The Cat Came Back

While Andy has been busy writing today’s blog about kitties (specifically, our older kitty, Ono), I’ve been fixated on bigger cats (specifically the cat that appears in Daniel Mason’s 2023 novel, North Woods). The cat in the novel is referred to as a “catamount,” the Eastern Puma or cougar, which is now extinct. The catamount keeps coming back into the novel’s plot in the most mysterious and dramatic – and violent – ways.

Though my focus today is on cats that come back, I have to first rave a bit about Mason’s novel. It’s the tale of 300+ years in the life of an old yellow New England farmhouse. As one reviewer wrote, “This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope.”  The novel isn’t an easy read, especially until you get into it a ways, but it’s wonderfully complex, beautifully written and unusually thought-provoking. One of my favorite lines: “The only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.”

It’s hard not to think about The North Woods catamount without being reminded of an old Muppets’ song, which came out in October of 1980 and is sung by Rowlf, the dog. “The Cat Came Back” is not something you’ll laugh at if a little violence is not your cup of tea. I’m kind of surprised that our kids, who were 9 and 6 at that time and watched Sesame Street religiously, have turned out to be so non-violent! 🙂

An interesting aside: that song actually dates back to 1893, when it was written by Harry S. Miller and recorded by Charles Marsh. There are lots of other recordings – and many alter the lyrics slightly, some lyrics more disturbing than others. This one sung by Garrison Keillor and Frederica von Stade is funny (or not?):

Also, in Keillor’s Songs of the Cat” album is a song about a cat that is fed too much food – including tuna – and ends up bigger than Grandmother, its owner. The ending is…well, not as horrible as you might suspect. This line makes me think of our big kitty, Choco: “He was almost as big as grandma herself cause 3 times a day he was fed! He was fed tuna scraps as he lay in grandma’s lap.”

Of course, that makes me think of tuna.

Our kitties will generally eat tuna, which is interesting, given that cats evolved about 10,000 years ago in the deserts of the Middle East. Science.org has a recent article/podcast which helps explain why cats may like the taste of tuna, despite their roots. It all has to do with umami. According to that article, “Umami appears to be the primary flavor cats seek out…the team also found these cat receptors are uniquely tuned to molecules found at high concentrations in tuna, revealing why our feline friends seem to prefer this delicacy over all others.” And, to help explain why dogs aren’t as fussy as cats when it comes to food (which is certainly true around here), it helps to know that cats lack the protein which allows them to taste sugar, while dogs can taste both sugar and umami.

(If you need refreshing on “umami,” it’s the fifth taste…an addition to salty, sweet, sour and bitter. “It is not a single compound or molecule but rather a taste sensation that results from the interaction of certain compounds with taste receptors on the tongue,” according to an article in MarthaStewart.com. “The most well-known of these compounds is monosodium glutamate, MSG.”)

We’ve published a variety of good tuna recipes (Mom’s Tuna Noodle Casserole is the most nostalgic), but today’s recipe is an unusual Asian-y tweak on a Mexican staple. But would our Siamese cats like it (think Siam!)? I doubt it very much.