Manuela Cardiga - Guilty Pleasures and Culinary Treasures

TRUE TURTLE SOUP

Or how to serve up endangered species, namely: TRUE BELIEVERS

Tortoises climb flat surfaces, have you noticed?
They don't know it's flat.

To them all is pain and strain. Ascending to an endless horizon, tortoises heave each step against crushing gravity without the glamorous graceful prance of hoof or paw. All they have is the stubborn unfaltering pace of those dark and dusty heavy claws digging in the dirt.

Tortoises tell themselves a myth: they believe they have the power to disappear, but all they do is close their eyes like children telling themselves and the world they have become invisible- but they are trapped.Tortoises are held flat against the unforgiving earth by the brutal foot of their own truth.

Tortoises have no other defence, they are themselves: unvarnished, unlovely carapaces of unsavoury truths shielding the tender meat of absolute belief beneath.

Tortoises know the world is slow, but never as slow as when - yielding to deceit- they simmer in the agonising bubbling soup of salt regret.

Ironically, in their death-throes Tortoises know a momentary glow, just seconds before they hear the joyous yell: DINNER IS SERVED!


From: Conversations with Ivan Shapiro