November 13, 2013
Soylent is a food substitute intended to supply all of a human body’s daily nutritional needs, made from powdered starch, rice protein, olive oil, and raw chemical powders. It was designed by software engineer Rob Rhinehart as a low cost alternative to traditional food that can be prepared and consumed very quickly.
Lacking background in chemistry or nutrition, Rhinehart developed the formula through research and self-experimentation. He named it after a fictional food from the novel ‘Make Room! Make Room!’, on which the 1973 film ‘Soylent Green’ was loosely based.
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March 24, 2013
Chifir’ is a type of strong tea brewed in Russia. The etymology is uncertain but is thought to come from the word ‘chikhir” meaning a strong Caucasian wine, or a Siberian word for spoiled wine that has become sour and acidic. Chifir’ is typically prepared with either two or three tablespoons of loose tea per person poured on top of the boiled water. It is brewed for 10–15 minutes without stirring – until the leaves drop to the bottom of the cup. Chifir’ drunk without sugar is highly unpleasant; sweets can be held in the mouth before, during or after drinking to soften its bitter taste.
It is similar to Egyptian Sa’idi tea, a somewhat similar beverage (essentially a 1/9-strength recipe, but consumed in larger quantities).
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January 3, 2013
Espresso [e-spres-oh] is a type of Italian coffee that is concentrated. It is brewed by forcing a small amount of nearly boiling water under pressure through finely ground coffee beans.
Espresso often has a thicker consistency than coffee brewed by other methods, a higher concentration of suspended and dissolved solids, and crema (meaning cream, but being a reference to the foam with a creamy texture that forms as a result of the pressure). Because espresso is so strong, it is usually mixed with with milk (steamed, wet foamed, or dry foamed) or hot water (e.g. latte, cappuccino, macchiato, mocha, or americano).
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January 3, 2013
An affogato [ahf-foh-gah-toe] (Italian, ‘drowned’) is a coffee-based beverage.
It usually takes the form of a scoop of vanilla gelato or ice cream topped with a shot of hot espresso. Some variations also include a shot of Amaretto or other liqueur.
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July 24, 2012
Duff Beer is a brand of beer that originally started as a fictional beverage on the animated series ‘The Simpsons,’ since then it has become a real brand of beer in a number of countries without permission or consent from it’s original creator, Matt Groening, and has resulted in legal battles with varying results. Groening has stated that he will not license the Duff trademark to brew an actual beer, over concern that it would encourage children to drink.
It is Homer Simpson’s beer of choice and a parody of stereotypical commercial beer: very cheaply priced, poor-quality, and advertised everywhere. The name was inspired by one-syllable beer names in the US (such as ‘Bud’). In an excerpt from his autobiography, former Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan claimed that the beer was named after him as the writers were fans of the band and he was known for his extreme alcohol consumption.
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June 13, 2012
Canned water is drinking water packaged in tin cans or beverage cans, a less common alternative to bottled water. Canned water is used primarily where storage or distribution systems are set up for cans, or when canning systems are used to make emergency water supplies.
Anheuser-Busch has donated more than 68.5 million cans of water. Water was stored in steel cans, lined with plastic bags, under the United States Civil Defense program. Approximately twelve million 17.5-US-gallon (66 L) cans were deployed, and could hold water for more than ten years.
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May 21, 2012
Cold brew or cold press refers to the process of steeping coffee grounds in room temperature water for an extended period. It is also sometimes referred to as Toddy coffee which is a trademarked cold brewing system. The cold-press process requires grinding coffee beans at a relatively coarse setting (typically as fine as possible to still be filtered) and soaking those grounds in cold water for a prolonged period of time, usually 12 hours or more. The grounds must be filtered out of the cold water after they have been steeped using a paper coffee filter, a fine metal sieve, or a French press.
The result is a coffee concentrate that is often diluted with water or milk, and can be served hot, over ice, or blended with ice and other ingredients such as chocolate. Cold brewed coffee naturally seems sweeter due to its lower acidity. Because the coffee beans in cold-press coffee never come into contact with heated water, the process of leaching flavor from the beans produces a different chemical profile than conventional brewing methods. Cold brew coffee is a type of iced coffee, but this latter term also refers to coffee that is brewed hot and then chilled.
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May 16, 2012
New Coke was the reformulation of Coca-Cola introduced in 1985; it originally had no separate name of its own, and was simply known as ‘the new taste of Coca-Cola’ until 1992 when it was renamed Coca-Cola II. The American public’s reaction to the change was negative and the new cola was a major marketing failure.
The subsequent reintroduction of Coke’s original formula, re-branded as ‘Coca-Cola Classic,’ resulted in a significant gain in sales, leading to speculation that the introduction of the New Coke formula was just a marketing ploy.
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May 16, 2012
Crystal Pepsi was a caffeine-free soft drink made by PepsiCo from 1992 to 1993 in the United States, Canada, and for a short time in Australia. Crystal Pepsi was sold for a longer time in Europe.
In the early 1990s, a marketing fad equating clarity with purity began with the remake of Ivory soap from its classic milky solution; the idea spread to many companies, including PepsiCo. Its marketing slogan was ‘You’ve never seen a taste like this.’ A large marketing campaign was launched, for which the company invented the world’s first photo-realistic, computer-generated bus wrap printing. A series of television advertisements featuring Van Halen’s hit song ‘Right Now’ during Super Bowl XXVII.
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May 16, 2012
Vernors Ginger Soda is America’s oldest surviving soft drink. It was created in 1866 by James Vernor, a Detroit pharmacist. According to company legend, prior to the start of the American Civil War, while a clerk at the Higby & Sterns drugstore in Detroit, James Vernor experimented with flavors in an attempt to duplicate a popular ginger ale imported from Ireland.
When Vernor was called off to serve in the war, he stored the syrup base of 19 ingredients, including ginger, vanilla, and other natural flavorings, in an oak cask. Vernor joined the Michigan Cavalry in 1862 as a hospital steward. After returning from battle four years later, he opened the keg and found the drink inside had been changed by the aging process in the wood. It was like nothing else he had ever tasted, and he purportedly declared it ‘Deliciously different,’ which remains the drink’s motto to this day.
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March 23, 2012
Vietnamese iced coffee is known as ‘Ca phe da.’ When milk is added it is called, ‘ca phe sua da.’ In northern Vietnam it is called ‘ca phe nau da’ (‘iced brown coffee). In its simplest preperation, Ca phe da is made with finely ground Vietnamese-grown dark roast coffee individually brewed with a small metal French drip filter (ca phe phin) into a cup containing about a quarter to a half as much sweetened condensed milk, stirred and poured over ice. Coffee was introduced into Vietnam by French colonists in the late 19th century. Vietnam quickly became a strong exporter of coffee with many plantations in the central highlands. The beverage was adopted with regional variations. Because of limitations on the availability of fresh milk, the French and Vietnamese began to use sweetened condensed milk with a dark roast coffee.
Vietnamese-Americans introduced the practice of adding chicory to coffee, and many Americans today believe that all true Vietnamese coffee contains chicory. One brand that uses chicory is Cafe du Monde, often cited as the coffee to use when brewing Vietnamese iced coffee. However, Cafe du Monde originated in New Orleans, and chicory coffee is an American phenomenon. In Vietnam, coffee is never served with chicory. Vietnamese brands such as Trung Nguyen or Indochine Coffee, both of which are headquartered in Vietnam and offer exclusively coffee grown in the central highlands.
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December 29, 2011
Hair of the dog is a colloquial expression in the English language predominantly used to refer to alcohol that is consumed with the aim of lessening the effects of a hangover. The expression originally referred to a method of treatment of a rabid dog bite by placing hair from the dog in the wound. The use of the phrase as a metaphor for a hangover treatment dates back at least to the time of Shakespeare. It is possible that the phrase was used to justify an existing practice, ‘similia similibus curantur’ (Latin: ‘like cures like’), which dates back to ancient Greece.
Similarly, in the 1930’s cocktails known as Corpse Revivers were served by hotel staff to guests ailing from too much drink.
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The Daily Omnivore 