Consider the Fork

[redbird]

A couple of notes on Consider the Fork, by Bee Wilson, which I read a couple of weeks ago. This started as a belated reply to anne's comment, but I want to post it where other people might see it. (Apologies for any fuzziness, it's past my bedtime.)


I liked it. There's some overlap with the book I read a while ago about the history of refrigeration, but mostly the emphasis here is different. Despite the title, the author starts by talking about wooden spoons, and that they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Having started there, the book ends by discussing some kitchen tools that are younger than most people realize, such as good vegetable peelers.

As acelightning2 alluded to, the Chinese approach, where food is either cut up into small pieces before cooking, or cooked and then cut up in the kitchen, means diners aren't holding anything pointier than a pair of chopsticks.

Something that stuck in my mind: one 19th-century home ice cream maker made ice cream in only a few minutes, faster than any of the ice cream makers you can buy today. A few of these machines still exist, but their owners aren't using them: it turns out that the zinc-lined bowl leaches toxic zinc into the ice cream.

Comments

[conuly]

A few of these machines still exist, but their owners aren't using them: it turns out that the zinc-lined bowl leaches toxic zinc into the ice cream.

Exactly how toxic, and can we, idk, coat the zinc so it doesn't leach into the food?

[redbird]

The book mentions that someone was considering making and selling a non-zinc version of this ice cream maker, but that was more than a decade ago, so I doubt anyone is actively working on it.

I don't know how toxic, and the book is back at the library.

[anne]

Oh cool, I'd forgotten about that! Was the refrigeration one Frostbitten? I liked it too. Good stuff about Frederick Tudor, first person to get a license plate in Mass. 😂

[gatheringrivers]

I was just wondering if the speed was due to the zinc, or just the design in general. Because if it's the design in general, then a thinner version of a non-toxic metal might also speed up the freezing process.

[redbird]

The refrigeration one was Frostbite, by Nicola Twilley.

[redbird]

I think it was the design in general, and that zinc was chosen at least partly because it was cheaper than other options. I don't know how the price of zinc compares to that of stainless steel or other possibilities now.

The design would be long since out of patent, so whatever got in the way of someone reintroducing these machines wouldn't have been those legal issues.

[anne]

That's what I meant! I was one of the people who requested that the library buy it. It's always nice when a book turns out to have been worth it!

[acelightning2]

You can make homemade ice cream using the same process as the hand-cranked ice cream makers, without any zinc. Mix up the base for your ice cream, and pour it into a zip-lock bag of appropriate size, and zip it securely. Get a bigger ziplock bag, and fill it full of ice cubes and salt, and embed the bag full of ice cream base in the ice. Zip the outer bag. You and some friends play catch with the whole assembly, which churns the ice cream and freezes it evenly. Once the stuff in the inner bag looks like ice cream, remove it from the ice mixture and serve your freshly churned homemade ice cream. (You can get the same result with different sizes of Tupperware containers, but those and the baggies will probably release plastic nanoparticles. I've actually done it with two stainless steel mixing bowls - cream base in a smaller one, and ice and salt in a bigger one, and then just using a hand-held electric mixer to whip the ice cream. I have a lot of stainless steel in my kitchen.

And if nobody is holding anything more deadly than chopsticks, there won't be any attempts to assassinate the Emperor/King/Khan by stabbing hims with an eating knife.

[redbird]

Oh, sure. The impressive thing about that specific home ice cream maker was that it took less than ten minutes from start to finish.

[ranunculus]

Oh my goodness, the print on your reply is in bright purple which I cannot see at all on my monitor!

[acelightning2]

Here's the text in black: Since the space for comments shows up white, I don't know why the colored text doesn't show against it. HOwever, you've got your display customized the way you want it, so I'm not going to tell you how to fix it. (I know a fair bit of HTML - I did webpage design for a little while, but I never managed to learn Javascript. But I can do simple things like change the color of text.)

You can make homemade ice cream using the same process as the hand-cranked ice cream makers, without any zinc. Mix up the base for your ice cream, and pour it into a zip-lock bag of appropriate size, and zip it securely. Get a bigger ziplock bag, and fill it full of ice cubes and salt, and embed the bag full of ice cream base in the ice. Zip the outer bag. You and some friends play catch with the whole assembly, which churns the ice cream and freezes it evenly. Once the stuff in the inner bag looks like ice cream, remove it from the ice mixture and serve your freshly churned homemade ice cream. (You can get the same result with different sizes of Tupperware containers, but those and the baggies will probably release plastic nanoparticles. I've actually done it with two stainless steel mixing bowls - cream base in a smaller one, and ice and salt in a bigger one, and then just using a hand-held electric mixer to whip the ice cream. I have a lot of stainless steel in my kitchen.

And if nobody is holding anything more deadly than chopsticks, there won't be any attempts to assassinate the Emperor/King/Khan by stabbing hims with an eating knife.

And doing it with a hand mixer in a steel bowl didn't even take ten minutes. I probably used a higher ratio of salt to ice, so it froze even faster. I remember reading old stories where someone complained bitterly about how much work it was to crank the ice cream maker, and why didn't someone invent one that worked better, maybe drive it with a set of pedals or something? (ANd then the electric ice cream maker was invented.) Actually, I can imagine rigging something like an exercise bike where turning the pedals cranked the ice cream inside the container. Just a few belts or gears.

[pameladean]

With regard to good vegetable peelers: not only my grandmother, but my mother habitually peeled/peel potatoes using a paring knife, and cutting towards themselves with it. Both of them sternly forbade me to ever do such a thing, but apparently neither one could break the habit. (I wouldn't do it if you PAID me. Yikes.)

P.

[acelightning2]

Well, I tried to fix that, and I'm leaving this in the user's default color scheme, which puts the text in black. I do try to be considerate in other people's journals, and not clash horribly with their chosen color schemes. (Prompted by the time when someone used green text in my entirely-purple journal.)

[redbird]

I am not deeply committed to this color scheme. The reason I haven't changed it in ages is that I'm happy with it, and keeping the same layout/colors is easier than finding another I like.

[acelightning2]

That's the explanation for why my journal is excessively purple :-)

[acelightning2]

I had a friend who was very impressed with my cooking ability, and she used to buy me random purple kitchen tools whenever she saw them in a store. One time it was a set of a potato peeler and a tiny paring knife. Another time it was a sturdy heavy-duty scraper/spatula, with a purple silicone rubber blade, which is perfect for scraping bread dough out of my mixer bowl. Once she gave me a purple metal pepper grinder, but one time I tightened the gears for a finer grind, and the whole metal housing broke in two. (I just the other day bought a black and stainless steel pepper grinder, which doesn't look likely to break that way.) I also had a standard potato peeler in a box of random kitchen stuff my mother gave me when I got married, but I think that got lost when my kitchen got flooded by Superstorm Sandy. Yes, I can peel potatoes with a paring knife, but that's slower than a peeler.

[ranunculus]

Green on purple. No, just No.!
I liked the purple text, just couldn't see it. I suppose what I could do is force it to my journal's scheme, but I like to see other people's choices. To me it is part of their personality.

[ranunculus]

Hmm. When I use a paring knife I often peel cutting toward myself. The rest of the time I use a ceramic peeler.

[ranunculus]

I have been using a pepper grinder just like this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/197174445313?_skw=brass+turkish+pepper+mill&itmmeta=01JRPC6GK46SZ2M3N5ZA21QNVT&hash=item2de8834501:g:39AAAOSwm-1n7qwS&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1daDBvpAqRhlF9NLniaAn3GVJSfY%2FW2x71ahHNTnpAD4BOzUHAM%2FOD%2FaZ5UhXN%2BbbLR5CEphUPLI92hW5Xe7JV0xrlWLnsydgcVBs%2FXzUPATu22FRqG7V1ouG%2Bb5bad3GNZEIwlAcpoMYKt9RZj2N6qRXezuxhwJh1pkUTHp0jfXeUv5jZQz7mfMUpwNVoWZrA2zerJPgzvvPnCtMY1AKOCH9WMSe5acw3RMk1JSTmPcS3sGDoKIHZ0f8XyyWO4BTtZTw5Frg45BONKTWvipTqto49YBsyvZVjEZb7vsFHAww%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR9qJmszFZQ
It has lasted for decades and out performed several other grinders I tried. I think I bought it in the late 1980's and it is still grinding well.

[acelightning2]

The new one grinder has black plastic bits and clear plastic bits, and a ceramic grinding surface. I do hope it lasts a long time. I was just sorry when the purple metal one broke, not because of its excellent performance, but because my friend had determined that a purple metal pepper grinder was the perfectly absurd gift for me.

[acelightning2]

Purple is a major part of my personality. My hair is dyed vivid purple, and almost all my clothes are purple (except for some of my socks). The interior of my house is a pleasant shade of landlord's off-white paint (although if I had a room of my own, a little study or something, I'd paint it purple) I have never been able to buy a purple car. Some of my tattoos are purple.

[redbird]

I am fond of purple, but not I think to the extent that you are. When I dye my hair, it's purple, but I haven't been bothering lately. The undyed color is a fine white, which I inherited from my mother and her mother.

There's some purple in one of my tattoos (violets). The others are a cardinal, so bright red; one black with the heyiya-if spirals; and a coelacanth, in lifelike blue and green.

[acelightning2]

My natural hair color was a mousy brownish blonde, but as soon at grey strands became visible, I just started dying all of it purple. I love it when I get random compliments in public :-)

[acelightning2]

I apologize for my excessively purple style. I generally use simple HTML to select a purple font color, so that when I go to answer someone's replies, I can find my original commment on the page more easily. But I'll remember not to use it for you.