Farm-fresh lard

When I was a teenager (when I knew everything), I read in the paper that saccharine caused cancer in laboratory rats. I remember asking my mother, "How come they always replace something that's bad for you with something that kills you?"

I see it over and over. Butter? Mildly bad for you unless fresh. Margarine? Lethal. Lard? Not horribly bad when farm-fresh. Crisco? Lethal.

I saw this contradiction in non-culinary areas as well. In the 90s, all of a sudden Looney Tunes were "bad for you," said the disability rights advocates. After all, a show with a pig who stutters and a bald man with a speech impediment could not possibly send a healthy message. So what were the Looney Tunes replaced with on Saturdays? Pinky & the Brain, who every episode plotted to take over the world. Global dictatorship sends a healthier message than Tweety Bird?

I thought of all of this yesterday when I purchased a container of surprisingly delicious "sugar-free cookies" at a local bakery. Most of these tasty treats contained chocolate. What else they contained, I shudder to ask. I'm guessing granulated cancer. In fact, that bakery has saved us quite a bit of money. Now, instead of buying mouse traps, my wife and I spread the cookies all around the house.

Isn't it the same with music?

Were the 19th-century Romantic interpretations of Bach really so much worse for us than the 20th-century Antiromantic ones? Were Casals's cello suites further from Bach than Herreweghe's cantatas? Both men reaked of their era. But Casals reaked also of a profound musician. Casals's Bach was real, just like butter is real. Schweitzer's Bach was real; he was willing to let poetic feeling into his playing. Is Bach not poetic, even the Art of Fugue (especially the Art of Fugue)?

Think of how many historic buildings were razed in the 1950s and '60s, replaced with unmitigated ugliness that the architects professed was "better." An interesting comparison can be made in Boston between Old City Hall and New City Hall. The façade of the former is still extant. The reason it's extant is that it was so beautiful that even the barbarians of the 1960s didn't have the nerve to tear it down. So to this day, you can walk down School St., look at Old City Hall, then walk on Tremont one block to Government Center and gaze upon the visual cacophony which is New City Hall. That's why pharmacies in Boston sell very little ipecac. All we Bostonians need to do is to look at those two buildings in quick succession, and our system is instantly cleansed.

There you have it. Sugar vs. saccharine. Clapboard vs. aluminum siding. Oak chairs vs. plastic chairs. Real vs. fake. Beautiful vs. ugly. But please let's admit that that's what it is. Let's not try to say that ugly is "better for us" that beautiful.