Okay well it might seem like a silly example...
Culture, at least I believe anyway, is tied to the economic tides.
Because it is superficially the story these days, that everyone cares
exclusively about science and facts and evidence (they don't; they are
psychologically motivated through feelings and not through logic virtually at all), academia in particular fails to
preserve cultural memory and is a deep black sink-hole for social and cultural
knowledge memory.
There is no more outstanding an example to my idiosyncratic mind, than
when it comes to the recipe for an 'American Sundae.' (There's the silly
example bit!).
All the same, regardless of whether you think this example is silly or
not, you will not find anywhere on-line any recipe or photograph for and of a
genuine original 'American Sundae.' You will find countless (literally
countless) things that look like an American Sundae, but you will not find one
single actual American Sundae...
Now who do we blame for this exemplary evil omission? Oxford University?
Cambridge, where Stefan Halper lectures? Harvard? Yale? Princeton? ...Where?
The Sundae is a story tied to technology (the invention and industrial manufacture
and widespread commercialization of refrigeration systems), and to war and
patriotism, as well as to big money.
What happens if we get 'the Roaring Twenties' again? |
Categorically, it was first invented by an African-American cook. He
styled his invention after the American flag - aka 'Old Glory.'
As you know, the American flag consists of 'the stars and stripes.' And
the colors are Old Glory red, white, and Old Glory blue. The study of flags is
known as 'vexillology.' The American athlete Martin Sheridan, said: 'this flag
dips to no earthly king.'
Some people have proposed that the stars are meant to have originally
been gold because gold doesn't tarnish, although they may have been originally
silver, which does tarnish and turn black or green.
I have no fixed or firm view of it other than that I know what the
original 'Old Glory Ice Cream Sundae' is. It includes vanilla ice cream, and
cherry syrup and strawberry ice cream, and something which appears like 'star
dust.' And I will not go into the 'Old Glory blue' aspect because I'm keeping
most of the recipe a secret; still.
Astor owned the Knickerbocker hotel at a time when the the US was
flooded with money, and when the Knickerbocker ballroom actually had specific
velvet roped-off areas marked 'champagne only.' And tickets into these areas
went for hundreds of dollars when the price of a hotel room for the night was
$2.
Afterwards, of course, you had the Prohibition Era - 1920 to 1933. But
until then, the Knickerbocker was probably one of the most alcoholic-indulged
places on the planet ever outside of Bacchus's palace!
The 'Old Glory Ice Cream Sundae' contains copious amounts of alcohol. The
colt cherries or maraschino cherries used are steeped in maraschino brandy, for
one thing.