The Power of Names

We're looking at a bit of genealogy as an interesting angle to a history project my youngest is working on. I don't take genealogy that seriously although it's really big business in much of the US I think. Still, it's kind of fun.

We've got one of his ancestral lines traced back to 1610 (yeah, England, and in 1635 got on a boat to what would later be the USA). This was the 12th previous generation for. Meaning that this pilgrim was one of approximately 4096 of his Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandparents. Yes, a direct descendent of up to 4096 ancestors of that generation. Might be less because at some point "inbreeding" is inevitable. Otherwise he would have over 68 billion ancestors even prior to rolling the family history all the way back to BC.

Even back to only 1610, there are thus (we'll assume) 4096 distinct paths my little guy can trace up to an ancestor. Each one just as big an impact on how he got here as any other. That's a lot of research. Even more importantly, it becomes impossible to explain that in any kind of cohesive narrative. It's natural to want to tease out a narrative, or a manageable set of narratives, for how you got here.

In comes the power of names. They carry more weight than they should, because they give us some context -- a defined thread to hang a narrative off of. Most people I think wander a few generations up a full tree then research single-name threads much beyond that. (Carried by the men in our cultures. An unfortunate side-effect as you get farther back in time is the bias that the women were kind of bystanders to history, that the family was propelled forward by the men, an artifact of chasing a male-based naming convention backwards up the tree.)

One of his Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandparents was a Fooshe. But he won't naturally think of himself as a Fooshe even though she contributed as much to his arrival as did her husband (via whom the name was transmitted) or any of the 126 other ancestors of that generation. Again, that seems perfectly natural as I can't hold thousands of narratives together in my head. I have to pick a few to follow and craft stories out of.

Now if I only had a comprehensive set of information at my fingertips for every single one of the ancestors going back 12 or 20 generations, that would be a cool thing to browse, given a good navigational tool. Trying to assemble that manually would be quite an effort. This is where genealogy enthusiasts really help. Just wait, and my 10 million closest distant cousins will mostly fill out the tree for me.

Kidneys, Devilled Lazy American Style, & Goostrami

The other day my butcher was so pleased to see me he gave me a couple lamb's kidneys for free after I'd gotten done picking out a couple chickens, a few beef short ribs, and some sausage. So what do you do with a couple of small kidneys? I wanted devilled kidneys but was too lazy to get the 6-7 ingredients ready to go, even if I had all of them, which I didn't. If you don't have everything ready to go you end up overcooking the kidneys and feeling unhappy with the result. After browning the kidneys, you work quickly, adding individually and stirring and reducing a bunch of things along the lines of sherry, vinegar, redcurrant jelly, worcestershire, mustard, cayenne, double cream. Much better to get someone else to do this. So I opted for Buffalo-style. A basic Buffalo wings "sauce" is nearly equal parts butter and cayenne(ish) hot sauce -- tabasco or frank's, e.g. I cut up and fried the kidney pieces in some butter, pulled them out of the pan, put in a very healthy slug of frank's hot sauce, stirred to combine, added the kidney back in, tossed with the sauce in the pan, and plated with a small handful of sliced green onions on top. Quick, simple, and tasty. Celery or shallot would have also worked fine I think.

Another culinary discovery: I took the last smoked goose breast I'd made "ham" out of using the previously mentioned duck breast ham recipe, fired up the slicer, and turned it into a mound of ruby red, finely sliced (shaved) goose breast. I also sliced up the lasted homemade bacon. Then fried up a few pieces of the bacon. Then fried up a handful of the shaved goose breast, steaming hot with crispy edges, coating liberally with freshly cracked black pepper at the end. And... it tasted kind of like pastrami. Like good pastrami. Which is not entirely surprising given that goose is much more beef-like than duck, and it was cured then smoked. Goostrami reubens?