A new comedy video from Cracked makes a fair point: there’s a lot of bullshit that goes into the marketing of coffee nowadays. Slap the words “organic” and “fair trade” on the product, and everyone feels pretty good about keeping their caffeine addictions going. Several years ago, Slovenian theorist Slavoj Žižek took a closer look at this phenomenon and drew some interesting conclusions about how, within contemporary capitalism, companies like Starbucks have reworked Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic, and found new ways to square our economic and spiritual lives. Starbucks has made it, Žižek notes, so that when we enter their stores, we’re not just buying coffee and being consumers. Rather, we’re buying fair trade and eco-friendly coffee, participating in charitable work, and leaving with a sense of redemption. The animated video is worth a look.
Earlier this week, Colin Marshall highlighted a trove of 3,000 vintage cookbooks on Archive.org, many of which date back to the 19th century.
Cookbooks, however, first arrived on the scene well before that. According to the venerable British Library, the “late 16th century was the first time that cookery books began to be published and acquired with any sort of regularity.” “It is also the first time that cookery books were directed at a female audience.” That is, privileged women who could read and had access to sugar, spices and other then rare ingredients.
Above you can find a recipe for making pancakes, straight from 1585. To make Pancakes, the text reads:
Take new thicke Creame a pine, foure or five yolks of egs, a good handful of flower and two or three spoonefuls of ale, strain them together into a faire platter, and season it with a good handfull of sugar, a spooneful of synamon, and a little Ginger: then take a friing pan, and put in a litle peece of Butter, as big as your thumbe, and when it is molten brown, cast it out of your pan, and with a ladle put to the further side of your pan some of your stuffe, and hold your pan …, so that your stuffe may run abroad over all the pan as thin as may be: then set it to the fire, and let the fyre be verie soft, and when the one side is baked, then turn the other, and bake them as dry as ye can without burning.
It’s Saturday morning. What are you waiting for? Give it a try. The page above also offers recipes for various puddings. Find those recipes transcribed here.
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bundled in one email, each day.
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!
By the time I got to high school, home economics classes had fallen out of favor: the boys, of course, considered them too “girly,” and the girls considered them enforcers of traditional gender roles wholly out of place in modern society. At that time, America’s widespread obsession with food still had a few years before its full bloom, and now I imagine that learning to cook has regained a certain cachet even among teenagers. But what of “home economics” itself, that curious banner that combines a definition of economics nobody now quite recognizes with the less-than-fashionable concepts of domesticity, practicality, and necessity?
At the Internet Archive blog, Jeff Kaplan highlights such works as the Pilgrim Cook Book, published by Chicago’s Pilgrim Evangelical Lutheran Church Ladies’ Aid Society in 1921 and including recipes for Sausage in Potato Boxes, Blitz Torte, Cough Syrup, and Sauerkraut Candy; 1912’s more subdued Food for the invalid and the convalescent, with its Beef Juice, Meat Jelly, Cracker Gruel, and advice that, “among other things, beer and pickles are bad for children”; and even older, 1906’s A bachelors cupboard; containing crumbs culled from the cupboards of the great unweddedwhich, warning that “the day of of the ‘dude’ has passed and the weakling is relegated to his rightful sphere in short order,” offers methods for the making of dishes with names like Bed-Spread For Two, Indian Devil Mixture, Hot Birds, and Finnan Haddie.
Want to teach me physics? Make it interesting. Better yet, use a cup of coffee as a prop. Now you’ve got my attention.
Created by Charlotte Arene while interning at the University of Paris-Sud’s Laboratory of Solid State Physics, Physics & Caffeine uses a shot of espresso to explain key concepts in physics. Why does coffee cool off so quickly when you blow on it? It comes down to understanding heat and thermodynamics. Why does coffee stay in a cup at all? That seemingly simple question is explained by quantum mechanics and even Newtonian physics and special relativity. You might want to watch that section twice.
Shot image by image, this stop motion film took three long months to create. Pretty impressive when you consider that 5,000 images went into making the film.
Get more information on the film, and even download it, from this page. And find more physics primers below.
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bundled in one email, each day.
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!
Five years ago, actor Christopher Walken casually shared a simple recipe for roast chicken with pears, above. The lighting was amateur, his implements fairly utilitarian, and, much to my gratification, he couldn’t keep his cat off the counter, either.
His improvised patter was as nonchalant as his handling of his ingredients. Undeterred, legions of fans still found plenty of Walken-esque quotes with which to spice up the video’s comments section.
Chalk it up to the dozens of soft spoken, seriously unhinged characters on which this actor’s reputation rests. It’s painfully easy to imagine a rival gang member or law enforcement official lashed to a chair just off camera, squirming in terror as Walken pauses to appreciate the “little cookies” the caramelized pears leave behind on the bottom of his pan.
Whatever he’s planning to do to this imaginary unfortunate, one hopes it won’t involve flaps of skin and a vertical poultry roaster.
As to the recipe, it’s as delicious as it is innocuous. Try it!
If you’re feeling less than adventurous, you can decrease the creep factor by replicating the shoot with a grandfatherly gent of your choosing prior to serving. (Anyone who’s not Christopher Walken will do.)
Things get cooking with a visit to the Byzantine Stew Leonard’s supermarket, and end with a cell phone pic of Walken’s nose. There’s a live mandolin serenade and the kitchen seems vastly more expensive, but I found myself missing the homey sense of foreboding created by the original.
Dinner at Berkeley’s famed Chez Panisse shows up on a lot of foodie’s bucket lists. Its founder, Alice Waters, has been promoting the importance of eating organically and locally for nearly half a century.
With the Edible Schoolyard Project, she found a way to share these beliefs in true hands-on fashion, by involving thousands of children and teens in kitchens and gardens across the country.
We will all benefit from this revolution, though I can’t help but envy the kids at its epicenter. Back when Waters was pioneering California cuisine, I was suffering under my school lunchroom’s mandatory “courtesy bite” policy. The remembered aroma of Salisbury steak and instant mashed potatoes still activates my gag reflex.
The University of California’s Edible Education 101 course has been continuing the Edible Schoolyard’s work at the collegiate level since 2011. It’s a glorious antidote to the culinary traumas experienced by earlier generations. UC Berkeley students can take Edible Education 101 for credit. The public is welcome to sit in on lectures featuring a pantheon of sustainable food superstars, including Waters, author Michael Pollan of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, above, and course leader Mark Bittman (you know him from The New York Times and his new startup The Purple Carrot).
Fortunately for those of us whose bucket list splurge at Chez Panisse requires such additional expenses as plane tickets and hotel rooms, many of the lectures are also viewable online.
The range of topics make clear that edible education is not simply a matter of learning to choose a locally grown portobello over a Big Mac. Transportation, technology, marketing, and pubic policy all factor into the goal of making healthy, equitably farmed food available to all at an a non-Chez Panisse price.
A quick public service announcement. According to a new study published in the journal JAMA Oncology, we have a good measure of control over whether cancer rates actually rise or fall. And if we take four practical steps, we could see cancer rates decline by as much as 40–60%. Here’s what the new study recommends:
No smoking. It’s that simple. (Bill Plympton’s “25 Ways To Quit Smoking” video above offers some light-hearted ways to rid yourself of that bad habit.)
Drink in moderation. One drink or less per day for women; two or less for men. Not more.
Maintain a healthy body weight, a Body Mass Index between 18.5 and 27.5. Learn how to calculate your BMI here.
Exercise often. During a given week, exercise moderately for at least 150 minutes, or vigorously for at least 75 minutes.
There are no great revelations here. It’s common sense really. But maybe you could improve in one of these areas, and maybe now is the time to get going.
And, just for good measure, eat well (no processed foods) and get a good night of sleep.
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bundled in one email, each day.
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!
Last year, British designer Josh Renouf announced plans to build the Barisieur, a combination alarm clock/coffee brewer that will wake you up, then serve you a nice hot cup of coffee, as you open your eyes and greet the new day. Here’s how Engadget described it at the time:
Using induction heating and stainless steel ball bearings, the Barisieur boils water for pour-over brew, giving off the aroma of your favorite beans as you rise to start the day. There’s even a cooled slot for a spot of milk and storage for sugar and extra grounds.
Today, we’re pleased to announce that the first orders for the Barisieur can be placed through Kickstarter. They’re looking to raise $555,000 through their Kickstarter campaign. (Watch the video above for information on that.) The first 300 backers will be able to pre-order their Barisieur at a low price ($292).
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bundled in one email, each day.
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!
We're hoping to rely on loyal readers, rather than erratic ads. Please click the Donate button and support Open Culture. You can use Paypal, Venmo, Patreon, even Crypto! We thank you!
Open Culture scours the web for the best educational media. We find the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & educational videos you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.
