I was writing the Law of Cosines on the board this morning, and my male students were, instead of taking notes, pontificating about Beauty and the Beast and singing renditions of the Gaston song—“5 dozen eggs” and such.
I paused to settle the class, and a young man looked up at me with inspiration in his eyes and said, “The Beast was human at heart, but Belle was a beast at heart.” The other boys then chimed in, saying they sympathized with the muscly Gaston as the tragic hero of the tale and blamed the villain Belle for victimizing all of the male characters.
Sigh. I think I may be failing at my job.
Perhaps you’ve had a moment like this, where someone is misreading something so badly it almost makes your head explode.
Mark Twain satirizes the moments where readings and misreadings collide in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck and Jim get into it when runaway slave Jim brings up the story of “Sollermun.”
Huck insists that Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived. Jim is suspicious. The two are a bit confused as to what a “harem” is—Jim believes it to be a boarding house for women and children: “Would a wise man want to live in de mids’ er such a blimblammin’ all de time? No—’deed he wouldn’t.” In Jim’s mind, a wise man wouldn’t dare be landlord to a bunch of quarreling wives and crying children. A wise man would build a factory that he can close up whenever he needs peace and quiet.
“Well, but he was the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me so, her own self,” retorts Huck.
Jim then brings up the famous tale of Solomon and “dat chile dat he ‘uz gwyne to chop in two.” He points out the illogic of the “wise” man’s solution: “What use is half a chile? . . . de man dat think he kin settle a ’spute about a whole child wid a half a chile, doan’ know enough to come in out’n de rain.”
Exasperated, Huck exclaims, “But hang it, Jim, you’ve clean missed the point . . .”
We all know the feeling. Someone is reading a situation wrong, misunderstanding an idea, misreading the Scriptures! It’s frustrating. If they would only listen to us, they could be set straight.
In the end, Huck gives up: “I see it warn’t no use wasting words—you can’t learn a [n-word] to argue. So I quit.”
In Huck’s mind, when logic fails and explaining is no use, he falls back on the fact that he knows he’s right—because Huck is white and Jim is black. In his world, that settles it.
Here’s the painful truth Twain is poking at: We don’t have to be racist to behave just like Huck.
You see, Jim was partially right. All those wives were a sign of Solomon’s foolishness—not his wisdom. But Huck was too in love with his own reading of the story to hear another perspective.
So often, we believe our reading of things is 100% correct, and everyone else is 100% wrong. And when we can’t convince others to adopt our perspective, we chalk it up to some deficiency in them—some lack in character, education, morals, understanding. We’re just better than them, and that’s why our reading is right.
But the truth is, well, hang it, sometimes it’s you and I who have clean missed the point.
If you don’t fry chicken at home, well, I think you’ve clean missed the point of having a kitchen.
Basic Pan-Fried Chicken
Don’t worry, you don’t have to have a deep fryer or a vat of oil. A cast iron skillet or—even better!—a dutch oven will do it.
Prep It:
bone-in chicken thighs (or your preferred cuts)
2 c. flour
2 tsp. salt
pepper
1 tsp paprika
cooking oil
Preheat your skillet or dutch oven with an inch to inch-and-a-half of cooking oil over medium heat.
In a ziplock bag, mix a couple of cups of flour with a good 2 teaspoons of salt, a measure of pepper, and a teaspoon of paprika.
Toss the chicken thighs a few at a time in the bag until fully coated.
Fry It:
Once the oil is shimmering (about 350 degrees), drop chicken in but don’t crowd.
Fry for 5-6 minutes on one side.
Flip and cover, lowering the heat slightly. Fry for 8-9 minutes on the second side.
Remove the lid, raise the temperature back to medium, and flip chicken again. Continue to cook for 4-5 minutes until center reads 180 degrees.
Drain on a paper towel-lined plate and top with a sprinkling of salt.
Enjoy on a waffle with a side of collards!