Roast Boned Rolled Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb (Farce Double)

January 7, 2011 10:47 AM

Writer Harry Mathews' epically challenging recipe for Roast Boned Rolled Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb (Farce Double) in text and audio form.
posted by Joe Beese (42 comments total)

I had a Hot Pocket for lunch.
posted by MrMoonPie at 10:55 AM on January 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

Pics or it was never prepared.
posted by aught at 10:56 AM on January 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

I had leftover cold pizza. Screw that recipe, indeed.
posted by axiom at 10:56 AM on January 7, 2011

It is lured to the surface with a skein of tiny beads that resemble the larvae on which it preys, then bludgeoned with an underwater boomerang.

You're pulling my leg.
posted by BeerFilter at 10:59 AM on January 7, 2011

Yeah, I'm called bullshit on this recipe. Finely-crafted satire.
posted by dammitjim at 11:02 AM on January 7, 2011

(I have to confess Mathews is one of those writers I haven't read much but whenever I come across descriptions of his writings I feel like he's an invented author in some Jorge Luis Borges-like story.)
posted by aught at 11:03 AM on January 7, 2011 [5 favorites]

The words "postmodern" and "literature" are in the url.
posted by HumanComplex at 11:04 AM on January 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's a lot of telling me to do things, and then subsequently telling me to have already done other things. Time's arrow, Mr. Mathews. Time's arrow.
posted by penduluum at 11:06 AM on January 7, 2011

Yeah, this is part of the syllabus of a Postmodernism class. From the class's home page:

We will study examples of postmodernist literary theory, fiction, and poetry against the dual backgrounds of early-twentieth-century avant-garde and modernist work, on the one hand, and recent work in these complementary fields, on the other, moving toward a more comprehensive grasp of the literature and culture of our own day.

posted by dammitjim at 11:07 AM on January 7, 2011

Spoilsports.
posted by barrett caulk at 11:10 AM on January 7, 2011

See also: The Postmodernism Generator, linked from the syllabus. Reload the page a few times, watch the Postmodernism.
posted by dammitjim at 11:10 AM on January 7, 2011

Yeah, I'm called bullshit on this recipe. Finely-crafted satire.

Nothing gets past you guys.
posted by empath at 11:11 AM on January 7, 2011 [27 favorites]

Wow, the po-faced comments in this thread are almost funnier than the actual recipe.
posted by nasreddin at 11:12 AM on January 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I'm called bullshit on this recipe. Finely-crafted satire.

Did the fact that it spends 10 paragraphs toward the end describing the plot of a song you're supposed to sing during a 5 hour break tip you off?
posted by burnmp3s at 11:13 AM on January 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

this is a fake, the cat is jus takin off the mask
posted by Greg Nog at 11:15 AM on January 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

Hey wait, that Postmodernism Generator thing is on your site, empath. Wheels within wheels, man.
posted by dammitjim at 11:16 AM on January 7, 2011

Wish I'd figured that out before taking that taxi to East Queens to shop from the clay purveyors.

Seriously, I was fooled. But then I fell for the cat putting on the rabbit mask too.
posted by Joe Beese at 11:16 AM on January 7, 2011

Oh wait, no, never mind. Similar user names. Carry on.
posted by dammitjim at 11:17 AM on January 7, 2011

Harry Mathews isn't "post-modern"; he's Oulipo. Just add constraint!

I particularly enjoyed his Cigarettes and his My Life In CIA
posted by chavenet at 11:19 AM on January 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

I love that story. Lots of good stuff in The Human Country; "Their Words, for You" is really well done.

And Cigarettes is just a straight-up fantastic novel.
posted by kenko at 11:22 AM on January 7, 2011

Mathew's Tlooth is awesome, especially the bizarre multi-rider bicycle the narrator helps build to escape from a Gulag across Taiga.

He is also the only "official" American member of Oulipo whose ranks included the incomparable Georges Perec.
posted by Chrischris at 11:22 AM on January 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

I call shenanigans.

You can't get cooking clay in Queens, and he didn't mention that you have to roll your fish paste with a wooden pin wrapped in mistletoe.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 11:25 AM on January 7, 2011

You all shouldn't joke, my grandpa drowned in a public marinating trough.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:43 AM on January 7, 2011 [9 favorites]

Mathews is also the author of a great sex scene.
posted by kenko at 11:44 AM on January 7, 2011

Writer Harry Mathews' epically challenging recipe

Just popping to note that for some reason, every single time I see this on the front page, I parse it as, "Writer Harry Mathews' ethically challenging recipe..." Must be an artifact of my brief days as an evangelizing born-again vegetarian, twenty-plus years ago.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:45 AM on January 7, 2011

"Two hours before, you will have refrigerated 1 cup of the heaviest cream available. Here, of course, access to a cow is a blessing."

Why yes, yes I do believe it is.
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 11:47 AM on January 7, 2011

If you actually read the "recipe" and get to this line ("The connection of this song with farce double lies, I was told, in an analogy between the stars and the holes in the lid of the roasting pit.") and don't break out laughing...

I think it was at that point that I realized, without being able to put it into words, that somehow this "recipe" was making fun of me and anyone else who actually reads it.
posted by slide at 11:53 AM on January 7, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just popping to note that for some reason, every single time I see this on the front page, I parse it as, "Writer Harry Mathews' ethically challenging recipe..."

Whereas I misread one of the first sentences of the piece as "It demands some patience, but you will be abundantly rewarded for your penis."
posted by kenko at 11:56 AM on January 7, 2011

My favorite part:

The sealing of the pouch is preposterously difficult. I have tried it six times; each time, ineluctable burstage has ensued. Even the nimble-fingered, thimble-thumbed seamstresses of La Tour Lambert find it hard. In their floodlit corner of the festal cave, they are surrounded by a sizable choir of wailing boys whose task is to aggravate their intention to a pitch of absolute, sustained concentration. If the miracle always occurs, it is never less than miraculous.

There really is nothing like a sizeable choir of wailing boys to focus the mind.
posted by bearwife at 11:57 AM on January 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

No, the ethically challenging recipe is ortolan.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:03 PM on January 7, 2011

Congrats to all you Sherlock Holmeses, and here I was disinfecting my bidet to prepare it for the marinade. Nothing gets past you guys.
posted by scalefree at 12:12 PM on January 7, 2011 [8 favorites]

stuffing the quenelles with banana peanut butter is not appropriate.

This was the line that convinced me it was fiction. Right up til there I was with him, but when he states this I knew it had to be a joke. C'mon, who doesn't like them some fish balls with banana peanut butter interiors? For those of us on New Years diets, its a combination of the fish course and the dessert course together, skipping right over the main course!
posted by Runes at 12:19 PM on January 7, 2011

I mentioned this misuse of plastic to a native of La Tour Lambert. My interlocutor, as if appealing for divine aid, leaned back, lifted up his eyes, and stretched forth his arms. He was standing at the edge of a marinating trough; its edges were slick with marinade. One foot shot forward, he teetered for one moment on the brink, and then down he went. Dripping oil, encrusted with fragrant herbs; he emerged briskly and burst into tears.

Almost as good as Anthony Bourdain's visit to Narnia. Almost.
posted by scalefree at 12:29 PM on January 7, 2011 [4 favorites]

Piss: taken.
posted by briank at 12:45 PM on January 7, 2011

Oh, c'mon. Fish quenelles in a stuffing? Why, they would fall apart!
posted by cabingirl at 12:46 PM on January 7, 2011

Vincent Price could have cooked this.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:47 PM on January 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Now THAT's a recipe.
posted by SLC Mom at 12:47 PM on January 7, 2011

there is no other way

Also: Tlooth
posted by mrgrimm at 1:06 PM on January 7, 2011

Congrats to all you Sherlock Holmeses, and here I was disinfecting my bidet to prepare it for the marinade. Nothing gets past you guys.
posted by scalefree

'The Adventure of the Engineers Thumb'
posted by clavdivs at 1:17 PM on January 7, 2011

I read this a l o n g time ago (Granta? I think) and it's sat at he back of my head every single time I read anything about cooking. Reading it again is like finding an old friend who happens to be a great cook.
Thanks.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:49 PM on January 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

scalefree yoo tuk mai cwote rite frum yunder mee.
posted by disillusioned at 2:15 PM on January 7, 2011

Harry Mathews is fantastic. Also, not the only American member, as they consider him the second American member after Duchamp. Also, wrote The Orchard, about Georges Perec after he died, an incredibly beautiful piece about friendship.
posted by taltalim at 3:31 PM on January 8, 2011 [1 favorite]