Nothing new in ninety-nine years

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Last updated on August 5th, 2017 at 08:10 am

From our Chicago pal Fred Butzen:

My wife was paging through a bound edition of “Punch” from the beginning of the last century, and ran across a cartoon that looks like it should have been published yesterday, despite having appeared in the October 28, 1908, issue. I thought you’d enjoy it.

Readers will enjoy it, too. In other pictorial developments, Andrew R. sends the menu from Guangzhou’s curiously-named Milan Restaurant: chow down, people, on Onion Cigarette Pulp Draws Cuttlefish Juice Face.

Posted by Tim B. on 06/25/2007 at 10:34 AM
    1. Damn it, that makes me want to watch the Hornblower series again, but I only finished it and the books last month.

      Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 06 25 at 10:57 AM • permalink

 

    1. I sure hope there’s a Chinese speaker here who can chime in and explain that menu translation, otherwise I am going to go nuts trying to puzzle it out.

      I’ll start with a wild guess:  “pulp’’ refers to squid or octopus, and “cigarette’’ means cut in long thin matchstick-like pieces.  As for “draws’’ – it doesn’t appear to be a verb, but it doesn’t appear to be anything else, either.  Anyone?

      Posted by Sonetka’s Mom on 2007 06 25 at 11:09 AM • permalink

 

    1. I hazard “mashed/pounded spring onion infused/marinated with/in cuttlefish head sauce”.

      Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 06 25 at 11:27 AM • permalink

 

    1. Gah.  Sounds positively…ulp… yummy.

      Thanks for the cartoon, Tim.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 06 25 at 11:46 AM • permalink

 

    1. I must admit that I had no idea that the ideas that the cartoon mocks were widely held back in 1908.

      Posted by Ross on 2007 06 25 at 12:06 PM • permalink

 

    1. #5 I don’t know about 1908, but thirty years later, Britain narrowly escaped having Chamberlain as Prime Minister in World War II. I wonder how that would have worked out? Most likely we wouldn’t be referring to it as “World War II,” more like “the day Britain got stomped by Germany.”

      Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 25 at 01:33 PM • permalink

 

    1. Carnivorous Anachronism!

      Posted by Sigivald on 2007 06 25 at 03:16 PM • permalink

 

    1. For some reason, the west simply will not adopt cigarette pulp as a food source.  I blame society.

      Posted by blogagog on 2007 06 25 at 05:48 PM • permalink

 

    1. #8 It’s people’s narrow-minded ideas about what “food” is that is the problem. Yes, food is meat, vegetables, dairy and so on (I think there are two others in the five groups), but these categories are just artificial boundaries created by our culture.
      Food could be so much more! Cigarette pulp (mentioned here), as well as chopped shoelace, sauteed tennis balls, as well as fluffy car dice in chocolate sauce.
      If only people would be more open-minded.

      Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 25 at 06:44 PM • permalink

 

    1. Sounds like she goes to the same dentist as me.

      Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 06 25 at 07:01 PM • permalink

 

    1. I suspect that 1908 cartoon was unmoderated: someone alert Media Watch!

      Still, the cartoonist got it right.  Embarrassed by all the nationalist triumphalism on display in Trafalgar Square, the Brits erected a statue of a disabled woman.  Coming soon: Churchill in a zimmer frame.

      Posted by cuckoo on 2007 06 25 at 07:24 PM • permalink

 

    1. My Chinese translator informs me that the menu item is “fried bacon and onion with squid ink pasta”.

      Posted by anthony_r on 2007 06 25 at 09:00 PM • permalink

 

    1. #12, squid ink is not squid ink, but the sauce left over from cooking cuttlefish.  Hope this clears things up…

      Posted by anthony_r on 2007 06 25 at 10:04 PM • permalink

 

    1. > Embarrassed by all the nationalist triumphalism on display in Trafalgar Square, the Brits erected a statue of a disabled woman

      And ignored the one armed, half blind man being honoured at the top of the statue.

      A statue of someone that has done nothing at all, except be a sponge for taxpayers money.  What better record of the UKs decline is there?

      Posted by Rob Read on 2007 06 25 at 10:17 PM • permalink

 

    1. The Chinese menu from Guangzhou is great.

      Anthony_r’s translator is correct; though literally it’s fried onion and bacon (洋葱咸肉 [yangcong xianrou]).

      The second part is cuttlefish sauce noodles (墨鱼汁面 [moyuzhi mian]).

      The reason for the strange English is because they’ve done a literal translation. Thus “cuttlefish sauce noodles” comes out as “cuttlefish juice face” because of this:

      墨鱼 [moyu] = cuttlefish
      汁 [zhi] = juice, but it’s probably better to translate it in English as sauce
      面 [mian] = face and noodles.

      It’s the kind of translation you get from people (or translation machines online) who translate character by character.

      Posted by Hanyu on 2007 06 25 at 10:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. within 6 years of that cartoon, England’s 100 year peace ended..

      Posted by heather on 2007 06 26 at 02:09 AM • permalink

 

    1. #9
      Absolutely correct.

      Posted by lotocoti on 2007 06 26 at 05:31 AM • permalink

 

    1. Hey, that’s a great cartoon! I love it!
      Certainly “A Regrettable Incident” can be applied to so many things these days, and I for one intend to do so!

      Posted by carpefraise on 2007 06 26 at 07:36 AM • permalink

 

    1. #15 Well done Hanyu. Very well done. Keep going.

      Posted by mehaul on 2007 06 26 at 08:02 AM • permalink

 

    1. #13. Squid ink pasta uses the ink from the sack at the base of the squid’s head. Careful when you remove the head or you split the sack and the lot is covered in the ink.

      Posted by mehaul on 2007 06 26 at 08:04 AM • permalink

 

    1. Hanyu and Anthony, thanks for clearing up that menu translation.  BTW I’ve encountered squid ink in Spanish cooking as well.

      Rob Read:  “And ignored the one armed, half blind man being honoured at the top of the statue.’’ – Good catch.

      Posted by Sonetka’s Mom on 2007 06 26 at 08:44 AM • permalink

 

    1. #15 Hanyu

      All good, but tobacco!? wtf?

      Posted by ThinAndBritish on 2007 06 26 at 11:47 AM • permalink

 

    1. Perhaps the tobacco refers to “smoked”?

      Posted by Srekwah on 2007 06 26 at 01:03 PM • permalink

 

  1. Sorry I meant cigarette. Smoked – yeah…..

    Posted by ThinAndBritish on 2007 06 26 at 01:15 PM • permalink