The moral high ground?

We know that goats love climbing to the tops of things – and, occasionally, fellow ruminants, too.



But the goat may also have a claim to stand on the moral high ground. Goats, and sheep, make splendid parents. And although proverbial for lechery and unseemliness, it appears that, really, the old he-goat simply loves his mother. Perhaps a little too much.

Goat Curry

Petrines Gjestgiveri

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:
3 pounds / 1.5 kg goat, cut into 1-inch / 2.5-cm cubes
1 lime
1 large onion, sliced
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped (about 3 tablespoons / 45 ml)
2 teaspoons / 10 ml salt
1 teaspoon / 5 ml black pepper
1 teaspoon / 5 ml thyme leaves
¼ teaspoon / 1 ml finely chopped Scotch bonnet pepper
2 tablespoons / 25 ml canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon / 5 ml sugar
5 green onions, chopped (about 1 cup / 250 ml)
2 teaspoons / 10 ml curry powder
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch / 1-cm cubes

Method:

First, secure your goat, and deal with appropriately. Squeeze the lime juice over the goat; let it sit for a couple of minutes and then rinse with cold water. Drain off excess water. Place the goat in a sealable container and add the onion, garlic, salt, black pepper, thyme, and Scotch bonnet pepper. Wearing rubber gloves, rub the spices into the goat with your hands. Marinate, covered and refrigerated, for 1 to 2 hours.

In a large pot over medium heat, heat the oil and sugar, stirring until the sugar is brown. Add the goat with marinade, green onions, and curry; stir thoroughly. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to low, and simmer the goat slowly in its own juices, stirring occasionally, until the goat is nearly tender, about 30 minutes. If the meat is tough, pour ¼ cup / 60 ml of water at a time down the sides of the pot, not directly onto the goat (or you will toughen the meat).

Add the potatoes and ¼ cup / 60 ml water; stir thoroughly. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked but not too soft. Crush some of the potatoes to thicken the sauce, if desired. If there is not enough sauce, add ¼ cup / 60 ml water and simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes.

Serve with rice and a salad.

Tragedy!

Where would the BeeGees be without goats? Nowhere, apparently; and immortal Shakespeare’s oeuvre would be considerably reduced; all episodes of EastEnders would end happily; and much of Western theatre and literature would not exist. For it can be argued – and I do argue it, I argue it forcefully, I argue it with conviction, I argue it passionately – it can be argued (with justification) that the goat gave us an entire dramatic form.

You know of course that our word tragedy comes (from Late Middle English, through Old French and via Latin) from the Greek τραγωδία. But perhaps you have forgotten that this word means – yes! – song (or ode) of the he-goat. Etymologists appear baffled and somewhat skeptical: ‘the reason remains unexplained,’ confesses the hapless dictionary-entry writer, clearly unacquainted with either tragedy or goats. The Song of the Goat, then: not the plaintive and solitary yodellings of the least popular member of a team, but an entire dramatic form, arising from among the ancient Greeks in honour of the god Dionysos, an inveterate cavorter with goatish satyrs. Mention of divine and celestial goats takes us in entirely different directions, but we must restrain ourselves. The Dionysiac Festival (isn’t this interesting?) was where theatre was born; was the white-hot crucible in which was forged the dramatic forms of the western world; was the origin of all we now see before us on the flickering screens of TV and film.

There seems to be something enduringly serious about goat-inspired art. Perhaps we should not be surprised: goats are no sort of joke. And here we see them at the origins of the best of the most high-minded and profound of dramatic arts. So the next time you watch a weepie or read a satisfyingly tragic tale, thank the goat. Whether we need also be thankful for the BeeGees I leave to your own best judgement.

Readers' Goats

Has a goat (or related caprinae) butted its way unexpectedly into your life? Have you had an encounter, alarming or exhilarating, with a ruminant wild or domesticated? If so, we at the OVM would love to hear your stories and see your pictures. We will feature them here, at Readers’ Goats, intermittently and at whim, for all of us to enjoy. You can share your experiences – and we encourage you to do so – by emailing the Order: just visit the Order’s profile page from the links to the right and hit the email button. We’re eager to hear from you.

Today’s Reader’s Goat is in a category we love: goat-themed objets. How and in what ways are sheep-goats immortalised as material things? Avid reader Ewe spotted these ovi-caprid masks at a roadside flea-market (coincidence?) and sent us her pictures. “These masks,” writes Ewe, “intrigued me strangely. Sure, we all have tons of sheep and goat knick-knacks about the house, but this I could actually wear! I suppose the mask-makers must have been really in touch with their inner ruminant – or maybe just wanted desperately to be one.”

Two caprinae, side-by-side, in harmony.

Sheep close-up

Thanks, Ewe! Any more ovicaprids trouvée? Send them in!

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Top ten films for, about and by goats.

That is all.

What tangled webs we weave

Caprinae appear to exert an extraordinary fascination on the imagination of genetic scientists. The lure of goaty DNA is too much to resist, it seems, and meddling in it is common. First to achieve international fame, of course, was the clone Dolly. Long since given over to the tender ministrations of the taxidermist, she stands now in mute, stuffed but proud immortality in a glass cage in the foyer of an Edinburgh museum, with a view of the koi pond. In our first post we alluded to the manipulations of goat mammery glands, whose altered emissions protect against nefarious chemical attack -- not the first instance of militarised goats. Our enthusiasm for this project is tempered only by a nagging sense of logistical practicality; surely some sort of “gas mask” would be easier and lighter to carry than a mature female goat strapped to your back probably in some sort of complex webbing which would enable swift teat-access?

Udder manipulation does not stop there. A story from last year reminds us of plans to develop the web-spinning goat, able to squirt strands of spider’s silk from their genetically enhanced glands. More progress, perhaps, and another example of the goat in the service of humanity.

Yet at times we are visited by a vague sense of unease. Is all this entirely wise? Given the tendency for goats to climb to the tops of trees, the addition of web-slinging abilities may be ill-thought through, creating a wholly unintentional sort of canopy-dwelling aerial über-goat whose motives and movements we could only guess at. Should these genetically-enhanced goats ever turn feral then we may have more on our hands than we bargained for. It is testimony indeed to the noble and selfless character of goats that this has not yet happened.

Goat culture-shock

Summer: the time not only for some of our members to disport themselves on Mediterranean beaches and secrete themselves in pampas grass hot on the trail of a zoological coup, but also for festivals. Our eye turns inevitably to the Festival City: Edinburgh. And, with a sense of sick shock, surprise, and a little sadness, really, we note the profound lack of sheep-and-goat themed entertainment on offer in the world’s largest conglomeration of annual international cultural festivals.

Of the Edinburgh International Festival itself, one might hope for some goatish cavorting in the production of Euripides’ The Bacchae (there is little Classical Greek drama without some goatery, we find), though, bizarrely, this is not mentioned as a selling point. The programme otherwise reads depressingly as if the organisers somehow thought they could write the goat out of high culture altogether.

We are aghast, after thoroughly interrogating the Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival, Book Festival, and Film Festival sites, to have our searches returned with a contemptuous ‘no matches found.’ Has the world gone insane?

With trembling fingers we move to the Fringe. Here, at least, there is some hope, though a sheep-theme is more prominent by far than anything goaty (too edgy?). For the parsimonious, free stand-up comedy is provided by Bringing in the Sheep. We are keen to see anything by The Black Sheep, and like the succinctly titled Men With Bananas (Using Eco-Horror Movie Clips) Demonstrate Handy Survival Tips For Dealing With Rampaging Frogs, Zombie Sheep, Gigantic Poisonous Shrews, Marauding Snails, 6ft Killer Chickens And Radioactive Weasals, Preparing You For... Nature's Revenge, which also promises ‘horror and nudity.’ A production of the Mystery Plays intrigues us, as we are told ‘audience members can interact with the ensemble whilst being surrounded by sheep,’ which sounds lovely.

Thus is the sheep associated with trifling and comedy. In contrast, the high-minded seriousness of goat-inspired drama is brought home by the Polish thespian troupe, Song of the Goat/Teatr Piesn Kozla. Their show, Lacrimosa, is, thrillingly, billed as

a poetry of violence, a metaphor for totalitarianism and the blind rage of a single person placing themselves on an equal par with God.

We expect nothing less from a theatre company inspired by ruminants.

Though afterwards, you may need to go for a drink.

Thanks to an Edinburgh Hon.Mem. for the Fringe links!