[Sca-cooks] Okay, it's that time of year again...

[Gorgeous Muiredach]

>I'm told the word translates, in Southern Chinese dialects such as
>Cantonese and Toysan, as "restraint, austerity, or penitence",

Had never been told the meaning, but makes ferpect sense :-)

>I
>don't see the details of a dish called "jai" and a "jai banquet"
>being mutually exclusive, do you?

No, no, not at all.  Just found it interesting to see that word there when
I'd not heard it used for eons (or what seems like it, in a past life, etc)

>As far as I'm concerned, one could
>even make a good case for McDonald's being penitence food.

You'll get no argument from me on this one.

>Be that as it may, whatever flavor of Buddhism my wife's ancestors
>practiced were not averse to throwing a couple of dried shrimp,
>scallops, or beche de mer (sea cucumber) into their meatless cookery,
>it seems.

Wasn't the Buddha preaching vegetarianism, but when some of his disciples
argued, he stuck his walking stick in water and said that whatever attached
itself to it would "grow on wood", hence be vegetables?  That's the
explanation my Sifu gave me as to why oysters were ok to eat.  Granted,
Master Moy was Taoist so his stories might have been a tad skewed ;-)

Gorgeous Muiredach the Odd
Clan of Odds
Shire of Forthcastle, Meridies
mka Nicolas Steenhout
"You must deal with me as I think of myself" - J. Hockenberry