Handling Offensive Language

Here's how we solved the "offensive language" issue on Chowhound, in terms of community management and moderation: We weighted Context.

Remember "context"? Consideration of intent? You know, the part completely ignored by the mechanism of detection and calling out of sinful utterance by packs of vigilant anti-racists patrolling social media and rotely pattern-matching terms on their frequently-updated kill lists? What you meant or who you are hold no place in it. Even if you're Albert Schweitzer, if you've used the term, you take the hit. Period.

We opted to handle human language issues humanely. So this is what we came up with: Any provocative language used with obvious anger or disparagement was deleted (our main problem was with the underlying nastiness, not the words themselves). So this was a no-go:

"The Jewy kitchen served me two lousy meatballs."

But provocative language that was not obviously angry or disparaging could stay. For example:

"The knishes were Jewy wonderment".

More sharply provocative terms received greater scrutiny, but still weren't rotely deleted. "Don't miss the stupendous kike kasha!" would have been permissible, because intent is unmistakably positive (though cloddish).

Kids, "kikes" was a naughty term for Jews. You haven't heard it because we made the word go away, which is why everyone just loves Jews now. See? It works!

The inevitably objection was: "But how can you know?" And our reasonable answer was "If you're unsure, it's clearly not 'obviously angry or disparaging.'"

"Benefit of the doubt", just like the olden days! We weren't morality police meting out punishment. Our job was to create an environment for different people to express themselves in different and colorful ways. And if you needed to be shielded from certain words you found upsetting, we suggested that you reconsider whether the Internet was really for you. It's not the Internet's job to shower you with only your most favorite words, opinions, and ideas. It wasn't Chowhound's role to foster an experience to your perfect specification. That's not community, that's a narcissist's reflecting pond.

It all came down to considerations many of those same people would claim to cherish: tolerance and diversity. Communities tend to enforce conformity of expression and opinion, and we fought that dynamic, recognizing Chowhound would be best if it drew the richest, broadest, and most varied cast of characters. We refused to buff our conversation into an NPR-friendly sheen to gratify a fragile contingent, even though I myself carried around a WNYC tote bag.

My favorite poster was FEDEX GUY - my actual FEDEX delivery guy, fwiw - who'd fling terse, misspelled, highly vulgar tips for obscurities no one else had on-radar. He did not fit in, which I recognized as a shortcoming on our part, but I loved seeing him trudge in amid the Batali acolytes (out-squealing each other over some to-die-for sweet corn crema) with his coarse language and brusque manner. My philosophy of community morality was Rodney Kingism. "Can't we all get along?"


Here's another thing I learned: once you allow people to start weighing in on what offends them, there is literally no end to it. People would much rather talk about that than tacos or har gow. Luckily, in those days, you could still tell a crowd to cut it out and have only a few of them stomp off in a tiff (one of our most veteran posters decided she couldn't remain part of a community where the term "White Trash" was permissible, though the term appeared in the title of a bestselling cookbook, and was never used pejoratively).

Surgery and Noodles and Indulgent Self-Dramatization

A couple of postings ago, I said:

I'm bragging about it. I'm flying business class to Kuala Lumpur, in a cool private compartment, and staying several weeks to devour street food, after swanning around Doha, and I relish your envy. I'm mostly just curious to see what saying this feels like.

How did it feel? Well, in the aftermath it felt, as it always does (which is why people need to chain smoke this stuff) tacky and insufficient and fast-fading. And the dramatic arc-building and poignant complaining left me feeling like crap for a couple of days. I foolishly wrote myself - framed myself - into melodrama. I cocked up a whole story for myself to feel a part of, which is what I used to do years ago, in my misery, before I learned to opt out of dramatization and got real.

What's really going to happen? I'll have the surgery, and it'll suck, and then it'll get better, and the noodles will be awesome and the luxe flying will be a mild tickle and then something else will suck and get better. We're raindrops slowly working down windows, not heroic protagonists.

I'm not ashamed to publicly confess my backsliding and foolishness. Being agile about framing doesn't mean I always choose perfectly. If I can catch myself within two or three days, that's viable. Just so long as I don't spend decades or lifetimes steeped in nonsense!

The Factor of Relevancy in Trumpism

John Podhoretz, the intellectual editor of the conservative journal Commentary, tweeted this during Trump's typically deranged convention speech last night:

Before you sneer with completely appropriate contempt, consider one word: "Relevancy." Roll it around in your mind, because it's an underexplored factor in the MAGA phenomenon (and in all authoritarian grabs).

What we're seeing from our pricey ringside view of authoritiarian takeover is not just the usual greed and ambition driving enablers and go-alongs. There's also something more relateable. And this calls for an analogy!

Here's how I replied - or, actually, replied to Tom Nichols' ridicule of Podhoretz:

Twitter doesn't offer space to really drive home my point, which is about relevance. No film critic can remain relevant while calling crap movies crap. So they don't. And that's 1. normal and 2. squirmingly unpleasant for them.

Film critics are nothing like your nephew Josh who hits the multiplex to catch up on developments in the Marvel Universe or to see stuff blow up. Film critics study Bergman and Tarkovsky. They're highbrows, every one of them. But none would last a week if they let their contempt show, because they write mostly for Josh. It's an excruciating gig. Imagine if food critics were compelled to eat mostly in chains, and had to find something non-snotty to say about them, over and over and over again.

If you want to make a living at it, you can't make yourself irrelevant. You must eat the dog food, and like it. And the same is true for principled conservative writers and editors in a movement completely subsumed by Trumpism. They nearly all loathe him, but their choice is binary: play along and remain relevant, or stomp off and disappear forever and let their family starve.

You or I might indignantly demand that they take a goddam stand, even if it costs them their careers and relationships and ability to feed their children. This is because we are disgusting narcissists who see other people as two dimensional cartoons. How about you? How eager would you be to make yourself irrelevant in your world and go find yourself a new career? Let's play a game: Think of something that sucks about your line of work (I'm sure you can come up with something!), then quit, then go find another whole realm. I'll wait!

Real people play along to stay relevant. Democrats do it all the time. How often do you self-edit to avoid clashing with the expanding litany of taboo thought and speech? How hesitant are you to engage on social media with even mildly non-doctrinaire conversation? How clean do you keep your nose to avoid the withering glare of staunch mouthy cohorts, present and future? How much of yourself have you self-smothered to conform to conceits you privately consider daft?

Podhoretz' tweet was a glimmer of truth, encased in a desperate cry for help, masquerading as a snarky rebuke. Any conservative publicly rebuking Trumpism will lose career, context, and relevence. And if that sounds like the sort of brave stand you yourself would heroically take, no. No, you wouldn't. I know human beings, and here's what they do: they fantasize about being stand-up valiant people - and, under the cover of anonymity or while silently daydreaming, they'll be flamboyantly vocal, stockpiling mental evidence of their gnarly heroism. But they won’t put career and social standing at risk to take a stand. People don't do that.

And, worse of all, it's not evil. It's relateable. God help us.

The Worst of Times, The Best of Noodles...

“I saw this guy hitting himself in the head with a hammer. I asked, "Hey, buddy, why are you hitting yourself in the head with a hammer?” Guy replied “Because it feels so good when I stop!”

       — First joke I learned as a kid


I spent a lot of 2023 either in bed or in hospital due to various health maladies. 2024 hasn't been much better, adding a shoulder meltdown (I'm walking around with a splint, like a Revolutionary War soldier). I'm currently on hold for comprehensive shoulder surgery, whose recovery involves months of unremitting childbirth-style pain. Final recovery in six months, best case. And then I have four other surgeries queued up, including the same on my other shoulder (which is 50% as bad and gaining fast). I don't normally complain (unless there's some insight to be shared in the process), but you'll see why in just a minute.

I recently observed that people in their late 50s and early 60s ought to consider spending a bit more. Plus I need a reward to look forward to during my recovery, to enjoy before I undergo the remaining surgeries. So I have a plan!

The opposite of Portugal is Malaysia (and, like many antitheses, they touch; there is a small remaining strain of Portuguese culture in Malaysia, including one tiny remaining settlement, though this Portuguese connection is not where I'm headed with this). I showed last week how the soul of Malaysian and Portuguese pasta resemble each other, but that was the most tenuous possible stretch. Really, if you want SEA noodles - or anything the least bit Chinese - you won't find anything of the sort here. I've had maybe three East or Southeast Asian meals in 18 months, all on trips outside Portugal, and have gone a bit gastronomically stir crazy, despite eating like a god every blessed meal here. What's more, I've been storing up Malaysian food tips for quite sometime via Google Maps chowhounding.

So here's the plan. Six months after surgery, I will fly to Kuala Lumpur and stay at Tian Jing Hotel, superbly located and reasonably priced in Chinatown, full of street food. I'm bad with jet lag, so I will fly on Etihad Airline, which offers free stopovers in Doha, taking a few days to acclimate and to finally eat in this Persian restaurant I've been fascinated with for years.

Because I need a really shiny reward to look forward to, I'll treat myself with two indulgences I normally wouldn't take in a million years:

1. Because I will be weak and feeble, I'll fly business class (Etihad is super luxe in business class, and also surprisingly reasonable - circa $2800 round trip), and...

2. I'm bragging about it. I'm flying business class to Kuala Lumpur, in a cool private compartment, and staying several weeks to devour street food, after swanning around Doha, and I relish your envy. I'm mostly just curious to see what saying this feels like.


I'm normally as distant from Judaism as a Pashtun warlord, but there's a line from the Torah I like very much: "If you're going to eat pork, the juice should run down your chin."


I soon recanted the boast, the complaint, and really the entire fucking thing.

ChatGPT Guesses Dish Names

I had ChatGPT identify some food pictures I've recently taken. It did extraordinarily well.

Guess: Borscht (Ukraine)
Result: Correct

Guess: Cassoulet (France)
Result: Correct

Guess: Garlic Stir-Fried Water Spinach (Kangkung Belacan)
Result: Incorrect (Stir-fried Snow pea leaves, Cantonese)

Guess: Har Gow (Cantonese) aka shrimp dumplings
Result: Correct

Guess: Cozido à Portuguesa (Portugal)
Result: Correct

Guess: Tagine with prunes and beef (Morocco)
Result: Correct

Guess: Francesinha à Moda do Porto (Portugal)
Result: Incorrect (Bitoque, Portugal)

Guess: Portuguese Hake (Portugal)
Result: Correct

Guess: Arroz de Pato (Portugal) aka Duck Rice
Result: Correct

Guess: Feijoada à Transmontana (Portugal)
Result: Incorrect (Feijoada de Javali, Portugal)

Guess: Maçã Assada (Portugal) aka Baked Apple
Result: Correct

Me: “Bonus question: There's something slightly unusual about the way they prepared this one."

Reply: "Roasting the apple in a way similar to how meat or vegetables might be roasted, which is less common for fruit."

Me: "Very close....they used exactly the Portuguese method of roasting fish."

Guess: Hailam Mee (South East Asia)
Result: Correct

SEA Food Glossary

I've only been to South East Asia once - to Singapore - and I was overwhelmed by menus and foodie conversation full of Chinese terms - and, worse, local pidgin versions of Chinese terms - describing dishes we know by other names. I saw very few unfamiliar items there, but nearly 90% of the terminology was lost on me. Yikes!

I've since looked and looked, but no one has produced a decent glossary. A complete one would be impossibly broad (working far into Indian, Chinese, and Indonesian cuisines, just to name three), but I've created one (PDF download) with the help of ChatGPT focusing on the Chinese end of the spectrum, whose names are less familiar (I'm already cool with roti, biryani, rendang, et al).

It contains nearly 100 terms, 75% of which may be unfamiliar for serious American/European hounds (I included super famous items just for completeness). The descriptions should jar your memory, but always remember the Limster trick: Google Images is your best friend during moments of Chowzheimer's Disease. If you're an experienced eater, never google food names. Google-image them!


Other glossaries I've built (none downloadable):
Filipino Food Glossary
French Food Glossary
Oaxacan Food Glossary

Finally, along similar lines (but so so so much more), the best and most ambitious thing I've ever built: my smartphone app, Eat Everywhere.

Soulful Serendipity Simpatico

Left: Veal spaghetti at Chafariz Snack Bar, Setúbal, Portugal
Right: Hailam Mee at Yut Kee Restaurant, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

There's often deeper simpatico in serendipitous similarity (soulfully rendered) than in some hasty attempt at authenticity.

Processing Hamas Support Through the Lens of Vietnam Protest

It's 1970-ish. I'm a bright eight year old. Carried by the moment, I choose sides, aligning with the younger generation which is touchy about being sent to distant rice paddies to murder Vietnamese strangers and likely return in a coffin (as did several neighbors). The other side, with their crewcuts and cufflinks, seem morally disconnected, so I instinctually chose my side. We had Jimi Hendrix, they had Perry Como. There was never any doubt.

I had a thumbnail notion of the Cold War and I grokked the logic of domino theory. Evil tends to expand, and the cancer must be stemmed. But Republicans seemed hyperbolic in their anti-Communist paranoia. What's worse, they kept calling people like me "Commies" - an awfully disturbing association given their stated desire to mow down Communists en masse. Maybe we were next, after they'd won the rice paddies.

Then Jane Fonda went on the radio over there to spew propaganda at conscripted troops risking their lives, and I felt my first-ever pang of Centrist moderation. Same with activists who expressed solidarity with the Viet Cong. The Left had gone too far - the Viet Cong were plainly abhorrent - but I still dearly wanted us out of Vietnam.

At my tender age, I held a rather narrow view, wired into the immediate. Local kids were dying in distant jungles. Winning the war would scarcely improve my life, but merely serve the paranoid whims of creepy shitheads like Richard Nixon. It seemed simple.

Now, with the better part of a century of experience, I better understand the view of the creepy shitheads. Isolationism had been strongly debunked only three decades prior. I still would oppose intervention in Vietnam, but now I see complexity where I previously beheld simplicity. It's not an improved me, just one with more framing options.


I'm no expert on the Middle East conflict, but I know enough to firmly conclude that there is no righteous party. Each side claims righteousness by reciting a litany of atrocities committed by the Other, and both litanies are full-to-bursting. And, as I predicted, the Israelis were cynically - and quite successfully - baited into barbarism by the Hamas attack.

But that's me, with my broad, higher framing. Younger people, more narrowly framed, behold the latest barbarism in a non-contextualized freeze frame of Right Now. And they're not entirely wrong. Barbarism is barbaric, regardless of one’s litany of atrocity. If you slap a kid in public, your statement of justification will do you little good. You're now The Child Slapper. Never mind that this was the kid’s plan all along. 

I use my Vietnam memories to better relate to the Left's Middle East take, generally. Regarding extremists who've gone as far as to embrace Hamas out of rote solidarity with the enemy of perceived bad guys, I recall the somewhat milder contempt I felt for Viet Cong boosterism. At the time, I could distantly relate to the fools who chose that route. So I revive that impression in my effort to re-associate Hamas cosplayers with civilization; to at least distantly relate to fools who went that route.

Just Run-of-the-Mill Recent Eats

Restaurant Safibel is a fish restaurant run by an elderly woman who does pretty much everything. She's harried and grim, yet insists on baking desserts herself, a rarity since perfectly good bakeries stand ready to supply. Her nut tarts are exquisite. I'm pretty sure I'm the only customer ever to compliment her for them. Here, that actually means something.

Oksana is owned by a Ukrainian woman who speaks perfect Portuguese. She cooks 99% Portuguese food, except one Ukrainian dish one day per week. I may be the only customer who orders this stuff. This week: pelmeni. Dill's hard to find here, and she used to skip it, but I've been urging her, and look how happy the dumplings are for it.

The Bombay-born chef of Leitaria Montalvao knew I was coming and specially prepared an off-menu dopiaza just for me - perhaps the first ever cooked in Portugal.


None of them know my background. I'm just the exuberant American who comes around. But I'm eating extremely well here in Setúbal, pretty much the Utica of Portugal. No one understands how great this place is, including the natives. The small community of American immigrants sticks to shiny joints on the main drag.

I'm the only chowhound in this entire town. Perhaps a bit lonely, but I can't complain, as I'm like a kid running freely around a chocolate factory. Still nowhere near bored, and I've scarcely made a dent in the options of a town with a population smaller than Green Bay, WI.

Dr. Becky Science Videos and the Mystery of Dark Matter

There are vast numbers of people of varying qualification explaining science news on YouTube. Especially astro-physics, which attracts more laymen attention than, say, molecular biology.

Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford who goes by "Dr. Becky" (because of course she does), has blasted right by all of them. When a given piece of astronomy news hits, all the YouTubers cover it, but Dr. Becky's channel inevitably produces terser, cleaner, clearer, saner treatment. And her graphics and charts are beautifully selected.

Those eyeballs don't glue themselves, however, so Dr. Becky compensates for lack of clickbait hyperbole via general exuberance and cuteness (every video is followed by a blooper reel where, tee-hee, she mispronounces, like, Chandrasekhar or nucleosynthesis).

Me, I disregard the spoonful of sugar and go straight for the medicine. It's great to have astrophysics news directly from someone in that community. You can really get a sense of the momentary consensus.

To bury the lead, it's impossible to overstate the importance of dark matter as a scientific mystery. A mere 5% of the universe is composed of material we've observed or theorized. The rest of it...who knows?

We're working like gangbusters to figure it out, but you can't exactly stay abreast of news because there is no news, per se. We know literally nothing about dark matter because it's only inferred. If your husband often comes home late from work but his office phone line pepetually goes to voicemail at 5pm, you can be reasonably certain there's another woman...but only as a theoretical notion, not an actual person. It's exactly like that.

Dark matter represents a scientific crossroads that will be remembered as long as there are humans to remember. It's a much higher-level mystery than the rest. It's worth taking your vitamins and losing a few pounds to improve your odds of finding out in this lifetime.

Naturally, a splinter group has arisen to insist that dark matter is not real, and that it's just that we fundamentally misunderstand gravity. They propose that gravity, unlike other basic physics laws, varies in different circumstances, and they're hellbent on finding anomalous gravity situations, each of which sparks headlines about the death of dark matter.

The leading cadre are the MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) supporters, who apparently just got a boost from some strange gravitational lensing results, as explained by another YouTuber, Sabine Hossenfelder (who at this point is more science explainer than scientist, and she was never directly connected to astrophysics). Dr. Becky hasn't covered the gravitational lensing paper, so I suspect Hossenfelder's enthusiasm was premature. But we'll see. I'm MOND skeptical, but nobody is dismissing it out of hand.

Two Dr. Becky videos to get you started:
How do we know how much dark matter there is in the Universe? - a great 16 minute tutorial to bring you up to date.

The search for dark matter on Jupiter - an extremely kooky proposition, since dark matter is normally assumed to be way out there, and certainly not in our neighborhood.