“La Leche Cuajada De La Martona” Marks the First of Many
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Introduction “La Leche Cuajada de la Martona” marks the first of many collaborations between the Argentines Jorges Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, and the pamphlet, a 01 broad yet succinct look at some of yogurt’s various incarnations throughout world history, seems a strange one to consider amid their famously imaginative works. The two writers, who met in 1931 through author and publisher Victoria Ocampo and her influential magazine, Sur, were then in quite different stages of their careers—Borges was publishing often in various journals, and Bioy Casares was penning fiction that he would later renounce. Neither had yet written any of the works for which he would be best remembered, and their relations with one another still sat somewhere between mentorship and friendship (Bioy Casares was seventeen years Borges’ junior). It was not until, in 1935, Bioy Casares’ Borges and Bioy Casares used imaginative uncle, owner of Argentina’s largest dairy reason to imbue the pamphlet with a sense of company, La Martona, commissioned from his great possibility. Through use of mythology, nephew a “semi-scientific, semi-commercial a wide historical and geographic scope, and pamphlet about yogurt” that the two would the language of contemporary microbiology, 02 meet to seriously discuss a collaboration. Bioy the work teems with images of other worlds: 03 Casares was to be paid sixteen pesos per page, humans inhale entire societies, God gives and, as Borges was struggling financially at food directly to his subjects, and (apparently) the time, he invited his mentor to his father’s real people live to superhuman ages. This house in Buenos Aires’ Las Flores province dairy-centric pamphlet, a commission whose so they could write the pamphlet together. As backstory is now something of a legend, had Bioy Casares tells it, the project was so boring even then hinted at the boundlessness its that they could not help using the time to authors would soon be exploring. Borges and fantasize about novels and short stories that Bioy Casares, each on the brink of producing they would one day write together. works that continue to influence the In his preface to Bioy Casares’ 1940 imaginations of posterity, had gotten the best novella, The Invention of Morel, Borges of their boredom. praises the story as an exemplary piece of “reasoned imagination.” One could say Regarding treatment of the text, I the inverse about “La Leche Cuajada de la have left the Spanish as it appears in Emecé Martona.” Unable to tread outright into their Editores’ Museo: Textos inéditos (Buenos preferred realms of whimsy and fantasy, Aires, 2002), leaving the erratic capitalizations intact and letting the recipes remain vague I owe thanks to Bryce Maxey for and inept. I have brought the style of the helping me to obtain the original text and to English into more readable form, and I spent Samantha Beardsley and Michelle Ishikawa some time working with the recipes to bring for their assistance regarding the recipes. them up to speed and permit less room for 04 error. I have also appended (in English) a Brandon Wilner 05 recipe for homemade yogurt, as the text is Chicago, IL primarily concerned with yogurt’s probiotic February 26, 2013 benefits, and all of the recipes require baking, which kills the bacteria. I vacillated on how to translate each instance of the titular leche cuajada—or whether to do so at all. Simply substituting “yogurt” did not seem favorable in each case, the literal “curdled milk” evokes images of rottenness, and “fermented milk” or “cultured milk” would be tiresome to read repeatedly. I have chosen, therefore, to use these terms, as well as a few others (“acidophilus milk,” “yogurt cultures,” or sometimes just “milk”), to best suit the context of each particular use. La Martona’s Yogurt Elías Metchnikoff Ilya Metchnikoff Elías Metchnikoff nació en Ivanowca Ilya Metchnikoff was born in Ivanovka, (Rusia) en 1845. Fue Profesor de Zoología en Russia in 1845. He was a professor of zoology Odesa en 1870. En 1890 entró al laboratorio de in Odessa in 1870. In 1890, he started working 08 Pasteur, del que era subdirector en tiempo de in the Pasteur Institute, of which he was the 09 su muerte. Conquistó celebridad universal por assistant director for the rest of his life. He su teoría de la fagocitosis, que revolucionó la achieved universal celebrity for his theory of medicina, por su teoría de la vejez, según la phagocytosis, which revolutionized medicine; cual esta última depende de causas fisiológicas for his theory of old age, according to which y patógenas—intoxicaciones intestinales—y aging depends on reasons physiological and es, por tanto, evitable por su fórmula para la pathogenic—intestinal infections—and is, preparación de la maravillosa leche cuajada therefore, prevented by his eponymous recipe que lleva su nombre. En 1908 obtuvo el for the marvelous cultured milk. In 1908, he premio Nobel. was awarded the Nobel Prize. Miembro de una familia perseguida A member of a family pursued by por muertes anticipadas, vivió 85 años. early deaths, he lived to be eighty-five years Aunque no fue a la guerra, estuvo en el old. Although he did not go to war, he was in tributo de vidas que dio la Humanidad para the death toll that gave humanity its horribly su fiesta horriblemente misteriosa, del año mysterious holiday of 1914. His group of 14. El grupo de sus discípulos se dispersó por pupils left for the battlefield; for many of el campo de batalla; para muchos de ellos fue them it was like going to hell without return. como el Hades, sin retorno. Y su laboratorio, And his laboratory—a laboratory dedicated laboratorio de la vida, se convirtió en silenciosa to life—was converted to a silent and empty y vacía antesala de la muerte. El corazón del waiting room of death. His wise heart, sabio, atávicamente débil, se reinstió. Elías atavistically weak, deteriorated. Ilya Metchnikoff murió en el año 1916 en París. Metchnikoff died in Paris in the year 1916. 10 Dejó las siguientes obras: Leçons sur He left behind the following works: 11 la Pathologie comparée de l’inflammation Leçons sur la Pathologie compare de (París, 1892), L’immunité dans les maladies l’inflammation (Paris,1892), , L’immunitee infectieuses (París, 1901), La Vieillesse (París, dans les maladies infectieuses (Paris, 1901), La 1903), Études sur la Nature humaine: essai Vieillesse (Paris, 1903), Études sur la Nature de philosophie optimiste (París, 1903), humaine: essai de philosophie optimiste Quelques Remarques sur le lait aigré (Paris, 1903), Quelques Remarques sur le lait (París 1905), Bacterotherapie, vaccination, aigré (Paris 1905), Bacterotherapie, vaccination, sérothérapie, en colaboración con otros sérothérapie, in collaboration with other médicos. En italiano, publicó: Le Desarmonie physicians. In Italian, he published: Le della natura e il problema della morte (Bibe. Desarmonie della natura e il problema della Gen. Di cultura, Milano, 1906); en alemán: morte (Library of General Culture, Milan Beiträge zu einer optimistischen 1906); in German: Beiträge zu einer Weltanschauung, de B. Michailoski (1908). optimistischen Weltanschaaung, by B. Michailoski (1908). La Leche Cuajada Cultured Milk La LECHE CUAJADA limpia el Yogurt cultures clean the human organismo del hombre; adentro de él, ensancha body; inside it, they lengthen life. The oldest su vida. Los mayores arcanos suelen estar a remedies are typically near us, as are many 12 nuestro alrededor; también algunas maravillas; other wonders. The custom is to suspend 13 la costumbre excusa la conciencia, miramos awareness, look without seeing, and—what sin ver y, lo que es peor, creyendo que nada is worse—believe that nothing remains to queda por ver y vamos a lo remoto, menos be seen, and we go to the remotest areas, less inalcanzable que lo inmediato, en busca de attainable than the immediate, in search of esfinges y de maravillas. El elixir de la larga sphinxes and wonders. The fabled elixir of life, vida, de los cuentos y de algunas débiles fallas cure for some weaknesses of our hopelessness, de nuestra desesperanza, es por todos conocido: is well known: fermented milk, Methuselah’s 1 la LECHE CUAJADA, alimento de Matusalén. nourishment. La tan frecuente putrefacción de los The frequent putrefaction of foods alimentos en el aparato digestivo causa in the digestive system causes poisonings, intoxicaciones; las intoxicaciones, como un and these poisonings, like a flood of life, are aluvión de la vida, están edificando nuestra constructing our death. Marfan2 has written: muerte. MARFÁN ha escrito: “El tubo “The alimentary canal is a permanent source digestivo es una fuente permanente de of poison.” Rocasolano, the eminent intoxicación”. ROCASOLANO, el eminente Aragonese chemist, corroborates: “Death is químico aragonés, corrobora: “La muerte es 1 The longest-lived person in the Bible, Methusaleh died at age nine hundred and sixty-nine, seven days before the beginning of the Great Flood. 2 Antoine Marfan was a French pediatrician who first conducted studies of the hereditary disorder of connective tissue that would later bear his name. un fenómeno de coagulación lenta de la a phenomenon of a slow curdling of albumin, albúmina, provocado por tóxicos”. Los medios triggered by toxins.” Alkaline halves stimulate alcalinos favorecen las putrefacciones; para putrefaction, and in order to counteract it, contrarrestarlas convienen, por consiguiente, consequently, acidic halves come together. los medios ácidos. La formulación de esta This truth owes its formulation to modern 14 verdad se debe a la ciencia moderna, pero science, but many peoples have been aware 15 empíricamente la conocieron muchos pueblos of it for many years. Since the remotest ages, y muchos años. Desde la más remotas edades people have chosen to acidify milk. There los hombres eligieron como acidificante la are experiments with it in the Bible.