Reading — 2026 Jan–Apr Recall Set 46

In 1818 a whale became the subject of a controversial court case in New York City. The case involved an old law requiring those who sold fish oil to pay a fee in order to have their barrels inspected by city officials, and certified. However, an oil merchant named Samuel Judd refused to pay the inspection fee on three barrels of oil, claiming that no inspection was necessary because it was whale oil, and whales were not fish. The state disagreed, and so a date was set for a court to decide not a point of law, but the answer to a more fundamental question: is a whale a fish? As simple as that question may appear today, the answer was far from obvious in the early nineteenth century. Indeed, the public debate in New York sparked off by the trial was sensational. At stake was nothing less than what most regarded as the order of nature. According to the commonly accepted scheme of things, if an animal was not a beast or a bird, it was a fish, regardless of whether it breathed air or suckled its young. For as long as anyone could remember, all non-human creatures had been organised according to the categories of birds, beasts and fish. For the average person the answer seemed perfectly obvious: whales swam in the sea and therefore they were fish. Against this traditional framework stood the new Linnaean system of classification, which sought to introduce more scientific values into the classification of living things. Barely half a century old in 1818, the Linnaean system controversially classified whales as mammals because they shared two mammalian characteristics: they were warm-blooded and breathed air. So the trial began in December 1818. Judd's defence lawyers chose as their star witness one of New York's most prominent figures, the congressman Samuel Mitchill. Referred to as a 'living encyclopaedia' and a 'walking library', Mitchill was a renowned natural history lecturer at the college of Physicians and Surgeons who liked to dare his students to test his knowledge of the natural world. 'Show me the fin, and I will name the fish,' he boasted. Scientifically, it was an open-and-shut case, and Judd's defence lawyers believed they only had to do one simple thing to win the trial: insist that it be decided by biology alone. Mitchill seemed fully qualified for this role. But this is where the case becomes interesting, and is the reason why the trial of the whale is not some dusty nineteenth-century obscurity. For rather than debate Mitchill on his area of expertise, lawyers for the New York City fish-oil inspectors chose a different tack. Lead counsel William Sampson turned the trial into a contest between scientific learning and common sense, by asking plain-spoken whalers to make their case before the jury. The crux of Sampson's case was the trial's implication with regard to humans, should Judd be found not guilty. Sampson told jury members that if they accepted Mitchill's testimony on whales, they were obliged to accept a lower place for their own kind in the natural order. As a result, Mitchill's day in court did not go smoothly, not least because he was forced to acknowledge serious disputes among his peers regarding exactly how to classify biological organisms. Sampson then took aim at Mitchill himself and what he represented: privileged aristocrats from the scientific community who had lost touch with reality. The smooth-talking Sampson then claimed Mitchill's beliefs had their origin in Europe – something he rightly judged would infuriate the citizens of always-independent New York. This revolutionary new thinking Sampson claimed, was something that honest working New Yorkers could do without. No longer was this a case about barrels of oil but the proper place of scientific knowledge in the U.S.A. Ultimately, what won the case for Samuel Judd were not Mitchill's scientific arguments, but testimony from a different sphere altogether. In New York's markets, the merchants implicitly understood that whale oil and fish oil were not the same: whale oil could be used as a fuel for lamps because it could be burned without giving off smoke; fish oil, on the other hand, was nasty, impure stuff used primarily in tanning leather. In the end it was this testimony that led to Judd's victory. The trial of the whale still has relevance today, when the court of public opinion remains easily swayed by sceptics. The 1818 trial was really about this question: who gets to decide on the place of the natural world in the human world – scientific experts or public opinion? Whether the issue today is the effects of human activity on the climate of this planet, or one of many other contemporary topics, the legacy of Judd's case continues to be of relevance.

A There are, according to current scholarship, 160 existing portraits by Francisco de Goya—about a third of his painted output. The real number, though, is much greater since there are no pure landscapes in Goya's work, in that everything he ever painted deals with people. In the work of no other great portraitist are a nation's people, history, traumas, folk traditions, and superstitions so comprehensively and relentlessly captured. His subject was a good one since Goya lived in interesting times: his lifetime was a period that saw Spain pass through the effects of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and the restoration of the monarchy; it was ruled by a succession of authoritarian and liberal governments; and was simultaneously marked by the Enlightenment. Put his work together—the public and private paintings, the personal drawings and sketches, and the unsettling and sinister etching series—and what you have is a portrait in the round of Spain itself. B His work as a portraitist has its origins in the 45 tapestry cartoons he painted after he moved to Madrid in 1775. Although his designs don't show portraits, they do show types—the majos and majas who gave Madrid its street swagger, peasants and rich men, courting couples, singers, hunters, children, and young men and women playing blind man's buff or tossing a mannequin into the air. The pictures have a light, rococo palette and the faces are individualised without being those of individuals. But in them, Goya practised poses and groupings and a way of handling light on and around figures that was to be invaluable. C The tapestry designs also show social roles rather than the people inhabiting them, but when it came to painting portraits proper, Goya would turn this on its head. His greatest strength as a portraitist is that regardless of the status of the sitter, be they a king and queen, the Duke of Wellington, or a doctor or writer, it was the person he showed first and their position second. It was this trait, most apparent in his royal portraiture, that has led him to be seen as satirising the Bourbon monarchy rather than as a painter who depicted what he saw without showing obeisance to the usual flattering conventions. In Robert Hughes's phrase, he did not 'pay reflexive homage to authority' but instead walked a fine line between respect and truth. D Goya's success was rapid; in 1785 he was made deputy director of painting at the Royal Academy (his main message to his students was subversive—'there are no rules in painting') and in 1786 became pintor de cámara, required to paint 'works required for royal service'. He immediately spent some of his 15,000-reales salary on a two-wheeled gig (one of only three in Madrid) which he promptly crashed on his first outing. His amour propre untouched, he wrote to his childhood friend Martín Zapater: 'I have now established an enviable way of living: I do not wait on anyone in antechambers, and if anyone wants anything from me they must come to me; I have made myself more in demand and unless it is a person of rank or at the request of a friend I would do nothing for anyone...' E Part of the reason for his success was that, unlike Gainsborough, for example, he did not resent portraiture as an economically necessary chore that ate away at the time he could devote to higher art. He embraced the genre as a means of exploring human character. This genuine interest allowed him to penetrate the facade of his sitters, capturing not just their likeness but their psychological state. His portraits from the 1790s, particularly of the royal family, are masterclasses in this approach. He presented them with a stark realism that was unprecedented, grouping them in a way that highlighted their familial dynamics and individual personalities, however flawed or ordinary they might appear. F This commitment to psychological truth became even more pronounced following his near-fatal illness in 1793, which left him deaf. Isolated from the world of sound, Goya’s focus turned inwards, and his work grew darker and more introspective. The light rococo tones of his tapestry cartoons gave way to a richer, somber palette and a dramatic use of chiaroscuro. His portraits from this period, such as those of the Duchess of Alba, are charged with a complex mixture of intimacy, mystery, and power. The line between observer and subject seemed to dissolve, as Goya used the portrait not for public glorification but as a form of private, almost philosophical, inquiry. G Ultimately, Goya’s career traces the arc of Spain’s tumultuous age. The enlightened optimism of his early court paintings gradually soured into a profound disillusionment, vividly recorded in his later, so-called 'Black Paintings'. These murals, painted directly onto the walls of his country house, are a far cry from the formal portraits of princes and dukes. They depict haunting, mythological scenes and grotesque figures, reflecting the despair and chaos of a nation ravaged by war and repression. In this final phase, the portrait of Spain was no longer found in the faces of individuals, but in the tormented soul of its people.

When was the last time you sat down to a meal of harnam meshwi, a.k.a. grilled pigeon, which is most likely found on a menu in Egypt? Or traveled to Oslo, Norway, for a breakfast of freshly caught shrimp? Chances are probably never. However, thanks to former New York Times restaurant critic, Smithsonian contributor and author Mimi Sheraton's latest book, 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die, your foodie life is about to get a whole lot more interesting. Inspired by Patricia Schultz's best-selling 1,000 Places to See Before You Die (also published by Workman Publishing), Sheraton has rounded up 1,000 must-try dishes, restaurants, markets, cultural feasts, and even some relatively universal foods (such as bananas, olive oil, and whipped cream) that transcend regional categorization. Curated from cuisines around the globe, Sheraton has put them together in one large volume, along with details on historic and cultural context, tips on how to prepare or where to try a particular dish, and even several dozen recipes. It's a project that's been 10 years in the making—one that's as much a wonderful display of Sheraton's vast food knowledge (she's been writing about food for 60 years) as it is an ode to the world's sheer culinary diversity. The ultimate gift for the food lover. In the same way that 1,000 Places to See Before You Die reinvented the travel book, 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die is a joyous, informative, dazzling, mouthwatering life list of the world's best food. The book is organized not by country or type of food, but rather by the experience of eating itself. Sections guide the reader through "Street Food & Snacks," "Comfort Food," and "Sweets & Treats," among others. This structure encourages serendipitous discovery, where a reader looking for a classic French pastry might stumble upon a traditional Indonesian dessert and become captivated. Sheraton’s entries are more than just lists; they are miniature stories. She explains why a specific cheese from a remote village in Greece is worth seeking out, or how a particular noodle dish embodies the history of trade routes in Southeast Asia. This narrative approach transforms the book from a mere checklist into a compelling read about culture, history, and human connection through food. Of course, a list of 1,000 items is bound to include some controversies. Some critics question the inclusion of ubiquitous items like the banana, arguing that it diminishes the exclusivity of the list. Others have noted a possible bias towards European and North American cuisines, though Sheraton defends her selections by pointing to the extensive research and personal travels that informed her choices. She emphasizes that the book is a personal, albeit expert, guide rather than a definitive, objective ranking. The goal, she states, is to inspire curiosity and appreciation, not to end debate. Ultimately, 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die serves as a passport to gastronomic adventure. It challenges the reader to look beyond their culinary comfort zone, whether that means seeking out a rare ingredient, attempting a complex recipe at home, or simply ordering something unfamiliar at a local restaurant. For Sheraton, the book is a culmination of a lifetime's passion for food, an invitation to savor the incredible diversity of flavors the world has to offer, one unforgettable bite at a time.