Watch a 4000-Year Old Babylonian Recipe for Stew, Found on a Cuneiform Tablet, Get Cooked by Researchers from Yale & Harvard

in Food & Drink, History, Yale | June 25th, 2018

Walk like an Egypt­ian, but eat like an ancient Baby­lon­ian.

While cook­books con­tain­ing Mesopotami­an fare do exist, to be real­ly authen­tic, take your recipes from a clay tablet, dense­ly inscribed in cuneiform.

Sad­ly, there are only four of them, and they reside in a dis­play case at Yale. (Under­stand­able giv­en that they’re over 4000 years old.)

When Agnete Lassen, asso­ciate cura­tor of Yale’s Baby­lon­ian Col­lec­tion, and col­league Chelsea Alene Gra­ham, a dig­i­tal imag­ing spe­cial­ist, were invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in a culi­nary event host­ed by New York University’s Insti­tute for the Study of the Ancient World, they wise­ly chose to trav­el with a 3D-print­ed fac­sim­i­le of one of the pre­cious tablets.

T’would have been a shame to knock the orig­i­nal off the counter while reach­ing for a bunch of leeks.

While oth­er pre­sen­ters pre­pared such del­i­ca­cies as Fish Sauces at the Roman Table, Bud­dhist veg­e­tar­i­an dish­es from the Song Dynasty, and a post-mod­ern squid-ink spin on Medieval Blanc­mange, the Yale team joined chef Naw­al Nas­ral­lah and a crew from Har­vard to recre­ate three one-pot dish­es detailed on one of the ancient arti­facts.

Judg­ing by the above video, the clear win­ner was Tuh’i, a beet and lamb stew which Lassen describes as a “pro­to-borscht.”

The veg­e­tar­i­an Unwind­ing Stew’s name proved unnec­es­sar­i­ly vex­ing, while the milk-based Broth of Lamb was unap­pe­tiz­ing to the eye (as well as the palate, accord­ing to Gra­ham). Per­haps they should have sub­sti­tut­ed ani­mal blood—another favorite Baby­lon­ian thick­en­er.

As one of Lassen’s pre­de­ces­sors, Pro­fes­sor William W. Hal­lo, told The New York Times in 1988, it’s unlike­ly the aver­age Mesopotami­an would have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tuck into any of these dish­es. The vast quan­ti­ties of spe­cial­i­ty ingre­di­ents and the elab­o­rate instruc­tions sug­gest a fes­tive meal for the elite.

In addi­tion to the dish­es served at NYU’s Appetite for the Past con­fer­ence, the tablets include recipes for stag, gazelle, kid, mut­ton, squab, and a bird that’s referred to as “tar­ru.”

Next time, per­haps.

And not to quib­ble with the Bull­dogs, but the BBC reports that researchers from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wales Insti­tute are claim­ing a pud­ding made from net­tles, ground bar­ley, and water is actu­al­ly the world’s old­est recipe, clock­ing in at 6000 BC. (Serve it with roast hedge­hog and fish gut sauce…)

While the Yale team has yet to share its recipes in a lan­guage oth­er than cuneiform, The Silk Road Gourmet has a good guide to var­i­ous Mesopotami­an spices and sta­ples.

via Kot­tke/Yale

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How to Write in Cuneiform, the Old­est Writ­ing Sys­tem in the World: A Short, Charm­ing Intro­duc­tion

Dis­cov­er the Old­est Beer Recipe in His­to­ry From Ancient Sume­ria, 1800 B.C.

Cook Real Recipes from Ancient Rome: Ostrich Ragoût, Roast Wild Boar, Nut Tarts & More

How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread Dat­ing Back to 79 AD: A Video Primer

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Thurs­day June 28 for anoth­er month­ly install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Life Lessons from Anthony Bourdain: How He Developed His Iron Professionalism, Achieved Creative Freedom & Learned from Failure

in Food & Drink, Life | June 14th, 2018

Antho­ny Bour­dain was not a par­tic­u­lar­ly good chef. That state­ment comes not as a cheap shot at the recent­ly depart­ed, but a quote from the depart­ed him­self. Bour­dain freely admit­ted it over a cou­ple of Tiger beers with a Fast Com­pa­ny inter­view­er last year. “I was very deserved­ly fired on a num­ber of occa­sions,” he adds for good mea­sure, ref­er­enc­ing his decades of dirty work and drug abuse before he rose to promi­nence in the worlds of food- and trav­el-cen­tric books and tele­vi­sion. But in more than one way, those decades pre­pared him to ride the kind of suc­cess he would even­tu­al­ly achieve into a body of work that could have arisen from no oth­er life or per­son­al­i­ty.

“Most of the peo­ple I’ve met who’ve been in the tele­vi­sion indus­try for a long time, their great­est fear is that they will not be in the tele­vi­sion indus­try next year,” Bour­dain says. “That they’ll say some­thing or do some­thing or make a deci­sion that will be so unpop­u­lar that they’ll lose their gig and won’t end up back on tele­vi­sion again. I don’t have that fear.” He knew, sure­ly bet­ter than any­one who has pub­licly remarked on it, that he may not have shown the genius in the kitchen to attain star-chef sta­tus. But he also knew he had some­thing ulti­mate­ly more impor­tant: the skills to turn out meal after flaw­less meal, day in and day out. “If I have to,” he says, “I’m pret­ty sure I can keep up on an omelet sta­tion.”

Many remem­brances of Bour­dain have high­light­ed his iron pro­fes­sion­al­ism. “He is con­trolled to the point of neu­ro­sis: clean, orga­nized, dis­ci­plined, cour­te­ous, sys­tem­at­ic,” wrote the New York­er’s Patrick Rad­den Keefe in a pro­file pub­lished last year. “He is Apol­lo in drag as Diony­sus.” Bour­dain cred­it­ed that to his lean years in the kitchen: “Every­thing impor­tant I ever learned, I learned as dish­wash­er and as a cook: you show up on time, you stay orga­nized, you clean up after your­self, you think about the peo­ple you work with, you respect the peo­ple you work with. You do the best you can.” This went for mat­ters per­son­al as well as pro­fes­sion­al: “If I say to you I’m going to meet you tomor­row at twelve min­utes after five to see John Wick 7, I will be there at 5:02.”

He would also, he adds, be “hang­ing out across the street, dis­creet­ly observ­ing to see what time you show up. And I’ll be mak­ing some very impor­tant deci­sions based on your arrival time.” Bour­dain’s exact­ing stan­dards, for him­self and oth­ers, allowed him to achieve an unusu­al degree of free­dom for a major media per­son­al­i­ty. “I detest com­pe­tent, work­man­like sto­ry­telling,” he says of his and his col­lab­o­ra­tors’ pen­chant for cre­ative risk. “A pow­er­ful reac­tion, in one way or the oth­er, is infi­nite­ly prefer­able to me than pleas­ing every­body.” Yet despite tak­ing books and tele­vi­sion shows osten­si­bly about food in new and unpre­dictable aes­thet­ic and intel­lec­tu­al direc­tions, in the kitchen he remained a tra­di­tion­al­ist to the end. “You put chick­en in a car­bonara? You lost me. It’s an unfor­giv­able sin against God.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Antho­ny Bourdain’s Free Show Raw Craft, Where He Vis­its Crafts­men Mak­ing Gui­tars, Tat­toos, Motor­cy­cles & More (RIP)

Hear Leonard Cohen’s Final Inter­view: Record­ed by David Rem­nick of The New York­er

Carl Sagan Issues a Chill­ing Warn­ing to Amer­i­ca in His Final Inter­view (1996)

David Fos­ter Wal­lace: The Big, Uncut Inter­view (2003)

Paulo Coel­ho on How to Han­dle the Fear of Fail­ure

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include 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.

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Watch Anthony Bourdain’s Free Show, Raw Craft Where He Visits Craftsmen Making Guitars, Tattoos, Motorcycles & More (RIP)

in Food & Drink, Travel | June 11th, 2018

Why has food become such an object of inter­est in recent years? One pos­si­ble expla­na­tion is that it rep­re­sents one of the last pur­suits still essen­tial­ly untouch­able by dig­i­tal cul­ture: for all you can write about and pho­to­graph food for the inter­net, you can’t actu­al­ly expe­ri­ence it there. Food, in oth­er words, means phys­i­cal­i­ty, dex­ter­i­ty, sen­si­bil­i­ty, and hand-crafts­man­ship in a con­crete, vis­cer­al way that, in the 21st, cen­tu­ry, has come to seem increas­ing­ly scarce. But anoth­er, short­er expla­na­tion sums the phe­nom­e­non up, just as plau­si­bly, in two words: Antho­ny Bour­dain.

Ever since he first entered the pub­lic eye at the end of the 1990s, late chef-writer-trav­el­er-tele­vi­sion host taught a read­ing, and lat­er view­ing pub­lic to appre­ci­ate not just food but all that goes into food: the ingre­di­ents, sure, the intense train­ing and labor, of course, but most of all the many and var­ied cul­tur­al fac­tors that con­verge on a meal. Bour­dain found robust cul­tures every­where, those that devel­oped cart-filled streets of cities across the world to the kitchens of the most unas­sum­ing-look­ing restau­rants and every­where in between. He deeply respect­ed not just those ded­i­cat­ed to the mak­ing and serv­ing of food, but those ded­i­cat­ed to crafts of all kinds.

Bour­dain’s nat­ur­al kin­ship with all crafts­men and craftswomen made him a nat­ur­al choice to car­ry Raw Craft, a web series spon­sored by the Bal­ve­nie, a pop­u­lar-pre­mi­um brand of Scotch whisky. In its four­teen episodes (each of which finds a way to fea­ture a bot­tle of the Bal­ve­nie), Bour­dain goes char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly far and wide to vis­it the stu­dios and work­shops of real peo­ple mak­ing real suits, shoes, sax­o­phones, drums, gui­tars, hand­print­ed books, fur­ni­ture, motor­cy­cles, and “tra­di­tion­al­ly fem­i­nine objects.” That last may break some­what from Bour­dain’s swag­ger­ing, mas­cu­line-if-not-macho image, but as the series’ host he dis­plays a good deal of enthu­si­asm for the sub­ject of each episode, includ­ing the trip to the spon­sor’s own dis­tillery in Dufftown, Scot­land.

Nat­u­ral­ly, Bour­dain can engage on a whole oth­er lev­el in the episodes about food and food-relat­ed objects, such as pas­tries and hot choco­late, kitchen knives, and, in the video at the top of the post, cast-iron skil­lets. Ever the par­tic­i­pa­to­ry observ­er, he fin­ish­es that last by prepar­ing steak au poivre with one of the work­shop’s own skil­lets on the flame of its own skil­let-forg­ing fur­nace. He takes it a step fur­ther, or sev­er­al, in the episode with Japan­ese tat­too artist Takashi where, despite “run­ning out of room” on his own much-tat­tooed skin, he com­mis­sions one more: a mag­nif­i­cent blue chrysan­the­mum on his shoul­der, drawn and inked with only the most time-hon­ored tools and tech­niques.

We even, dur­ing one of Bour­dain’s ink-receiv­ing ses­sions with Takashi, glimpse a true crafts­man-to-crafts­man con­ver­sa­tion­al exchange. Bour­dain asks Takashi about some­thing he’s seen all of the many times he’s been on the tat­too­ing table: a junior artist will approach to watch and learn from the way a senior one works. Takashi, who had to go through a minor ordeal just to con­vince his own mas­ter to take him on as an appren­tice, con­firms both the uni­ver­sal­i­ty and the impor­tance of the prac­tice: “If you stop learn­ing, you are pret­ty much done, you know?” Bour­dain, who could only have agreed with the sen­ti­ment, lived it to the very end. “I’d like it to last as long as I do,” he says of his Takashi tat­too — “Which ain’t that long,” he adds, “but long enough, I hope.” But sure­ly no amount of time could ever sat­is­fy a culi­nary, cul­tur­al, and intel­lec­tu­al appetite as prodi­gious as his.

You can watch the com­plete series of Raw Craft videos here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

20 Mes­mer­iz­ing Videos of Japan­ese Arti­sans Cre­at­ing Tra­di­tion­al Hand­i­crafts

Japan­ese Crafts­man Spends His Life Try­ing to Recre­ate a Thou­sand-Year-Old Sword

The Mak­ing of Japan­ese Hand­made Paper: A Short Film Doc­u­ments an 800-Year-Old Tra­di­tion

The Art of Col­lo­type: See a Near Extinct Print­ing Tech­nique, as Lov­ing­ly Prac­ticed by a Japan­ese Mas­ter Crafts­man

Brooklyn–Based Mak­ers of Arti­sanal Water Let You Sip From America’s Great Cul­tur­al Waters

David Rees Presents a Primer on the Arti­sanal Craft of Pen­cil Sharp­en­ing

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include 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.

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Short Fascinating Film Shows How Japanese Soy Sauce Has Been Made for the Past 750 years

in Food & Drink, History | May 24th, 2018

A few years back, we vis­it­ed Hōshi, a hotel locat­ed in Komat­su, Japan, which holds the dis­tinc­tion of being the 2nd old­est hotel in the world, and “the old­est still run­ning fam­i­ly busi­ness in the world.” Built in 718 AD, Hōshi has been oper­at­ed by the same fam­i­ly for 46 con­sec­u­tive gen­er­a­tions.

It’s hard to imag­ine. But it’s true. Once estab­lished, Hōshi would have to wait anoth­er 500 years before soy sauce came to Japan and could be served to its guests. Accord­ing to the Nation­al Geo­graph­ic video above, a bud­dhist monk trav­eled from Chi­na to Yuasa, Japan in the 13th cen­tu­ry. And there he began pro­duc­ing soy sauce, fer­ment­ing soy beans, wheat, salt and water. That tra­di­tion con­tin­ues to this day. This fas­ci­nat­ing short film by Mile Nagao­ka gives you a good glimpse into this time­less process.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hōshi: A Short Film on the 1300-Year-Old Hotel Run by the Same Japan­ese Fam­i­ly for 46 Gen­er­a­tions

Ear­ly Japan­ese Ani­ma­tions: The Ori­gins of Ani­me (1917–1931)

Hand-Col­ored Pho­tographs of 19th Cen­tu­ry Japan

A Hyp­not­ic Look at How Japan­ese Samu­rai Swords Are Made

Female Samu­rai War­riors Immor­tal­ized in 19th Cen­tu­ry Japan­ese Pho­tos

Hand-Col­ored 1860s Pho­tographs Reveal the Last Days of Samu­rai Japan

Leg­endary Japan­ese Author Yukio Mishi­ma Mus­es About the Samu­rai Code (Which Inspired His Hap­less 1970 Coup Attempt)

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The Science of Beer: A New Free Online Course Promises to Enhance Your Appreciation of the Timeless Beverage

in Food & Drink, MOOCs, Online Courses | April 25th, 2018

The brew­ing of beer is as old as agri­cul­ture, which is to say as old as set­tled civ­i­liza­tion. The old­est recipe we know of dates to 1800 B.C. Over cen­turies, beer moved up and down the class lad­der depend­ing on its pri­ma­ry con­sumers. Medieval monks brewed many fine vari­eties and were renowned for their tech­nique. Beer descend­ed into pubs and row­dy beer halls, whet­ting the whis­tles not only of farm­ers, sol­diers, sailors, and pil­grims, but also of burghers and a bud­ding indus­tri­al work­force. Dur­ing the age of mod­ern empire, beer became, on both sides of the Atlantic, the bev­er­age of work­ing-class sports fans in bleach­ers and La-Z-Boys.

A craft beer Renais­sance at the end of last cen­tu­ry brought back a monk­ish mys­tique to this most ancient bev­er­age, turn­ing beer into wine, so to speak, with com­pa­ra­ble lev­els of con­nois­seur­ship. Beer bars became gal­leries of fine pol­ished brass, pun­gent, fruity aro­mas, dark and seri­ous wood appoint­ments. Craft beer is fun—with its quirky names and labels—it is also intim­i­dat­ing, in the breadth of com­pli­cat­ed con­coc­tions on offer. (Hip­sters and penu­ri­ous rev­el­ers revolt­ed, made a fetish of Pab­st Blue Rib­bon, Milwaukee’s Best, and ye olde malt liquor.)

“Has craft beer peaked?” won­ders The Wash­ing­ton Post’s Rachel Siegel. You can prob­a­bly guess from the ques­tion that most trends point to “yes.” But as long as there is wheat, bar­ley, and hops, we will have beer, no mat­ter who is drink­ing it and where. One last­ing effect of beer’s high­brow few decades remains: a pop­u­lar schol­ar­ly appre­ci­a­tion for its cul­ture and com­po­si­tion. You can study the typog­ra­phy of beer, for exam­ple, as Print mag­a­zine has done in recent years. A new online course applies the tools of empir­i­cal and soci­o­log­i­cal research to beer drink­ing.

“The Sci­ence of Beer,” taught by a cadre of stu­dent teach­ers from Wagenin­gen Uni­ver­si­ty in Hol­land, explores “how [beer is] made, the raw mate­ri­als used, its sup­ply chain, how it’s mar­ket­ed and the effect of beer con­sump­tion on your body.” (This last point—in a world turned against sug­ar, carbs, and gluten—being part­ly the rea­son for craft beer’s decline.) Should your voice qua­ver when you approach the upscale reclaimed wal­nut bar and sur­vey unfa­mil­iar lagers, ales, stouts, bocks, porters, and hefeweizens… should you hes­i­tate at Whole Foods when faced with a wall of bev­er­ages with names like incan­ta­tions, this free class may set you at ease.

Not only will you learn about the dif­fer­ent types of beer, but “after this course, tast­ing a beer will be an entire­ly new sen­sa­tion: you will enjoy it even more since you will bet­ter under­stand what’s inside your drink.” Enroll­ment for the 5‑week course began this past Mon­day and the class is cur­rent­ly open and free. (Make sure you select the “Audit” option for the free ver­sion of the course.) You should expect to devote 2 to 4 hours per week to “The Sci­ence of Beer.” Please, study respon­si­bly.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dis­cov­er the Old­est Beer Recipe in His­to­ry From Ancient Sume­ria, 1800 B.C.

The First Known Pho­to­graph of Peo­ple Shar­ing a Beer (1843)

The Art and Sci­ence of Beer

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

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The Case for Writing in Coffee Shops: Why Malcolm Gladwell Does It, and You Should Too

in Food & Drink, Writing | March 6th, 2018

Pho­to by Kris Krüg via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

I passed Mal­colm Glad­well on the street a few years ago, on the final stop of a road trip I took from Los Ange­les to Raleigh, North Car­oli­na. At the time I won­dered why the unmis­tak­able New York-based writer, speak­er, and inter­preter of big ideas had come to town. But now that I know a lit­tle bit about his per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al habits, I can at least say with some con­fi­dence where he was going: a cof­fee shop. That Glad­well’s work has, over the years, occa­sion­al­ly touched on the sub­ject of cof­fee sug­gests he may well enjoy a good brew, but in that same time he’s also stat­ed, explic­it­ly and repeat­ed­ly, that cafés are where he does the work itself.

“I loved the news­room,” Glad­well, who got his start in one, once told The Guardian. “When I left it I want­ed to recre­ate the news­room and the clos­est thing to a news­room is any kind of ran­dom active social space.” The best cof­fee shop offers what he calls “the right kind of dis­trac­tion. There has to be some sort of osmot­ic process,” just as hap­pens with jour­nal­ists togeth­er in the office. “I don’t par­tic­u­lar­ly think cof­fee shops are amaz­ing places to write,” he more recent­ly said in a pod­cast inter­view with econ­o­mist Tyler Cowen (embed­ded below). “But I do think that sim­ply being around peo­ple who are not my age is real­ly use­ful.”

“The cof­fee-shop writer needs to be, as the soci­ol­o­gists would say, an out­lier and not a pio­neer,” Glad­well writes in the Wall Street Jour­nal. (Even in a per­son­al essay, it seems, he can’t resist apply­ing an aca­d­e­m­ic con­cept to every­day life.) “You don’t want to be the lap­top cow­boy who sig­nals to oth­er lap­top cow­boys that this is the place to be. You want the club that won’t have you as a mem­ber.” He goes on to rec­om­mend the rig­or­ous likes of Man­hat­tan’s lap­top-ban­ning Café Grumpy and Zurich’s La Stan­za: “no com­fy chairs, no Wi-Fi, no out­lets, and cof­fee so ridicu­lous­ly expen­sive that it func­tions as a tax on lin­ger­ing.”

Oth­er Glad­well-approved writ­ing cafés include Fer­nan­dez and Wells in Lon­don, Chez Prune in Paris (until, that is, it flood­ed with “Vas­sar girls with their Gitanes cig­a­rettes and their Thomas Mann”), and “the back booths in the Swan Restau­rant on Queen Street West” in Toron­to. These far-flung spots align well with the oth­er per­son­al writ­ing strat­e­gy Glad­well explained to Cowen: “I trav­el a lot. And that’s a real­ly, real­ly use­ful way of break­ing out of bad intel­lec­tu­al habits, and to remind your­self about what the rest of the world is like.” As a hard-writ­ing habitué of the cof­fee shops of Seoul, I sec­ond Glad­well’s advice, but I should note that fol­low­ing it won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly get you to his lev­el of pop­u­lar­i­ty and acclaim; com­bine it with his new Mas­ter­class on writ­ing, though, and hey, who knows.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mal­colm Glad­well to Teach His First Online Course: A Mas­ter Class on How to Turn Big Ideas into Pow­er­ful Sto­ries

Mal­colm Glad­well on Why Genius Takes Time: A Look at the Mak­ing of Elvis Costello’s “Depor­tee” & Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah”

Mal­colm Glad­well: What We Can Learn from Spaghet­ti Sauce

The Birth of London’s 1950s Bohemi­an Cof­fee Bars Doc­u­ment­ed in a Vin­tage 1959 News­reel

Do You Speak Java Jive?: The Lan­guage of the Indie Cafes

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include 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.

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Hunter S. Thompson’s Decadent Daily Breakfast: The “Psychic Anchor” of His Frenetic Creative Life

in Food & Drink, Life, Literature, Magazines, Writing | February 26th, 2018

Image  via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Is break­fast real­ly the most impor­tant meal of the day?

It cer­tain­ly seems so from all the care­ful­ly staged pho­tos of overnight oat­meal on Insta­gram.

The phys­i­cal and men­tal ben­e­fits are well doc­u­ment­ed. A nutri­tious meal in the morn­ing boosts blood glu­cose lev­els, improv­ing con­cen­tra­tion, boost­ing ener­gy lev­els and main­tain­ing healthy weight.

Sad­ly, many Amer­i­cans gob­ble their break­fasts on the fly. How many hun­dreds of film and tele­vi­sion scenes have you seen where­in the main char­ac­ters hur­tle through the kitchen snatch­ing bananas, gra­nola bars, and trav­el mugs on their way to the door?

The late gonzo jour­nal­ist Hunter S. Thomp­son would sure­ly not have approved, though he may have enjoyed the sense of supe­ri­or­i­ty these morn­ing scram­bles would have engen­dered.

This was a man who bragged that he could “cov­er a hope­less­ly scram­bled pres­i­den­tial cam­paign bet­ter than any six-man team of career polit­i­cal jour­nal­ists on The New York Times or The Wash­ing­ton Post and still eat a three-hour break­fast in the sun every morn­ing.”

Report­ing for Rolling Stone in “Fear and Loathing on the Cam­paign Trail 76,” he inti­mat­ed that he viewed break­fast with the “tra­di­tion­al­ized rev­er­ence that most peo­ple asso­ciate with Lunch and Din­ner.”

One won­ders who exact­ly he meant by “most peo­ple”?

Tex­ans? The Irish? Rabelais?

Regard­less of whether he had been to bed, or what he had got­ten up to the night before, he insist­ed upon a mas­sive repast—consumed al fres­co, and prefer­ably in the nude. The sun he enjoyed bask­ing in was usu­al­ly at its zenith by the time he sat down. The meal, which he called the “psy­chic anchor” of “a ter­mi­nal­ly jan­gled lifestyle, con­sist­ed of the fol­low­ing:

Four bloody Marys

Two grape­fruits

A pot of cof­fee

Ran­goon crêpes

A half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef-hash with diced chilies

A Span­ish omelette or eggs Bene­dict

A quart of milk

A chopped lemon for ran­dom sea­son­ing

Some­thing like a slice of Key lime pie

Two mar­gar­i­tas

And six lines of the best cocaine for dessert

Last sum­mer, a Dan­ish Vice reporter recre­at­ed Thompson’s break­fast of choice, invit­ing a poet friend (and “aspir­ing alco­holic”) to par­take along with him. It end­ed with him vom­it­ing, naked, into a shrub. His guest, who seems to be made of stur­dier stuff, praised the eggs bene­dict, the Bloody Marys, and dessert.

Thomp­son pre­ferred that his first meal of the day be con­sumed solo, in order to get a jump on the day’s work. In addi­tion to the edi­ble menu items, he required:

Two or three news­pa­pers

All mail and mes­sages

A tele­phone

A note­book for plan­ning the next twen­ty four hours

And at least one source of good music

Read “Fear and Loathing on the Cam­paign Trail 1976” here. The key break­fast quote reads as fol­lows:

I like to eat break­fast alone, and almost nev­er before noon; any­body with a ter­mi­nal­ly jan­gled lifestyle needs at least one psy­chic anchor every twen­ty four hours, and mine is break­fast. In Hong Kong, Dal­las, or at home—and regard­less of whether or not I have been to bed—breakfast is a per­son­al rit­u­al that can only be prop­er­ly observed alone, and in a spir­it of gen­uine excess. The food fac­tor should always be mas­sive: Four bloody Marys, two grape­fruits, a pot of cof­fee, Ran­goon crêpes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef-hash with diced chilies, a Span­ish omelette or eggs Bene­dict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for ran­dom sea­son­ing, and some­thing like a slice of Key lime pie, two mar­gar­i­tas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three news­pa­pers, all mail and mes­sages, a tele­phone, a note­book for plan­ning the next twen­ty four hours, and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with out­side, in the warmth of the hot sun, and prefer­ably stone naked.

And just in case, here is a recipe for Crab Ran­goon Crepes…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Hunter S. Thomp­son Gave Birth to Gonzo Jour­nal­ism: Short Film Revis­its Thompson’s Sem­i­nal 1970 Piece on the Ken­tucky Der­by

Hear the 10 Best Albums of the 1960s as Select­ed by Hunter S. Thomp­son

Read 11 Free Arti­cles by Hunter S. Thomp­son That Span His Gonzo Jour­nal­ist Career (1965–2005)

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

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Eudora Welty’s Handwritten Eggnog Recipe, and Charles Dickens’ Recipe for Holiday Punch

in Food & Drink, Letters, Life, Literature | December 22nd, 2017

’Tis the sea­son to break out the fam­i­ly recipes of beloved rel­a­tives, though often their prove­nance is not quite what we think.

(Imag­ine the cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance upon dis­cov­er­ing that Moth­er swiped “her” Ital­ian Zuc­chi­ni Cres­cent Pie from Pills­bury Bake-Off win­ner, Mil­li­cent Nathan of Boca Raton, Flori­da…)

When it came to cred­it­ing the eggnog she dubbed “the taste of Christ­mas Day,” above, Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author Eudo­ra Wel­ty shared it out equal­ly between her moth­er and author Charles Dick­ens:

In our house while I was grow­ing up, I don’t remem­ber that hard liquor was served at all except on one day in the year. Ear­ly on Christ­mas morn­ing, we woke up to the sound of the egg­beat­er: Moth­er in the kitchen was whip­ping up eggnog. All in our bathrobes, we began our Christ­mas before break­fast. Through­out the day Moth­er made batch­es afresh. All our callers expect­ed her eggnog.

It was ladled from the punch bowl into punch cups and sil­ver gob­lets, and had to be eat­en with a spoon. It stood up in peaks. It was rich, creamy and strong. Moth­er gave full cred­it for the recipe to Charles Dick­ens.

Nice, but per­haps Dick­ens is unde­serv­ing of this hon­or? The con­tents of his punch­bowl bore lit­tle resem­blance to Moth­er Welty’s, as evi­denced by an 1847 let­ter to his child­hood friend, Amelia Fil­loneau, in which he shared a recipe he promised would make her “a beau­ti­ful Punch­mak­er in more sens­es than one”:

Peel into a very strong com­mon basin (which may be bro­ken, in case of acci­dent, with­out dam­age to the owner’s peace or pock­et) the rinds of three lemons, cut very thin, and with as lit­tle as pos­si­ble of the white coat­ing between the peel and the fruit, attached. Add a dou­ble-hand­full of lump sug­ar (good mea­sure), a pint of good old rum, and a large wine-glass full of brandy — if it not be a large claret-glass, say two. Set this on fire, by fill­ing a warm sil­ver spoon with the spir­it, light­ing the con­tents at a wax taper, and pour­ing them gen­tly in. Let it burn for three or four min­utes at least, stir­ring it from time to Time. Then extin­guish it by cov­er­ing the basin with a tray, which will imme­di­ate­ly put out the flame. Then squeeze in the juice of the three lemons, and add a quart of boil­ing water. Stir the whole well, cov­er it up for five min­utes, and stir again.

This sounds very like the “seething bowls of punch” the jol­ly Ghost of Christ­mas Present shows Ebenez­er Scrooge in A Christ­mas Car­ol, dim­ming the cham­ber with their deli­cious steam.

It’s also veg­an, in con­trast to what you might have been served in the Wel­ty ladies’ home.

Why not serve both? In the words of Tiny Tim, “Here’s to us all!”

Eudo­ra Welty’s Mother’s Eggnog (Attrib­uted, Per­haps Erro­neous­ly, to Charles Dick­ens)

6 egg yolks, well beat­en

Add 3 tbsp. pow­dered sug­ar

Add 1 cup whiskey, added slow­ly, beat­ing all the while

Fold in 1 pint whipped cream

Whip 6 whipped egg whites and add to the mix­ture above.

 

Charles Dick­ens’ Hol­i­day Punch (adapt­ed from Punch by David Won­drich)

3/4 cup sug­ar

3 lemons

2 cups rum

1 1/4 cups cognac

5 cups black tea (or hot water)

Gar­nish: lemon and orange wheels, fresh­ly grat­ed nut­meg

In the basin of an enam­eled cast-iron pot or heat­proof bowl, add sug­ar and the peels of three lemons.

Rub lemons and sug­ar togeth­er to release cit­rus oils. For more greater infu­sion, let sit for 30 min­utes.

Add rum and cognac to the sug­ar and cit­rus.

Light a match, and, using a heat­proof spoon (stain­less steel is best), pick up a spoon­ful of the spir­it mix.

Care­ful­ly bring the match to the spoon to light.

Care­ful­ly bring the lit spoon to the spir­its in the bowl.

Let the spir­its burn for about three min­utes. The fire will melt the sug­ar and extract the oil from the lemon peels.

Extin­guish the bowl by cov­er­ing it with a heat­proof pan or tray.

Skim off the lemon peels (leav­ing them too long in may impart a bit­ter fla­vor).

Squeeze in the juice of the three peeled lemons, and add hot tea or water.

If serv­ing the punch hot, skip to the next step. If serv­ing cold, cool punch in the refrig­er­a­tor and, when cooled, add ice.

Gar­nish with cit­rus wheels and grat­ed nut­meg.

Ladle into indi­vid­ual glass­es.

Learn more about these and oth­er fes­tive hol­i­day drinks in Mas­ter of Wine Eliz­a­beth Gabay’s essay “Cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas and New Year With Punch.”

Image above via Gar­den and Gun

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Charles Min­gus’ “Top Secret” Eggnog Recipe Con­tains “Enough Alco­hol to Put Down an Ele­phant”

Blue Christ­mas: Feed Your Sea­son­al Depres­sion with Hol­i­day Mas­ter­pieces

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

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