(no subject)

I found out something which puts "reconditioned-to-as-new" typewriter prices into perspective.

Box Brownies are considered to be inexpensive, the camera which brought cheap photography within everyone's budget. Certainly our old family house had at least two or three scattered about the place, courtesy of Uncle Barkley and his friend Billy, both keen amateur photographers. All the cameras (and there were other types as well) are gone more than 25 years, I'm sorry to say; even worse, so are most of the photos.

I don't have a contemporary UK price, but I encountered a comment here (a US website devoted to collecting and restoring 1920s to 1940s stuff) which made me think. The camera in question is a spiffed-up Brownie "Beau" ($4.25) with an Art Deco front plate; however the rest, and certainly the innards, appear as standard as its plainer contemporary the "F" ($2.50). The prices are taken from Kodak's Brownie Centennial web-page.

"My research indicates that this camera cost about $4.25 in 1930; at that time, my dad had a job that paid ten cents an hour. He would have had to work for more than a week to pay for this camera. At today's minimum wage of $5.25 per hour, this camera would have cost $315, about the cost of some digital cameras. This was a luxury item."

That fancy front plate cost an extra 170 hours 30 minutes of work. Quite a gift.

So those prices on the MyTypewriter website are actually lower than their "when-new" equivalents. I feel rather better about them now.

On the acquisition of one for myself, however, that's for somewhat later…

First off, Diane read yesterday's LJ and has told me "You get it, you find somewhere to keep it,", which is going to require a fair bit of thought in this small house.

Second, if I do get one, I'll try to make it something I've actually owned and worked on in the past - which rules out the Imperial, Olympia and Royal you've all mentioned (thanks for the thoughts, though.)

I did use a Remington portable sometime in 1970-71, but that wasn't mine, and apart from a couple of school essays (rejected because they were supposed to be hand-written, not finger-tapped) very little came out of it...

Except little dots of paper from the centre of the letter O, which it would punch out every time.

(no subject)

miss_next pointed Diane at the website for Heston Blumenthal's award-winning restaurant The Fat Duck; intrigued, I went along to look. Hmmm. We read the two menus and realised we'd seen that approach before. Never mind cookery-as-science-not-as-art, Blumenthal seems to have re-discovered some techniques and principals from "Futurist Cookery" of the Italian pre-war era, which summarise as follows:

(1) Combine several mutually incompatible ingredients since the strange contrasts will be a new and different (the word "palatable" doesn't appear anywhere) experience for your diners;

(2) Prepare them in a weird and showy way since this visual input will augment the sensory experience;

(3) Serve them in a dramatic and arty style since it further enhances the visual sensation and, well, since being sensible at this stage is a retrograde step;

(4) Give the cooking style a memorable name;

(5) Make sure that if necessary there's always a clear route of escape. (Well, not really, (5) was just me...)

Take a look at Maki's comprehensive, much more kindly-worded and photo-illustrated report. All that business of "cooking" with liquid nitrogen, eating with the hands (sensory experience again) and odd conjunctions of flavour - though not so much of texture, which is a curious omission - just shout "Futurist" to me. Someone missed out on espresso sprayed with Eau de Cologne or dishes called The Bombing of Barcelona and served to the accompaniment of firecrackers, but probably not for want of trying.

As Maki points out, the small cutesy portions actually make sense considering the number of courses and duration of the meal, but I have a nasty feeling that this might cause a resurgence of Brit-style Nouvelle Cuisine, which I thought had been successfully staked out at the crossroads years ago. If that happens, I'll know who to blame.

Molecular gastronomy... Well, I've eaten with knife, fork, spoon and rammer; I've used chopsticks with increasing success; I've had dishes where the bread doubles as the cutlery; I've learned that you can eat a soft-fried egg with your fingers if you work at it - but if it's becoming necessary to dine with a slide-rule, I'll pass.

Gosh; I thought I was a foodie - turns out I'm just someone who likes good food...

(no subject)

Since I mentioned the Futurists, here are some genuine examples from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook, first published in 1932, translated and published in 1989. I am NOT making any of this up.

And apologies; that dish I mentioned earlier wasn't The Bombing of Barcelona. My mistake. It was The Bombardment of Adrianople, which of course as any gourmet knows, makes all the difference...

Aerofood (formula by the Futurist Aeropainter Fillia.)

The diner is served from the right with a plate containing some black olives, fennel hearts and kumquats. From the left he is served with a rectangle made of sandpaper, silk and velvet. The foods must be carried directly to the mouth with the right-hand while the left hand lightly and repeatedly strokes the tactile rectangle. In the meantime the waiters spray the napes of the diners' necks with a conprofumo* of carnations while from the kitchen comes contemporaneously a violent conrumore** of an aeroplane motor and some dismusica*** by Bach.

* a perfume;
** a non-musical sound;
*** a piece of music;
each of which complements and enhances appreciation of the flavour of a particular food.

The Excited Pig (Fillia again.)

A whole salami, skinned, is served upright in a dish containing very hot black coffee flavoured with a good deal of Eau de Cologne.

Italian Breasts in the Sunshine (Futurist Aeropainter Marisa Mari)

Form two firm half-spheres of almond paste. Place a fresh strawberry on the centre of each of them. Then pour some zabaglione onto the plate and add some dollops of whipped cream. The whole may be sprinkled with strong white pepper and garnished with sweet red peppers.

Now I don't know about you, but I think those last two could fit very nicely into Nanny Ogg's Cookbook and not look out of place. Having looked at what the Molecular-gastronomist composer Blumenthal is up to, we now present something that seems strangely familiar...

Simultaneous Ice-Cream (formula by the Futurist word-in-liberty poet Giuseppe Steiner.)

Dairy cream and little squares of raw onion frozen together.

And to prove that they can be as arty about presentation as The Fat Duck's roasted foie gras, here's...

Fisticuff Stuff (formula by the Futurist art critic P.A. Saladin.)

Cover the bottom of a round plate with fondue lightly perfumed with grappa. On one side of the plate put, equidistant from each other, three halves of red pepper shaped into cones which have been cooked in the oven and filled with a green paste composed of asparagus tips, capers, artichokes and olives. On the opposite side set out in a row three boiled leeks. An arabesque of grated truffle which starts at the second pepper and winds its way finally to the one on the edge completes the dish.

By implication, if the placement of peppers is wrong, or it's two or four leeks and not three, or the truffle arabesque starts from the first pepper, the entire meal is ruined...

And finally, with the comment from particle_person in mind, here, created by The Master, your host for tonight, Futurist aeropoet and Academician Marinetti himself (thankyou, thankyou, he'll be here all week) are these...

Drumroll of Colonial Fish

Poached mullet is marinated for twenty-four hours in a sauce of milk, Rosolio liqueur, capers and hot red pepper. Just before serving, open the fish and stuff it with date jam interspersed with discs of banana and slices of pineapple. It will then be eaten accompanied by a continuous rolling of drums.

Raw Meat Torn by Trumpet Blasts

Cut a perfect cube of beef. Pass an electric current through it, then marinate it for 24 hours in a mixture of rum, cognac and white vermouth. Remove from the mixture and serve on a bed of red pepper, black pepper and snow. Each mouthful is to be chewed carefully for one minute, and each mouthful is divided from the next by vehement blasts on a trumpet blown by the eater himself.

The most obvious difference between a revolutionary art movement and a pseudoscientific food cult seems to be that one wanted to shock society out of its rut, the other wants to dazzle its punters out of as much as they'll part with.

Me, I want a toasted-cheese sandwich.