As many of you know, my definition of a beach read is anything that is read while at the beach. So here we go, reads from my family beach week. This year we were twelve, ages 14-92. (For favorites of younger readers, see the latter part of this blog.)
Although a lot of required reading happened for an online master’s program in public health, I’ll spare you that list.
Without further ado, here are the pleasure reads, with comments when any were made. These fall into two categories: Brought Here and Found Here.
Because my family isn’t getting any younger, I reached out to a friend for what her young relatives (ages 1 to 7) are enjoying. There’s been a bit of a theme all summer, even before they went to the beach!
Why does Duolingo think I need to know how to say this?
Back in December 2022, my sister-in-law and brother asked if I’d like to go with them and their friend to Vietnam. After figuring out financing for airfare and updating my passport, the most important concern for me was speaking Vietnamese.
I’ve studied several other languages in my life, but speaking Vietnamese was particularly difficult for me. The US State Department Foreign Language Institute classifies Vietnamese as a “Category III” language, the second most difficult language for English-speakers to learn. They estimate it would take someone approximately 1,100 class hours to reach a working proficiency in Vietnamese. I think they were being optimistic.
Singing Vietnamese
In addition to availing myself of a textbook, a language learning program on my phone, multiple audiobooks and podcasts, and all the questions I could pester my sister-in-law with, I took Vietnamese classes at the local Buddhist temple. Our teacher made us practice singing phrases to each other to wrap our heads around the idea of tones in daily speech.
Vietnamese has 6 vocal tones and 11 distinct vowels.
I still tend to move my hands or my chin up and down when I’m trying to make my voice distinguish between a sắc (upwards) and huyền (downwards) tone. As you can imagine, I look a bit silly when speaking Vietnamese. However, I sound even sillier when I don’t pronounce the tones correctly.
Essentially, I’m saying, “Gwide meernong!” instead of “Good morning!” when I use the wrong tones. And then I wonder why people can’t understand me…
Speaking Child(ese)
“Don’t try to suffocate your sister in her poncho.”
My sister-in-law and her friend caught up with friends and family they haven’t seen in years. We spent a lot of time with children of those friends and family members, and those children often spoke only a little English.
I quickly learned a lot of Vietnamese for specific situations that never arose in my textbooks or language apps. “Hold my hand!” “Do you need to go potty?” “What a pretty dolly!”
I also, for reasons I could never quite figure out, stood out as a foreigner every place I went. It must have been my shoes. My obvious alien-ness seemed to translate into being American somehow. (A Danish woman I met at a hotel told me everyone also assumed she was American.) Any time I went out in public, children would run up to me to say, “Hello! What is your name? Good morning! How are you? I am fine, thank you!” and then run off, giggling madly.
A similar thing happened when I worked as an English teacher in another country. I’ve gotten pretty good at holding conversations in very slow, carefully enunciated English, following the dialogue patterns that show up most often in beginner English textbooks. And then I learned how to respond in multiple languages to the proud parents inevitably standing nearby. “Your child is very smart/ handsome/ clever/ good!”
Animal(ese)
Dragon!
When I went through the lesson on animals on the language learning program, I thought, “Why am I bothering with this? When are ducks and dragons ever going to come up in conversation?” I turned out to be quite wrong.
For some reason, those words stuck in my brain more than any others. Any time I saw an animal, the Vietnamese word flashed up in my brain and popped out of my mouth. Cat! Cow! Chicken!
CowsAlligatorsDogPigElephantsGiraffe
The kids always found this highly amusing. The adults around me thought I was maybe a bit strange.
This came in quite handy when trying to order food. The words for living animals and types of meat are the same in Vietnamese, differentiated by a classifier. Con heo (pig) becomes thịt heo (pork). I was reading Vietnamese, even if I wasn’t quite speaking Vietnamese.
The Most Important Vietnamese
Very often, I tried speaking Vietnamese to order food and then had no idea what I was eating. I never had anything less than delicious, but I often couldn’t quite identify it.
I never figured out what I ate at this conveyor belt restaurant; I picked plates by color.
What combination of words resulted in kidney beans in my iced tea?
I learned key phrases to look out for, like “spicy” and “alcohol.” I never wound up in tears from fiery pepper sauce or accidentally drunk on something I hadn’t realized was alcoholic. I did find myself eating lots of combinations I wouldn’t have thought of and things I’d never have considered putting on a plate. Morning glories, sauteed with garlic, make a delicious addition to salad. Jackfruit, smothered in peanut sauce, tastes like chicken!
One time, I accidentally swapped the vowels in coconut and found myself drinking strawberry tea. I’m still not sure what I asked for when I received a bowl of flan, peanuts, and coffee.
Technology(ese)
It should be “Human Rights in Vietnamese Society.”
The last time I found myself immersed in a new language, I had very limited internet access and relied on pocket dictionaries to bridge the gap when my vocabulary fell short. I admit to being something of a Luddite still, and one of the first things I bought in Vietnam was a dual-language dictionary. However, people around me happily embraced the new tools available. Results varied.
My brother could take a picture of a menu or a shop sign in Vietnamese and read an English translation on his phone screen. According to his phone, the menu then offered him “delightful hot” and “pig bubbles.”
The peanuts are those little brown lumps at the bottom.
In Huế, a friend’s family offered to show us how to harvest peanuts! No one in the group who took us to the peanut field spoke English, so we did our best to follow the pantomime. (All I could do was to repeatedly point out the water buffalo in the next field.) Suddenly, we heard British woman’s voice behind us, telling us to “Follow the farmer’s instructions.” One of the cousins had opened a translation app on his phone and used it to speak to us.
Different Dialect(ese)
People in Vietnam speak a wide range of dialects and even entirely different languages. Most translation software, language learning programs, and textbooks focus on the northern dialect, spoken in Hanoi. When people in southern Vietnam tried to use my brother’s spoken translation app, the program spit out gibberish.
Huế sits about mid-way between the northern and southern borders of Vietnam. The dialect people speak there sounds quite different to the dialect people speak in Sóc Trăng, where my sister-in-law’s family lives. In Huế, my sister-in-law could only understand people speaking Vietnamese if they spoke slowly and enunciated.
The vocabulary, word usage, pronunciation, and even the vocal tones varied so widely from place to place that I found myself relying on written Vietnamese, which is the same in every region. In Sóc Trăng, way down south, I could almost understand people when they spoke. In Hội An and Da Nang, further north, people could almost understand me when I spoke.
My Future in Vietnam(ese)
Piles of pineapples!
I’ve decided (my husband doesn’t know this yet) that I’m going to retire to Vietnam at some point in the future. I’ll rent a house, offer English lessons, and eat all the mangoes and coconuts I can get my hands on.
Before I do that, I’ll have to up my skills quite a bit. According to a 2022 study by the Stockholm School of Economics, Vietnamese students outperform students in countries like Britain and Canada. Vietnamese teachers are among the best in the world, and they receive frequent training and support from the government and the Education Ministry.
For now, I’m going back to the temple for more Vietnamese lessons. Maybe I’ll be speaking Vietnamese properly by the time I turn 80!
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan declared July to be National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of the July to be National Ice Cream Day. In doing so, he said, “Ice cream is a nutritious and wholesome food, enjoyed by over ninety percent of the people in the United States.”
He spent $200 on ice cream during the summer of 1790—which comes to about $6,600 today—and merchant records prove it. When he moved into the President’s House, he brought 309 pieces of equipment for making ice cream, plus tasting spoons, cups, and other paraphernalia for entertaining.
It would be hard to top Washington’s passion for ice cream, but Jefferson certainly left his mark as an ice cream devotee. In fact, historians credit him as the first American in history to write down a recipe for ice cream. It is one of only ten recipes in Jefferson’s handwriting. The recipe most likely dates from his time in France.
Although Jefferson himself did not note the source, his granddaughter recorded a virtually identical recipe later in the 19th century and attributed it to “Petit,” indicating that Jefferson’s French butler was the original source of this recipe. It is definitely in the French style. After serving as Ambassador to France, one of the souvenirs Jefferson brought home was the vanilla bean. Jefferson may have introduced the United States to vanilla in 1789.
Vanilla Ice Cream
~2 bottles of good cream ~6 yolks of eggs ~1/2 lb. sugar ~1 vanilla bean
Mix the yolks & sugar; put the cream on a fire in a casserole, first putting in a stick of Vanilla. When near boiling take it off & pour it gently into the mixture of eggs & sugar. Stir it well. Put it on the fire again stirring it thoroughly with a spoon. When near boiling take it off and strain it thro’ a towel. Put it in the Sabottiere [the canister within an ice pail] then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. Put into the ice a handful of salt. Put salt on the coverlid of the Sabottiere & cover the whole with ice. Leave it still half a quarter of an hour. Turn the Sabottiere in the ice 10 minutes; open it from time to time to detach the ice from the sides. Stir it well with the Spatula. Put it in moulds, justling it well down on the knee; then put the mould into the same bucket of ice. Leave it there to the moment of serving it.
Jefferson enjoyed ice cream so much that he had an ice house excavated on the White House grounds, in part to ensure that ice cream could be made during the summer months. Monticello had several ice houses for the same purpose. Jefferson likely helped to popularize ice cream in this country when he served it at the President’s House in Washington. There are no less than six references to ice cream being served at the President’s House between 1801 and 1809; several times guests described it being served inside of a crust or pastry.
A small man, James Madison wasn’t a voracious eater. But he seemed always to have room for ice cream. His wife, Dolley Madison, who was truly a trendsetting first lady, loved ice cream. No doubt, she did much to popularize the dessert in America, too. We don’t know much of James Madison’s flavor preferences, but Dolley Madison preferred oyster. (At the time, there were no standard ingredients for ice cream, and early “taste testers” tried everything from grated cheese to foie gras.) In 1813, Dolley Madison served a “magnificent strawberry ice cream creation” at Madison’s second inaugural banquet at the White House.
Andrew Jackson
In celebration of his inauguration on March 4, 1829, Jackson invited the American public to the White House. He was “a man of the people.” Overwhelming crowds ruined many White House furnishings and forced the new president to make a getaway through a window. They broke dishes and glasses, and generally wreaked havoc on the White House in the process. Of relevance here: among other things, the rowdy guests feasted on ice cream and cake. Staff moved the whisky punch outside, the celebrants followed, and staff handed ice cream and cake to those on the lawn through open windows.
“President’s Levee, or all Creation going to the White House” illustration of Andrew Jackson’s inauguration by Robert Cruickshank
Martin Van Buren
In deference to the severe economic depression during van Buren’s presidency, the White House chefs offered relatively restrained menus to residents and visitors alike. However, van Buren’s daughter-in-law Angelica Singleton Van Buren, who performed as hostess at the White House, honored the president’s Dutch roots by serving desserts popular in the Dutch community. Called oliebollen or “Dutchies”, these little donuts often were filled with currants, raisins, or candied fruit. They are said to be life-changing with ice cream, maybe pecans sprinkled on top.
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln’s second inaugural parade
Few in Washington, DC, partied like they partied at Lincoln’s second inaugural ball. The crowd of 4,000 attacked the 250-feet-long buffet table. They had much to choose from – including ice cream in “vanilla, lemon, white coffee, chocolate, burnt almonds, and maraschino” flavors, among other treats. The inaugural crowd descended like locusts on the feast, leaving the floor “sticky, pasty and oily with wasted confections, mashed cake, and debris of fowl and meat.”
William McKinley
While courting, McKinley once spilled a tray of strawberry ice cream all over Ida Saxton’s white dress. She didn’t hold it against him and married him on January 25, 1871.
Theodore Roosevelt
As president, Teddy Roosevelt liked to ride his horse around the estate of the presidential physician, Dr. Presley Rixey, in Arlington. Dr. Rixey had a log cabin on his property, where the president would stop for ice cream.
William H. Taft
Our stoutest president, Taft loved ice cream. First Lady Nellie Taft served it to guests in the Red Room three times a week. To ensure a ready supply, the Taft White House took measures: the Tafts not only added a large Peerless Ice Cream Freezer to the White House kitchen in 1912, but kept a Holstein cow on the grounds to ensure a fresh supply of milk and cream.
Pauline Wayne, the White House cow who produced as much as eight gallons of milk every day to ensure the First Family had a constant supply of ice cream. She also served as a Presidential Envoy to dairy farms and cattle shows.
Coolidge and his wife served ice cream at a 1924 White House reception honoring World War I veterans.
President Calvin Coolidge and First Lady Grace Coolidge eat ice cream at a White House garden party for veterans in 1924. Library of Congress, Underwood & Underwood
Herbert Hoover
In 1923, Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover visited Seward, Alaska. While out on a walk there, Lou Henry stopped to share her ice cream cone with a small black bear cub. Not a recommended activity, but is it reasonable to assume that the couple enjoyed ice cream?
In 1941, reporters at Roosevelt’s annual party for the press stayed till the wee hours. At about 1 a.m., ice cream was being served in the main hallway. Eleanor Roosevelt, who was standing behind the table, said ”Don’t you think it’s a little late for ice cream?” All took the hint and went home.
Harry S. Truman
Starting at age 14, Harry Truman worked at a pharmacy and soda fountain located on West Maple Avenue in Independence, MO, now the home of Clinton’s Soda Fountain. According to their website, Harry Truman’s favorite was a butterscotch sundae with chocolate ice cream. I found confirmation that he worked there “as a boy” but not about his ice cream preferences and nothing about his actual job. So maybe this doesn’t contradict the info about Obama? (See below.)
Dwight D. Eisenhower
NMAH Archives Center Good Humor Ice Cream Collection 0451 Box 1 Folder 7 Photograph of President Dwight D. Eisenhower eating a Good Humor Bar, taken by International News Photos of New York.
There’s a readily available photo of Eisenhower eating a Good Humor ice cream bar, but I found no context and no other info on his ice cream preferences. It may have simply been a command performance for public relations.
The Eisenhower Library has a recipe for Mamie Eisenhower’s “Frosted Mint Delight“, one of Dwight’s favorite desserts. The recipe calls for a mixture of crushed pineapple and mint apple jelly, served frozen with whipped cream, almost like ice cream.
John F. Kennedy
JFK frequented Four Seas Ice Cream (a stone’s throw from the Long Dell Inn) and his favorite flavors were vanilla and peach.
As First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy preferred French desserts, particularly bombe glacée.
~3 eggs ~1 cup sugar ~1 pint milk ~1 quart whipping cream ~1/2 gallon soft peaches, peeled, mashed, and sweetened to taste
Beat eggs in a heavy saucepan until thick. Gradually add sugar, beating well. Add milk and whipping cream. Mix well. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low. Continue cooking and stirring until mixture thickens and coats a metal spoon. Let cool. Stir in peaches and pour into freezer can of a 1-gallon ice cream freezer. Freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.
A well known conservationist, Lady Bird Johnson chose flower-themed desserts for her daughters’ engagement parties. White House Executive Chef Henry Haller served “flowerpot sundaes” in clay flowerpots, which he filled with layers of sponge cake, ice cream, and meringue, topped with a fresh flower.
Richard Nixon
Though he adopted the practice of eating light, Richard Nixon always had room for ice cream. Newspaper accounts during his presidency reported that, even after large state dinners, Nixon frequently finished his evening with an ice cream sundae.
In 1969, Richard Nixon requested an dessert “no one had ever seen” for a dinner celebrating astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins at a reception in Los Angeles. Pastry chef Ernest Mueller created marzipan and raisin ice cream globes, covered them in meringue, and served the toasted balls in pools of blackberry sauce. By all reports, the astronauts greatly enjoyed their “Clair de Lunes.“
Gerald Ford
Ford had a nearly heroic devotion to butter pecan ice cream. Whenever he visited his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, his travel assistant Jon Nunn would make sure that butter pecan ice cream was always on hand. Every night he’d ask his aide, “I’ll bet there’s a little ice cream in the fridge, isn’t there, Jon?” And there always was.
Ford once told his doctor he wanted to lose 10 pounds. “That’s easy” said the physician. “Either give up your nightly martini or give up your butter pecan ice cream.” The martini was history.
Reports abound that Carter still enjoyed plenty of ice cream 3 months into hospice care—peanut butter ice cream being preferred.
Ronald Reagan
In 1984, as part of Presidential Proclamation 5219, Reagan said ice cream has “a reputation as the perfect dessert and snack food” and pointed out that nearly ten percent of all the milk American dairy farmers produce every year becomes ice cream.
President Bill Clinton loved ice cream and seemed to find an ice cream shop in every place he visited. On a visit to the Penn State Bakery Creamery, chefs allowed Bill Clinton to mix his own flavors, an honor they’ve granted to no one else. (He mixed Peachy Paterno and Cherry Quist.)
Since becoming vegan, he’s opted for raspberry sorbet.
George W. Bush
At a campaign stop in in Pennsylvania in 2006, George W. Bush ordered pralines and cream ice cream. When word got around, pralines and cream reportedly flew over the counter at that Pennsylvania ice cream shop for weeks and weeks. Although he prefers cones of praline and cream, he’ll eat vanilla custard in a pinch.
George W. Bush reportedly shipped cartons of Blue Bell ice cream from the creamery in his native Texas to the White House and to the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Barack Obama
President Obama and then-Vice President Biden in 2010
As far as I can confirm, Obama is the only president to have worked the counter at an ice cream shop. At age 16, he worked at a Baskin-Robbins in Honolulu. Scooping, scooping, and more scooping—hard on his wrists. In an essay about his first job, Obama admitted, “I was less interested in what the job meant for my future and more concerned about what it meant for my jump shot.”
When Barack Obama went home to Hawaii for presidential vacations, he’d enjoy confections from his youth – coconut ice cream and Hawaiian shaved ice.
Barack Obama is the only president to have a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor named after him: “Yes, Pecan!” in honor of his campaign slogan “Yes, We Can!” In 2014, a Japanese ice cream company released a matcha tea flavored ice cream called “Obamatcha” to celebrate the American president’s fond memories of eating matcha popsicles as a child. A Russian ice cream company also released “Obamka” ice cream bars in 2016 in a rather odd bid to cash in on “chilling” relations between the US and Russia.
Donald J. Trump
This president likes ice cream so much as a dinner dessert that the White House ushers had instructions to always slip him an extra scoop. In an interview with Time magazine, Trump boasted of having two scoops of ice cream with his chocolate pie while other diners got one.
Joe Biden
Joe Biden at a campaign stop in 2020
When campaigning for vice president, he once stepped to the mic and introduced himself by saying, “My name is Joe Biden, and I love ice cream.” It’s safe to say that hasn’t changed. His favorite is Graeter’s chocolate chip. This Cincinnati-based ice cream brand has been around for about 150 years. He claimed to eat Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream before public appearances for its performance-enhancing capabilities.
Bottom Line: Ice cream has been with us since before we were even a country. Eating it is practically a patriotic duty.
Last night, I got sucked into the black hole of solitaire. As I drifted toward sleep, “Playin’ solitaire ’til dawn with a deck of 51” (from “Flowers on the Wall,” a Statler Brother hit from 1966) woke me right up. The five lines of the refrain played over and over until I finally slept and returned—off and on—throughout the next day. Eventually I looked up the full lyrics.
And that, folks, is a classic example of an earworm.
Not this kind of earworm (Helicoverpa zea)
FYI, the English word “earworm” has its roots both in German (öhrwurm) and in the common name for a type of agricultural pest (also called an earwig). Until the 1950s, the German öhrwurm also referred to the actual insect. Stephen King may have been responsible for popularizing the use of “earworm” to mean a song stuck in one’s brain.
Happily for my personal peace of mind, neither earwigs nor earworms actually crawl into human ears.
Understanding Earworms
Research indicates that brain scans showed more slow oscillations during sleep in the people who reported getting an earworm – a sign of memory reactivation. The brain region involved, the primary audio cortex, is also linked to earworm processing when people are awake.
Recurring tunes that involuntarily show up and stick in your mind are common: up to 98% of the Western population has experienced them. Usually, stuck songs are catchy tunes, popping up spontaneously or triggered by emotions, associations, or by hearing the melody.
The Problem With Earworms
In most cases, earworms are neutral to pleasant rather than serious, and may even be part of your brain’s creative process. One that continues for more than 24 hours may indicate something more serious.
People who catch an earworm often have greater difficulty falling asleep, have more nighttime awakenings, and spend more time in light stages of sleep.
Earworms can reach a clinical level of severity, being recurring, distressing, unwanted, and intrusive, at which point they likely give rise to compulsive behavior, qualifying for classification as musical obsessions (a.k.a. “stuck song syndrome“).
Earworms are common symptoms of anxiety and of chronic stress.
Earworms, although usually harmless (and classified as pseudohallucinations), do overlap phenomenologically with musical hallucinations. Like auditory hallucinations in general, musical hallucinations can be symptoms of psychopathological conditions.
Like many things, music can have both positive and negative emotional effects, often related to personal connections or memories. If a song conjures up negative emotions, having that song become an earworm can be more than simply annoying.
Who Gets Earworms?
Some people are more prone to earworms. Those with obsessive-compulsive disorder or who have obsessive thinking styles may experience this phenomenon more often.
According to clinical observation, as individuals move deeper into a depression, they are more likely to experience such symptoms as obsessive thoughts, preoccupations, and … earworms. Also, people with bipolar disorder may be more likely to develop earworms as a symptom of hypomania.
Musicians also frequently get earworms, particularly while learning tricky bits of a new song.
Men and women have earworms equally, although women tend to stay with the song longer and find it more irritating.
Which Songs Become Earworms
Earworms usually have a fast-paced tempo and an easy-to-remember melody. A song with a common global melodic contour (a melody similar to those in Western pop music) will more likely become an earworm. The most common earworms tend to have unusual intervals or repetitions that make them stand out from other songs.
In 2016, the American Psychological Association published the results of a survey on the most common songs that get stuck in people’s heads.
“Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga
“Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” by Kylie Minogue
“Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey
“Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye
“Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5
“California Gurls” by Katy Perry
“Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen
“Alejandro” by Lady Gaga
“Poker Face” by Lady Gaga
Ways to Get Rid of Earworms
If your earworm becomes too annoying, you may be able to do something about it.
Listen to the entire song. Listening carefully or singing along to the entire track could help dislodge the stuck bit of the song. Earworms tend to be small fragments of music that repeat over and over, often just the refrain or chorus).
Listen to a “cure tune.” Pick a different song to focus on. Even if the new song then becomes an earworm in turn, it will hopefully be an earworm you actually enjoy.
Distract yourself with something else. Focusing on a word puzzle or a number puzzle can force your brain to stop attempting to mimic a broken jukebox.
The drug vortioxetine, which may help boost serotonin the brain, has shown some promise in reducing serious cases of earworms.
Reducing anxiety and stress can cause the cessation of earworms.
Bottom Line: Having an earworm doesn’t make you weird, and it’s probably just a transient irritation. But if it is accompanied by other symptoms mentioned above, get it checked out.
There are people out there who actually eat durian fruit!
Named the “king of fruits” in some regions, the durian is large and has a thorn-covered rind. The fruit can grow to 12 inches long and 6 in in diameter, and it typically weighs 2 to 7 pounds. Its shape ranges from oblong to round, the color of its husk from green to brown, and its flesh pale yellow to red, depending on the species. I’ve heard the texture described as somewhere between banana and pudding.
But the most distinctive characteristic is the smell! Some people consider the durian to have a pleasantly sweet fragrance. For them, the smell evokes reactions of deep appreciation. Others find the aroma unpleasant, overpowering, even intensely disgusting.
Sign on a subway wall in Singapore
The persistence of its odor, which can linger for hours or even days, has led many public spaces in Southeast Asia, including hotels and civic buildings, to ban the fruit. One cannot carry it on public transportation of any sort, not even motorbike taxis.
Many people, most westerners especially, feel nauseous or gag, at the sight, scent, or taste of durian. As travel writer Richard Sterling said, “Its odor is best described as pig-excrement, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.” And yet, some people—many people—enjoy durian.
A hotel in Huế, Vietnam, bans durians right along with pets and gambling.
Why Do We Like What We Like?
So how do food preferences come about? There is a great, comprehensive article about this at That Thinking Feeling. Food preferences are determined by lots of factors including:
Japanese snack food is famous for including unexpected flavors.
Age
Gender
Wealth
Childhood experience
Whether you’re a supertaster
How often you’ve been exposed to the food in question
Social context (my addition)
Emotional factors
Generally speaking, each of our taste-detecting tongue cells ‘specializes’ in one of five flavors: salt, sweet, bitter, sour, or umami. That last is from Japanese and roughly corresponds to ‘savory.’ Contrary to what you were taught in school, no one area of the tongue specializes in anything. Besides the tongue, we have taste buds on the other mouth surfaces and in the throat.
Though originally a Scandinavian delicacy, more lutefisk (fish brined in lye) is sold in the US and Canada today.
Babies prefer sweet and salty and reject the other three flavors. If the mother suffered a lot of morning sickness during pregnancy, leading to dehydration, her child will have a stronger preference for salty compared to other babies. Also, babies tend to avoid/reject new or unfamiliar foods. Babies are most open to trying new flavors between the ages of 4 and 7 months.
As we grow up, our taste buds become less intense. With age, both taste and smell change.
Taste buds regenerate quickly when we are younger, but over time they don’t reproduce as quickly, or at all. Remaining taste buds shrink as we get older too, resulting in diminished sense of taste. Typically, seniors notice this loss of taste with salty or sweet foods first.
Grilled scorpion and seahorse skewers are a common snack in many Chinese night markets.
Older adults tend to consume less energy-dense sweets and fast foods, moving toward more grains, vegetables and fruits. Daily volume of foods and beverages also declines as a function of age.
Gender
Men eat more meat and bread, while women consume more fruit, yogurt, and diet soda. Women also have higher intakes of dietary fiber and lower intakes of fat.
In Korea, bundaegi (silkworm larvae) are traditionally eaten by men, often accompanied by rice wine.
In general, there appears to be greater evidence for picky eating in males than females.
Men consume more fast food than women.
Some research suggests that women respond more to environmental cues regarding food. Women’s brains tend to form stronger associations between the perception of food and pleasure. Food preferences in women’s brains are more likely than men’s to develop in response to social cues and self-perception.
Wealth
The affluent have more access to higher quality, nutrient dense but typically more expensive food while the underprivileged are often forced to choose cheaper, energy dense food options.
Percebes, a variety of Portugese barnacles, are both difficult and dangerous to harvest, making them a very expensive delicacy.
Upper class groups prefer foods that signify exclusivity and access to rare goods; while lower class groups, on the other hand, consume foods that are readily available.
Until the Industrial Revolution, lobster was considered an undesirable food relegated to the poorer classes.
On the flip side, lack of access to healthy foods can affect mental and physical performance at school and at work. This poor performance in turn makes it more difficult for people to improve their income and wealth.
Even when more nutritious foods become available, people raised in low-income households tend to buy cheaper, less nutritious foods they are familiar with. This traces back to food preferences formed in childhood.
My personal food recipe for rearing children to become eclectic eaters:
Escamoles (ant eggs) are popular in dishes in Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru.
Have children eat with adults, whatever adults eat (with the exception of caffeine and alcohol until age appropriate).
Do not demand that a child eat any particular thing. You can’t actually make them eat, and arguments are negative all around.
Set clear contingencies: eat everything or no dessert and no snacks before the next meal.
The popularity of Peeps (a marshmallow candy) in the United States mystifies people in other countries.
In the United States, food advertisers face no regulations around marketing food to children. As they grow up, children become increasingly bombarded with social and commercial messaging. The combination of nostalgia with familiarity surrounding foods eaten in childhood encourages people to maintain eating habits developed in childhood, even if those habits are unhealthy.
Supertasters
Picky eaters might be picky because they are supertasters. Whether or not someone is a supertaster depends on the number of taste buds on his or her tongue. One can actually see this by visually inspecting a person’s tongue.
Along with blood pudding and Scotch eggs, haggis is a dish popular in Scotland though viewed rather dubiously by outsiders.
To supertasters, the flavors of foods are much stronger than to average tasters. This often leads to supertasters having very strong likes and dislikes for different foods.
Diners in Italy must cover their casu marzu (cheese with live maggots) while eating in case the maggots wriggle free.
These people have more cell receptors for bitter taste. Supertasters are also more sensitive to sweet, salty and umami tastes, but to a lesser extent.
Research suggests that those on the autism spectrum may be more likely to be supertasters. People with sensory issues, including many pregnant women, may experience food aversions due to a heightened sense of smell before they even taste a food.
Food Exposure
Repeated exposure to the taste of unfamiliar foods is a promising strategy for promoting liking of previously rejected foods.
Ackee, a fruit that is poisonous if harvested too early, is often served with onions and fish in western Africa and Jamaica.
Fewer than 8 exposures may be sufficient for infants and toddlers to increase acceptability of a food. But there may be times when a child never likes a particular food regardless of the number of exposures.
Evidence suggests that children need to be exposed to a food at least 12 times before they start to like it. It can take as many as 15 exposures for a child to get fully comfortable with a new food.
Sociocultural Effects
Even when eating alone, food choice is influenced by social factors because attitudes and habits develop through the interaction with others.
Muktuk (narwhal and whale blubber and skin) is a staple in Inuit diets, providing more vitamin C than oranges.
Sociocultural variables contribute to food selection, eating practices and purchasing behaviors.
Ifinkubala (mopane worms) are a delicacy through much of southern Africa.
Ethnicity
Religion
Reference group
Family
Education
Occupation
Marital status
Geography
Societal trends
Messages in the media
Research has shown that we eat more with our friends and family than when we eat alone. The quantity of food increases as the number of fellow diners grows.
Emotional Factors
Sometimes being drunk is the primary emotional factor for being drawn to certain foods.
Scientists associate stress with cravings for high fat and high carbohydrate foods particularly among women. Stress related eating is more common in women than men.
Bottom Line: The development of food preferences involves a complex braiding of factors. Preferences develop early and are generally stable but can shift over time.
I think this one is just a joke. I hope it’s a joke.
Not everyone with an addictive personality becomes an addict, and those who do aren’t necessarily addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, or tobacco — the usual suspects.
An addictive personality refers collectively to a group of personality traits that may make a person more likely to develop an addiction to something. This can include someone becoming extremely passionate about something and developing an obsession or fixation. Think compulsive buying, game-playing, even exercise.
There’s a longstanding myth that some people simply have an addictive personality — a personality type that increases their risk for addiction. However, medical professionals cannot officially diagnose (or even officially define) an addictive personality. Expertsgenerally agree that addictions are rooted in brain disorder, personal history or trauma, genetics, and environment, rather than being a diagnosable psychiatric issue.
In the 1990s, marketers for pharmaceutical companies in the US started using the term addictive personality as part of a campaign to promote painkillers. Representatives for Purdue Pharma told doctors that OxyContin would only cause addiction in patients who already had an “addictive personality.” Blaming patients for becoming addicted to highly addictive painkillers helped to remove the blame from the pharmaceutical industry.
Many people today use the term “addictive personality” as a catch-all to refer to certain personality traits that may increase the chances that a person will develop an addiction of some kind. For example, those who like to take risks and who have little impulse control around experimenting and playing with new experiences and dangerous activities are more likely to try drugs. Nevertheless, no one can perfectly predict who will become addicted after substance use and who will not.
According to verywellmind.com, addiction is a complex brain disorder that is the result of a variety of factors. Genetics play a large part in susceptibility to addiction (see above), but other variables including family history, upbringing, environment, socioeconomic status, and drug availability also play a role in a person’s risk of addiction.
The American Psychological Association (APA) stated in a 2008 hearing before the US Congress that “at least half of a person’s susceptibility to drug or alcohol addiction can be linked to genetic factors.”
Some estimate that 10-15% of the population has personality traits that may contribute to an addictive personality. This percentage of the population doesn’t know when to stop and has a more difficult time coping with drugs and alcohol. If you think you or a loved one may have an addictive personality, consider the following addictive personality traits.
Some researchers have hypothesized that the risk-seeking tendencies prevalent in addicts played an important role in early human evolution.
According to 12 Keys Rehab, an addictive personality isn’t necessarily a bad trait. Awareness of troubling behaviors and the possibility of negative consequences can actually be very positive when channeled into positive activities and results.
Identifying productive alternative activities that give a pleasure burst is key to channeling an addictive personality into a positive direction. This does not mean substituting one vice for another.
One can channel compulsivity, impulsiveness, and sensation seeking into positive results, for example, by learning new skills, getting in shape, making friendships, and more. Impulsive people are often viewed as fun to be around due to their spontaneous nature,
An addictive personality can help one achieve goals as long as one is on guard for potential negative impacts. In fact, some experts say that the personality traits of an addict also make for great leaders and business people.
BOTTOM LINE: Many personality traits—including some generally seen as positive—are correlated with the likelihood of developing an addiction. Be self aware!
King Richard III, or (as Shakespeare called him) “Thou toad, thou toad” (Richard III, 4.4.149)
Toads have had a bad rap in the west. At least as far back as Shakespeare the toad’s ugliness had become a synonym for anything loathsome. And then there is the poisonous nature of toads. Could anything so repulsive and toxic not be evil? And let’s not forget the association of toads with witchcraft, and even Satan himself.
On the other hand, according to Robert DeGraaff (The Book of the Toad), “There is a great deal of evidence that in early Asiatic cultures and in the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas the toad was regarded as a divinity, the great primeval Earth Mother, the source and end of all life.”
Most toxic compounds of these toxin are steroids similar to digoxin. Patients who have inadvertently ingested toad toxins usually have gastrointestinal symptoms consisting of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal discomfort.
Toad secretions and cake have been used as a drug for its cardiotonic, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic (pain relief) effects since ancient times. Doctors in China have used Bufo genus toad cake dissolved in water to treat heart disease and slow the spread of cancerous cells for centuries.
The mild poison of most toads in the U.S. is not lethal to humans, but it can cause allergic reactions. It is important to wash your hands after touching a toad.
“If you bite it and you die, it’s poisonous; if it bites you and you die, it’s venomous.” Toads are not venomous. They secrete toxins rather than injecting it.
Two Poisonous Toads in the U.S.
Cane toads
The glands of American toads secrete bufotoxin, a poisonous substance meant to make the toad unpalatable to potential predators. Although most toads in the United States are only mildly toxic, their secretions can cause serious damage when smaller pets (such as dogs or cats) eat one of these toad varieties.
I’m going into some detail here because these two species pose a real danger as opposed being a nuisance or discomfort, like most toads in this country.
FYI, the most poisonous toad in the world is the golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis), also known as the golden dart frog or golden poison arrow frog, is a poison dart frog endemic to the rainforests of Colombia. Think curare.
Avoiding toads is relatively easy for most of us: they are nocturnal, and they hibernate underground during cold weather.
There is no specific antidote for toad toxins, so pay attention!
Rhinella marina (Cane Toad)
Cane toads’ native stomping ground ranges from to the Amazon basin in South America all the way north to the lower Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas. They have established habitats in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam (including Cocos Island) and Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Republic of Palau. In Australia, where farmers originally introduced them to help control scarabs eating sugarcane, cane toads have become one of the worst invasive species in the world.
Adult Cane Toad
The skin-gland secretions of cane toads (bufotoxin and bufotenin) are highly toxic and can sicken or even kill animals that bite or feed on them, including native animals and domestic pets.
When swallowed, cane toad toxin can affect the heart and central nervous system. People may experience blood pressure swings, breathing problems, paralysis, seizures, salivation, twitching, vomiting, and crying. Adult cane toads can secrete enough toxin to kill a small child. In severe cases. exposure can cause death through cardiac arrest, sometimes within 15 minutes. At the least, the skin secretions irritate the skin or burn the eyes of people who handle them.
Humans can also use this toxin as a weapon. The Emberá and Wounaan people of Panama have traditionally used Cane Toad toxins on the tips of their arrows.
The prevalence of a toxin resistance gene makes it possible for some snakes of the sub-family Natricinae to consume native toads. In a 2021 article from the Journal of North American Herpetology, researchers Jordan Donini and Sean Doody said, “We documented successful consumption of the invasive cane toad by the Southern Watersnake (Nerodia fasciata) in southwest Florida, both in the wild and in the laboratory.”
Depending on where you live/travel, it can be important to know the difference between a cane toad and a native southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris). Adult cane toads are much larger than adult southern toads, which only grow to a maximum of approximately 3 to 4 inches. Cane toads do not have ridges across the head, as seen in the southern toad.
Cane Toad Appearance:
Tan to reddish-brown, dark brown or gray
Creamy yellow belly
4”-6” long (sometimes 9 inches)
Backs are marked with dark spots
Warty skin
Triangular parotoid glands on shoulders that secrete a milky toxin substance (native southern toads have oval glands)
No ridges on top of head unlike native southern toad
Incilius alvarius (Sonoran Desert Toad)
The Sonoran Desert Toad – previously known as the Colorado River Toad – is native to the United States and Northwestern Mexico. Like the Cane Toad, the Sonoran Desert Toad secretes bufotoxins that can seriously injure humans and kill smaller animals such as dogs.
Sonoran Desert Toad
Their native habitat in the US includes Arizona, New Mexico (where they are a threatened species), and California (where they are a species of special concern). Because these toads are native, they cannot be legally killed in those areas. That hasn’t stopped people from trying to harvest their toxins.
Both Family Guy and The Simpsons have made episodes about this bizarre (and not quite accurate) fad.
The smoke from dried toad cake of both Cane Toads and Sonoran Desert River Toads causes hallucinations. Licking a toad will likely just cause extreme discomfort for both yourself and the toad.
Cane Toad secretions contain bufotenine, a tryptamine that can have hallucinogenic effects in large enough doses. Several religious traditions have used this toxin for ceremonial purposes. The Olmec obtained bufotenine by milking toads over hot rocks and then using the toxin as a narcotic. Chemical analysis of seven Haitian “zombie powders” found secretion glands from Cane Toads, along with puffer fish and hyla tree frogs.
Smoking dried toad toxin may cause you to see them stand up and play musical instruments.
Sonoran Desert toads secrete an enzyme known as O-methyl-transferase, which converts bufotenine into the extremely potent psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT. When a human inhales smoke from 5-MeO-DMT, they experience hallucinations many have called “religious.” Researchers are developing treatments for depression, anxiety, and addiction from the psychedelic properties of Sonoran Desert toad secretions. Dr. Alan K. Davis, a clinical psychologist at Johns Hopkins University warns, “It’s such an intense experience that, in most cases, doing it at a party isn’t safe. It’s not a recreational drug. If people get dosed too high, they can ‘white out’ and disassociate from their mind and body.”
Ingesting Sonoran Desert Toad toxin orally does not cause hallucinations, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. According to the National Poison Center, “Licking toads (typically cane toads) can be dangerous, however, and may cause muscle weakness, rapid heart rate, and vomiting.”
The Toad Pharmacy
All Bufo species of toads have parotid glands that release toxic substances when the animals are threatened. These toxic substances are biologically active compounds, such as dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, serotonin, bufotenine, bufogenin, bufotoxins, and indolealkylamines. You might notice that the first four listed here are familiar!
In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), processed toad toxins have been used for treating various diseases for hundreds of years. Modern studies have revealed the molecular mechanisms that support the development of these components into medicines for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and cancers.
Recently there have been studies that demonstrated the therapeutic potential of toxins from other species of toads, such as Australian cane toads.
Toxins from toads have long been known to contain rich chemicals with great pharmaceutical potential. Recent studies have shown more than 100 such chemical components, including peptides, steroids, indole alkaloids, bufogargarizanines, organic acids, and others, in the parotoid and skins gland secretions from different species of toads.
Frogs or Toads?
Many people confuse frogs and toads. After all, they are biologically related and share many characteristics. Scientifically, frogs and toads belong to the same taxonomical group. Both have glandular skin and similar diets, which they swallow whole. Additionally, both are amphibians and periodically shed their skin.
Toads
Frogs
Live on land
Live near water
Warty-looking skin
Sleek, smooth skin
Dry skin
Mucus-covered skin looks wet even when dry
Short legs
Legs longer than head and body
Get around by crawling
Hop instead of crawl
Broad, flat nose
Pointed nose
Spawn in chains
Spawn in gooey clumps
Solid black, round shaped tadpoles
Gold-flecked, slim shaped tadpoles
Toad Miscellany
This is clearly not a toad; it’s a frog. Note the green skin and long legs.
Among amphibians, the anurans, or frogs and toads, are perhaps the most intelligent, and have the largest brain-to-body ratio of the amphibians.
By and large, the brighter the toad’s coloration, the more toxic it is.
American toads hibernate during the winter. They will usually dig backwards and bury themselves in the dirt of their summer home. However, they may also overwinter in another area nearby.
You can find toads in all but the coldest parts of the world.
Adult toads eat insects, snails, slugs and earthworms.
Toads do not drink water. Instead, they absorb it through their skin.
Toads in the Super Mario Brothers franchise do not have the same physical characteristics of other toads. They are staunch protectors of the Mushroom Kingdom!
Despite spending most of its life on land, a toad will return to the water during the mating season. They lay their eggs in water.
Being carnivores, toads prefer eating live meat. They do not consume dead meat or previously killed animals. Technically, they are able to consume fruits and vegetables, but it might not make them happy.
A toad will also eat its own skin after shedding it. However, they do this to hide from predators rather than for any nutritional value.
Toads live approximately 5-10 years in the wild. However, a toad in captivity can live up to 40 years.
Collective nouns for a group of toads includes a knot, nest, array, knob, knab, lump, and squiggle.
Toads can carry salmonella, which they can transfer to humans or other animals handling them.
Arranged marriages were common throughout the world until the 18th century. An arranged marriage is when the bride and groom are selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, usually by family members. In some cultures, families rely on a professional matchmaker to find a spouse for a young person.
Usually, arranged marriages happen to provide social, political, economic, or religious advantage to one or both parties. Note: typically both partners agree/consent to the arrangement.
The practice of arranged marriages has declined substantially during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Traditional Korean wedding ceremony
Gwen Broude and Sarah Greene have studied 142 cultures worldwide. They report that, despite the recent decline, 130 cultures have elements of arranged marriage. This means that more than half of marriages worldwide are arranged.
Arranged marriages remain common in many regions, notably South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caucasus. Deeply-rooted traditional beliefs in arranged marriages in South Korea mean that the custom prevails in many rural communities. In India, 88.4% of the marriages are the fruit of an arrangement. Statistics on arranged marriages show that they are most present in the world’s most numerous nations. Arranged marriages number more than 26 million unions worldwide.
Benefits of Arranged Marriages
If you search online for pros of arranged marriages, you will find a list something like this.
It eliminates the stress of trying to find a life partner.
It keeps parents involved in the relationship.
It creates harmony within both families.
It keeps people rooted in their family, culture, and ethics.
It reduces worry about the future welfare of any children.
Arranged marriages ensure that the culture and traditions of both parties align closely, so religious issues do not arise.
The two families will have a good relationship: the connections between the families and the couple last long without misunderstandings.
Chances are, my readers disapprove of people having no say in who and when they marry. Well, you might be surprised to learn that leaving marriage arrangements to the elders, entirely or partially, is something that young people in certain countries actually prefer.
Shanghai Marriage Market, where interested parties can view the “resumes” of prospective marriage partners every Saturday and Sunday
But Are the Results Good or Bad?
Statistics reveal that arranged marriages last longer with a substantially lower divorce rate compared to the western idealization of the love marriage. In the US, around 40-50% of non-arranged marriages end in divorce. The divorce rate in arranged marriages depends mostly on the type of arrangement, but the worldwide divorce rate for all types of arranged marriages is estimated at 6.4%. (Separation rates in India are twice as high as the divorce rate, so it is also likely that people in arranged marriages are less willing to see divorce as an option.)
Hindu ring ceremony
The love experienced by Indian couples in arranged marriages appears to be even more robust than the love people experience in “love marriages.” In a 1982 study psychologists Usha Gupta and Pushpa Singh used the Rubin Love Scale, which gauges intensity of romantic love. They found that people in arranged marriages reported an increase in romantic love for their spouse as time passes. In contrast, people in love marriages more commonly report a decrease in romantic love over time.
Studies have shown that couples in an arranged marriage are more likely to be very romantic towards their partner; mostly because they both are slowly adjusting to the new life and passing every hurdle together.
The newest UN report for women’s progress show that women who participate in partially arranged marriages and self-arranged marriages enjoy greater authority within the marriage than those whose marriages were entirely arranged by their families. They are more involved in making other important decisions as well, such as the optimal time to have children or financial management.
Overall, given the low arranged-marriage divorce rate, one might think this is the best way to go about marriages. However, studies that explore the satisfaction rate of both autonomous and arranged marriages show mixed results. In India, approximately twice as many women in arranged marriages report being separated from their husbands as report seeking a legal divorce. The success of arranged marriages seems to depend on how marriage is perceived, the relative importance of practicality and passion preferred.
When one or both of the people involved do not consent to the union, that is a forced marriage. For example, when family members threaten or use force to coerce the union.
Note: a forced marriage is NOT the same as an arranged marriage.
“The Babylonian Marriage Market” (1875) Edwin Long
Many factors could compel people into a forced marriage. A council may require a young woman or man to marry as part of a repayment for debts or to settle a dispute. Parents might sell their child as a bride or groom in exchange for a dowry or bride price. Relatives might kidnap a prospective bride or groom and force them to marry or face a future as a social pariah (or even an honor killing). In times of conflict, fighters often coerce women into war-time “marriages.” Human traffickers commonly lure women and girls to areas with skewed male-to-female ratios with promises of work or education, then coercing them into forced marriages. Threats of social ostracism, emotional blackmail, and lack of financial independence can also force unwilling people to marry.
Children who marry before they reach adulthood are considered to be in forced marriages.
Worldwide, statistics about arranged marriages demonstrate that over 11 million girls younger than 18 enter forced marriages every year. South Asia has the highest percentage of forced marriages for girls under 18. Africa is second in forced marriages, and together with South Asia, it represents a third of the total number worldwide. In Bangladesh, between 27 and 29% of girls married before they turned 15.
However, there is some good news on that front. Worldwide, the incidences of underage marriage have declined drastically over the past decades. In 2018, UNICEF reported that the proportion of brides who married before age 18 has decreased by 15% since 2008.
Between 2000 and 2018, some 300,000 minors were legally married in the United States. The vast majority of child marriages (reliable sources vary between 78% and 95%) were between a minor girl and an adult man. In many cases, minors in the U.S. may be married when they are under the age of sexual consent, which varies from 16 to 18 depending on the state. It is most common in West Virginia and Texas, where about seven of every 1,000 15- to 17-year-olds were married in 2014. (Both states are currently reviewing laws to end child marriage.) In many states, minors cannot legally divorce because they have to be 18 to file for divorce or hire a lawyer. Domestic violence shelters typically do not accept minors.
As of March 2023, seven states have banned underage marriages, with no exception: New Jersey (2018), Delaware (2018), Pennsylvania (2020), Minnesota (2020), Rhode Island (2021), New York (2021), and Massachusetts (2022).
States where underage marriage is legal
Arranged Marriages in the U.S.
Until the first half of the 20th century, arranged marriages were common in immigrant families in the United States. Arranged marriage is legal and still occurs in the U.S. today.
“Green Card Marriages” are the most common form of arranged marriage in the US. Census Bureau statistics show that over 450,000 Americans each year marry foreign-born individuals and petition for their permanent residency permission (green card). Of all green cards issued in 2007, 25% were awarded to American spouses, making it the most utilized path for immigration in the U.S.
The majority of immigrants entering into green card marriages sincerely desire to marry and intend to make the marriage last. However, the USCIS revealed that between 5% and 30% of all such marriages were sham marriages, never intended to last beyond the minimum required to make the green card permanent.
Jewish wedding in New York, USA
Most Jewish marriages in the U.S. are not arranged. However, in Haredi communities, marriages may be arranged by the parents of the prospective bride and groom. The parents often engage a professional match-maker (shadchan) who finds and introduces the prospective bride and groom and receives a fee for their services. The wedding is known as a shidduch, from the Aramaic word meaning “to settle down.”
Members of some sects of Christianity, such as the Apostolic Christian Church, practice partially arranged marriages. The prospective bridegroom will come to an agreement with the father of a woman he wishes to marry. She then has the option to decline the proposal.
Contrary to some misinformation, among the Amish there are no arranged marriages by the parents or other mediators. Young people who choose to be baptized into a certain Amish affiliation (typically the one they grew up in) are expected to marry inside this group. However, a person looking to marry will choose their own potential spouse from within the group.
Note: “A forced marriage is grounds for divorce and for both civic and church annulment in the US. The U.S. government is opposed to forced marriage and considers it to be a serious human rights abuse. If the victim of forced marriage is a child, forced marriage is also a form of child abuse.” (US Customs and Immigration Services)
Bottom Line: Although not common in the U.S., arranged marriages worldwide are often successful and desirable, depending on the couple’s expectations and views of what makes a good marriage.
Combining traditional customs of arranged marriage with modern technology
A marriage annulment is a legal ruling that deems a marriage null and void — as if it never happened in the first place. Annulments effectively erase the marriage.
There are two main ways to formally end a marriage: annulment and divorce. An annulment declares that a marriage was never valid, while a divorce legally concludes a valid marriage. A divorce is more common and easier to attain. Annulment requires specific circumstances and evidence.
Most people are fairly familiar with divorce, personally or observationally, so this blog focuses on annulment, both civil and religious.
Because an annulled marriage was never considered legally valid, any prenuptial agreements are also invalid. Plus, neither partner has a right to the other’s personal property or finances the way they would in the case of a divorce.
Getting the courts to grant an annulment can be difficult. At least one party must believe the marriage shouldn’t have happened, and they have to provide grounds to a judge in order to have it annulled. To qualify for an annulment of marriage, you must meet certain circumstances. The following situations typically qualify:
False pretenses: One or both parties were tricked into getting married.
Mental incompetence: One or both parties weren’t legally able to make the decision to get married because of a mental disability or being under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.
Underage marriage: One or both parties were under the legal age of consent (typically 18) at the time of the marriage.
Concealment: One or both parties failed to disclose important details about themselves and their lives prior to the marriage, like having a child, criminal conviction, or serious illness.
Failure to consummate the marriage: One or both parties are unable to be physically intimate in the marriage.
Concealed Infertility: One spouse might be physically incapable of having children, and that spouse might have lied about it to the other spouse. This would involve both fraud and lack of consummation.
Consanguinity: Incest is defined as a relationship between two blood relatives who would be banned from legal marriage in their state. This typically means more closely related than first cousins.
Bigamy happens when one person is already married at the time of marrying someone else.
Underage without parental consent: Lack of consent can happen when one spouse is too young to consent on his or her own behalf, and the other spouse did not get proper consent from the parents of the underage spouse.
Unsound mind: You may be able to show unsound mind if you or your spouse was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of your marriage. If you were prevented by intoxication or by a mental disorder from understanding what you were doing, you may be able to get an annulment.
Finally, a marriage can be annulled if one spouse threatened, blackmailed, or coerced the other spouse into marriage.
In an annulment where there are children, it’s as if the parents were never married. That means both parents can individually seek custody or work out an agreement for shared custody, much like they would if the child had been born to unmarried parents in the first place.
Just as the requirements for marriage and divorce vary by state, so do some aspects of annulment. Someone interested in an annulment—whether for personal, family, or literary reasons—should investigate requirements of the relevant state.
Sometimes there are time limits on filing for an annulment. According to the Nathan Law Offices, in general, you have four years from the date of the marriage to file for an annulment. However, there are exceptions depending on the reason for the annulment.
And the time limit varies by state. For example, in Michigan, Virginia, and Ohio—and many others—the marriage may be annulled if a case is brought to court within two years of the marriage date.
However, there is no time frame to get an annulment in New York City. You can ask the Court for an annulment whether you have been married for 2 years or for 25 years as long as some of the grounds for annulment are met. Ditto Georgia, and several other states.
In Oklahoma a marriage that takes place before the expiration of six months from the date either spouse was divorced is a voidable marriage. In order to annul such a remarriage, an annulment action must be brought within the six-month period.
In North Carolina, the marriage can be annulled if it was performed under the representation that one of the parties was pregnant, but the couple separates within 45 days of their marriage and no child is born within the 10 months following the separation. Many states allow annulment on a much greater number of fraud-related grounds, but in North Carolina this is the only fraudulent ground available for an annulment.
This is a totally separate action. People who don’t qualify for a civil annulment may still be able to obtain a religious annulment, but this will have no effect on legal responsibilities as spouses. This process is not a part of the court system but, rather, a part of the church or institution to which the person(s) belong. However, it serves a similar purpose in that a religious annulment of a marriage typically decrees that the marriage was invalid from the beginning.
Pope Francis I
In religious annulment, the Church recognizes that a valid marriage never existed under the laws of the Church. Although some other religious institutions provide annulments, the Catholic Church is by far the most commonly used. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll stick with Catholic annulments here.
In 2015, Pope Francis issued a motu proprio, which is essentially an amendment to existing Catholic canon. These two documents, the Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus and Mitis et Misericors Iesus (one for the Western Catholic Church and one for the Eastern Catholic Church), make the process of obtaining an annulment more efficient.
Without an annulment, a Catholic cannot remarry, even if they divorce. A divorced Catholic who remarries without obtaining an annulment cannot receive any other sacraments.
The short of it is that to obtain a Church annulment, the person seeking the annulment must satisfy the Church that one or more of the requirements for a valid marriage was missing or abridged. The long of it is—well—long. (These are quoted directly from the Vatican library of canon law online.)
Insufficient use of reason (Canon 1095, 10): You or your spouse did not know what was happening during the marriage ceremony because of insanity, mental illness, or a lack of consciousness.
Grave lack of discretionary judgment concerning essential matrimonial rights and duties (Canon 1095, 20): You or your spouse was affected by some serious circumstances or factors that made you unable to judge or evaluate either the decision to marry or the ability to create a true marital relationship.
Psychic-natured incapacity to assume marital obligations (Canon 1095, 30): You or your spouse, at the time of consent, was unable to fulfill the obligations of marriage because of a serious psychological disorder or other condition.
Ignorance about the nature of marriage (Canon 1096, sec. 1): You or your spouse did not know that marriage is a permanent relationship between a man and a woman ordered toward the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.
Error of person (Canon 1097, sec. 1): You or your spouse intended to marry a specific individual who was not the individual with whom marriage was celebrated. (For example, mail order brides; otherwise, this rarely occurs in the United States.)
Error about a quality of a person (Canon 1097, sec. 2): You or your spouse intended to marry someone who either possessed or did not possess a certain quality, e.g., social status, marital status, education, religious conviction, freedom from disease, or arrest record. That quality must have been directly and principally intended.
Fraud (Canon 1098): You or your spouse was intentionally deceived about the presence or absence of a quality in the other. The reason for this deception was to obtain consent to marriage.
Total willful exclusion of marriage (Canon 1101, sec. 2): You or your spouse did not intend to contract marriage as the law of the Catholic Church understands marriage. Rather, the ceremony was observed solely as a means of obtaining something other than marriage itself, e.g., to obtain legal status in the country or to legitimize a child.
Willful exclusion of children (Canon 1101, sec. 2): You or your spouse married intending, either explicitly or implicitly, to deny the other’s right to sexual acts open to procreation.
Willful exclusion of marital fidelity (Canon 1101, 12): You or your spouse married intending, either explicitly or implicitly, not to remain faithful.
Willful exclusion of marital permanence (Canon 1101, sec. 2): You or your spouse married intending, either explicitly or implicitly, not to create a permanent relationship, retaining an option to divorce.
Future condition (Canon 1102, sec. 2): You or your spouse attached a future condition to your decision to marry, e.g., you will complete your education, your income will be at a certain level, you will remain in this area.
Past condition (Canon 1102, sec. 2): You or your spouse attached a past condition so your decision to marry and that condition did not exist; e.g., I will marry you provided that you have never been married before, I will marry you provided that you have graduated from college.
Present condition (Canon 1102, sec. 2): You or your spouse attached a present condition to your decision to marry and that condition did not exist, e.g., I will marry you provided you don’t have any debt.
Force (Canon 1103): You or your spouse married because of an external physical or moral force that you could not resist.
Fear (1103): You or your spouse chose to marry because of fear that was grave and inescapable and was caused by an outside source.
Error regarding marital unity that determined the will (1099): You or your spouse married believing that marriage was not necessarily an exclusive relationship.
Error regarding marital indissolubility that determined the will (Canon 1099): You or your spouse married believing that civil law had the power to dissolve marriage and that remarriage was acceptable after civil divorce.
Error regarding marital sacramental dignity that determined the will (Canon 1099): You and your spouse married believing that marriage is not a religious or sacred relationship but merely a civil contract or arrangement.
Lack of new consent during convalidation (Canons 1157,1160): After your civil marriage, you and your spouse participated in a Catholic ceremony and you or your spouse believed that (1) you were already married, (2) the Catholic ceremony was merely a blessing, and (3) the consent given during. the Catholic ceremony had no real effect.
One of the most famous “annullers” of all time—King Henry the VIII—created a new religion so he’d be allowed to marry all of these women.
THINGS THAT MIGHT NOT BE OBVIOUS OR INTUITIVE
Unless otherwise specified, there is no limit on the passage of time between marriage and annulment.
Glynn (Scotty) Wolfe, an American Baptist minister is known for having the largest number of monogamous marriages. He married 31 different times. One marriage was annulled.
A Catholic couple who obtain a divorce can subsequently apply for an annulment when one or both parties want to be members of the church in good standing and/or be remarried in the church.
If one member of a couple applies for an annulment, the other member has the option of agreeing, disagreeing, or (in the case of a couple previously divorced) simply not responding.
If each spouse/former spouse completes the fact-finding forms (done independently), their answers are compared and discrepancies resolved. This process can go on for months!
“Mariage de Louis de France, Duc de Bourgogne et de Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie” (1715) Antoine Dieu
Bottom Line: Civil and religious annulments are two distinctly different actions and one cannot replace the other. Be clear about your rights and responsibilities, which vary by state in Civil annulments.
Virtually everyone has experienced the frustration and/or embarrassment of forgetting. And as people age, forgetting becomes more frequent, at which point the brain adds anxiety or fear to the mix. But is forgetting always a bad thing?
On the contrary, research indicates that forgetting might be necessary to our mental functioning.
According to Dr. Scott A. Small, professor of psychiatry and neurology at Columbia University, a “constellation of findings” indicates that sifting and discarding the vast amount of information the brain collects is a necessary function. It may even be as essential for survival as the gathering of useful knowledge. And some researchers (including Small) are exploring ways that not being able to forget might provide insights into dealing with psychological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
“We were all taught forever, everyone, that forgetting is a passive breakdown of the memory mechanisms. The fundamental insight—the eureka, I think, of the new science of forgetting—is that our neurons are endowed with a completely separate set of mechanisms … that are dedicated to active forgetting.”
Oliver Hardt, an assistant professor of psychology at McGill University says forgetting is “one of the most fundamental aspects of a memory system. Without forgetting, nothing would work.” You may notice that your hairdresser/barber is wearing a green plaid shirt, but remembering that long term would just (in my words!) junk up your brain.
Neuroscientists have discovered that it is actually a positive thing that we cannot remember every detail of every day. Dr. Andre Fenton, a neuroscientist at New York University, claims that would be potentially very distracting. For example, experiencing intruding memories could make it very difficult to focus during cognitive tasks like doing homework or deciding what to eat for dinner.
As Ingrid Wickelgren wrote in Forgetting is Key to a Healthy Mind, being able to forget has ripple effects on personality. If you cannot shake negative memories, for example, you might fall easily into a bad mood. Although the inability to forget does not cause depression, research shows that depressed patients have difficulty putting aside dark thoughts. In other words, being able to forget negative, stressful, or traumatic events and information might be beneficial to our mental health.
More generally, according to the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, “The ability to forget helps us prioritize, think better, make decisions, and be more creative. Normal forgetting, in balance with memory, gives us the mental flexibility to grasp abstract concepts from a morass of stored information, allowing us to see the forest through the trees.”
And this isn’t just a Columbia opinion!
Oliver Hardt is among the many scientists who suspect that this culling of nonessential memory is one of the key purposes of sleep. A good night’s sleep quite literally produces a clearer mind.
New research by Blake Richards and Paul Frankland indicates that being forgetful doesn’t mean you’re losing your marbles. In fact, it could mean that you are exceptionally intelligent. People with excellent long-term memories often forget details once they are no longer needed. On the other hand, people whose brains are not cluttered by memories of minutiae may be better at intelligent decision-making.
Both memory and forgetting are based on brain physiology/chemistry. The synaptic connection point between neurons is what makes a memory. For transient short-term memories, that change is temporary. The more a person revisits and repeats a memory, however, the stronger and more enduring that change becomes.
That may be good or bad!
Emotional memories are often difficult to forget because of the involvement of an area of the brain that plays an important role in controlling behaviors that are important to your survival, including feelings of fear. People with post-traumatic stress disorders may have an overgrowth of synaptic connections in the amygdala (the part of the brain that stores fear memories).
Dr. Sheena Josselyn, a senior scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children, and a professor of psychology and physiology at the University of Toronto, researches precisely how humans learn and remember. The purpose of memory, she says, “is not to allow us to sit back and say, ‘Oh, do you remember that time?’ It really is to help us make decisions.”
Choosing to forget something might take more mental effort than trying to remember it, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin discovered. But given the results summarized above, it’s probably worth the effort. Unfortunately, the more emotionally charged a memory is, the more difficult it will be to forget.
Researchers are working to develop treatments to help patients deliberately forget targeted memories. Patients can use these “active forgetting” techniques, such as identifying and removing memory cues or consciously interrupting and shutting down memory recall, to weaken the hold of traumatic memories. However, like most medical treatment, this should be done under the supervision of a licensed professional.
According to Small, one of the best ways to help your brain forget things you’d like to forget is to stay social and engage with life. He theorizes that this might be one of the reasons why the Coronavirus pandemic has been so damaging to the world’s mental health. Quarantined and isolated people stayed indoors and brooded on painful memories rather interacting socially. As restrictions lift, try going out among people to make yourself forget!
Bottom Line: A consensus seems to be emerging that forgetting is both inevitable and valuable.
