Beer

Last week I had the opportunity to taste for the first time two beers produced in the area. On Wednesday I went out with some friends to a micro-brewery that's been operating for a couple of years now and tried their wheat beer. On Saturday, we were invited to a very interesting tour of Nazareth; when that was done we found ourselves with some friends at a wonderful restaurant that served, among many others, Taybeh beer.

One of these two beers was atrocious and the other one was really good, which led me to think that I really should blog about the experience. I kept thinking about it as the "Zionist" beer vs. the "Palestinian" beer. I was already to make all sorts of analogies between the two beers and their methods of production, maybe trying to stretch the analogy to encompass a larger statement about the entrepreneurial culture in each of the peoples, natch, the very culture of the two peoples.

Sometimes, I'm just full of crap.

I got pulled into the trap of seeing everything around here, including food and drink, through the lens of national conflict. Beer wouldn't be the first victim of this distortion. Some idiots on both sides have been waging an ongoing battle of falafel. Yes, falafel. Little balls made out of garbanzo beans, deep-fried in oil and served in a pita. A battle of that. Who can make the bigger falafel portion and so get into Guiness's Book of World Records.

I understand about national pride and looking for ways to bring honor to your nation, but falafel? Really? What's next, changing the words of the American anthem? And the burners red glare, the chickpea balls bursting in air. Not only does it kill the metric, it really doesn't have that ring of authenticity, does it?

Silly, I know. So why is the drive of nationalistic politics so seductive? No, not seductive, that implies that there was some persuasion involved. So ingrained. I didn't see it coming and it got me good. It might have been Albert Einstein that said, "I don't know what fish talk about, but it isn't water," and that is the best explanation I can give. This nationalistic mumbo-jumbo works on all of us because it is so pervasive. It just permeates every aspect of our living to where we don't even notice it. Like fish and water, it has become part of the context in which we live, defining so many of our choices without us even being aware of it.

So last week I went out twice with friends and had two different beers. From one of those beers I'll happily have a second and a third glass. From the other, let's just say that the glass I already had was worth three: first, last, and one too many. And no, I'm not going to tell you which was which.

Just to close the subject, some more words of wisdom from W.C. Fields:

I never drink water. Fish f*** in it.