Your RDA of Irony

Finerman’s Wake

Like most writers, I am prone to self-adoration and relish my way with words. So, when assigned to write a short article, I find it torture to edit myself. So many quips and bon mots are sacrificed to oblige the editor and space limits. I was particularly infatuated with one anecdote but I could not smuggle it into the final draft. However, lest it be lost to posterity, I wanted to share with you. The topic is the history of refrigerators:

“Until the 17th century no one even knew of the existence of bacteria, let alone its role in food spoilage. Most people simply accepted the preservative effects of cool temperatures without pondering why. But Francis Bacon (1561-1626) undertook the first scientific study of this phenomenon. Packing a chicken carcass with snow, the British scholar hoped to measure the quantity of coldness against the rate of food spoilage. Unfortunately, the old gentleman discovered the correlation between cold, bronchitis and death.”

  1. SwanShadow says:

    I’m not sure which is the greater irony: that Bacon was done in by Chicken; or that he died of fowl play by his own hand.

  2. Alan Perlman says:

    Then it’s NOT a coincidence that the first mass marketer of frozen foods was Clarence Birdseye?

  3. Richard Greb says:

    Frozen Bacon?

  4. Hal Gordon says:

    A lady friend of mine in England tells me that the ghost of the chicken can sometimes be seen haunting the old neighborhood.

  5. Retort Cases

    To Swanshadow: With his frozen chicken, Bacon coldcocked himself.

    To Alan: Francis Bacon might have propositioned the Jolly Green Giant.

    To Rich: Could Bacon have been rasher?

    To Hal: A spectral chicken with its head under a wing–could it be Anne Pullet?

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