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Street Cat Bob Memorial Statue

This life-size monument honors the legacy of a famous literary feline.  

Added by Seanetta, Edited by Linkogecko, January 27, 2023 

The statue of Bob, a ginger street cat. SEANETTA (ATLAS OBSCURA USER)

Author James Bowen said this of his four-legged friend. SEANETTA (ATLAS OBSCURA USER)

The bronze sculpture of Bob. SEANETTA (ATLAS OBSCURA USER)

James Bowen's message. SEANETTA (ATLAS OBSCURA USER)

Bob gazing out at the world. SEANETTA (ATLAS OBSCURA USER)

The granite bench next to the monument. SEANETTA (ATLAS OBSCURA USER)

A QR code informs visitors about the story behind the monument. SEANETTA (ATLAS OBSCURA USER)

SEANETTA (ATLAS OBSCURA USER) 

MOST OF THE 1,100 MONUMENTS scattered around London are dedicated to individuals who carried out heroic deeds in the service of the Crown. Others applaud the achievements of persons in the fields of arts or sciences. However, there is one unorthodox statue dedicated to a furry, famous Londoner who once walked on four legs.

In the south-east corner of a park in the borough of Islington, lies a life-size bronze of a cat named Bob, who rests perched on a stack of books. This feline was immortalized in a series of novels written by his adopted owner, James Bowen. These two individuals were able to look after one another, and in turn, their lives became the stuff of legend.

Bowen published the first book of their adventures together in 2012. The story of how this wayward grimalkin was able to help the busker overcome homelessness and drug dependency has warmed the hearts of many. In 2016, the first novel, A Street Cat Named Bob: And How He Saved My Life, was made into a film. A series of five more books followed. Bob passed away at the age of 14 in 2020.

In 2021, British artist Tanya Russell, who is known for her animal sculptures, was commissioned to depict Bob wearing his signature scarf. There is also a pink granite bench with a quote from Mr. Bowen: “He is my companion, my best friend, my teacher and my soulmate. And he will remain all of those things. Always.”

The dedication ceremony took place across the street from the Waterstones bookshop where Bowen would write. He had this to say at the time: “My hope is that when people visit Bob’s statue, or as they simply pass by, that they will take a moment to remember that everyone deserves a second chance and that no-one is alone.”

Know Before You Go

The statue of Bob is free to visit.

Community Contributors
SEANETTA
ADDED BY
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EDITED BY

(Sources: Atlas Obscura)

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The Sauce That Survived Italy’s War on Pasta

The Futurists tried to abolish pasta and all they got was this delicious dish.

BY SAM LIN-SOMMERJANUARY 27, 2023

Sugo Marinetti features capers, anchovies, fried artichokes, and pistachios. COURTESY OF SAMANTA CORNAVIERA

IN 1932, ITALIAN CULINARY MAGAZINE La Cucina Italiana awarded their Best Pasta Sauce prize to one chef’s Sugo Marinetti, or Marinetti sauce. Said sauce stood out not only for its unique combination of chopped pistachios and artichokes sauteed in butter, but also for its ironic title: the firebrand poet Filippo Marinetti, for whom the pasta sauce was named, was at that very moment fighting to banish pasta from Italy.

La Cucina Italiana, a magazine founded by wealthy, fascist editor Umberto Notari and his wife Delia Pavoni Notari, had helped launch Marinetti’s war on pasta just over a year earlier. In their December 1930 issue, Marinetti published the Manifesto of Futurist Cooking, where he declared pasta to be “an absurd Italian gastronomic religion” and called for its abolition.

The essay was one of many fascist-leaning Futurist manifestos published in the early 20th century that called for the destruction of the old in favor of the new in fields such as poetry, painting, and cinema. Along with his proponents, Marinetti, who founded the Futurist movement in 1909, blamed tradition for Italy’s declining world stature. Futurists embraced technology, war, and masculinity, while decrying museums, libraries, and many other long-held Italian treasures—pasta among them.

Futurist poet Filippo Marinetti called pasta “an absurd Italian gastronomic religion.” EMILIO SOMMARIVA

In the Manifesto of Futurist Cooking and the 1932 Futurist Cookbook, Marinetti imagined a world in which Italians absorbed nutrients through pills, freeing mealtime to become a form of performance art enhanced by technology, perfumes, and music. He advocated for experimental, oftentimes absurd dishes—salami cooked in coffee and cologne, for example—and the abolition of the fork and knife.

And, most significantly, Marinetti cast pasta as a prime cause of Italy’s backwardness. “Pasta is not good for Italians,” he wrote, citing a “very intelligent Neapolitan professor” who said that pasta caused disorders in the pancreas and liver, leading to “laziness, pessimism, nostalgic inactivity, and neutralism.”

Many artists and intellectuals rushed to Marinetti’s side. “Pasta is like our rhetoric,” chimed in the fascist theater critic Marco Ramperti. “Only good for filling up our mouths.” The French poet Gabriel Audisio called pasta a “dictatorship of the stomach” that necessitated an “insidious, slow process of rumination … the unctuous conciliatory rhythm of the sloth.” In Genoa, an anti-pasta advocacy group formed under the acronym PIPA, or “International Association Against Pasta,” in English.

In the middle of the pasta controversy, La Cucina Italiana urged Italians to send in recipes for “the best sauce for one kg of Puritas Maccheroni.” COURTESY OF SAMANTA CORNAVIERA

As one might imagine, many Italians did not take well to Marinetti’s anti-pasta crusade. In the city of Aquila, women joined together to sign a letter of protest defending pasta’s honor. The mayor of Naples spoke up in favor of his city’s beloved starch, saying, “the angels in paradise eat nothing but vermicelli al pomodoro.” Marinetti, a fierce critic of Catholicism, retorted that the mayor’s claim “consecrates the unappetizing monotony of paradise and the life of the angels.” The periodical La settimana modenese called Marinetti and his Futurist allies “past their proper cooking-time.” This furor meant that Marinetti’s manifesto garnered attention in newspapers from London to Chicago, under headlines such as “Italy May Down Spaghetti.”

Marinetti’s anti-pasta campaign may have had another inspiration: Prime minister and fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who was busy attempting to convince Italians to abandon pasta in favor of rice. He wanted to wean Italy off of foreign wheat imports, which were becoming increasingly difficult to acquire amidst international sanctions and a suffering domestic economy. Rice grew well in Northern Italy, so Mussolini sent free rice samples throughout the country and bombarded Italians with pro-rice propaganda.

This issue of La Cucina Italiana tells the story of how Marinetti, whose photo is the second in the fourth column, “fraternized with his enemy” as a pasta sauce judge. COURTESY OF SAMANTA CORNAVIERA

In 1931, La Cucina Italiana waded into the middle of this controversy when it hosted a contest, sponsored by the Italian pasta company Puritas, to determine who could make the best sauce to serve with one kilogram of Puritas maccheroniLa Cucina Italiana’s Notari “was a capable enough entrepreneur … to understand that the controversy would certainly have attracted readers,” writes Samanta Cornaviera, an expert in early 20th-century Italian culinary history, over email. Adding to the drama was the fact that the panel of judges, a who’s-who of Italy’s cultural elite, included the Notaris’ friend and the anti-pasta crusader himself, Marinetti. As Cornaviera recounts on her website, when it came time to judge the myriad sauces, Marinetti, in typical firebrand fashion, arrived late to the panel only to immediately demand to taste the sauces over rice or soup rather than his reviled pasta.

Though the competition attracted thousands of entrants, Marinetti and the other judges picked a predictable winner: Amedeo Pettini, former royal chef, leading food critic, and an editor of La Cucina. Pettini presented a sauce of tomato, anchovies, sauteed artichokes, ham, and chopped pistachios. He named it, somewhat surprisingly, “Marinetti sauce.”

Marinetti Sauce is named after a man who hated pasta with a passion. COURTESY OF SAMANTA CORNAVIERA

The ironic title “was neither an insult nor a joke,” Cornaviera writes, “but a real tribute.” Pettini was a shrewd marketer, and in 1930s Italy, “it was fashionable to name recipes after national characters and heroes.” Marinetti’s name added a sarcastic cultural cache to the sauce, although it is safe to say that Marinetti did not enjoy his namesake dish over Puritas pasta—not in public, at least.

With time, Marinetti sauce faded from public consciousness, Cornaviera writes, as did Marinetti’s fight against pasta. Both Mussolini and Marinetti died in the 1940s, and during Italy’s postwar economic boom, pasta became even more popular than ever before. Today, Cornaviera recommends that people try Sugo Marinetti, first and foremost, because it’s delicious. “That buttery and tasty sauce, the crunchiness of pistachios and the crunch of fried artichokes,” she writes, and adds, “It is also full of stories to tell.” And though it might make Marinetti roll over in his grave, Cornaviera maintains that the sauce tastes great over spaghetti.

Marinetti Sauce

Adapted from Toscana Mia

    Ingredients

    • 2 peeled potatoes
    • One thick slice of ham, diced
    • One onion, minced
    • One carrot, minced
    • One stick of celery, minced
    • Butter to taste
    • A handful of parsley leaves, chopped
    • One 10 oz can of tomato puree
    • A spoonful of capers
    • 2 oz chopped anchovies or anchovy paste
    • 3 fresh artichoke hearts, quartered and thinly sliced
    • Olive oil, to taste
    • One 500 g (17.6 oz) box of dried spaghetti alla chitarra (or other dried pasta)
    • 1/2 cup shelled green pistachios, thinly sliced
    • Parmesan cheese

    Instructions

    1. Prepare the potato water. Boil the potatoes in a pot of salted water until soft. Remove them from the pot and reserve the water, which will be used to thicken the sauce. The potatoes can be used for a different recipe.
    2. Set a separate pot of salted water to boil for the pasta.
    3. Fry the ham in butter, then add onion, carrot, and celery until softened.
    4. Add parsley, a spoonful of tomato sauce, and a few spoonfuls of the potato water to the pan. Let the sauce reduce.
    5. Pour the sauce into a blender and add the anchovies and capers. Blend until thick and smooth. Return the sauce to the pan, adding more potato water if too dry.
    6. In a separate pan, saute the artichokes in butter and olive oil until crispy.
    7. Meanwhile, boil the pasta in the pot of salted water until al dente. Once the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the sauce, tossing the pasta with parmesan and extra butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
    8. Transfer the pasta to a serving plate and top with any remaining sauce. Garnish with the fried artichokes and sliced pistachios.

    (Sources: Atlas Obscura)

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    Nope, coffee won’t give you extra energy. It’ll just borrow a bit that you’ll pay for later

    Author

    Many of us want (or should I say need?) our morning coffee to give us our “get up and go”. Altogether, the people of the world drink more than two billion cups of coffee each day.

    You might think coffee gives you the energy to get through the morning or the day – but coffee might not be giving you as much as you think.

    The main stimulant in coffee is the caffeine. And the main way caffeine works is by changing the way the cells in our brain interact with a compound called adenosine.

    Getting busy, getting tired

    Adenosine is part of the system that regulates our sleep and wake cycle and part of why high levels of activity lead to tiredness. As we go about our days and do things, levels of adenosine rise because it is released as a by-product as energy is used in our cells.

    Eventually adenosine binds to its receptor (parts of cells that receive signals) which tells the cells to slow down, making us feel drowsy and sleepy. This is why you feel tired after a big day of activity. While we are sleeping, energy use drops lowering adenosine levels as it gets shuffled back into other forms. You wake up in the morning feeling refreshed. Well, if you get enough sleep that is.

    If you are still feeling drowsy when you wake up caffeine can help, for a while. It works by binding to the adenosine receptor, which it can do because it is a similar shape. But it is not so similar that it triggers the drowsy slow-down signal like adenosine does. Instead it just fills the spots and stops the adenosine from binding there. This is what staves off the drowsy feeling.

    No free ride

    But there is a catch. While it feels energising, this little caffeine intervention is more a loan of the awake feeling, rather than a creation of any new energy.

    This is because the caffeine won’t bind forever, and the adenosine that it blocks doesn’t go away. So eventually the caffeine breaks down, lets go of the receptors and all that adenosine that has been waiting and building up latches on and the drowsy feeling comes back – sometimes all at once.

    So, the debt you owe the caffeine always eventually needs to be repaid, and the only real way to repay it is to sleep.

    But first, coffee. UnsplashCC BY

    Timing is everything

    How much free adenosine is in your system, that hasn’t attached to receptors yet, and how drowsy you are as a consequence will impact how much the caffeine you drink wakes you up. So, the coffee you drink later in the day, when you have more drowsy signals your system may feel more powerful.

    If it’s too late in the day, caffeine can make it hard to fall asleep at bedtime. The “half life” of caffeine (how long it takes to break down half of it) is about five hours). That said, we all metabolise caffeine differently, so for some of us the effects wear off more quickly. Regular coffee drinkers might feel less of a caffeine “punch”, with tolerance to the stimulant building up over time.

    Coffee drunk late in the day can hit differently. PexelsCC BY

    Caffeine can also raise levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that can make you feel more alert. This might mean caffeine feels more effective later in the morning, because you already have a natural rise in cortisol when you wake up. The impact of a coffee right out of bed might not seem as powerful for this reason.

    If your caffeinated beverage of choice is also a sugary one, this can exacerbate the peak and crash feeling. Because while sugar does create actual energy in the body, the free sugars in your drink can cause a spike in blood sugar, which can then make you feel tired when the dip comes afterwards.

    While there is no proven harm of drinking coffee on an empty stomach, coffee with or after a meal might hit you more slowly. This is because the food might slow down the rate at which the caffeine is absorbed.

    What about a strong tea or fizzy cola?

    Coffee, of course, isn’t the only caffeinated beverage that can loan you some energy.

    The caffeine in tea, energy drinks and other beverages still impacts the body in the same way. But, since the ingredients mostly come from plants, each caffeinated beverage has its own profile of additional compounds which can have their own stimulant effect, or can interact with caffeine to change its impacts.

    Caffeine can be useful, but it isn’t magic. To create energy and re-energise our bodies we need enough food, water and sleep.

    (Sources: The Conversation)

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