Four-flour pancakes

I was watching an old Aunt Jemima pancake mix commercial which touted it as being made from four flours: wheat, corn, rye and rice, and I decided to see what pancakes made them are like. I started with this wheat flour pancake recipe, but tweaked some things, and made them this morning. Pretty good. Perhaps more hearty than standard pancakes, and the texture was a bit more crunchy, which I liked.

• 1/2 cup of wheat flour

• 1/2 cup of whole-grain rye flour

• 1/2 cup of corn flour

• 1/2 cup of (non-glutinous) rice flour

• 4 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

• 4 teaspoons white sugar

• 1/3 teaspoon salt

• 1 2/3 cup milk

• 4 tablespoons melted butter

• 1 large egg

• 4 teaspoons apple sauce (or skip and use 1 1/3 egg, if you have some use for the remaining 2/3 of the egg)

• cooking spray (I used canola spray)

• optional: chocolate chips

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients. Mix well. Heat pan to medium heat. Spray with oil. Put a big serving spoon of mix on the pan. If you want to add chocolate chips, drop them in on top. Wait until the edges are getting dry. (It was surprisingly fast, about 1-2 minutes, and they would burn easily when I wasn’t fast enough.) Flip and brown the other side (again, it’s fast).

Yields 9-10 not very large pancakes. The frying took half an hour with two pans in simultaneous use. I measured out all the ingredients the night before and pre-mixed the dry ingredients so I could be fast in the morning before a pickleball game.

Art, food and drink

The following seems very plausible to me. Even if I enjoyed Sheckley's fiction more than Tolstoy's, I have reason to read Tolstoy's novels because they are better aesthetically, and my greater enjoyment of Sheckley would simply poorly reflect on my tastes. (There are also aretaic reasons, in that Tolstoy's work is more likely to lead to the kinds of insights into the human condition that help make one be a better person.) Likewise, even if I enjoy Star Trek episodes more than Kurosawa films, I have reason to watch the Kurosawa films because they are better aesthetically.

But is the same true in respect of food and drink? Suppose I enjoy sweet tea more than a fine wine. Do I have aesthetic reason to drink the fine wine, simply because it is aesthetically better, even though I don't enjoy it as much? Or suppose I enjoy the taste of a Big Mac over an artfully prepared steak. Do I have aesthetic reason to eat the steak? Here, I want to bracket reasons of health, social justice and the like, and even reasons having to do with the potential for developing a future enjoyment: I just want to focus on the immediate aesthetic reasons.

Here is a conjecture: the analogue of the Tolstoy/Sheckley and Kurosawa/Star Trek thesis is much less plausible in the case of food and drink. It seems plausible that if I really prefer a Big Mac over the fine steak, and they are equally (un)healthy, etc., I have no reason to shell out the money for the steak. This is puzzling.

Here is a possible resolution. If I enjoy a Big Mac more than a fine steak, maybe this is because my sensory apparatus lacks acuity, and so I am unable to experience those respects of the steak which make it aesthetically better than the Big Mac. And so I have no aesthetic reason to eat the steak in place of the Big Mac, just as the deaf person has no aesthetic reason to have Mozart playing in her room. But assuming I am of normal intelligence and literate, I have the relevant acuity of sensory apparatus to experience those aspects of Tolstoy that are superior to the work of Sheckley, even if I do not have a particular enjoyment of these aspects. I find this resolution implausible on the Big Mac side: why couldn't it be that I do experience those aspects of the steak that make it superior to the Big Mac, but I simply don't appreciate them?

Maybe I should bite the bullet and conclude that I have aesthetic reason to prefer the steak to the Big Mac, and the fine wine to the sweet tea, even though I do not like them as much? This would be an uncomfortable conclusion for me, as I don't want to live by it. Maybe I could still say that I have non-aesthetic defeaters (the steak and the wine are more expensive; the wine might be addictive).

(In case anybody wants to know, I do actually enjoy Kurosawa more than Star Trek and Tolstoy more than Sheckley, but I enjoy Star Trek and Sheckley a lot, and they can be more relaxing on many occasions. I prefer a really good chicken fried steak to a Big Mac. I do not know if I've ever tasted a fine wine, but I suspect I'd prefer a decent sweet tea.)

Advertising

In an earlier post, I went after sexual stuff in advertising. It's time to move on to food. The following argument is valid:

1. It is wrong to intentionally make someone feel inappropriate hunger. (Premise)
2. Some food advertising intentionally makes people feel inappropriate hunger. (Premise)
3. Some food advertising is wrong. (By (1) and (2))

Inappropriate hunger is basically hunger when one is not in need of food.[note 1] I don't know for sure that (2) is true, but it seems plausible—certainly food advertising can make one feel inappropriate hunger, and it would be surprising if this weren't intetional. Premise (1) is surely close to the truth at least. Maybe it needs some qualifier like "prima facie", or maybe there is a lack of consent condition that needs to be added (it seems plausible that it is permissible to do medical research where inappopriate hunger is induced in consenting subjects). But I suspect that even if one appropriately qualifies (1), this will not affect the application here. That something like (1) holds seems to be a clear consequence of the fact that either hunger in general or at least inappropriate hunger is a bad.

I suppose few people dispute (3). The likely health consequences of some food advertising are sufficient to establish (3). But what's interesting is that this argument provides another reason, a non-consequentialistic one, to object to the advertising.

There are analogies to other kinds of induction of desire in advertising. But not all induction of desire is problematic. Induction of an appropriate desire is in itself unproblematic. Thus charity advertising that induces a desire to help the needy is not problematic (assuming there isn't something else wrong there), since a desire to help the needy is appropriate.

Let me end with a question: Suppose that advertisers limited themselves to morally licit advertising: no induction of inappropriate emotions, no false statements (and that includes not making statements about your product being better than the competitor unless you believe it on good grounds), etc. How well would advertising work then?