A Short, Animated Look at What’s Inside Your Average Cup of Coffee

in Animation, Food & Drink | June 29th, 2013

What’s inside your aver­age cupe of joe? Wired breaks it down for us. Let’s start with the obvi­ous, water and caf­feine. But did you know about the traces of 2‑ethylphenol, which oth­er­wise dou­bles as a cock­roach pheromone?  Or how about dimethyl disul­fide, which has indus­tri­al uses in oil refiner­ies? And acetyl­methyl­carbinol? It gives the cof­fee its pleas­ant, but­tery odor. Want to keep con­tem­plat­ing cof­fee? Check out the relat­ed resources below:

The His­to­ry of Cof­fee and How It Trans­formed Our World

Black Cof­fee: Doc­u­men­tary Cov­ers the His­to­ry, Pol­i­tics & Eco­nom­ics of the “Most Wide­ly Tak­en Legal Drug”

Every­thing You Want­ed to Know About Cof­fee in Three Min­utes

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Japanese Animation Director Hayao Miyazaki Shows Us How to Make Instant Ramen

in Animation, Film, Food & Drink | June 16th, 2013

Writer-Direc­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki is renowned for the gor­geous­ness of his fea­ture length ani­ma­tions, and sto­ry­lines that com­bine indige­nous Japan­ese ele­ments with super­nat­ur­al whim­sy. In a world of Dis­ney princess­es, let us give thanks for fam­i­ly enter­tain­ment in which an eccen­tric cas­tle roams the coun­try­side on chick­en legs, a stink spir­it wreaks hav­oc in a bath­house, and a fur-lined cat bus trans­ports pas­sen­gers at top speed.

The first gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­can chil­dren to have grown up on Miyaz­ki films — My Neigh­bor Totoro was released in the States in 1993 — has entered their col­lege years. A por­tion of them will have eager­ly sought out his lat­est offer­ing, a semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal tale direct­ed by his son, Goro. Some will have felt them­selves too mature for such fare. Being col­lege stu­dents, both groups are like­ly to be hork­ing down a fair amount of cheap pack­aged ramen noo­dles.

As evi­denced above, Miyaza­ki has some pret­ty spe­cif­ic ideas on what to do with those. Prepar­ing a late night work­place din­ner for his Spir­it­ed Away team, the great direc­tor rivals Good Fel­las’ sliced gar­lic maven Paul Sorvi­no for culi­nary sang-froid. Stuff­ing ten blocks of the stuff into a sin­gle pot might get an ordi­nary mor­tal vot­ed off of Top Chef, but aside from that Miyaza­k­i’s staff meal is an excel­lent, instant tuto­r­i­al for those inter­est­ed in soup­ing up low bud­get, col­le­giate cui­sine.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Kafka’s Night­mare Tale, ‘A Coun­try Doc­tor,’ Told in Award-Win­ning Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion

Japan­ese Car­toons from the 1920s and 30s Reveal the Styl­is­tic Roots of Ani­me

The New York Times Makes 17,000 Tasty Recipes Avail­able Online: Japan­ese, Ital­ian, Thai & Much More

Watch Sher­lock Hound: Hayao Miyazaki’s Ani­mat­ed, Steam­punk Take on Sher­lock Holmes

French Stu­dent Sets Inter­net on Fire with Ani­ma­tion Inspired by Moe­bius, Syd Mead & Hayao Miyaza­ki

Ayun Hal­l­i­day’s favorite moment is when Totoro and the chil­dren make the cam­phor tree grow. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Allen Ginsberg’s Personal Recipe for Cold Summer Borscht

in Food & Drink, Life, Poetry | June 7th, 2013

ginsbergsborscht

As sum­mer approach­es, let us look to Allen Gins­berg when we we feel dis­cour­aged by our lack of biki­ni-body. The author of “Sun­flower Sutra” did­n’t shy away from hav­ing his evolv­ing physique doc­u­ment­ed shirt­less or nude. Nar­row mind­ed beau­ty arbiters be damned. The man was well equipped for ten­e­ment liv­ing on the Low­er East Side of New York in the era before air-con­di­tion­ing.

Anoth­er Gins­ber­gian tac­tic for embrac­ing the sea­son’s heat: borscht. Unlike Rudolph Nureyev’s or Cyn­di Lau­per’s favorite from Vesel­ka, the round-the-clock Ukrain­ian din­er a few blocks from Gins­berg’s East Vil­lage home, Gins­berg’s borscht is veg­e­tar­i­an and cold. See the tran­scrip­tion of Gins­berg’s hand­writ­ten recipe below:

COLD SUMMER BORSCHT

Dozen beets cleaned & chopped to bite size sal­ad-size Strips
Stems & leaves also chopped like sal­ad let­tuce
All boiled togeth­er light­ly salt­ed to make a bright red soup,
with beets now soft — boil an hour or more
Add Sug­ar & Lemon Juice to make the red liq­uid
sweet & sour like Lemon­ade

Chill 4 gallon(s) of beet liq­uid -

Serve with (1) Sour Cream on table
(2) Boiled small or halved pota­to
on the side
(i.e. so hot pota­toes don’t heat the
cold soup pre­ma­ture­ly)
(3) Spring sal­ad on table to put into
cold red liq­uid
1) Onions — sliced (spring onions)
2) Toma­toes — sliced bite-sized
3) Let­tuce — dit­to
4) Cucum­bers — dit­to
5) a few radish­es
__________________________________
Suit­able for Sum­mer Din­ner

Cold Sum­mer Borscht was but one of many soups to remerge from Gins­berg’s twelve-gal­lon stock­pot. Read about his final batch here. Bon Apetit.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Allen Ginsberg’s “Celes­tial Home­work”: A Read­ing List for His Class “Lit­er­ary His­to­ry of the Beats”

Allen Gins­berg Reads a Poem He Wrote on LSD to William F. Buck­ley

Allen Gins­berg Reads His Famous­ly Cen­sored Beat Poem, Howl

“Expan­sive Poet­ics” by Allen Gins­berg: A Free Course from 1981

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books includ­ing Dirty Sug­ar Cook­ies: Culi­nary Obser­va­tions, Ques­tion­able Taste. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Black Coffee: Documentary Covers the History, Politics & Economics of the “Most Widely Taken Legal Drug”

in Food & Drink, Television | May 28th, 2013

“It’s not hard to brew a great cup of cof­fee,” writes Kele­fa San­neh in a recent New York­er post on the Mel­bourne Inter­na­tion­al Cof­fee Expo. “At least, it shouldn’t be.” He adds that “there’s no such thing as a fool­proof process though: even cof­fee pro­fes­sion­als are for­ev­er tweak­ing and rethink­ing their brew meth­ods, as they get bet­ter at iden­ti­fy­ing, in each cup, what went wrong and what went right.” Even casu­al cof­fee drinkers, includ­ing those who have nev­er made a cup for them­selves, know how com­pli­cat­ed the prepa­ra­tion process can become when one real­ly starts to think about it. But the field of cof­fee stud­ies boasts even more infor­ma­tion to mas­ter when it comes to the his­to­ry of the cul­ti­va­tion and usage of the beans them­selves. You can begin your own cof­fee edu­ca­tion with this tri­par­tite tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary, Black Cof­fee.

A Cana­di­an pro­duc­tion aired on PBS, Black Cof­fee (pur­chase on DVD here) exam­ines “the world’s most wide­ly tak­en legal drug,” a bev­er­age whose intel­lec­tu­al­ly intense die-hard enthu­si­asts give wine’s a run for their mon­ey, from his­tor­i­cal, polit­i­cal, social, and eco­nom­ic angles.

Part one, “The Irre­sistible Bean,” fol­lows cof­fee’s spread from Ethiopa out across the entire world. Part two, “Gold in Your Cup,” looks at the “cof­fee barons” of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry and the rise of cof­fee-house cul­ture.

Part three, “The Per­fect Cup,” brings us up to date with the mod­ern “roman­tic age of cof­fee” and what entre­pre­neurs (such as Star­bucks’ Howard Schultz, who appears in the doc­u­men­tary) have done to, depend­ing on your incli­na­tion, either democ­ra­tize or cheap­en the pur­suit of a worth­while sip. While a bit of knowl­edge always enrich­es the enjoy­ment of even some­thing as com­mon as cof­fee — and, in this case, also rais­es occa­sion­al thorny moral and agri­cul­tur­al ques­tions — let us nev­er lose sight of the sim­ple sen­ti­ment expressed in expressed in Bach’s Cof­fee Can­ta­ta:

Love­li­er than a thou­sand kiss­es,
smoother than mus­ca­tel wine.
Cof­fee, I must have cof­fee,
and if any­one wants to give me a treat,
ah!, just give me some cof­fee!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every­thing You Want­ed to Know About Cof­fee in Three Min­utes

“The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink”: London’s First Cafe Cre­ates Ad for Cof­fee in the 1650s

The His­to­ry of Cof­fee and How It Trans­formed Our World

This is Cof­fee!: A 1961 Trib­ute to Our Favorite Stim­u­lant

The Fine Art of Paint­ing Por­traits on Cof­fee Foam

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

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10 Golden Rules for Making the Perfect Cup of Tea (1941)

in Food & Drink, History | May 3rd, 2013

In 1941, Eng­land found itself in an all-out-war with Nazi Ger­many. It had sus­tained severe dam­age when the Nazis unleashed the Blitz on 16 Eng­lish cities between Sep­tem­ber 1940 and May 1941. Despite the heavy toll, there was only one thing for most Brits to do — to keep calm and car­ry on and pre­serve small moments of nor­mal­cy when pos­si­ble. Of course, that meant drink­ing tea and not just any tea, but good tea. Above we present Tea Mak­ing Tips, a short 1941 film cre­at­ed by the Empire Tea Bureau, that out­lines the gold­en rules for mak­ing tea wor­thy of its name. The nar­ra­tor reminds the view­ers, “Tea is not a man­u­fac­tured arti­cle which can be made, bot­tled up and served at will. It must be pre­pared every time it is acquired, and it’s suc­cess or fail­ure depends entire­ly upon the atten­tion you pay to the six gold­en rules.” If you watch the 10-minute film, you’ll actu­al­ly count 10 rules (if not more), many of which are still pre­sum­ably rel­e­vant to a tea drinker today. They are as fol­lows:

1) In gen­er­al, store tea leaves in an air­tight con­tain­er, prefer­ably away from cheese, soap, spices and oth­er items with strong aro­mas.

2) Also keep the tea off of the ground and away from walls.

3) Always use a good qual­i­ty tea. You’ll spend a lit­tle more mon­ey, but you’ll actu­al­ly get more bang for your pound.

4) Use fresh water. Stale water makes stale tea, which no one needs, espe­cial­ly in wartime.

5) Make sure you warm your teapot before adding hot water and tea leaves.

6) Use the right ratio of tea leaves to water.

7) Steep the tea in water that’s nei­ther under-boiled nor over-boiled.

8) Let the tea infuse for the right amount of time. 3–5 min­utes should cov­er most kinds of tea. Oth­er kinds will need more time.

9) Use tea pots made of chi­na, earth­en­ware, and stain­less steel. Avoid ones made of enam­el or tin.

10)  Don’t add milk to the tea too soon. Wait for the last pos­si­ble minute.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Cof­fee and How It Trans­formed Our World

“The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink”: London’s First Cafe Cre­ates Ad for Cof­fee in the 1650s

Epic Tea Time with Alan Rick­man

This is Cof­fee!: A 1961 Trib­ute to Our Favorite Stim­u­lant

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Mark Rothko is Toast … and More Edible Art from SFMOMA

in Art, Food & Drink | April 25th, 2013

rothko_toast

If you head to SFMO­MA’s café on Third Street in San Fran­cis­co, you can order up some Damien Hirst “Amy­lamine” lemon vel­vet cake, Don­ald Judd toma­to soup, and Mark Rothko Toast. The Rothko Toast comes paint­ed with apri­cot but­ter along the top, and wild blue­ber­ry jam along the bot­tom, cre­at­ing an edi­ble imi­ta­tion of Rothko’s paint­ing known as “No. 14, 1960.” The paint­ing (see below) hangs at SFMOMA, the West Coast’s first muse­um devot­ed to 20th cen­tu­ry art.

rothko 14

via Boing­Bo­ing & sfist

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Watch Werner Herzog Eat His Shoe, Cooked by Chef Alice Waters (1980)

in Film, Food & Drink | April 10th, 2013

Les Blank made qui­et, affec­tion­ate films about quirky sub­jects. Many of his films paid homage to the music and food he loved—The Blues Accordin’ to Light­nin Hop­kins and Yum Yum Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Cre­ole Cook­ing. Blank was a lover of many tra­di­tion­al Amer­i­can musi­cal forms. Some of his movies are the only known filmed doc­u­ments of artists who are now gone.

Blank died April 7 at his home in Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia. He leaves behind a cat­a­log of films that seem small but in fact take on the biggest sub­jects: human­i­ty, love, com­mit­ment, joy and indi­vid­u­al­ism.

In Gap-Toothed Women, Blank cre­ates a sin­gu­lar love let­ter to women who shun ortho­don­tics and embrace their diastema (the gap between the two front teeth). The film explores the ori­gins of the belief that women with this fea­ture are unusu­al­ly lusty (think of Chaucer’s “gap-toothed wife of Bath”) and ends up cel­e­brat­ing uncon­ven­tion­al beau­ty.

One of his most inter­est­ing works devel­oped out of an inside joke. Blank was a friend of the direc­tor Wern­er Her­zog. Her­zog, in turn, had men­tored the young film­mak­er Errol Mor­ris, who was mak­ing his first film, Gates of Heav­en. In a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly dark attempt to be encour­ag­ing, Her­zog quipped that he would eat his shoe if Mor­ris com­plet­ed the film.

A man of his word, Her­zog lat­er ate the shoe in front of an audi­ence inside Berkeley’s U.C. The­ater. Food pio­neer Alice Waters cooked the shoe for five hours in gar­lic and wine. Blank filmed the event in 1980 and, true to his style, stepped back from the sub­ject and cre­at­ed a film about mak­ing hon­est art. You can watch it above.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Vis­it her web­site: .

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:

Wern­er Her­zog and Cor­mac McCarthy Talk Sci­ence and Cul­ture

Errol Mor­ris: Two Essen­tial Truths About Pho­tog­ra­phy

Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog: The Director’s Auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal Short Film from 1986

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The Fine Art of Painting Portraits on Coffee Foam

in Food & Drink | April 6th, 2013

Espres­so is his palette. Cof­fee is his medi­um. Wel­come to the artis­tic world of Mike Breach, a NYC barista, who painstak­ing­ly “paints” por­traits on lattes and cap­puc­ci­nos. After you vis­it Breach’s tum­blr filled with “Baris­tArt,” you’ll nev­er be quite so impressed by that heart-shaped design oth­er baris­tas pour onto your expen­sive foam.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink”: London’s First Cafe Cre­ates Ad for Cof­fee in the 1650s

Every­thing You Want­ed to Know About Cof­fee in Three Min­utes

The Physics of Cof­fee Rings Final­ly Explained

David Lynch’s Organ­ic Cof­fee (Bar­bie Head Not Includ­ed)

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