#but the fact that Britain took a dish that has very obvious roots in a place they colonized and said 'YES THIS IS A BRITISH DISH' is uh

[mass-convergence]

A tumblr poll (and a friend responding to one of the options on it) has led me down an internet rabbit hole of figuring out the fucking origins of Chicken Tikka Masala.

Turns out the origins are nebulous with some saying it was adapted from Chicken Tikka in Glasgow in the 1970s (I think there's evidence that that story may be bullshit but it's stuck around in the popular culture) and others saying it originated in the British Raj to appease the colonizer's palates.

I guess then I do somewhat agree with Robin Cook's statement on CTM as a "true British national dish" because it's the "perfect illustration of the way Britain absorbs and adapts external influences".

Though it's not Britain adapting to the Indian culture (noting that Indian food is not a monolith but I'm not out here to write an entire novel this afternoon). If the Glasgow story or some variant holds true: it's the South East Asian immigrants adapting to British palates so that they can make a living. If it originated in the British Raj: it's the people that had been colonized trying to adapt their cooking to their colonizers to appease them.

Can't imagine anything more British than that :)

[rivasremedies]

Do Horses Love Garlic?

The History of Garlic

Garlic is one of the oldest known foods and has been consumed by humans for several thousand years dating back to 2600-2100 BC. Its roots began in China, Japan, and Korea. From there it migrated to the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and then Great Britain. Today, it is one of the most popular medicinal foods in the world. Garlic is used across the globe, including India, Egypt, and Israel, for its nutritional and culinary value, as well as its medicinal properties. Close relatives to garlic include onion, shallot, leeks, and chives.

Garlic for Nutrition

Garlic, which is categorized as a vegetable, contains high levels of sulphur and vitamin B1 (thiamine), both of which nourish the skin. And because Vitamin B1 changes the body odor, it is a popular addition to supplements to help resist or repel insects including flies and ticks. Garlic also contains the essential minerals of calcium, phosphorus, manganese, and selenium, as well as a high content of Vitamin C. There is also germanium in it; a lesser known but still important mineral with antioxidant properties that heals wounds, strengthens the immune system, and has been used in cases of cancer.

Garlic as Medicine

Garlic contains allicin, a phytonutrient which breaks down to form a variety of organosulfur compounds, compounds which give garlic a number of therapeutic effects. Garlic is widely used for bacterial infections, yeast infections, viruses, colds, flus, immune problems, respiratory conditions, toothaches, abscesses, a lack of appetite, and low vitality. In war-time Russia, garlic was known as “Russian penicillin” because it was so effective in treating wound infections. In more recent times we have learned that garlic is also an effective blood thinner and helps to reduce high blood pressure as well as cholesterol. There is also an association between the intake of garlic and the reduction of certain cancers.

All this considered, garlic makes an excellent tonic.

Garlic is also thought to ward off ghosts and negative energies and can be used for those people or animals who are prone to attracting entities that deplete their life force.

Garlic as Horse Medicine

It seems that everyone is passionate about garlic! There are garlic lovers and there are garlic haters. Especially when it comes to feeding it to horses! In fact, one of my Facebook posts on garlic was in the top ten posts ever for record engagements. Whew! That’s a lot of passion over garlic. The conversation went on for days.

Garlic lovers see a lot of positive changes in their garlic-eating horses. Garlic can help horses with digestive upsets, leaky gut, respiratory problems, infections, skin problems, and overall malaise. It is also an excellent general detoxifier. Garlic can also be used as a poultice on abscesses, wounds, and joint infections.

What The Studies Say

Some horse folks are fearful to feed garlic because of its reported effects on red blood cells. But studies are sparse and often unreasonable and inconclusive. One study showed that high quantities of garlic over several weeks can lead to anemia, i.e., a reduction in red blood cells. The study included four horses and two of them were controls which meant that only two horses ate the garlic which was fed in freeze dried form. These two horses were given .1 grams/kg of body weight (approximately 45 grams in total) every day to start which was then gradually increased to .5 grams/kg (approximately 227 grams in total) of garlic over 41 days. This higher dosage was then continued for another 30 days for a total of 71 days.

This means that a one-thousand-pound horse would have been fed the equivalent to 7 medium cloves of raw garlic for the first 6 weeks and then up to 38 medium cloves of raw garlic for another month!

And so, perhaps of no surprise, after 2-1/2 months of these toxic doses the horses’ blood work showed a type of anemia called Heinz body anemia but no other visible signs of physical symptoms or other health problems. Symptoms of anemia can include fatigue, muscle weakness, loss of appetite, pale gums, and yellowish eyes. In any case, within 5 weeks of discontinuing the garlic, all of the blood work returned to normal.

Link to resource: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15822591/

Another study used 250 grams per day on 1,000-pound horses with the same results.

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t know why any sensible horse person would feed their beloved horses these kinds of toxic dosages. It defies common sense. Few vegetables or plants would NOT be toxic if fed in this way. It’s all about the dose. Horses are very sensitive and do not need to be overdosed with anything for it to work.

According to the National Research Council in 2008, a presumed safe intake for horses is 90 mg/kg (= .09 grams) of body weight per day (6 raw cloves) and a historically safe intake is 15 mg/kg (.015 grams) of body weight per day (1 raw clove).

Meanwhile Health Canada has approved garlic for all equine supplements, with a precaution to not feed to any horses with a bleeding disorder. Fair enough.

Garlic as People Medicine

The effects of garlic on red blood cells are not exclusive to horses, it has the same effects on humans, and dogs too. In fact, it is these chemical properties that make it such an excellent antioxidant to improve circulation and reduce blood pressure. And so, while some people may be nervous about its supposedly adverse effects on horses, many of these same people are eating lots of garlic for themselves. But no one is worried about the same potentially toxic effects on people because they are focused on the benefits. In fact, the world production of garlic for human consumption is over 25 million tons! That’s a lot of garlic!

My own mother took garlic every day for many years and credited it for her strong immune system. Good thing she didn’t live in ancient Greece though, the authorities of the time forbade anyone who smelled like garlic from entering their sacred temples.

How to Feed Garlic to Horses

Horses are also garlic lovers and garlic haters, although most of them really like it. They must know that garlic has a long history of helping people and animals with its nutritional, medicinal, and therapeutic benefits. So, we side with both the horses and Health Canada and highly recommend it for equine medicinal purposes where indicated. But like all medicinal herbs and supplements, it should only be given if the benefits are obvious, and of course it should not be given over long periods of time as in months or years. A shorter duration will not only prevent any kind of toxic effects, but it will avoid desensitization where the body no longer responds to it in a positive way. Most herbs or supplements, if given for longer than is needed, will lose their potency. So, it is always best to use herbal plants or vegetables temporarily as indicated for specific situations.

The Garlic Equine Dosage

Raw garlic is the best and most potent form. Feed 2-3 medium or large cloves daily for 2-3 weeks or less if the condition improves. And if your horse doesn’t like the taste or stops eating it take that as a sign that your horse is finished with it. My own horses let me know when they have had enough because they start to flip the cloves out of their dish. This is usually after about 2 weeks of 2-3 garlic cloves per day. Horses know best!

~ Stop and Smell the Garlic ~

Marijke van de Water, B.Sc., DHMS

Equine Health Nutrition Specialist Homeopathic Practitioner Medical Intuitive & Healer Educator & Author

Marijke is a life-long horse lover, the author of the best-selling Healing Horses Their Way, and the founder, formulator, and CEO of Riva’s Remedies. She is a gifted healer who helps horses, and their people, from around the world live happier, healthier lives.

[my-origin-of-love]

EYES FULL OF WONDER

One is a global pop star; the other is the creative director of the Valentino fashion house. One is “rootless” and at home around the world; the other is constantly traveling but always has a “place to go back to”. They are different in age, origin and lifestyle, but bound by a deep friendship. Mika and Pierpaolo Piccioli discuss their loves, fears, challenges, and how they learned to keep their “eyes full of wonder”.

On the surface, Mika and Pierpaolo Piccioli do not have much in common. One is an international pop star, the other is the creative director of Valentino, one of the brands that is most representative of luxury and Italian craftsmanship. Mika, 35, is at home around the world: born in Lebanon, he fled with his family because of the civil war that tore the country apart for 15 years, spending time in France, Great Britain and the United States. Piccioli, 51, is solidly tethered to Rome, where he works, and Nettuno, a few kilometers from the capital, on the Lazio coast, where he grew up and where he lives. Their stories are very different, yet interconnected, thanks to a shared creativity and deep, warm, conspirational friendship.

Mika: We do the same thing, but with different materials.

Pierpaolo Piccioli: In a different form, I would say.

Mika: I like to take on everything in a very intense way. Five years ago, I didn’t speak Italian. In two months I learned it and I was on a television show, X Factor. But I have the same attitude in any setting. Not long ago, I became interested in trying horseback riding. I took a few lessons and two months later i bought a horse. In a matter of weeks, I learned how to jump over obstacles higher than a meter. Every day I train for two hours and then I go to the studio to work.

Pierpaolo Piccioli: But once you’ve learned how to jump as well as you can, in the best way, you’ll get bored, you’ll stop jumping and you’ll move on to something else. Right now it’s your big passion, but in a few months you’ll be tired of it.

M: That’s true, but let’s not get the word out. [He laughs.] I don’t get bored that easily.

PP: The fact is that you always need new challenges.

M: When I have to reach level B, I work to get to Z, going through all the intermediate steps. I need to be able to do my best so that I can do easy things well. It’s a condition that stems from my past. When I was eight years old, a Russian teacher instilled a rigid discipline in me. And I understood that you have to overcome your limitations to succeed in doing what others expect of you. It’s a mindset that you have, too.

PP: If you stay on your turf, with what you know best, you don’t move forward. If you only do what you want to do, you don’t grow. When I was eight years old, I lived in a small town outside Rome, far away from fashion, from everything. Distance was my limitation. But I made my dream come true and life gave me much more than I could ever have imagined; everything I’ve achieved is like a gift. And that’s why I keep going in my work without anxiety. But I, too, always need to do new things, because I want to work with that enthusiasm, with that enchantment that I experienced early on in my career. As a young man, I saw fashion as an almost unattainable world and I still want to have that perspective.

M: You want to keep your eyes full of wonder. Wonder is a natural feeling when you’re little and then, with age, you develop a kind of protective shield that makes you impervious to everything. It comes from experience, from disenchantment. In the creative process there is a fluidity that removes that shield, and that almost child-like capacity for wonder is essential to produce excitement in other people, whether they are 7 or 75 years old.

PP: There’s something else that we have in common. Both of us have stable personal lives, families composed of people who are very different from us. I’ve thought about it so many times. I think that you can jump one, two, or ten meters on a horse, you can get past the limits, the boundaries, because you know where to go home. On the other hand, when people don’t have anything behind them, they get lost. Both of us have a center of gravity that keeps us balanced: the people who love us and whom we love.

M: I sensed this strength inside you from our very first meeting. You have deep roots, which allow you to not feel afraid of intimacy, of telling stories. Thanks to these roots you don’t fall into the trap of playing a role, which is an enormous danger for those in our line of work, for those in the public eye. In the fashion of the 50s, 60s and 70s there was more romanticism, there was the idea of a creator. In the 90s and 2000s, the designer became a lifestyle inventor. When I met you, before a plate of spaghetti with clams in a small trattoria in Milan, I thought “Here is a designer who is able to see the big picture.” You and I can talk about the importance of cooking a particular dish or about a work exhibited at the Venice Biennale, or about gossip or philosophy. It doesn’t matter: we’ll still be talking in the same way. When creativity is your engine, it’s very important to know where you come from, so that you’re free to fly. And I know a wonderful thing about you: for you, this place to go home is a geographical place - Nettuno.

PP: I felt different in Nettuno. Overcoming limitations for me was also about returning to the place from which I had wanted to flee. Living there for me today is also a way of expressing the freedom I have to do my job while rejecting the stereotype of the designer who lives in a castle or in a big city and goes to parties. Today it’s as though the life you lead and the image you present of yourself are worth more than your talent. For me, it’s essential to be faithful to who you are, however you are, and it doesn’t even matter whether others understand it. The important thing is for you to know it and not to become how others want to see you. If you change your identity, you also change the reasons for your success. In a creative profession, you have to use your most real and intimate identity. That’s true for you, too.

M: But unlike you, I have no place to go back to. Not having roots in any one place is typical of my generation and those that came after it. My job is anti-adult. Eleven years have passed since my first album, I speak new languages, I have a family that lived in London but is now scattered around the world. My first song was like a stone that I tossed and now that stone has become an enormous rock, to which I am tied and which I carry around the world. But I want to do it, I need to support that weight. I don’t have a place to go back to; I have people to go back to. That’s why I’m more interested in knowing who I come from than where. I am the migrant child of migrants. The culture I come from has become essential, because it’s the one that gives me my sense of identity. I don’t want to belong to any place. I’d rather belong to people, ideas, gestures, to the mythology of a country more than the country itself.

PP: That’s what makes you free: belonging to people more than to places. The idea of a homeland is an anachronism. It scares me, just as borders do.

M: Because they are the opposite of culture. Protection stems from a conscious ignorance. Thinking you’ll find your identity by closing yourself off is a fatal contradiction, with horrible consequences.

PP: Progress comes from breaking barriers; that’s always been the case. You gave a generation of people awareness by talking about freedom and equal opportunity. That’s where the strength of artists lies, in spreading ideas that go beyond their expressive form and make people think. Your strength is in being open to all possibilities. You’re a mix of influences - it’s part of modernity. But you also have a profound awareness of who you are. If you didn’t, you would become generic, you wouldn’t be able to communicate anything interesting, you would repeat things that had already been done, already been seen. That’s true for me too. One’s way of looking at things is crucial.

M: And the curiosity with which we look at them.

PP: Sure. But let’s not hide the fact that we’re also two obsessive perfectionists. Before my most difficult performances you always tell me’ “Get ready: it will be a total disaster, you’ll be awful.”

M: Yes, sometimes I despair, I cry and you tell me off.

PP: But when you’re in that intense state you work better. You’re like a tightrope walker. If you have the net beneath you, you walk across the rope. If you don’t have a net you run. That’s what makes you an artist. You have to express a strong emotion of yours to elicit emotions in others. The same is true for me: when I worked with Maria Grazia [Chiuri, currently creative director for the Dior women’s lines] I was more rational, because when you work with someone else you discuss every idea and every intuition turns into a rational analysis. On my own, I learned to give in to my emotions more.

M: I remember a great moment. You were about to present your first collection. I stopped by the atelier and we went to dinner with your family and your team members, who were all tired, but electrified. Right then, we had fun, we talked until 2 o’clock in the morning, and I thought, “I can feel creativity, talent; the atmosphere is sweet even if the stress is palpable. Everything will be fine.”

PP: For me, staying on as Valentino’s creative director was an obvious choice, because I feel that is my place, the one that makes me free. But it’s a role that I had shared , so there was a risk that I would end up like a table with a missing leg, and I knew it. At times like these, your children help. Benedetta [one of Piccioli’s three children] was about to take her exams at the end of the high school. One evening, she started talking to me about the philosopher Nietzsche, who said that you must be aware of your roots, but there has to be a moment in which you forget them, so that you can look forward - otherwise, you’re too tied to the past or too focused on the future. I thought: “That’s me at this moment in my life.” Instead of changing perspective, I decided to change the perspective of others so that I could be “seen”. And at the show, with all the people I care about around me I felt love. I understood that what you build is what supports you.

M: I like coming to see you the night before the show, in the offices at Place Vendôme in Paris. If God ever decided to buy a place in Europe, he would have an apartment there: there is the most indescribable view. Your family and your work group arrive from Rome, and it’s as though everyone had moved to Paris in a bubble. And to me it feels like being in an amusement park. There are amazing dresses, beautiful young men and women, but also your kids, with one claiming to be hungry and another wanting to go play soccer...It’s the most wonderful moment. My challenge is to make the models laugh, as they’re always very serious. But I never succeed: they’re there to work and they just want to go home. Whereas for me, being in your show would be tough. I’d love to, if I could be invisible.

PP: For my part, I always go to your concerts. I sing, dance, let loose: no one notices me. And I have a blast.

M: But we never talk about music.

PP: Or fashion. Because we talk about what feeds our creativity.

M: Creation needs solitude.

PP: It’s indispensable, you seek it out.

M: But it doesn’t mean that you’re alone.

PP: It’s the only time when you can stop thinking about what you’re doing, and focus on what you want to say. Every creative act flows from a kind of urgency, from something personal, that you want to put out there. Then you decide what shape it will take - but first, you need a moment to just look for the spark.

M: It can happen in a flash. You call it accidental coherence.

PP: It’s not all that clear when you try to put things together, but the finally instinct kicks in, making complexity simple. Only then can you “show” your idea to others. For example, we only talk about what you’ll wear for your performances once you’ve decided what you’re going to do on stage.

M: It’s a moment I fear: you call me and I describe the show to you, I use words to paint a picture. And I know that by the end of our chat I will have understood whether it works or not.

PP: That’s exactly right: you talk, and I see.

M: I talk and you say “Ah, ah...” or “Ummmm...”

PP: And so you change.

M: True. But I do it because while I’m talking to you I’m also picturing everything. And I understand what doesn’t work.

PP: And once the image comes into focus we find two words that capture the spirit of your show.

M: It’s accidental coherence. You and I call it that.

(Interview conducted by Laura Incardona)

Magazine: Celebrating - Made in Grazia