Six Things, Volume 160

Menus | Heat | Lifts | Gutters | Sound | Food

So far this year the last Six Things of the month has appeared in podcast form, but given that making a podcast episode takes time (not so much the recording as the editing) and time has been a scarce commodity for me this month, I’m afraid you’re saddled with a “normal” Six Things. Having done five episodes I now have the greatest respect for people who make them on a more regular basis, particularly those who take the time and trouble to make their podcasts actually good.

ANYWAY. The podcast will return next month. Meanwhile, on with the things.

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Thing 1 – Menus

Regular readers will have noticed that from time to time I feature things produced by The Pudding. This is because they are nearly always really really good. Their latest, an exploration of food and society in America via the medium of old menus, is no exception. Fascinating stuff, and linked at the end to this story about the menus themselves – over 5,000 of them.

The predominance of French on many of the early menus, catering for the new world elite seeking to emulate the pinnacle of world culture, brought to mind the incomparable haute cuisine of P G Wodehouse’s Anatole – the brilliant but volatile French chef who features in several of the Bertie Wooster books. Sylphide à la crème d’écrevisses doesn’t appear in any of the featured American menus, but it might. So here’s a nice thing about Bertie’s dream meal from Code of the Woosters. Turns out many of Anatole’s culinary creations were nicked from Escoffier.

“What’s a mere thirty days in the second division? A bagatelle. I can do it on my head. Let Bassett do his worst. And, ‘ I added in a softer voice, ‘ when my time is up and I come out into the world once more a free man, let Anatole do his best. A month of bread and water or skilly or whatever they feed you on in these establishments will give me a rare appetite. On the night when I emerge, I shall expect a dinner that will live in legend and song.” – Bertie Wooster

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Thing 2 – Heat

If we’re doing food – and it seems we are – we might as well include this, a comprehensive visual field guide to the chili peppers of the world. For many people – not you, you’re better than that – I suspect chilis come in four varieties: sweet, mild enough, on the edge, and nope. But then our flaccid British taste buds – not yours, obviously – are appallingly unequipped to detect the subtle nuances encompassed in the full range of 176 chili varieties (not all of which are hot, of course – there are plenty of peppers in the family to explore, even if your tolerance for capsaicin tops out at 5,000 on the Scoville Scale.)

As well as the beautiful illustrations and thorough description of each pepper, the piece contains the fascinating titbit – but you knew this already, I’m sure – that birds are the secret to the evolutionary success of chili peppers. They lack the receptor that detects capsaicin – the active component that gives chilis their punch – so eat them without a hint of suffering, then spread the seeds far and wide.

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Thing 3 – Lifts

Oh this is marvellous. A video archive of lift/elevator scenes in films/movies (delete according to preference – let’s not fight about it though.) That’s all you need to know, really.

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Thing 4 – Gutters

Would you like an Instagram account devoted to sexy gutters? I have no idea why you wouldn’t.

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Thing 5 – Sound

A little suite of games from the site that brought you the colour matching game featured in Volume 147.

Find out how good are you at remembering and matching:

– sound

– time

– shape

Normally I’d get all oshkosh at this stage, and say something like “I’m spectacularly bad at these”, even if I’m actually kind of average. But the truth is I am – as any musician should be, at least when it comes to the sound and time games – really pretty good at them. I say this, you understand, purely in the interest of balance.

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Thing 6 – Food

To top and tail the things with food-related stuff, here’s another daily game to add to your roster of, by now, about twelve thousand. Just guess where the food is from.