A reader in France sent the above photo accompanied by this brief note:
This evening I found the attached special offer supplement among the pieces of junk items in our mailbox, and I thought it would be interesting to send you a picture of it. It’s not that this has replaced the special offers from grocery stores around Christmas, but it’s definitely a sign of the changes this country has been undergoing.
And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Tesco were doing the same in the UK for the upcoming ramadamadingdong, to use Vlad’s nickname for the Islamic fasting and bombathon month.
From reading a few ‘been there’ accounts of Ramadan, I’ve wondered if it ever results in food casualties. Turns out it often does. This is from 2012, in Qatar:
Ramadan and Overeating
It’s hard to believe that anyone living in a desert would be advised to go without water for that long – i.e., the hours between sunrise and sunset. But this political system evidently demands just that. No wonder its adherents in other countries seem mentally unbalanced as they watch infidels eating and drinking while they fast and also try to live a modern, stressed life.
I prefer the old reliable western religions’ methods of fasting and abstinence. In the former you are encouraged to drink water during the period of your fast. Children, old people and invalids did NOT fast.
Abstinence, mostly gone now, was the rule during Advent and Lent: 2 small meals a day and a larger one which wasn’t to exceed the sum of both small meals. Wednesdays and Fridays, one abstained from meat. What is of current interest re this approach to food is that it’s now considered a healthy way to live in the midst of overconsumption, obesity, etc. – intermittent fasting is now ‘in’.
I have a few memories of living in a Catholic culture before all that went by the wayside in favor of liberation…e.g., a distinct recollection of my mother rebelling at the thought of eating another egg: “I’m going to cackle soon if I have to boil another one of the d***ed things!”
While children didn’t have to follow these rules, they were encouraged, along with the grown-ups, to “give up” something or to perform some special deed for the penitential season. One year during Lent my mother decided to give up what she referred to as “gossiping”. It like to killed her…not being a conduit for the neighborhood news was far more onerous than a diet of eggs and cheese. I learned that year the rule for when Lent is officially over: at noon on Saturday. I learned it because that’s when my mother picked up the phone with joy and celebration 😉
Oh, in addition to Advent and Lent, there were Ember Days… for Catholics and Anglicans at any rate. They’ve probably vanished along with those longer penitential exercises.
The Jewish food laws weren’t really abandoned by the Christ followers; they were simply transmuted. In both, the over-arching attitude of periodic restraint about food and manners (what was permissible and when) was informed by a ‘higher’ good – i.e, the reminder that we were more than merely flesh and appetite, that the body was a vessel.
I think the early Muslims did the same thing: took up these spiritual notions about ‘clean’ foods, about fasting, etc., from the Jewish and Christian communities around them, and modified the rules for their own use. As with most extremes, there is no real underlying wisdom of the body to guide behavior. I say that simply based on the rules about water.
As for modern Christians, we may need a new rubric. Having thrown out everything back in the 60s, we will also have to find some new wineskins to replace the old musty and rigid ones of ‘liberation’.
Well after i moved to london i went to my local tesco and was a bit shocked.I could find only 1 (!) type of pasta being sold,of a very bad quality.Yet there are around 10 types of rice and all the crap the indians and pakistanis eat.Like a massive section.Yet in that area white european people live too: british,polish etc.I understand that the demand forms the offer etc.,but I AM IN EUROPE,why do I have to choose where to live just because I can’t get my food in certain areas?
Sounds like a business opportunity to me! Start importing a) good pasta from Italy, b) pasta machinery, and c) commercial scale equipment and make your own brand of pasta to sell.
I usually get flyers in the door for Ramadan from my local Subway in London, which is halal. It has certificates on the wall from the Irish Halal Association.
Morrisons in the UK are being very accommodating this Ramadan too. Shame, because they were supposed to be one of the very few supermarket chains not offering unlabeled halal meat.
They too have now lost my business:
https://www.morrisons.co.uk/Offers/Categories/Ramadan/
I have heard it argued somewhere, that if humanity eradicated crime and war, violence and hatred, and disposed of all weapons and lived in universal harmony, respect, tolerance and love; if a hostile invasion came from outer space we would be completely defenceless against it. Probably not understand it, and try to reason with these aliens as they were mowing down the human race.
I feel that there is a parallel here to our present day situation. We have rendered ourselves defenceless with our principles, against murdering aliens from here on Earth, intent on cutting down all opposition and exterminating everything that we have created.
Take a walk in any town and see the disastrous changes, look at the international news on the net.
Just today:
-Converts to Islam, their first thought to learn how to make bombs and blow up non-Muslims.
-Schools in Africa attacked by Islamists and every teacher and pupil killed.
-Riots and murder in Muslim countries.
-Christians murdered and persecuted in Egypt and elsewhere.
-Buddhist temple bombed in India.
-Our leaders supporting Muslim revolts and supplying arms and training.
There is much more every single day, every time the same alien force of Islam, cutting down all opposition and exterminating every thing that they choose to find offensive. It is spreading and worsening while a chorus of our duely elected leaders sings that all that we have to do is understand them and their message of peace and love.
Tesco.
Lol.
Do you know who founded it and who the heir the fortune actually is?
Shirley Porter Heiress.
Jack Cohen founder.
pile it high sell it cheap–Tesco Motto.
Porter is also a very interesting case. Kinda like Mark Rich, but vastly more powerful in British politics than she deserves. She was the Guvner of Westminster, hiding out in the ME for billions in back taxes.
Shirley Cohen-
The family lived at 7 Gunton Road, Hackney, a former council house in the East End of London that Jacob had purchased from Hackney Council with the help of a £1,000 council loan. – Wikipedia.
Would be interested to know what facilitated the sale of the council house and taxpayer as lender, presumably this was before the right to buy legislation of the nineteen eighties.
Time to repost my comment about Channel 4 in the UK broadcasting the call to prayer this Ramadan. Are we already in a muslim country? Shocked to discover that your local Subway is halal. Surely this should be challenged. It is becoming madder by the moment. Most people in Britain, including the RSPCA, consider that halal slaughtering is cruel and barbaric. So why are we putting up with it? All our European standards are going by the board to accommodate these people. Kate Humble was in Australia the other day talking to a sheep farmer who was transporting live animals to the Middle East where they are slaughtered in an equally cruel and barbaric fashion. The exporter just denied that this was taking place. He didn’t really care about the sheep, just laying his hands on all the oil money.