The Quest for Pepper

I like pepper. No, I'm not talking the countless, myriad varieties of chili pepper--though I like those too. No, I'm talking regular table pepper, and odd variants.

Regular table pepper, or black pepper, comes in two grades: malabar, which is good quality but ordinary, and telicherry, which is the primo top grade. There are also white pepper corns, which are a variant; green pepper corns, which are unripe and freezedried; and pink peppercorns, which are ripe but haven't lost their pretty husk.

I have bought some neat pepper grinders on eBay. They look like bunny heads and you squeeze the ears so they grind one-handed. They're called "pepper balls" and I got six clear ones out of two lots of six. I'm giving the opaque ones away as gifts.

Anyway, there are other odd peppers that people have used at some points in history, and still use. There are cubebs, aka. "tailed pepper," which smell vaguely like turpentine but otherwise have a neat pepper flavor and are an actual relative of regular pepper. Then there's long pepper, which looks like little dried catkins (cattails) and has a spicy, complex pepper flavor. Then there are grains of paradise, not related in anything except flavor, which are brownish seeds that grind to greyish spice that tastes of black pepper with overlays of lemon and lavender. They're from Africa, still used there, and used to be used in the middle ages in Europe. Then there are Tazmanian pepper berries, which are incredibly hot with an interesting fruity note to them, a bit like juniper berries, which are also purple. And there are sichuan peppers, which are the berries of a Chinese ash tree.

I've now obtained them all thanks to the following kind folks:

www.ebay.com

for grains of paradise and sichuan peppers;

www.worldspice.com

for cubebs and long pepper;

and

www.bushtuckershop.com

for pepper berries.

"The Sunflowers" -- A Literary Parlor Game

Okay, now here's a bit of fun. Go visit Kathryn Mellussi's poetry website and try to guess what poems the poems are based on. The one currently on top is "The Sunflowers," which is rather reminscent of Wordsworths poem about daffodils.

Then there are poems such as "The Haven" which she lists as A Tribute to Poe. But which of Poe's poems? Well, the title is a broad hint.

I won't spoil any more of the fun, but go there and enjoy. See if you can spot them all.

Word of the Day

boustrophedon

Boustrophedon (from Greek for ox-turning) is writing that proceeds in one direction in one line (such as from left to right) and then in the reverse direction in the next line (such as from right to left). Some ancient languages, including one form of ancient Greek (650 BC), were written this way. The term derives from the way one would plow land with an ox, turning the ox back in the other direction at the end of a row. (It could be argued that boustrophedon is a more efficient way to both write and read, especially if your lines are very long.)

Some types of printers and their software print in this fashion (although the results, of course, are lines that are read in only one direction).

Got my spices the other day. Had fun putting them in jars. May try making the following, now that I have the grains of paradise:

Lumbard powder

• 3 parts nutmeg
  
• 2 part cloves
  
• 1part Grains of Paradise
  
• 1 part pepper
  

That's a medieval powder. Compare that with:

African (Tunisian) Five Spice - 50g
2-006
Produce of more than one country.



This pungent north African spice blend, is commonly used in vegetable dishes, and on lamb.

Contains: Black peppercorns, Cloves, Grains of paradise, Nutmeg and Cinnamon.

Word of the Day

perdu

perdu or perdue
n. Obsolete
A soldier sent on an especially dangerous mission.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[From French sentinelle perdue, forward sentry : sentinelle, sentinel + perdu, past participle of perdre, to lose (from Latin perdere. See perdition).]

Word of the Day

ideate

v. i·de·at·ed, i·de·at·ing, i·de·ates
v. tr.
To form an idea of; imagine or conceive: “Such characters represent a grotesquely blown-up aspect of an ideal man... if not realizable, capable of being ideated” (Anthony Burgess).

v. intr.
To conceive mental images; think.

Word of the Day

ostension

\Os*ten"sion\, n. [L. ostensio a showing: cf. F. ostension. See Ostend.] (Eccl.) The showing of the sacrament on the altar in order that it may receive the adoration of the communicants.

(logic, philosophy of language) the attempt to provide a non-linguistic definition of a term by pointing at something to which it applies. Although useful enough for some primitive purposes, ostensive definitions are systematically ambiguous, since they poorly discriminate among things and their temporal features. Recommended Reading: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Blue and Brown Books (HarperCollins, 1986); Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations, ed. by Marie McGinn (Routledge, 1997); Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Language, ed. by Alice Ambrose and Morris Lazerowitz (St. Augustine, 1996); and William H. Brenner, Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (SUNY, 1999).

In an apparent case of ostension (folklore becoming actual news), wealthy Charles Felder, 71, died after his cleaner, 47-year-old Pauline Jassey, unplugged his life support machine to use the vacuum cleaner in his bedroom in Dallas, Texas. Daily Record - 7 March 1998

Word of the Day

Titivullus

Titivillus (also spelled "Tutivillus") is sometimes referred to by modern writers as the "patron demon of scribes" (or of calligraphy). He is said to have been active in the Middle Ages, entering the scriptoria of monasteries and introducing errors into the scribes' work whenever their attention wandered.

There's also this tidbit: One frequently encountered version of this story described a deacon who breaks out laughing in church during the service. Afterward, the priest reproaches the deacon, who defends himself by saying that during the service he had seen a demon writing down the idle words of some of the members of the congregation. The demon quickly filled the parchment on which he was writing, and to make more space pulled at the top with his teeth. The parchment was so overstretched (with the record of so many idle words and mumbled prayers) that it tore, and the demon was sent tumbling onto his back, making the deacon laugh.

I'd say Titivullus must now be the Patron Demon of bloggers.

Dana Gioia, the new head of the NEA, asked a long while ago whether poetry mattered.

It's mattering at the moment.

A long while ago, in the filksinging room of a science fiction convention ( filk = modern folksongs on sf and fantasy themes) I heard a song called "Fire in the Sky," about spaceflight. A year or so later, the Challenger disaster happened and a new verse was added, the song becoming both dirge and anthem, sung many times in the following years.

This morning, part of it was read by Buzz Aldrin, as poetry, before breaking off into tears.

The author, Dr. Jordin Kare, has asked if anyone has video or audio footage of this, please contact him.

Here's the song. I expect there'll be a new verse soon:

Fire in the Sky

Music and lyrics by Jordin Kare
Bridge by Kristoph Klover

Prometheus, they say, brought God's fire down to man
And we've caught it, tamed it, trained it since our history began.
Now we're goin' back to Heaven, just to look him in the eye:
There's a thunder 'cross the land
And a fire in the sky!

Gagarin was the first, back in 1961
When, like Icarus undaunted, he climbed to reach the Sun,
And he knew he might not make it, for it's never hard to die:
But he lifted off the pad
And rode a fire in the sky!

Yet a higher goal was calling and we vowed to reach it soon
And we gave ourselves a decade to put fire on the Moon
And Apollo told the world we can do it if we try:
There was "One small step..."
And a fire in the sky!

(Bridge)
I dreamed last night
Of a little boy's first space flight,
Burned into me,
Watching the black and white TV:
There was a fire in the sky!
I'll remember 'til I die:
A fire in the sky--
A fire in the sky!

Then two decades from Gagarin, twenty years to the day
Came a shuttle named "Columbia", to open up the way
And they said "She's just a truck," but she's a truck that's aimin' high!
See her big jets burnin',
See her fire in the sky!

Yet the gods do not give lightly of the powers they have made,
And with Challenger and seven, once again the price is paid
Though a nation watched her falling, yet a world could only cry,
As they passed from us to glory,
Riding fire in the sky!

Now the rest is up to us, and there's a future to be won:
We must turn our faces outward, we will do what must be done:
For no cradle lasts forever; every bird must learn to fly:
And we're goin' to the stars--
See our fire in the sky!

(Reprise)
Yes, we're goin' to the stars--
See our fire in the sky!
I'll remember 'til I die:
A fire in the sky--
A fire in the sky!


An MP3 version of the song may be downloaded here:

Babylon the Great has fallen
And she can’t get up, poor dear.
Get your boots on, bugle’s callin’
Daddy’s war, but never fear,
Allah’s daughter will arise,
Disneyland, ‘neath Persian skies.

(c)Kevin Andrew Murphy