In 1957, Salvador Dalí created a tableware set consisting of 1) a four-tooth fork with a fish handle, 2) an elephant fork with three teeth, 3) a snail knife with tears, 4) a leaf knife, 5) a small artichoke spoon, and 6) an artichoke spoon. When the set went on auction in 2012, it sold for $28,125.
Information on the cutlery set remains hard to find, but we suspect that it sprang from Dalí’s desire to blur the lines between art and everyday life. It’s perhaps the same logic that led him to design a surrealist cookbook—Les Diners de Gala—16 years later. It’s not hard to imagine the utensils above going to work on his oddball recipes, like “Bush of Crawfish in Viking Herbs,” “Thousand-Year-Old Eggs,” and “Veal Cutlets Stuffed with Snails.” If you happen to know more about Dalí’s creation, please add any thoughts to the comments below.
Few of us grow up drinking coffee, but once we start drinking it, even fewer of us ever stop. According to legend, the earliest such case was a ninth-century Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi, who noticed how much energy his ruminant charges seemed to draw from eating particular red berries. After chewing a few of them himself, he experienced the first caffeine buzz in human history. Despite almost certainly never having existed, Kaldi now lends his name to a variety of coffee shops around the world, everywhere from Addis Ababa to Seoul, where I live.
His story also opens the animated TED-Ed video above, “How Humanity Got Hooked on Coffee.” We do know, explains its narrator, that “at some point before the fourteen-hundreds, in what’s now Ethiopia, people began foraging for wild coffee in the forest undergrowth.” Early on, people consumed coffee plants by drinking tea made with their leaves, eating their berries with butter and salt, and — in what proved to be the most enduring method — “drying, roasting, and simmering its cherries into an energizing elixir.” Over the years, demand for this elixir spread throughout the Ottoman Empire, and in the fullness of time made its way outward to both Asia and Europe.
In no European city did coffee catch on as aggressively as it did in London, whose coffee houses proliferated in the mid-seventeenth-century and became “social and intellectual hotbeds.” Later, “Paris’ coffee houses hosted Enlightenment figures like Diderot and Voltaire, who allegedly drank 50 cups of coffee a day.” (In fairness, it was a lot weaker back then.) Producing and transporting the ever-increasing amounts of coffee imbibed in these and other centers of human civilization required world-spanning imperial operations, which were commanded with just the degree of caution and sensitivity one might imagine.
The world’s first commercial espresso machine was showcased in Milan in 1906, a signal moment in the industrialization and mechanization of the coffee experience. By the mid-nineteen-fifties, “about 60 percent of U.S. factories incorporated coffee breaks.” More recent trends have emphasized “specialty coffees with an emphasis on quality beans and brewing methods,” as well as certification for coffee production using “minimum wage and sustainable farming.” Whatever our considerations when buying coffee, many of us have made it an irreplaceable element of our rituals both personal and professional. Not to say what we’re addicted: this is the 3,170th Open Culture post I’ve written, but only the 3,150th or so that I’ve written while drinking coffee.
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletterBooks on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
From the time that a nameless genius in either Ethiopia or Yemen decided to dry, crush and strain water through a berry known for making goats nervous and jumpy, coffee has been loved and worshiped like few other beverages. Early Arab doctors proclaimed the stuff to be a miracle drug. Thoroughly caffeinated thinkers from Voltaire to Jonathan Swift to Jack Kerouac debated literature, philosophy and everything in between at coffee houses. Author Honoré Balzac even reportedly died because of excessive coffee drinking (it was either that or the syphilis.)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was also apparently a coffee enthusiast. So much so that he wrote a composition about the beverage. Although known mostly for his liturgical music, his Coffee Cantata (AKA Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, BWV 211) is a rare example of a secular work by the composer. The short comic opera was written (circa 1735) for a musical ensemble called The Collegium Musicum based in a storied Zimmerman’s coffee house in Leipzig, Germany. The whole cantata seems very much to have been written with the local audience in mind.
Coffee Cantata is about a young vivacious woman named Aria who loves coffee. Her killjoy father is, of course, dead set against his daughter having any kind of caffeinated fun. So he tries to ban her from the drink. Aria bitterly complains:
Father sir, but do not be so harsh!
If I couldn’t, three times a day,
be allowed to drink my little cup of coffee,
in my anguish I will turn into
a shriveled-up roast goat.
Ah! How sweet coffee tastes,
more delicious than a thousand kisses,
milder than muscatel wine.
Coffee, I have to have coffee,
and, if someone wants to pamper me,
ah, then bring me coffee as a gift!
The copywriters at Starbucks marketing department couldn’t have written it any better. Eventually, daughter and father reconcile when he agrees to have a guaranteed three cups of coffee a day written into her marriage contract. You can watch it in its entirety below, or get a quick taste above. The lyrics in German and English can be read here.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2014.
Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. You can follow him at @jonccrow.
But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. — Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way
History favors the eyes.
Visual art can tell us what individuals who died long before the advent of photography looked like, as well as the sort of fashions, food and decor one might encounter in households both opulent and humble.
Pity the poor neglected nose. Scents are ephemeral! How often have we wondered what Versailles really smelled back in the 17th century, when unbathed aristocrats in unlaundered finery packed into high society’s unventilated salons?
On the other hand, given the opportunity, do we really want to know?
Odeuropa, the European olfactory heritage project, answers with a resounding yes.
Among its initiatives is an interactive Smell Explorer that invites visitors to dive deep into smells as cultural phenomena.
Developed by an international team of computer scientists, AI experts and humanities scholars, the Smell Explorer is a vast compendium of smells as represented in 23,000 images and 62,000 public domain texts, including novels, theatrical scripts, travelogues, botanical textbooks, court records, sanitary reports, sermons, and medical handbooks.
This resource offers a fresh lens for considering the past through our noses, an unflinching look at various olfactory realities of life in Europe from the 15th through early 20th centuries.
Survivors of earlier plagues and pandemics might have associated their trials with the purifying aromas of burning rosemary and hot tar, just as the scents of sourdough and the way a handsewn cotton face mask’s interior smelled after several hours of wear conjure the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic for many of us.
There are a number of interesting ways to explore this scent-rich database — by geographic location, time period, associated emotion, or aromatic quality.
Of course, you could go straight to a smell source.
The squeamish are advised to steer clear of vomit (421 results) in favor of the Smell Explorer’s pleasurable and abundant food-related entries — bread, chocolate, coffee, pomegranate, pastry, and wine, to name but a few.
Each scent is built as a collection of cards or “nose witness reports” with information as to the title of the work cited, its author or artist, year of creation and characterization (“good”, “rank”, “peculiarly unpleasant and permanent”…)
Even more ambitiously, Odeuropa aims to give 21st-century noses an actual whiff of Europe’s olfactory heritage by enlisting perfumers and scent designers to recreate over a hundred historic odors and aromas.
While everyone stands to benefit from the added olfactory dimension of such exhibits, this initiative is of particular service to blind and visually-impaired visitors. Expertise is no doubt required to get it right.
We’re reminded of satirist PJ O’Rourke early-80’s visit to the Exxon-sponsored Universe of Energy Pavilion in Walt Disney World’s EPCOT center, where animatronic dinosaurs were “depicted without accuracy and much too close to your face:”
One of the few real novelties at Epcot is the use of smell to aggravate illusions. Of course, no one knows what dinosaurs smelled like, but Exxon has decided they smelled bad.
In December 1931, having just embarked on a 40-stop lecture tour of the United States, Winston Churchill was running late to dine with financier Bernard Baruch on New York City’s Upper East Side. He hadn’t bothered to bring Baruch’s address, operating under the incorrect assumption that his friend was so distinguished a personage, any random cab-driving commoner would automatically recognize his building.
Such were the days before cell phones and Google Maps.…
Eventually, Churchill bagged the cab, and shot out across 5th Avenue mid-block, thinking he would fare better on foot.
In England we frequently cross roads along which fast traffic is moving in both directions. I did not think the task I set myself now either difficult or rash. But at this moment habit played me a deadly trick. I no sooner got out of the cab somewhere about the middle of the road and told the driver to wait than I instinctively turned my eyes to the left. About 200 yards away were the yellow headlights of an approaching car. I thought I had just time to cross the road before it arrived; and I started to do so in the prepossession—wholly unwarranted— that my only dangers were from the left.
Another cab ferried the wounded Churchill to Lenox Hill Hospital, where he identified himself as “Winston Churchill, a British Statesman” and was treated for a deep gash to the head, a fractured nose, fractured ribs, and severe shock.
“I do not wish to be hurt any more. Give me chloroform or something,” he directed, while waiting for the anesthetist.
After two weeks in the hospital, where he managed to develop pleurisy in addition to his injuries, Churchill and his family repaired to the Bahamas for some R&R.
It didn’t take long to feel the financial pinch of all those cancelled lecture dates, however. Six weeks after the accident, he resumed an abbreviated but still grueling 14-stop version of the tour, despite his fears that he would prove unfit.
Otto Pickhardt, Lenox Hill’s admitting physician came to the rescue by issuing Churchill the Get Out of Prohibition Free Pass, above. To wit:
…the post-accident convalescence of the Hon. Winston S. Churchill necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times. The quantity is naturally indefinite but the minimum requirements would be 250 cubic centimeters.
Perhaps this is what the eminent British Statesman meant by chloroform “or something”? No doubt he was relieved about those indefinite quantities. Cheers.
Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. She lives in New York City, some 30 blocks to the north of the scene of Churchill’s accident. Follow her @AyunHalliday
Worried that holiday entertaining may put you in danger of overspending?
Preserve your bank account and those joyful festive feelings by serving your friends onion sandwiches.
We assure you, they come with the utmost of culinary pedigrees.
Esteemed chef and cookbook author Jacques Pépin happily demonstrates the simple recipe, above, confiding that it was a favorite of his late wife’s.
Everything tastes better when cooked with love, even if the chef’s not doing much more than slicing a couple of half moons from an onion and slathering bread with mayo.
(If you’re allergic to either of those ingredients, try swapping them out for radishes and butter.)
Pépin credits his old friend, James Beard, “America’s first foodie”, with the recipe. It caused a sensation when Beard published it in 1965’s Menus for Entertaining.
Just the other day I was enchanted to receive a box of these giant golden globes, perfectly matched in size and contour, that flourish in the volcanic soil of Oregon and Idaho. They make absolutely superb eating. I love them raw, thinly sliced, with a hamburger or cold meats or in a hearty, flavorful onion sandwich.
The day my gift box arrived I happened to have some slightly stale homemade bread, about two or three days old. I sliced this very thin, buttered it well, covered it with paper-thin slices of Spanish onion, sprinkled them with some coarse salt, and pressed another slice of bread firmed on the top—and there was my supper. I can easily make a whole meal of onion sandwiches, for to me they are one of the greatest treats I know…
It was basic but confident, and it came together with inexpensive ingredients. It was so good that you could easily eat a dozen, and so simple that it barely required a recipe. You glance at the directions, feeling a little silly rolling the sandwiches in chopped parsley, a crucial step that makes the sandwich, and that Irma Rhode said came from Beard. You’d make it once, and then the dish would be committed to memory — as James Beard’s onion sandwich.
Interesting how Ms. Wehrley takes care to note that the Toasted Cheese on Bread published directly below that Onion Sandwich is a recipe of her own invention.
It appears we all borrow from the best. Surely, there’s no reason not to get creative and make that onion sandwich your own.
You could start by varying the ingredients…
Soak some slices of red onion in cold water for 5 minutes to take away their raw bite.
Experiment with pumpernickel or dark rye.
Chop up a blend of windowsill herbs for that showy, savory edge.
Or y’know, buy an onion, a bagel and cream cheese as separate components, assemble, and boom!
As Beard remarked, “Designing hors d’oeuvres is not different from designing sets and costumes … Food is very much theater.”
Basic Onion Sandwich (serves one):
Remove the crusts from 2 slices of bread or cut them into rounds, reserving the scraps for a more involved recipe requiring breadcrumbs
Spread mayonnaise on the face of both pieces
Remove a thin slice from the thickest part of a sweet onion and place atop one of the prepared slices
.Sprinkle with sea salt and top with the other slice of bread.
Spread mayonnaise around the perimeter of the sandwich, and roll in the chopped herbs.
(Can refrigerate for up to 6 hours before serving)
Above, we have the menu for an 1899 Thanksgiving dinner at the Plaza Hotel in New York. If you were a turkey, you had it relatively easy. But the ducks? Not so much. On the menu, you’ll find Mallard duck and Ruddy duck. But also Red-head duck, Long Island duckling, Teal duck and Canvas-back duck, too. A duck in NYC was not a good place to be.
And, oh, those prices! Not one item above a dollar. But let’s account for inflation, shall we? In 2021, one Redditor noted: “I found a calculator and it turns out that $.30 in 1899 equals $10.00 now. The Fried oyster crabs would be $24.99 now and a Philadelphia chicken would be $66.65. So, the cheapest thing on the menu is Sweet buttermilk for $.10, but today would be $3.33.”
For our U.S. readers, enjoy your holiday tomorrow…
A staple of Andean diets for thousands of years, quinoa (KEEN-wah) has been touted as a superfood recently for its high protein content and potential to solve hunger crises. It’s represented by the usual celebrities: Kate Moss, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston … and David Lynch. Oh yes, have you not tried David Lynch’s quinoa recipe? Well, you must. If you’ve remained unswayed by the glitterati, perhaps this very Lynchian of pitches will turn you on to the grain. Watch the first part of Lynch’s video recipe above, part two below. It opens at peak Lynch: pulsing ominous music, garish lighting, and the obsessive kind of patience for the slow build that may be David Lynch’s alone.
By Part Two of Lynch’s video recipe, we are fully immersed in a place seemingly far away from quinoa, a place of the portentous topography of David Lynch’s inner life. Everyday objects take on a mysterious glowing resonance. Small ritualistic exchanges stand in for global shifts of consciousness.
So in a way, maybe we’re still close to the magic of quinoa. Lynch made the short video as an extra for the 2006 Inland Empire DVD. As Dangerous Minds points out, its current YouTube iteration “looks like crap” and “there’s at least a couple of minutes missing… it’s still worth a look.”
If you don’t have David Lynch’s patience but do have his taste for quinoa, read the full recipe below. It’s likewise full of delightful asides and digressions.
Yield: 1 bowl
Cooking Time: 17 minutes
Ingredients: 1/2 cup quinoa
1 1/2 cups organic broccoli (chilled, from bag)
1 cube vegetable bullion
Braggs Liquid Aminos
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Preparation:
* Fill medium saucepan with about an inch of fresh water.
* Set pan on stove, light a nice hot flame add several dashes of sea salt.
* Look at the quinoa. It’s like sand, this quinoa. It’s real real tight little grains, but it’s going to puff up.
* Unwrap bullion cube, bust it up with a small knife, and let it wait there. It’ll be happy waiting right there.
* When water comes to a boil, add quinoa and cover pan with lid. Reduce heat and simmer for 8 minutes.
* Meanwhile, retrieve broccoli from refrigerator and set aside, then fill a fine crystal wine glass—one given to you by Agnes and Maya from Lódz, Poland—with red wine, ‘cause this is what you do when you’re making quinoa. Go outside, sit, take a smoke and think about all the little quinoas bubbling away in the pan.
* Add broccoli, cover and let cook for an additional 7 minutes.
* Meanwhile, go back outside and tell the story about the train with the coal-burning engine that stopped in a barren, dust-filled landscape on a moonless Yugoslavian night in 1965. The story about the frog moths and the small copper coin that became one room-temperature bottle of violet sugar water, six ice-cold Coca-colas, and handfuls and handfuls of silver coins.
* Turn off heat, add bullion to quinoa and stir with the tip of the small knife you used to bust up the bullion.
* Scoop quinoa into bowl using a spoon. Drizzle with liquid amino acids and olive oil. Serve and enjoy.
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