a coarse feeder

Humble   Sun Jan 06, 2008 2:32 pm GMT
Hello,
I can’t quite get what “coarse feeder” means – someone who prefers fat and spicy food?
What kind of food can be called coarse?

-Abas knew how to cook only native food, and Cooper, a coarse feeder, found his gorge rise against the everlasting rice.-

Could you explain, please?
Thank you.
davidab   Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:19 pm GMT
A Humble (is it you?) posted this very same question here:

http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/33284-coarse-feeder.html
Guest   Sun Jan 06, 2008 6:25 pm GMT
Must be a "probing" post, just to see how well antimoon stacks up to the other site.
Guest   Sun Jan 06, 2008 7:55 pm GMT
For validity's sake, one can post the same question on more than one forum for getting an accurate explanation. I don't see anyhting wrong with that approach. The more replies, the better.
Guest   Sun Jan 06, 2008 9:01 pm GMT
Yes, but the question was addressed and answered in January of last year. Surely this can't still be weighing on Humble's mind.
Guest   Sun Jan 06, 2008 10:27 pm GMT
That sounds really odd. Maybe he just kills his time for posting questions on ESL forums. This time around the old question popped into his head again. After all, a year is a long time and along the way people can forget past stuff. So he pulled it up again, I don't know. But full marks to you for bringing up an interesting observation. Quite a Sherlock you are !
Humble   Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:46 am GMT
That's right, that was me, Davidab. Thank you for your time.
I remembered vaguely I'd asked somewhere before, but was not quite enlightened.
Now that you mentioned January, I found Curmudgeon's answer in my archives:
'Coarse' means, among other things, lacking in delicacy or refinement.
You can describe someone as being 'coarse' or having 'coarse manners.'
It would seem to me that a 'coarse feeder' is someone who has no appreciation of food unless it comes in a bun from a fast food restaraunt.

Sorry, I didn't open the link you kindly provided - it brings unpleasant memories of my departure from the forum because of a wilful and arrogant moderator named Casiopea.

The Guest is right, the more answers, the better. I'd appreciate some more clarification if possible. I don't know the source the sentence is taken from, but I think the action takes place long before the fast food era, which would devalue Curmudgeon's answer. Pity it didn't cross my mind then.
Guest   Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:53 am GMT
Casiopea. - Brennus' loveing husband?
davidab   Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:47 pm GMT
The quote is from 'The outstation' a short story by W. Somerset Maugham:

http://maugham.classicauthors.net/outstation/

(which unfortunately has a number of typos)

It either means Cooper likes plain and simple food with very few condiments rather than refined food with a lot of condiments or that he has a sloppy, bad mannered way of eating.

'found his gorge rise against the everlasting rice.' means he was getting more and more disgusted and angry with having to eat rice every day
Guest   Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:52 am GMT
I’ve copied 'The outstation' and will read it one of these days.
In the sentence “coarse food” is contrasted to rice, which is simple enough, too, isn’t it?

Here’s from my investigation:
http://www.mattonimages.com.au/images/search/coarse+food.html
The first thing we see is a plate of rice.

Then, this:
< Bhaaradvaaja, then it occurred to me, it is not easy to attain that pleasantness with this emaciated body, what if I take some coarse food - some cooked rice and bread. >

Coarse (of food or drink) - of inferior quality.

A wide variety of oat, millet, corn, sorghum, soybean, and buckwheat products are appearing on both the supermarket shelves and restaurants' tables in recent years. Switching to coarse food from refined food has become a new health fashion.

… man could easily digest the husks of corn on which coarse food was based.

Eat good coarse food. What I mean by coarse is non processed food. Lay off the boxed cereal, fast food, and anything with high concentrations of fat.

The bottom line – I think Cooper wanted something to chew, not just swallow.
Thank you very much, Davidab.