What is The Breakfast of Champions, Wheaties or the philosophy of Kilgore trout? Wheaties, the breakfast of champions is a crispy wheat and bran flake that was the result of an accidental spill, much safer than the spills of Exxon, BP, or Chernobyl, but more in line with the legend of “Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter.” With Wheaties, the self proclaimed champion, some wheat bran mixture fell onto a hot stove and formed a handful crispy flakes that eventually was converted into a recipe. Unlike the chocolate peanut butter legend this Battle Creek legend is true. But that’s about as exciting as it gets though, a rather non descript cereal flake, not frosted, puffed, honey nutted, or multi-grain, just a simple boring flake that floats in milk an cries out for sugar. Not much of a champion! Kilgore Trout on the other hand is a incredibly interesting character developed by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in many books, most notably The Breakfast Of Champions. Kilgore is a profound thinking science fiction writer of such nail biters a s “Venus On The Half Shell“; which alone makes him more worthy of the title IMHO. Much more interesting than the boring bran but unfortunately Kilgore can’t cook very well and half shells are about the extent of his culinary knowledge. Not a single thing to do with food. So where does that leave me? To this unrelated and frankly unnecessary quest for some of the most fundamental culinary queries such as which came first the chicken or the egg, are cucumbers really cool, can man live by bread alone, and most importantly, are we what we eat?
As it applies to food EB is the self crowned clown prince of cupcakery. Ergo, the Existential Baker’s answer to most queries is let them eat cupcakes. But that would be a self fulfilling and stomach filling prophecy. There are far more profound question at play here so let me get started. So which really did come first from an existentialist bakers point of view? In an attempt to avoid questioning the intentions of the chicken crossing the road or putting all the eggs in the same basket I developed an experiment. While at brunch this past weekend with a friend I gulped down my first mimosa then ordered a chicken salad for myself, and and egg salad for my guest. Now I wait to see which comes first. To my dismay, they arrive at our table simultaneously on the same tray, so I could only conclude that neither the chicken nor the egg arrived first.
How is this possible you ask? Well if instead of messing around with salads if I had ordered a bowl of primordial soup instead I would have found my answer. Primordial Soup is a delicacy in this era an a recipe passed down from more generations than one could imagine. The very first bowl of Primordial Soup, depending on which book you consult, was served up some three and a half billion years ago. At that time solar cooking was all the rage, and quite frankly the only available form of cooking. Not to get too technical, like most soups it begins with a mirepoix, the basic onion, celery, carrot, except this soup has a base of carbon .nitrogen, and potassium, lightly sautéed in ultraviolet and seasoned with various forms of sodium. Once these elements are translucent copious amounts of hydrogen is added and its allowed to simmer for a few million years. Once the soup is done its serve on a warm tectonic plate and served hot, much unlike revenge. The key to the significance of primordial soup is that during the simmer process an egg gets formed, and by the time the soup is fully done the egg is hatched and come out a fully cooked chicken. So from a strictly technical standpoint, it was the egg that came first, however it was the chicken that was the firt to leave the soup and walk out on its own. Whew, glad that’s out of the way, now on to the coolness of the cucumber.
Cucumbers are by nature a phallic shaped vegetable and the butt of many jokes. Joy toy look alike aside even before it had sexual reputation it was known for its coolness. Before it was cool it was used strictly by hipsters but only ironically. But what exactly made the cumber of cue cool? Well to begin with, its in the gourd family, infamous for their lack of sanity as in “Out of ones gourd”. How cool is that? But there’s more, the cool cucumber hangs out with the veggies but is in fact a fruit. Yea the sneaky cucumber has fooled grocers for generations who insist on placing them with the lettuces. These luscious garden favorites have been around since ancient Egypt and used as an anti swelling agent by early Roman soldiers. Not cool enough? Well what else do you know that gets sliced then placed on supermodels eyes to just hang out? Yes indeed, the cucumber has been cool ever since its mention in a poem from the 1700’s that stated, I am as cool as a cucumber, could see the rest of womankind. Cool!
So two myths explained, time to explore mans (or woman’s) ability to live on bread alone. While bread is indeed a food often eaten at Staples as well as being a staple food its nutritional value is relatively limited. If one opts to live only on the bottom of the food pyramid then one would survive for a period of time, but bear in min a pyramid is actually an ancient tomb and the antagonist of not too good schemes. But if you insist you will perish from malnutrition and all the carbs and gluten would make you unpopular in modern culture. Of course its not physically possible to live on bread alone but that’s taking it out of its original context anyway. The question arises in the bible when Jesus states man cannot in fact live on bread alone, but the J man always spoke in metaphors and was not a nutritional expert. Can one live without spiritual guidance? That’s the jist of the phrase as it was meant in the Bible and on that note I would have to answer no, man cannot live on staples alone he or she needs some form of profundity in their lives but not necessarily religion. If its religion you want there are a plethora of choices ranging from downright bizarre (cannibalistic or exo-planatery rituals) to the chanting monks with nothing to say. But organized religion is not needed, you merely need to use your imagination. Mediate, pray, or just communicate with life and you will have something of substance to go along with your emotional bread. Or bread an chocolate, that works too.
This brings me to my final culinary query for today, are we in fact what we eat? Well I’d imagine if it could reason a dung beetle would object to a simple yes and it’s a bit more profound than saying something ridiculous like “What am chopped liver” because that’s what you had for lunch. We are what we eat to a degree, without proper nourishment we would perish so by extension the healthier our food choice are the healthier our bodies will be. But as expressed previously we do not live on bread alone, and nourishing our bodies is essential but so as well is nourishing our minds, our souls. Eat healthy and go to the gym and your body will look good, but learn and experience, enjoy and smile, and you will feel good inside and out. Imagination is exercise for the mind and the more exercise you get the more muscular your brain will become, and the opposite sex digs big brain muscles.
Feeling good is one of the reasons we have foods that aren’t the healthiest choices but taste so damn good, like bacon, French fries, Doritos, or yes, chocolate cupcakes. What they lack in nutrients they make up for in endorphins that come rushing out of our pickled pituitary glands when food makes us feel happy. Foods such as cupcakes (shameless plug) release hormones in our brain that just make us feel good all over. But keep it in moderation, we should balance our feel good with our look good.
Beyond food there are things we ingest mentally that hold just as much significance as food. Take music for example. For me, rock and roll I like the powerful multi-vitamin of the brain. I personally love classic rock, which I suppose is like taking Centrum Silver, but it makes me feel good. Music is like soul aerobics, it makes us dance, or sway, it gives us words to think about, or draw emotion from, and it just plain feels great. Music nourishes the soul. Along with music, poetry, books, theater, and education are some other metaphysical foods that make us what we are. Digest as much as you can, read, feel, experience. They may not give you the body you want but a consistent diet of culture (no not yogurt culture) will help you attain the brain you’ve always dreamed of. Maybe that will be my next Niche. I’ll make a video called “A Healthy Brain In Three Weeks With The Existential Bakers Mind Diet” Maybe even spin off into “Brainweight Watchers” or “Cortex90 Hippocampus Fitness Workout”
So to review existentially, it doesn’t really matter which came first you still need to break some eggs to make a chicken omelet, if you keep chill you will be as cool as a cucumber, don’t put all your bread in one loaf, and if you really want to be healthy feed your mind and your body. Above all, excersize your imagination and challenge your mind always. Peace