are bound to differ. Sure, compared to the biggies (war, starvation, etc.) these topics are indulgences.
Our family spent the holidays with a "Lost Boy" from Sudan. His name is Arkangel. Hearing about his experiences of trying to find food in the jungle while running for his life - eating leaves and the sap from trees - while we were engaged in our persnickety meal preparations, was a sobering contrast. But Ark also told us, with nostalgic pleasure and in great detail, about traditional week-long Sudanese Christmas feasts of spit-roast goat, and sheep, how the meat was seasoned, and the details of how they brew beer by fermenting various grains in successive buckets. If he ever returns to his village, he said, it will be a bad day for the goats because a feast will have to be prepared.
Not sure how to wrap up these thoughts (and am adverse to a tidy moral), except to say that I've enjoyed these discussions and I think they're worthwhile.
So, "Eet Smakelijk"! (That's what you say in Dutch before a good meal).
