HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: Banana Review
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:42:18 GMT
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA

In article <1993Jan8.152330.23510@news2.cis.umn.edu> alla0008@student.tc.umn.edu (Graham Allan) writes:
>In article <1993Jan7.221147.13557@ncar.ucar.edu> ilana@kiowa.scd.ucar.edu (Ilana Stern) writes:
>>In article <C0I360.KLC@dale.cts.com>, npm@dale.cts.com (Nancy Milligan) writes:
>>> I've been experimenting with trying different varieties of bananas.
>>> I read a fascinating article in Cooking Light about different bananas
>>> around the world and what they taste like.  
>>	[interesting banana-tasting experiment deleted]
>>> There are varieties
>>> of bananas that are grown all over the world, other than S. America.
>>> 
>>> Has anyone else experimented with "alternative" bananas?
>>
>>It's only us poor Americans that get stuck with Chiquitas from South 
>>America, I guess.  The major producer of bananas sold in England is
>>the Caribbean island of St. Lucia.  I was there a few years ago;  bananas
>>are served both cooked and raw there, and they are smaller, sweeter, and
>>have a more pleasant texture than American supermarket bananas.
>
>Ah yes, the old Sterling banana vs. Dollar banana controversy...
>(there are two main world banana markets; dollar bananas from South
>America, and the smaller, allegedly superior, sterling bananas from the
>Caribbean).
>I know the banana market doesn't have anything to do with what they taste
>like, but I found it amusing to read about this in the Economist some time
>ago.

I also wonder if the reason the US gets such poor bananas is how
they're picked -- green.  They then sit in warehouses until needed
at which time they're gassed with (I believe) ethylene.  This
gas ripens most fruit and is in fact produced by the fruits themselves
(why putting something in a bag makes in ripen faster -- the
gas can't escape).  But I doubt that these artificially ripened
bananas have has much sugar as tree ripened ones.  I sure notice
the difference between vine ripened tomatoes and those weird
square things sold in the market as 'tomatoes'.

Julie
DISCLAIMER:  All opinions here belong to my cat and no one else
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
From: jfrawley@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Judy Frawley)
Subject: Recipe Request/Lemon Bars
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 11:50:46 EST

I was at my sister's house this weekend and had some delicious
lemon bars.  She made them from a mix but has a scratch recipe
for them, which she cannot find.  Anyway, they are rather flat,
with a sort of soft pie crust bottom layer, cakey middle layer,
and sticky top layer.

I have some lemons in my fridge which I would love to use to 
make these.  I can also make my famous lemon muffins (I'll
post the recipe as soon as I dig it out - they are wonderful),
but I'd rather try my hand at these lemon bars.

Any help is appreciated.
Judy Frawley
From: sandy@railnet.nshore.ORG (Sandy Kaplan)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: Can you make pasta without eggs?
Date: 10 Jan 93 20:16:22 GMT
Organization: Railnet BBS +1 216 786 0476

levin@world.std.com (Levin F Magruder) writes:

> I seem to remember reading that it's not practical to 
> take durum flour and water and make pasta.  True?  
> 
> (I know the pasta wouldn't be especially interesting; I'm interested
> in vegan ravioli.)
> 
> I assume, too, that it's possible to make pasta without a pasta
> machine, as pasta presumably antedates the specialized tool.  Is
> it practical for a cook who has a life outside the kitchen?

If you make pasta using pure durum semolina and no eggs, you will have 
reproduced the commercial pastas on your grocers' shelves.  I speak from 
experience, because I tried it once, and couldn't tell the difference 
between the home-made and the store-bought.  I usually use one cup of 
semolina and two cups of BREAD flour.  This yields a dough that is 
relatively easy to work with and still has that home-made taste, whether 
or not you use egg.

As for the pasta machine, certainly you can make pasta without it!  You 
roll out your dough to the desired thickness, roll it up into a tube and 
start slicing the desired width.  The pasta machine however, takes the 
pain out of rolling out the dough in addition to producing uniform 
widths.  For its cost, it's well worth it.

--
sandy@railnet.nshore.ORG (Sandy Kaplan)
Railnet BBS +1 216 786 0476
From: pmcpeak@hera.Berkeley.EDU (Patricia McPeak)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: Net's Funniest Kitchen Disasters
Date: 8 Jan 1993 23:28:24 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: hera.berkeley.edu

In article <8JAN199314090012@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov> offenberg@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (Joel Offenberg) writes:
>
>That should read "Chocholate can be a deadly poison to _some_ dogs", and not
>just dogs.  My parents have a parrot, and the doctors said the same thing
>about Gonzo, that some individual animals (parrots, in this case) have a 
>tremendous allergic reaction to chocolate, which can often be fatal.

That includes people, too -- my husband, for instance.  He has needed
emergency medical care to halt severe vomiting and diarrhea after
eating chocolate.  And he *loves* chocolate, too!  Still, the
recollection of the last overdose (20 years ago) has kept his
consumption in check (he can and does still indulge in *tiny* amounts
of chocolate occasionally, at the price of mild nausea).  

He suspects the origin of this allergy lies in the time he ate
a whole package of orea cookies as a baby.  His mom had plopped
a package in the stroller with him while shopping, then got
talking to a friend . . . no adverse reaction then (in fact, I
gather he ended up with chocolate all over his face and looking
rather pleased, not unlike the dog described in a previous post), but
bad reaction ever since.

Pat 
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
From: hammond@grizzly.scd.ucar.edu (Steve Hammond)
Subject: Re: WANTED: Recipe for tortillas
Organization: NCAR/UCAR
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 20:54:07 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.145309.26740@aber.ac.uk>, som0@aber.ac.uk (Shona McNeill) writes:
> In article <7JAN199316564317@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov> offenberg@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (Joel Offenberg) writes:
>
> >I know a flour tortilla recipe has been posted, but I've been wondering how 
> >to make _corn_ torillas.  You can't just use corn flour instead of wheat flour,
> >since the corn flour doesn't build up glutent like the wheat does...
> >
> 
> I usually mix some bread flour into cornmeal and mix with warm water till
> a not too soft dough is formed.
> Sorry, I don't know the proportions as I usually guesstimate them...
> 
> Shona
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Shona McNeill | som0@aber.ac.uk | 5, Northgate St., Aberystwyth, Dyfed, Cymru.


Corn Tortillas are made from corn ground with some sort of lime water.
I don't recall the specifics.  Quaker Oats, I believe, sells something
called Masa Harina, which is precisely what you need.  It comes in
5lb. bags and can be found in most supermarkets here in Boulder
and I saw it when I lived in Northern CA as well.  There is a recipe
on the bag itself on how to make corn tortillas.

Good luck.

    Steve H.
From: jane@soave.swdc.stratus.com (Jane Beckman)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
Subject: Re: Who came up with the idea...
Date: 7 Jan 93 19:44:43 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc., San Jose, CA

>For something to ponder along the same lines tho not food: Who figured
>out that sex caused babies? Think about it! You do this, um, thing,
>and then months and months later there's an observable effect! Even
>the first observable signs of pregnancy take several weeks. How/When
>did they/we make the connection? Well, obviously we/they did..

They probably figured it out about the time they started
practicing animal husbandry.  With some varieties of animals,
you notice results of the mating fairly quickly.  And no
mating---no offspring.
>
>One connection (a lot of) people didn't make was that you could avoid
>infection by washing a wound in booze. This is too bad as Jack Daniels
>himself died of an infected toe that no doubt could have been avoided
>had he just soaked it right from the start in his own famous whiskey
>(story has it that it all started when he kicked his safe having
>forgotten the combination again.)
>
Well, that was a question of "when."  I know that by the 18th
century, some of the progressive doctors were using brandy to
treat wounds.  It was in use by at least the Napoleonic wars.
I've read lots of firsthand accounts of the use of liquor on
wounds, during the Civil War, to "aid healing."  (This was, of
course, assuming that they could get it.  A lot of medical
supplies, such as coffee, were in short supply.)

(No, that bottle of whiskey for "snakebite" was NOT to get
drunk so that you didn't feel the pain!)  

--
  Jilara   [jane@swdc.stratus.com]

"Every now and then, a big rock falls out of the sky, and everyone has 
a *very bad* day."  --from the PBS "Dinosaurs" special.
From: kilroy@access.digex.com (Donna Lettow)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
Subject: Medieval Cooking Methods
Date: 11 Jan 1993 02:46:11 GMT
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: access.digex.com

When I was in England this summer, we stopped at an archaeological
dig in Monmouth.  They had unearthed a pair of pots, one designed
to fit inside the other, both of which had traces of lime on them.
The archaeologist's explanation was that this was a cooking method
during the 11th Century, a method of cooking without fire.  The food
would be placed inside the smaller pot, then the smaller pot would be
set in a larger pot full of lime.  The lime would be mixed with
water, producing heat, and the food would be cooked.  

Has anyone heard of this?  I'm looking for some documentation beyond
this one archaeologist's say-so.  I do iron age & medieval living history 
recreation as a hobby (most recently Boudicca's rebellion against Rome
in 1st C Britain) and am the chief cook and pot washer for my group.
Coming up is a joint encampment at Military Through The Ages (Jamestown,
VA in March) between my group and a similar group of Viking age reenactors, 
where we're planning to recreate the 11th C Battle of Clontarf -- the
Irish under Brian Boru vs. the Vikings.  

I must confess I'm a show-off.  Not just stews and porridges for me, I 
like to do things that make the public (and the judges, if I'm lucky)
go "Wow!"  Gotta have a gimmick, as they say.  For Boudicca, we had
documented methods of cooking meat wrapped in clay and put in the 
embers to cook.  This year, I've been dared by my camp leader to try
the lime cooking without fire method, but I'm not even going to
attempt it without some documentation to back up the claim that it's
an 11th C technique.  Once I can find that, then I can try to 
document it to _Ireland_ in the 11th C.  One step at a time.

Donna Lettow
kilroy@access.digex.com
From: jane@soave.swdc.stratus.com (Jane Beckman)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
Subject: Re: Who came up with the idea...
Date: 8 Jan 93 23:12:21 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc., San Jose, CA

>You can't live on wine that way, but many beers are not very strong.
>I would imagine people could use it in small amounts (not getting 
>drunk on it) at mealtimes and not have a problem (it's also a good
>food).  But I'm just guessing.  Does any one have references on how 
>often mediveal people drank beer or water?  

One of my reference books at home has a list of the allotments
for a maid of honor at the English court in the mid-1300's.
She was allotted a gallon of beer a day.

The (Victorian) author is moved to comment: "All this, and
down first thing in the morning with faces fresh as
primroses!"  Which of course, would be impossible if it was
strong beer.  The amount implies small beer, and very weak
small beer.

I'm not sure I could drink that much *water* in a day!


--
  Jilara   [jane@swdc.stratus.com]

"Every now and then, a big rock falls out of the sky, and everyone has 
a *very bad* day."  --from the PBS "Dinosaurs" special.
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
From: jeq@i88.isc.com (Jonathan E. Quist)
Subject: Re: Who came up with the idea...
Organization: Lachman Technology, Incorporated, Naperville, IL
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1993 20:35:27 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.164446.61437@qut.edu.au> rees@qut.edu.au writes:
>Well, the Zen Buddhists also have a legend about the origins of tea. It
>says that one of the early Zen patriarchs (I can't remember his name, but he
>was chinese, funnily enough) got so annoyed with himself one day when he
>fell asleep while meditating, that he grabbed a knife and cut his eyelids
>off! Where the skin fell, tea bushes sprouted (so that devout meditators
>would never have to cut their eyelids off again, presumably).
>
>Zen literature is full of little wierd anecdotes like this - I think
>they are supposed to have some deeper symbolic significance.

Yeah - the deeper symbolic significance is that the discovered the
effects of caffeine in tea, allowing them to keep their eyes open
during temple administrative board meetings.


-- 
Jonathan E. Quist                              Lachman Technology, Incorporated
jeq@i88.isc.com  '71 CL450-K4 "Gleep", DoD #094        Naperville, IL
 __       There's nothing quite like the pitter-patter of little feet,
 \/                   followed by the words "Daddy!  Yay!"
From: jane@soave.swdc.stratus.com (Jane Beckman)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
Subject: Re: Who came up with the idea...
Date: 7 Jan 93 00:14:42 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc., San Jose, CA

What makes folks soak leaves in hot water?  This is the real
question behind tea.  Tea is just one of the most widely
popular variation.  There are many cultures, world-wide, that
have some sort of hot drink made from infused leaves.  Japan,
where tea is ocha ("honorable tea"), has many variants of
plain cha, made with various leaves and/or roasted grains.
Various herbal teas appear in cultures world-wide.  Somewhere,
sometime, someone had to decide that leaves in water tasted
good.  It might have been an early spin-off of soup.
--
  Jilara   [jane@swdc.stratus.com]

"Every now and then, a big rock falls out of the sky, and everyone has 
a *very bad* day."  --from the PBS "Dinosaurs" special.
From: at15+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew Lewis Tepper)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
Subject: Eight Treasures of Hunan cuisine
Date: 6 Jan 93 13:17:40 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.IfGqWIC00WB7E9b7VU
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

In Larrousse Gastronomique under "Monkey", they say that monkey brains
are considered one of the "eight treasures" of hunan cuisine. I've been
trying to find out what the others are. Flipping through Larrousse
another day, I found that bear paws are another of the eight. Does
anyone know what the remaining six are? I love _really_ strange foods.

Andy
From: jane@soave.swdc.stratus.com (Jane Beckman)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
Subject: Re: Chilli, again
Date: 6 Jan 93 01:58:17 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc., San Jose, CA

Cooking things with chili *peppers* goes back to the days of
the Amerinds, not just the Aztecs.  They were also raised in
the areas that are now Arizona/New Mexico.  What most folks
refer to as "chili" is Tex-Mex in origin.  It is believed to
have originated from "vaquero stews" that were made in New
Mexico in the previous centuries.  There was also a Californio
variant (several, actually), which is, again, not the same as
the Tex-Mex variant (but owes much to vaquero stew).  I think
that what the chili folks talk about as originating with trail
bosses, etc. is the Firehouse/Five Alarm variety (as opposed
to Cinncinnatti, vaquero, etc).  This one actually seems to have
originated with a couple recipe books put out by the chili
powder companies around 1900.  It owes less to its
Amerind/Spanish/Mexican heritage than it does to marketting
from one of the spice companies.
--
  Jilara   [jane@swdc.stratus.com]

"The field of pseudo-science hasn't progressed much in ten
years, except to gain access to the net." --from ca.earthquakes
From: velde2@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Francois Velde)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
Subject: Re: Who came up with the idea...
Date: 7 Jan 1993 16:33:46 -0500
Organization: Homewood Academic Computing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu

In article <1993Jan7.203513.14279@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov> julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas) writes:
>
>You can't live on wine that way, but many beers are not very strong.
>I would imagine people could use it in small amounts (not getting 
>drunk on it) at mealtimes and not have a problem (it's also a good
>food).  But I'm just guessing.  Does any one have references on how 
>often mediveal people drank beer or water?  

Beer in huge quantities. I saw once per-capita beer consumption 
figures for Ireland in the 19th c., something like 1 gallon per 
day. The latest Smithsonian has an article on an Arctic expedition 
in the 1580's, and mentions the amount of beer taken on board 
(the beer containerrs leaked, so the sailors *had* to drink water): 
it was also very large.


-- 

	Francois Velde

Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
From: nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren)
Subject: Re: Who came up with the idea...
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 22:48:55 GMT

In article <C0CG41.CEv@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>In article <1i9dudINNp61@rave.larc.nasa.gov> otten@icase.edu (John Otten) writes:
>>Who came up with the idea of taking tea leaves, and brewing them in hot water?
>>How long ago did it happen? What were the circumstances?
>> ...
>Tea is lost in antiquity, and the legend that some leaves fell into boiling
>water may very well be correct.

The other theory that I have heard is that tea leaves were first used for
chewing (like coca etc.)  This is followed by two variants:  one is that
steeping is merely a form of soup-making and the other is that attempting
to soften the tea leaves in water left the active ingredients in the water.

I am, of course, ignoring the theories involving benevolent sub-deities!
I vaguely remember reading a couple of these.


Nick Maclaren
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street,
Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email:  nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk
Tel.:   +44 223 334761
Fax:    +44 223 334679
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: Who came up with the idea...
Organization: The World
	<1993Jan5.182158.29141@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov>
	<BZS.93Jan6025846@world.std.com>
	<1993Jan6.152346.17990@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 21:22:39 GMT


From: julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas)
>Maybe I didn't say things clearly enough.  I think people very
>quickly picked up connections between a process or an ingredient
>and the fact that it prevents a disease.  But this connection
>was made after the fact.  That is, no one sat down and said
>"I'll be the first person ever to boil water.  This will keep
>me healthy."  People were boiling water for some other reason
>and quickly noticed that it kept you healthy.

Yes, I agree. Then again, one could argue that it was the germ theory
which was after the fact, usually attributed to whatsisname noticing
that cowmaids rarely got smallpox and attributing it to inoculation
with cowpox (tho this was actually a regular practice almost 1,000 yrs
before in the Near East), and then Pasteur et al figuring out the
details of why that worked later.

It really is a chicken and egg problem. A lot of medical theory was
discovered by wondering why some folk cure worked rather than the
other way around, even in recent history we still do this. For example
we look at populations which have lower incidence of some disease and
try to figure out ex post facto what it is that is different about
them or their behavior. If it were the other way around we would never
need to leave the laboratory.

Most of our medical theory explains effects we already knew worked, we
just didn't quite understand why, and perhaps enhanced the effect by
purification or other methods like acetylating or methylating a drug
to increase its potency which works for morphine/heroin and
salicylate/aspirin and a zillion other drugs which derive originally
from vegetable and other sources.

That is, descriptive rather than prescriptive science. With some
notable exceptions, breakthrough drugs, of course. But we rarely just
shoot about in the dark unless we're desparate, the theory just isn't
that good in most cases to work forward from. At best it hones down
what we should be looking at/for in most cases.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | bzs@world.std.com          | uunet!world!bzs
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202        | Login: 617-739-WRLD
From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
Subject: Yeast: Re: Who came up with the idea...
Date: 7 Jan 93 17:49:23 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department

In article <1993Jan6.215419.24761@llyene.jpl.nasa.gov> julie@eddie.jpl.nasa.gov (Julie Kangas) writes:
>In article <BZS.93Jan6162239@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:

			...................

>I agree too :)  Like people keeping a small amount of bread from
>the last baking for the next baking.  Without it, the bread may not
>rise.  Or brewers using a small amount of finished beer to 
>innoculate the new batch.  We know now that about yeast but that 
>didn't stop people from using it in the past.  

As I understand it, the rising of bread was discovered in Egypt in
antiquity, and the use of a small amount to speed up the rising was
known to do nothing more than that.  Similarly for fermentation; 
even now, the regulations for some French wines require that no
yeast other than what is found on the grapes can be used.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic
From: mgooley@advtech.uswest.com (Mark Gooley)
Subject: Re: Herbalism.  (Was: Who came up with the idea...)
Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 21:11:12 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.092627.2458@hemlock.cray.com> dadams@cray.com writes:
>In article 93Jan6215136@world.std.com, bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>|
>|The story on digitalis was that some African prince was at school at
>|Oxford or Cambridge (UK.) He had some sort of condition but it never
>|came up. One day (perhaps he ran out of his foxglove stash) he began
>|ailing and getting very sick. He pleaded with the local doctors to
>|contact his tribal "doctor" to get him some herb he needed. They
>|scoffed but seeing as he was likely to die indulged him eventually.
>|He got the herb and did whatever he did with it and was up on his feet
>|in no time. So the doctors got interested.
>
>I read quite a different story in "Rhodales Encyclopedia of Herbs", but
>I would have to go look it up to recall it.  (That isn't to say that more
>than one story can't be true.)  Would the African version of the foxglove 
>be the same plant?

Rauwolfia, I believe.  And the guy was from India.

rau-wol-fia \rau.-'wu.l-fe^--e, ro[0xC7]-\ n
[NL, fr. Leonhard Rauwolf +1596 Ger. botanist]
(1752)
1: any of a large pantropic genus (Rauwolfia) of the dogbane family
     of somewhat poisonous trees and shrubs yielding emetic and purgative
     substances
2: a medicinal extract from the root of an Indian rauwolfia (Rauwolfia
     serpentina) used in the treatment of hypertension and mental
     disorders 

Mark., oh, it's terrible growing old
gooley@netcom.com
mgooley@advtech.uswest.com