On Jun 10, 2:27 pm, Peter Brooks > wrote:
> On Jun 10, 1:18 pm, Paul Grieg > wrote:
>
> > It was simple in that he didn't like anyone after Brahms, and even in
> > him he detected "the sound of machines". He preferred Mozart and
> > Beethoven. But he was forever bolting down his cheese sandwiches and
> > rushing to Cambridge classisal music performances. See if he'd got out
> > his cookbook he'd have missed the music, thereby replacing the
> > essential with the trivial.
>
> Cookery is essential, music not.

Food is essential, Jamie Oliver is not.

> Somebody who despises food is
> probably a smoker or suffers from a lack of taste brought on by
> chronic olfactory dysfunction. I don't think Wittgenstein had the
> excuse of being a smoker.

I don't think he despised food, just wanted to make as little fuss
about it as possible.

> He went to the same school, though, as
> Hitler, who ended up suffering from vegetarianism (and was also a non-
> smoker), another form of food-hatred, so there might be a school
> related connection.

Vegetarianism is nothing like a disease! There's quite a lot of
evidence that vegetarians living longer than omnivores, and little
showing the opposite. Certainly -- more evidence needed.

> We haven't discussed the philosophy of cookery here much.

Epicurus viewed food simply as a means remove the pain caused by
hunger. “Plain dishes offer the same pleasure as a luxurious table,
when the pain that comes from want is taken away.” Epicurus viewed the
want (or need as we often define it today) to gain wealth as unnatural
and unnecessary. Although wealth can certainly be seen as a tool for
gaining pleasure, the pain that is associated with it (the loss of
freedom, time with loved ones, and time to think) created greater pain
and anxiety than it cured.

> Music ought to be an accompaniment to good digestion and somebody who
> inflicts a hasty cheese sandwich on his tum before a concert is very
> likely doing digestion of both a disservice.

The rushing down the cheese sandwich was probably a bad guess. Maybe
his days were better arranged than that. Cheese sandwich at leisure
followed by a stroll to the concert hall was more likely, as he didn't
seem overly inflicted with teaching, administration or 'paper
writing' duties.