Ben Franklin’s List of 200 Synonyms for “Drunk”: “Moon-Ey’d,” “Hammerish,” “Stew’d” & More (1737)

in Food & Drink, History | October 8th, 2014

Benjamin-Franklin1

How many Amer­i­cans could, off the top of their heads, tell you exact­ly why his­to­ry remem­bers Ben­jamin Franklin? Not many, I sus­pect, though we all know that he did a great deal worth remem­ber­ing, even by the stan­dards of a Found­ing Father. (Some­thing got him on the $100 bill, after all.) Of course, only his biog­ra­phers could remem­ber the every accom­plish­ment of this “First Amer­i­can,” from help­ing unite the colonies, to pub­lish­ing news­pa­pers, to serv­ing as Ambas­sador to France, to putting US nation­al secu­ri­ty at risk, to co-found­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, to invent­ing bifo­cals and every­thing in between. Most Amer­i­cans can, I sus­pect, sum­mon to mind the image of Franklin fly­ing a kite with a key on it as well.

It also turns out that Franklin could indulge in a vice as hearti­ly as he could a virtue; the man who wrote Poor Richard’s Almanack knew how to have a good time. In 18th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca, this seems often as not to have meant to know how to drink — and, in Franklin’s case, also to know how to iden­ti­fy the drunk. His rep­u­ta­tion as a bon vivant and a man of let­ters con­verged in a Jan­u­ary 13, 1737 edi­tion of the Penn­syl­va­nia Gazette, where­in he pub­lished this “Drinkers Dic­tio­nary” con­sist­ing of 200 syn­onyms for wast­ed, blot­to, half in the bag, three sheets to the wind, and oth­ers that would emerge over the fol­low­ing cen­turies. See them all below.

A
He is Addled,
He’s cast­ing up his Accounts,
He’s Afflict­ed,
He’s in his Airs.

B
He’s Big­gy,
Bewitch’d,
Block and Block,
Boozy,
Bowz’d,
Been at Bar­ba­does,
Pis­s’d in the Brook,
Drunk as a Wheel-Bar­row,
Bur­dock­’d,
Buskey,
Buzzey,
Has Stole a Manchet out of the Brew­er’s Bas­ket,
His Head is full of Bees,
Has been in the Bib­bing Plot,
Has drank more than he has bled,
He’s Bungey,
As Drunk as a Beg­gar,
He sees the Bears,
He’s kiss’d black Bet­ty,
He’s had a Thump over the Head with Samp­son’s Jaw­bone,
He’s Bridgey.

C
He’s Cat,
Cagrin’d,
Capa­ble,
Cram­p’d,
Cheru­bim­i­cal,
Cher­ry Mer­ry,
Wamble Crop’d,
Crack­’d,
Con­cern’d,
Half Way to Con­cord,
Has tak­en a Chirrip­ing-Glass,
Got Corns in his Head,
A Cup to much,
Coguy,
Copey,
He’s heat his Cop­per,
He’s Cro­cus,
Catch’d,
He cuts his Capers,
He’s been in the Cel­lar,
He’s in his Cups,
Non Com­pos,
Cock­’d,
Curv’d,
Cut,
Chip­per,
Chick­ery,
Loaded his Cart,
He’s been too free with the Crea­ture,
Sir Richard has tak­en off his Con­sid­er­ing Cap,
He’s Chap-fall­en,

D
He’s Dis­guiz’d,
He’s got a Dish,
Kil­l’d his Dog,
Took his Drops,
It is a Dark Day with him,
He’s a Dead Man,
Has Dip­p’d his Bill,
He’s Dag­g’d,
He’s seen the Dev­il,

E
He’s Prince Eugene,
Enter’d,
Wet both Eyes,
Cock Ey’d,
Got the Pole Evil,
Got a brass Eye,
Made an Exam­ple,
He’s Eat a Toad & half for Break­fast.
In his Ele­ment,

F
He’s Fishey,
Fox’d,
Fud­dled,
Sore Foot­ed,
Frozen,
Well in for’t,
Owes no Man a Far­thing,
Fears no Man,
Crump Foot­ed,
Been to France,
Flush’d,
Froze his Mouth,
Fet­ter’d,
Been to a Funer­al,
His Flag is out,
Fuzl’d,
Spoke with his Friend,
Been at an Indi­an Feast.

G
He’s Glad,
Groat­able,
Gold-head­ed,
Glaiz’d,
Gen­er­ous,
Booz’d the Gage,
As Dizzy as a Goose,
Been before George,
Got the Gout,
Had a Kick in the Guts,
Been with Sir John Goa,
Been at Gene­va,
Glob­u­lar,
Got the Glan­ders.

H
Half and Half,
Hardy,
Top Heavy,
Got by the Head,
Hid­dey,
Got on his lit­tle Hat,
Ham­mer­ish,
Loose in the Hilts,
Knows not the way Home,
Got the Horn­son,
Haunt­ed with Evil Spir­its,
Has Tak­en Hip­pocrates grand Elixir,

I
He’s Intox­i­cat­ed,
Jol­ly,
Jag­g’d,
Jam­bled,
Going to Jerusalem,
Joc­u­lar,
Been to Jeri­co,
Juicy.

K
He’s a King,
Clips the King’s Eng­lish,
Seen the French King,
The King is his Cousin,
Got Kib’d Heels,
Knapt,
Het his Ket­tle.

L
He’s in Liquor,
Lord­ly,
He makes Inden­tures with his Leg­gs,
Well to Live,
Light,
Lap­py,
Lim­ber,

M
He sees two Moons,
Mer­ry,
Mid­dling,
Moon-Ey’d,
Mud­dled,
Seen a Flock of Moons,
Maudlin,
Moun­tous,
Mud­dy,
Rais’d his Mon­u­ments,
Mel­low,

N
He’s eat the Cocoa Nut,
Nimp­top­si­cal,
Got the Night Mare,

O
He’s Oil’d,
Eat Opi­um,
Smelt of an Onion,
Oxy­cro­ci­um,
Over­set,

P
He drank till he gave up his Half-Pen­ny,
Pid­geon Ey’d,
Pungey,
Prid­dy,
As good con­di­tioned as a Pup­py,
Has scalt his Head Pan,
Been among the Philistines,
In his Pros­per­i­ty,
He’s been among the Philip­pi­ans,
He’s con­tend­ing with Pharaoh,
Wast­ed his Paunch,
He’s Polite,
Eat a Pud­ding Bagg,

Q
He’s Quar­rel­some,

R
He’s Rocky,
Rad­dled,
Rich,
Reli­gious,
Lost his Rud­der,
Ragged,
Rais’d,
Been too free with Sir Richard,
Like a Rat in Trou­ble.

S
He’s Stitch’d,
Sea­far­ing,
In the Sud­ds,
Strong,
Been in the Sun,
As Drunk as David’s Sow,
Swampt,
His Skin is full,
He’s Steady,
He’s Stiff,
He’s burnt his Shoul­der,
He’s got his Top Gal­lant Sails out,
Seen the yel­low Star,
As Stiff as a Ring-bolt,
Half Seas over,
His Shoe pinch­es him,
Stag­ger­ish,
It is Star-light with him,
He car­ries too much Sail,
Stew’d
Stub­b’d,
Soak’d,
Soft,
Been too free with Sir John Straw­ber­ry,
He’s right before the Wind with all his Stud­ding Sails out,
Has Sold his Sens­es.

T
He’s Top’d,
Tongue-ty’d,
Tan­n’d,
Tip­i­um Grove,
Dou­ble Tongu’d,
Top­sy Tur­vey,
Tipsey,
Has Swal­low’d a Tav­ern Token,
He’s Thaw’d,
He’s in a Trance,
He’s Tram­mel’d,

V
He makes Vir­ginia Fence,
Valiant,
Got the Indi­an Vapours,

W
The Malt is above the Water,
He’s Wise,
He’s Wet,
He’s been to the Salt Water,
He’s Water-soak­en,
He’s very Weary,
Out of the Way.

Franklin’s glos­sary also appears in Lists of Note, the brand new, high­ly rec­om­mend­ed book from Let­ters of Note’s Shaun Ush­er. Wher­ev­er you con­sult it, bear in mind Franklin’s intro­duc­to­ry note that all these terms come “gath­er’d whol­ly from the mod­ern Tav­ern-Con­ver­sa­tion of Tiplers. [ … ] I was tempt­ed to add a new one my self under the Let­ter B, to wit, Bru­ti­fy’d: But upon Con­sid­er­a­tion, I fear’d being guilty of Injus­tice to the Brute Cre­ation, if I rep­re­sent­ed Drunk­en­ness as a beast­ly Vice, since, ’tis well-known, that the Brutes are in gen­er­al a very sober sort of Peo­ple.” Which brings to mind a few bet­ter-known words attrib­uted to the man: “Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be hap­py.” He actu­al­ly said it about wine, but either way, let’s give Franklin cred­it: he was Wise — in mod­er­a­tion, of course.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Declas­si­fied CIA Doc­u­ment Reveals That Ben Franklin (and His Big Ego) Put U.S. Nation­al Secu­ri­ty at Risk

Drunk His­to­ry: An Intox­i­cat­ed Look at the Famous Alexan­der Hamil­ton – Aaron Burr Duel

Drunk Shake­speare: The Trendy Way to Stage the Bard’s Plays in the US & the UK

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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How to Sing Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking

in Books, Food & Drink, Music, Television | October 3rd, 2014

Though she had no ten­der feel­ings for Julie Powell’s Julia/Julie blog, I like to think Julia Child wouldn’t have been entire­ly dis­pleased by the Bush­wick Book Club’s efforts to musi­cal­ize Mas­ter­ing the Art of French Cook­ing, Child’s two vol­ume labor of love (and the inspi­ra­tion for Powell’s cel­e­brat­ed blog).

The “club,” a free float­ing, dis­cus­sion-free group of New York City-based singer-song­writ­ers, start­ed in 2009, when Kurt Vonnegut’s Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons was cel­e­brat­ed with music and the­mat­ic drink spe­cials. In the ensu­ing half-decade, they’ve met month­ly to wres­tle with such titles as The Great Gats­by, Madame Bovary and Dol­ly Parton’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy.

Some con­tri­bu­tions to these events do feel half-baked, as if the per­former delayed start­ing work in case he or she might be able to fin­ish the book on the bus ride to the show. Oth­ers are well craft­ed, as well as insight­ful.

Leslie Graves’ musi­cal recita­tion of Child’s “Flam­ing Tart” is the sort of naughty fun Bessie Smith want­ed in her bowl:

And just before enter­ing 

Put a warm liqueur 

Over the hot caramelized sur­face…

Not, pre­sum­ably, what Child had in mind when she wrote those words, although the hap­pi­ness of her mar­riage is well doc­u­ment­ed. (“If we could just have the kitchen and the bed­room, that would be all we need.”)

The link between stom­ach and heart under­scores Hilary Downes’ bossa nova-inflect­ed “Mas­ters of the Table” and Shan­non Pelcher’s gen­tle “Eat­ing” which looks past Child’s tow­er­ing culi­nary achieve­ment to her yearn­ing TV audi­ence.

I did hear a sound mid­way between an egg beat­er and some­one spin­ning beneath her Bon Appetit-engraved tomb­stone when club founder Susan Hwang slipped the phrase “walk­ing corpses” into Child’s “List of Equip­ment.” But she bal­anced the scales with a sin­cere com­pli­ment to the all-too-rare sound of Child’s unmis­tak­able voice.

(This made me so nos­tal­gic, I had to rus­tle up Dan Aykroyd’s taste­less but clas­sic imper­son­ation from 1978…)

Stuff your­self on the entire evening’s songs using the link at the top of this page.

Or, should you crave a dif­fer­ent sort of fare, join the Bush­wick Book Club on the Fry­ing Pan Octo­ber 29, when they con­sid­er The Shin­ing by Stephen King.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Julia Child Shows How to Edit Video­tape with a Meat Cleaver, and Cook Meat with a Blow Torch

Remem­ber­ing Julia Child on Her 100th Birth­day with Her Clas­sic Appear­ance on the Let­ter­man Show

How Cook­ing Can Change Your Life: A Short Ani­mat­ed Film Fea­tur­ing the Wis­dom of Michael Pol­lan

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author whose Zinester’s Guide to NYC inspired a pret­ty great song of its own. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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1797 Temperance Thermometer Measures the Moral & Physical Impact of Your Drinking Habits

in Food & Drink, History, Life, Science | September 30th, 2014

temperance2

Ques­tion for the drinkers out there:

Does strong beer tak­en in mod­er­ate quan­ti­ties at meal­times make you cheer­ful?

Yeah, me too!

That gives us a tem­per­a­ture of 10 accord­ing to 18th-cen­tu­ry physi­cian John Coak­ley Lett­som’s “moral and phys­i­cal ther­mome­ter,” one of his Hints Designed to Pro­mote Benef­i­cence, Tem­per­ance, and Med­ical Sci­ence (1797).

It’s noth­ing to be ashamed of—anything above zero con­sti­tutes a pass­ing score. The founder of the Med­ical Soci­ety of Lon­don, Lett­som was a pro­po­nent of true tem­per­ance, not total absti­nence. Accord­ing to his rubric, a “small beer” has all the virtues of milk and water.

Dip below a zero, though, and you’re in for a bumpy night.

Punch is appar­ent­ly the gate­way to such demon influ­ences as flip, shrub, whiskey and rum. Gosh. You may as well just skip the punch and go straight for the hard stuff, if, as in Lettsom’s view, they all end in the same vices and dis­eases.

Puk­ing and Tremors of the Hands in the Morn­ing?

Yes, on occa­sion.

Peev­ish­ness, Idle­ness, and Obscen­i­ty?

Yep, that too.

Mur­der, Mad­ness, and Death?

Mer­ci­ful­ly, no. At least not yet.

While not entire­ly free of stig­ma, alco­holism is now some­thing many view through the lens of AA, a prob­lem best reme­died through a sys­tem of per­son­al account­abil­i­ty shored up by a net­work of non­judg­men­tal, sym­pa­thet­ic sup­port.

Back in Lettsom’s day, when an alco­holic hit rock bot­tom, it was assumed he or she would stay there, a task made eas­i­er when the wages of this par­tic­u­lar sin includ­ed the poor house, a one way tick­et to the Botany Bay penal colony, and the gal­lows.

Such loom­ing con­se­quences are eas­i­ly laughed off when you’ve had a snoot, which may be why Lett­som also pub­lished the illus­trat­ed ver­sion of his ther­mome­ter below. A pic­ture is worth a thou­sand words, par­tic­u­lar­ly when depict­ing the pre-Dick­en­sian mis­ery that awaits the drunk­ard and his fam­i­ly.

Termometro morall

via Rebec­ca Onion and Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

George Washington’s 110 Rules for Civil­i­ty and Decent Behav­ior

Thomas Jefferson’s Hand­writ­ten Vanil­la Ice Cream Recipe

“The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink”: An Ad for London’s First Cafe Print­ed Cir­ca 1652

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Drunk Shakespeare: The Trendy Way to Stage the Bard’s Plays in the US & the UK

in Food & Drink, Theatre | September 17th, 2014

You might be famil­iar with Drunk His­to­ry, the web series turned Com­e­dy Cen­tral show that reen­acts the ram­blings of ine­bri­at­ed hip­sters try­ing to recount events like the Water­gate scan­dal or the Burr-Hamil­ton duel. Well, appar­ent­ly, a grow­ing num­ber of the­ater troupes have decid­ed that the best way to stage Shake­speare in this age of social media and short­en­ing atten­tion spans is to get every­one involved drunk. The audi­ence and the actors. One such group is called, apt­ly, Drunk Shake­speare, which describes itself as “a com­pa­ny of pro­fes­sion­al drinkers with a seri­ous Shake­speare prob­lem.” Each audi­ence mem­ber is giv­en a shot of whiskey at the begin­ning of each per­for­mance. The actors report­ed­ly drink much more and actu­al­ly have to get breath­a­lyzed before the show. You wouldn’t want Hen­ry V to pass out before the Bat­tle of Agin­court, would you? The Wall Street Jour­nal did a short video piece about the group. You can watch it above.

Anoth­er group, the New York Shake­speare Exchange, dis­pens­es with the stage alto­geth­er. Instead, they host a reg­u­lar pub crawl/ the­atri­cal per­for­mance called Shakes­BEER. In one of the many drink­ing estab­lish­ments in New York, actors in con­tem­po­rary dress do scenes from Ham­let and Oth­el­lo amid patrons clutch­ing pints of lager. You can watch some of their shows above.

Anoth­er exam­ple is The Inis Nua Com­pa­ny, which took the basic idea of Drunk His­to­ry and swapped out the his­to­ry with Romeo and Juli­et. Check out below. Or, maybe if you’re across the pond, you will want to check out Sh*t- Faced Shake­speare at the Edin­burgh Fes­ti­val Fringe. It fea­tures “An entire­ly seri­ous Shake­speare play… with an entire­ly shit-faced actor.”

But the real ques­tion is where will all this crazed mix­ing of high cul­ture and mind alter­ing sub­stances end? Will some­one do Ine­bri­at­ed Ibsen? Stoned Chekhov? Moliere on Mol­ly? Trip­ping balls Beck­ett? It’s a slip­pery slope.

via The Wall Street Jour­nal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Shake­speare Cours­es: Primers on the Bard from Oxford, Har­vard, Berke­ley & More

Read All of Shakespeare’s Plays Free Online, Cour­tesy of the Fol­ger Shake­speare Library

What Shake­speare Sound­ed Like to Shake­speare: Recon­struct­ing the Bard’s Orig­i­nal Pro­nun­ci­a­tion

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of Shakespeare’s Globe The­atre

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. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing one new draw­ing of a vice pres­i­dent with an octo­pus on his head dai­ly.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

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How Do They Get Caffeine Out of Coffee Beans?

in Food & Drink | September 10th, 2014

It’s one of those ques­tions I’ve always won­dered about. And maybe you have too. Just how do they extract caf­feine from cof­fee beans? In the first episode of a new Men­tal Floss series, “Big Ques­tions,” a guy named Craig, rock­ing a tight t shirt, gives us some answers. If I’m guess­ing right, the video relies fair­ly heav­i­ly on this Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can arti­cle from 1999. It helps demys­ti­fy the process a lit­tle more.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The (Beau­ti­ful) Physics of Adding Cream to Your Cof­fee

Men In Com­mer­cials Being Jerks About Cof­fee: A Mashup of 1950s & 1960s TV Ads

Hon­oré de Balzac Writes About “The Plea­sures and Pains of Cof­fee,” and His Epic Cof­fee Addic­tion

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Foodie Alert: New York Public Library Presents an Archive of 17,000 Restaurant Menus (1851–2008)

in Archives, Design, Food & Drink, History | September 4th, 2014

Met Hotel

To be a New York­er is to be a gourmand—of food carts, local din­ers, super­mar­kets, out­er bor­ough mer­ca­dos, what­ev­er lat­est upscale restau­rant sur­faces in a giv­en sea­son.… It is to be as like­ly to have a menu in hand as a news­pa­per, er… smart­phone…, and it is to notice the design of said menus. Well, some of us have done that. Often the added atten­tion goes unre­ward­ed, but then some­times it does. Now you, dear read­er, can expe­ri­ence well over one-hun­dred years of star­ing at menus, thanks to the New York Pub­lic Library’s enor­mous dig­i­tized col­lec­tion. Fan­cy a time warp through din­ing halls abroad? You’ll not only find sev­er­al hun­dred New York restau­rants rep­re­sent­ed here, but hun­dreds more from all over the world. With a col­lec­tion of 17,000 menus and count­ing, a per­son could eas­i­ly get lost.

You may notice I used the word “gour­mand,” and not “food­ie” above. While it might be a gross anachro­nism to call some­one a “food­ie” in 1859, the year the menu for the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Hotel (above) was print­ed, it might also import a cos­mopoli­tan con­cept of din­ing that didn’t seem to exist, at least at this estab­lish­ment. More than any­thing, the menu resem­bles the var­i­ous descrip­tions of pub food that pop­u­late Joyce’s Ulysses. Though much of it was deli­cious, I’m sure, for heavy eaters of meat, eggs, pota­toes, and bread, you won’t find a veg­etable so much as men­tioned in pass­ing. The fare does include such hearty sta­ples as “Hashed Fish,” “Stale Bread,” and “Break­fast Wine.” The design mar­ries flow­ery Vic­to­ri­an ele­ments with the kind of font found in Old West type­sets.

Maison Prunier Cover

1939 was a good year for menus, at least in Europe. While New York insti­tu­tions like the Wal­dorf Asto­ria prac­ticed cer­tain design aus­ter­i­ties, the Mai­son Prunier, with loca­tions in Paris and Lon­don, spared no expense in the print­ing of their full-col­or fish­er­mans’ slice of life paint­ing on the menu cov­er above and the ele­gant typog­ra­phy of its exten­sive con­tents below. A ver­sion was print­ed in English—though The New York Pub­lic Library (NYPL) doesn’t seem to have a copy of it dig­i­tized. One Eng­lish phrase stands out at the bot­tom, how­ev­er: the trans­la­tion of “Tout Ce Qui Vient De La Mer–Everything From the Sea.” Oth­er menus for this restau­rant show the same kind of care­ful atten­tion to design. Click­ing on the pages of many of the NYPL menus—like this one from a 1938 Mai­son Prunier menu—brings up an inter­ac­tive fea­ture that links each dish to close-up views.

Maison Prunier Page 1

In a post on the NYPL menu col­lec­tion, Buz­zfeed specif­i­cal­ly com­pares New York menus of today with those of 100 years ago, not­ing that prices quot­ed sig­ni­fy cents, not dol­lars. A 1914 Del­moni­co “Rib of Roast” would run you .75 cents, for exam­ple, while a 2014 rib eye there sells for 58 big ones. Of course then, as now, many restau­rants con­sid­ered it gauche to print prices at all. See, for exam­ple, the din­ner menu at New Orleans’ St. Charles Hotel from 1908 below. We may have an all-inclu­sive feast here since this comes from a New Years Eve bill, which also includes a “Musi­cal Pro­gram” in two parts and a list of local “Amuse­ments” at such places as Blaney’s Lyric The­atre, Tulane, Dauphine, “French Orera” (sic), and the 2:00 pm races at City Park. Mati­nees and 8 o’clock shows every day except Sun­day.

St Charles Hotel

The six­ties gave us an explo­sion of menus that par­al­lel in many cas­es the break­out designs of mag­a­zine and album cov­ers. See two stand­outs below. The North Ger­man Lloyd, just below, went with a funky chil­dren’s book-cov­er illus­tra­tion for its 1969 menu cov­er, though its inte­ri­or main­tains a min­i­mal­ist clar­i­ty. Below it, see the strik­ing first page of a menu for John­ny Garneau’s Gold­en Spike from that same year. The cov­er boasts a nos­tal­gic head­line sto­ry for Promon­to­ry News: “Gold­en Spike is Dri­ven: The last rail is laid! East meets West in Utah!” Put it on the cov­er of a  Band or CSNY album and no one bats an eye.

North German Lloyd

Golden Spike

See many, many, many more menus at the NYPL site. With the steady growth of food schol­ar­ship, this col­lec­tion is cer­tain­ly a boon to researchers, as well as curi­ous gour­mands, food­ies, and rabid din­ers of all stripes.

via Buz­zfeed

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Pris­on­ers Ate at Alca­traz in 1946: A Vin­tage Prison Menu

Howard Johnson’s Presents a Children’s Menu Fea­tur­ing Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Exten­sive Archive of Avant-Garde & Mod­ernist Mag­a­zines (1890–1939) Now Avail­able Online

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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The Right and Wrong Way to Eat Sushi: A Primer

in Food & Drink | August 28th, 2014

Vice.com’s food chan­nel, Munchies, spent time with Naomichi Yasu­da and learned the dos and don’ts of eat­ing sushi. And they kind­ly sum­ma­rized some prac­tices that are per­mit­ted and ver­boten.

  1. It’s okay to use your fin­gers to eat cut sushi rolls.
  2. Don’t com­bine gin­ger and sushi, or gin­ger and soy sauce. Gin­ger is a palate cleanser in between bites.
  3. When dip­ping sushi into soy sauce, dip fish-side down.
  4. Nev­er shake soy sauce off of sushi. That’s like shak­ing your wanker in pub­lic.

The video above just begins to scratch the sur­face. If you head over to The­Sushi­FAQ, you can find a long list of rules and sug­ges­tions that will round out your sushi-eat­ing eti­quette. Here are some addi­tion­al tips to keep in mind: Nev­er put wasabi direct­ly in the shoyu dish. And know that Sashi­mi is only to be eat­en with your chop­sticks, not with your hands. Got it? There will be a quiz tomor­row.

via Kot­tke/Munchies

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to Make Instant Ramen Com­pli­ments of Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion Direc­tor Hayao Miyza­ki

The Best Japan­ese Com­mer­cial Ever? James Brown Sells Miso Soup

What Goes Into Ramen Noo­dles, and What Hap­pens When Ramen Noo­dles Go Into You

Cook­pad, the Largest Recipe Site in Japan, Launch­es New Site in Eng­lish

Learn Japan­ese Free

MIT Teach­es You How to Speak Ital­ian & Cook Ital­ian Cui­sine All at Once (Free Online Course)

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Miles Davis’ Chili Recipe Revealed

in Food & Drink, Music | August 23rd, 2014

Image by Tom Palum­bo, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

No one cooked on the trum­pet like Miles Davis. And, as it turns out, he was also quite good in the kitchen (see? I spared you a pun). Tired of going out to restau­rants, the food­ie Davis decid­ed to learn to make his favorite dish­es. “I taught myself how to cook by read­ing books and prac­tic­ing, just like you do on an instru­ment,” he wrote in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, “I could cook most of the French dishes—because I real­ly liked French cooking—and all the black Amer­i­can dish­es.”

Davis, writes the Chica­go Sun-Times, “knew how to sim­mer with soul […] He made chili, Ital­ian veal chops and he fried fish in a secret bat­ter.” Davis’ cook­book has dis­ap­peared, and he’s appar­ent­ly tak­en his recipe secrets to the grave with him. All but one—his favorite, “a chili dish,” he writes, “I called Miles’s South Side Chica­go Chili Mack. I served it with spaghet­ti, grat­ed cheese, and oys­ter crack­ers.”

While Davis didn’t exact­ly spell out the ingre­di­ents or instruc­tions for his beloved chili in his mem­oir, his first wife Frances, whom Davis trust­ed implic­it­ly with the chili mak­ing, sub­mit­ted the fol­low­ing to Best Life mag­a­zine in 2007. While you’re prep­ping, I rec­om­mend you put on 1956’s Cookin’ With the Miles Davis Quin­tet.

Miles’s South Side Chica­go Chili Mack (Serves 6)

1/4 lb. suet (beef fat)
1 large onion
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 lb. ground veal
1/2 lb. ground pork
salt and pep­per
2 tsp. gar­lic pow­der
1 tsp. chili pow­der
1 tsp. cumin seed
2 cans kid­ney beans, drained
1 can beef con­som­mé
1 drop red wine vine­gar
3 lb. spaghet­ti
parme­san cheese
oys­ter crack­ers
Heineken beer

1. Melt suet in large heavy pot until liq­uid fat is about an inch high. Remove sol­id pieces of suet from pot and dis­card.
2. In same pot, sauté onion.
3. Com­bine meats in bowl; sea­son with salt, pep­per, gar­lic pow­der, chili pow­der, and cumin.
4. In anoth­er bowl, sea­son kid­ney beans with salt and pep­per.
5. Add meat to onions; sauté until brown.
6. Add kid­ney beans, con­som­mé, and vine­gar; sim­mer for about an hour, stir­ring occa­sion­al­ly.
7. Add more sea­son­ings to taste, if desired.
8. Cook spaghet­ti accord­ing to pack­age direc­tions, and then divide among six plates.
9. Spoon meat mix­ture over each plate of spaghet­ti.
10. Top with Parme­san and serve oys­ter crack­ers on the side.
11. Open a Heineken.

Men­tal Floss, who bring us the above, also cites anoth­er recipe Davis learned from his father, quot­ed by John Szwed in So What: The Life of Miles Davis. This one comes with no instruc­tions, so “like a jazz musi­cian, you’ll have impro­vise.”

bacon grease
3 large cloves of gar­lic
1 green, 1 red pep­per
2 pounds ground lean chuck
2 tea­spoons cumin
1/2 jar of mus­tard
1/2 shot glass of vine­gar
2 tea­spoons of chili pow­der
dash­es of salt and pep­per
pin­to or kid­ney beans
1 can of toma­toes
1 can of beef broth

serve over lin­guine

Dig it, man.

via Men­tal Floss

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leo Tolstoy’s Fam­i­ly Recipe for Mac­a­roni and Cheese

1967 Cook­book Fea­tures Recipes by the Rolling Stones, Simon & Gar­funkel, Bar­bra Streisand & More

Ernest Hemingway’s Sum­mer Camp­ing Recipes

Alice B. Tok­las Reads Her Famous Recipe for Hashish Fudge (1963)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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