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Fructi et flori
Aug. 3rd, 2004 09:59 pmI made a point to leave five minutes at the end of my morning errands, before picking up D., to stop by the little park at 27th and Monroe to add a nice memory to the day. I walked all the way around the block, looking at the wonderful summer flowers so many people had. Our own garden is almost entirely spring-blooming lately, but other people had dahlias, and one house had the most extraordinary flowers -- rather like irises, but obviously tropical and in wild shades of orange.
Even better, though more mundane, was the front lawn full of apple and plum trees, all heavily laden with fruit. There's something primal and satisfying about seeing colorful, ripe fruit on trees; I think this could be part of our evolutionary heritage, the pleasure in spotting a profusion of sweet foods, all ready for picking. Years ago I attended a fascinating weekend seminar at UC Berkeley on the prehistoric anthropology of nutrition, where one researcher made the case that human genes orient us towards finding and craving small packets of high-calorie foods, those rich in fats and sugars, as the most efficient way to meet our needs. It no longer serves us so well when we can get these treats in any supermarket, but it's great to still get pleasure from seeing succulent plums and apples on fine, healthy trees.
Laudato si, mi signore, per sora nostra matre terra,
laquale ne sustenta et governa,
et produce diverse fructi
con coloriti flori et herba.
(From the Canticle of the Sun, by St. Francis of Assisi. Loosely translated: "Be praised, my Lord, by our sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and produces a variety of fruits and colorful flowers and plants." I suppose medieval Italian is a bit closer to Latin; wouldn't it now be "frutti e fiori"?)
(P.S. Could a post be more "me"? I managed to cover aesthetics, walking, flowers, fruit, evolutionary psychology, prehistory, nutrition, religion-and-nature, medieval studies, and languages!)
Even better, though more mundane, was the front lawn full of apple and plum trees, all heavily laden with fruit. There's something primal and satisfying about seeing colorful, ripe fruit on trees; I think this could be part of our evolutionary heritage, the pleasure in spotting a profusion of sweet foods, all ready for picking. Years ago I attended a fascinating weekend seminar at UC Berkeley on the prehistoric anthropology of nutrition, where one researcher made the case that human genes orient us towards finding and craving small packets of high-calorie foods, those rich in fats and sugars, as the most efficient way to meet our needs. It no longer serves us so well when we can get these treats in any supermarket, but it's great to still get pleasure from seeing succulent plums and apples on fine, healthy trees.
laquale ne sustenta et governa,
et produce diverse fructi
con coloriti flori et herba.
(From the Canticle of the Sun, by St. Francis of Assisi. Loosely translated: "Be praised, my Lord, by our sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and produces a variety of fruits and colorful flowers and plants." I suppose medieval Italian is a bit closer to Latin; wouldn't it now be "frutti e fiori"?)
(P.S. Could a post be more "me"? I managed to cover aesthetics, walking, flowers, fruit, evolutionary psychology, prehistory, nutrition, religion-and-nature, medieval studies, and languages!)