In Seven Easy Steps!

By Jessi Tabalba

   1.      Make sure you're hungry. You'll be preparing a honey-garlic glazed stir-fry, so select a frying-pan's worth of meat, tofu, veggies or old Converse shoes.

   2.     What did you choose? Note that many of the world's major religions forbid their adherents to eat certain foods. As you cut the meat, veggies and/or tofu into 2.5 cm chunks, ponder the reasons behind these dietary laws:

      Judaism: Jewish dietary laws are based in the Pentateuch, the five first books of the Old Testament, especially Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Rabbinical study was essential in keeping the Jewish faith whole during the centuries of diaspora, and the kosher edict of not eating cheeseburgers comes from a Midrashic interpretation of “thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.” (Exodus 23:19)
      Islam: The injunction against pork, alcohol, and other edibles come from the Qu'ran, the holy book of Islam. The Qu'ran consists of revelations from God delivered to Mohamed by the angel Gabriel over a period of twenty years. Both peaceful and warlike passages can be found in the Qu'ran as a result, often making Islam one of the world's most misunderstood and vilified religions.
      Hinduism: Holy cow! I mean, literally, holy cow! For the world's 900 million Hindus, cows are not only off the menu, but treated with reverence and respect-- they freely wander New Delhi's crowded streets, picking at garbage and annoying drivers. No one's sure of the exact origin of this adoration of bovines, other than it reaches back to some of Hinduism's earliest texts...

   3.     Heat your frying pan to medium heat. Add oil (olive or sunflower, or vegetable if you're broke) plus three crushed and minced cloves of garlic. Cook 'till squishy.
   4.     Add the meat (or meat alternative) and brown it. When brown, cover it liberally in honey. Add a sprinkling of salt, a stock cube, or a spoonful of Marmite, (try it, if you're an unbeliever, as in you tried it after the age of three or possibly on a drunken dare one particularly sloppy night) plus a cup of water. Put in the veggies and cover, with a lid or plate.
   5.     While your stir-fry is cooking, ponder these five perspectives on the human mind from five of the Western tradition's most influential thinkers:

      Plato believed that all the knowledge we need is already in our minds, waiting to be teased out by a patient teacher.

      Epicurus taught that simple pleasures, like eating dinner with friends, are life's worthiest goals.

      Aquinas wrote that the human mind consists of the faculty of reason and a free will, though he never really figured out which was the boss.

      Descartes thought that life is essentially indistinguishable from a dream, apart from the ability to say “I think, therefore I am!”

      Wittgenstein's most famous quote: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
   6.     Take the cover off of the stir-fry and let the water cook off – stir frequently. As the water boils away, the sugars from the honey will caramelize. Keep cooking until the chunks are golden brown and almost all of the liquid is gone.
   7.     Serve over noodles or rice. Say this little prayer to whichever higher being you like: "Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub!"


Sources:


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/holycow/hinduism.html

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/ludwig_wittgenstein.html

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0223.htm

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