Redwall quandaries

I'm reading the Redwall books by Brian Jacques right now, which have their flaws but are really great reading all the same. If you like food, they're worth reading just for all of the mousewatering - uh, mouthwatering recipes the forest creatures come up with (there's even a Redwall cookbook which I'd really love to have).

Here are my only questions:

1) Where are they getting the milk for all of the butter, cream, and cheese that they eat? There's no way a mouse can milk a goat, and given the amount of interspecies tension in these books, I doubt a goat would allow it. Goats are probably one of those Warlike Creatures the mice are xenophobic about. Are they stealing from human farmers? "Goatsmilk cheese" has been referenced at least once, but is there some other animal they're milking? Are they milking badgers? This, like "What was the noodle incident?", is one of those questions I guess you're just not supposed to ask an author.

2) Why do the Redwall mice get to be so damned self-righteous about never harming another creature on one page, and then go fishing the next? Why are weasels which prey on land animals evil, but otters which prey on sea creatures good? (HINT: It's because otters are cute.) I'm a bit of a hypocrite in saying this, because I don't eat meat of the land or the air but do scoff the occasional shrimp -- but I feel bad about it afterwards, and I'm not self-righteous about it. And I have an evolutionary reason for wanting a little fish in my diet, especially if you go with the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Mice and hares and moles don't even EAT fish in the wild! (Of course, neither do they wield swords, play musical instruments or wear habits.) Also, what about the badgers? Badgers are in the weasel family and eat mice, frogs and birds. Don't Constance and Mother Mellus and Lord Rawnblade ever look at those mice a little too hungrily when the mouse chef is a little too tardy in bringing out the hazelnut bread and redcurrant tart? This is another one of those questions you're not supposed to ask. I think it may be a cultural thing, as it seems like Europeans tend to think of "fish" and "meat" as two different categories more often than Americans do. This was certainly true in Spain, where I decided to abandon my dietary isms for a semester to make it easy on my host parents. (Actually, one time I said "I'm really going to miss Spanish ham when I go back to the US and stop eating meat." "Why can't you eat ham?" they said. "Well -- I'm not going to eat meat anymore after I leave," I said. "But ham isn't meat! Ham is ham!" they replied. Same with sausage and sobrassada. I had a hard time figuring out their definition of meat after that.)

I think the real problem is that I'm sore about the libelous nature of these books because I've had both rats and mice as pets. My mouse was stupid, dirty and incredibly smelly for its size. The many rats I've had, by contrast, were sweet, engaging, clever and much cleaner in comparison. And let's not talk about my love of the family mustelidae and its condemnation (except for otters and badgers) in the Redwall universe. I get that he's just using the different species as ways to represent different types of people, but it strikes me as too easy, which is the same thing that bothers me about the Harry Potter books -- characters should have to do something to be evil, instead of just being labeled as "Slytherin" or "Rat" and acting accordingly. Ah well. They're both still really fun to read!

How fish becomes fish food

I spent the last semester of my senior year in Mallorca to improve my Spanish, and it also ended up broadening my culinary horizons. Like, I learned how to make salad. This would be a pretty obvious thing for most people, but I've always hated salad with dressing and ordered just the dry leaves, leaving waiters dumbfounded and weirdly suspicious. It turns out that I just didn't like those commercial, creamy, too-salty dressings, or maybe it just bugged me that I didn't know what was in them, but I DO like salads with dressing now. I keep oil and vinegar dispensers (bought there, with "Aceite" and "Vinagre" printed on them -- oh, aren't I so hip and cosmopolitan!) on my kitchen table -- some leaves, a little oil and balsamic, salt, pepper, maybe some Italian seasonings, and whatever else you want in there, and you have a salad with very little effort. My host mom would put all sorts of stuff in, like apples and nuts and seeds; I loved her creativity. Salad is so much more a part of the meal there (as is soup, bread, and dessert -- how do working señoras find the time and energy? I think reasonable working hours and the sacred tradition of siesta have a lot to do with it), and they go a long, long way beyond romaine and cherry tomatoes with something pale and slimy out of a bottle.

Anyway, another eye-opening experience was the seafood. Stateside, I'm a "vegetarian," but I do eat the occasional bit of fish when I go out. Sometimes I'd buy those bags of frozen fish at Aldi for $3.99 and sautée or bake them and serve them to myself alongside some pasta, and they tasted fine. Well, I'm here to tell you, if you live in a landlocked state like I do, don't EVER spend any time on an island because it will ruin fish for you forever. The fish that I ate at my host house was probably fished out of the Mediterranean a day or two before, and it had a succulence and a mildness and a depth of flavor that I've never experienced. If I were a Mallorquín, I'd probably be horrified if I were served something that had been frozen for months. It's just not the same at all.

I returned from Mallorca on June 17th, and today was the first day I ate fish since I came back from there. I thought I'd give my palate a lot of time to forget what island fish tasted like. Tonight I cooked myself up a frozen Tilapia fillet, thinking I'd be able to say "Oh well" and accept what my landlocked status handed me.

ACK, PPTH, PTUI! Horrible! Dreadful! It tasted exactly like the smell I get when I open the can of freeze-dried krill I keep on the top of my turtle tank to give him an occasional fishy treat. (Some treat!) Stale, old, and saturated with "that fish taste" which I think is the reason some people can't stand fish. Disgraceful. Is this what islanders who come inland think we like to eat? No wonder Mallorquins are a bit reserved...who'd want to talk to anyone who thought THAT tasted good?

So from now on, I buy my fish -- if I do at all -- from the Co-Op and at least get something that came out of a nearby river. Life is too short. If you want an easy dinner from the supermarket, save yourself $3.69 and get a package of Ramen Noodles. You'll feel better afterward.