MIXING IT UP

Rex Burress

It could be concluded that we live in a mixed-up world if you dwell on current events. The political state of affairs could add validity to that belief, just as the biological confusion resulting from the shuffling of species from one continent to another creates a mixture of life on earth.

Animal and plant taxonomical status gets mixed up, too, when classification is constantly shuffled. Mixing up old time naturalists by changing challenging scientific names adds to the mixture of logistic detail.

Biologist Wes Dempsey said: “Just when we old timers have spent a long time just learning to say “Zauschneria latifolium” for California Fuchsia, the name-splitters change it to “Epilobium canum” in the Onagraceae Family!” The new name may still be valid, but don't bet on it. What is truth when facts change?

The mix up is even more pronounced within mushroom species. The bracket fungi “Turkey Tail” genus has been changed three times, from Polyporus to Coriolus to Trametes. The Flat-topped Agaricus, A. meleagris, was changed to A. praeclaresquamosus! Now why did they do that to us?

Fortunately, scientific names have not been changed as much in the animal kingdom. Even the complex array of insect names has remained relatively stable. It is taxing, though, for scientists to find enough new names for new species since new finds are being made all the time. Carlous Linnaeus, Father of Classification, would be amazed!

We know that the human species has been plenty mixed up ever since ancient man developed in prehistoric times and eventually became spread around the world, intermingling with other races. If you don't believe it just take a walk through downtown San Francisco and note the nationalities. How did the different human forms and different languages happen and why?

The mixing of different foods to make one dish is quite a mix up, too. Just take a look at the ingredients used in a recipe to make something as simple as a soup. It's enough to intimidate a rookie cook! Just take a look in any Wednesday M-R food page and see the list of ingredients for one recipe! No wonder cupboards, shelves, and refrigerators, adorn most kitchens for storage--and pantries!

In my grandmother's farm house in the Missouri township of Black Oak, a large pantry was attached to the small kitchen where food combinations were organized and cooked on a large, black, wood-burning stove. From that kitchen assemblage, a table-full of food was prepared to feed a dozen relatives at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ma would take me into the pantry and pluck a pickle from the great crock of transposed cucumbers for me to snack on.

On the pantry shelves were various jars containing cooking ingredients as complex as a chemist's cart, but the all-important hand of the housewife could put it all together.

Food stuffs were also stored in the storm cellar just outside the kitchen door. There were gleaming jars of vegetables row upon row, laboriously gleaned from a large garden and preserved by pressure cooking. The shining treasures sat on the shelves like space-travel bodies, waiting for the seal to open. Meat, and of course, fruit for the fruit jars, also sat there in the dark awaiting resurrection.

As an artist, I have long experimented with mixing paint to create particular hue's of color. From a dozen essential primary and secondary colors, hundreds of combinations can be mixed to “get it right” in a painting. For example, cobalt blue, raw umber and titanium white can make delightful grays--the bridge in art. Even so, nature can have a thousand variations to the artist's one.

Mankind has mixed it up good when it comes to dogs and cats. The mixture of breeds devised from the wolf is incredible as revealed at one of those dog shows. But even so, through evolution, millions of species have been tried and altered in the name of survival.

“Through evolution, man has learned to walk in an upright position, but his eyes still swing

from limb to limb.”

“Space is not a good place to mix foods because as soon as you take something

out of the package, it becomes a flying object.”

--Chris Hadfield