h76CH36

Sushi and Japanese food in general strike me as the antithesis of French food. The reason being:

The best French food begins with, to quote Anthony Bourdain, 'the nasty bits'; the cheapest cuts of meat, whichever staple veg is in season, left over wine... and then, through the alchemy of heat, saucing, garnishing, and patience, the melange is transformed into something magical.

The best Japanese food begins with the best possible ingredients and then celebrates them in their simplicity. Not to say that the chefs don't do a lot of work, quite the opposite. Still, the ingredients speak for themselves and don't require the degree of fussing, alchemy, or the myriad additional ingredients used in French food to facilitate 'the transformation'.

Why do I mention all of this? The reason is that sushi (specifically in the West) seems to be under siege by those who want to treat it like French food. They want to take the screamingly fresh fish and perfectly cook/seasoned rice and turn it into a deep fried roulade gussied up with multiple sauces and piles of garnishes. Everything that makes Japanese food appealing (to me at least) is lost.

How do you feel about all of this?

So a second hand account written 30 years after they guy supposedly died is not good enough for you?

Hi Paul,

Many of my colleagues are neurobiologists. They often claim that neurosciences will make psychology obsolete. Their logic seems to be that both disciplines are trying to answer the same questions (generally, how the mind works) but psychology looks 'down' from behavior while neuroscience looks 'up' through physiology and chemistry. They argue that the behavior-based approach is difficult to decouple from politics, and thus psychology often suffers from many of the problems that plague the social sciences in general. They also point to the recent explosion of the neurobiology literature and funding. I've noticed this myself in my weekly lit-reviews of PNAS, although it's not my field.

What's your take on all of this? As neuroscience continues to erode the question from the 'other end', can psychology remain relevant? What happens when physiology, genetics, and chemistry can be used to answer basic questions about human behavior better than psychology?

And your thoughts on the hygiene hypothesis?

Sounds like an excellent candidate for reality TV.