Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Things That Blow Up

It's July, and we're making great headway manufacturing our crack supply for the next year. Our raspberry crop is booming away out there and we can barely stand to divert a single berry from what we've determined is its highest and best use: syrup. The recipe is even simpler now that I ignore portions. The portions, as told to us, are One Part Raspberries to One Part Sugar, which even works in metric. I have trouble getting that much sugar into the jar, though, so I've taken to just filling up my big jars with berries and pouring sugar in until there's no more room. The jars get put in a cupboard for three months, six months, or whenever we get a notion, and then the berry sludge is strained out. The resulting smaller jars of syrup last us until the next season. It is poured on Death By Chocolate ice cream, which is available around the corner, and there's nothing I can make for dessert that's any better. "I could make a cheesecake, or a Boston Cream Pie," I tell Dave, and he gives it a moment's thought, and we both say "or we could get some Death By Chocolate ice cream and pour raspberry syrup over it," and that's usually that. Thus my entire culinary contribution for the whole year has now dwindled to about ten minutes of work in July.

The other day I was checking on the most recent jar of syrup, and it was all sticky. I wiped it down and discovered that it didn't appear to be leaking from the lid. Which made no sense. I got a thimble and put all my reasoning ability into it, and I still couldn't explain it. Could syrup possibly leak from the bottom of an intact glass jar? Move over, Einstein--it was only two or three minutes before I was able to correctly deduce that the source of the leak was the third jar back, after finally noticing that there was raspberry syrup all over the cupboard. That last jar was bubbling and working and jiggling its lid something awful.

It reminds me of the time I shared an apartment with two other girls, one of whom was a baker. Late one night there was a terrific explosion, and I pulled my blankets over my head while my roommates scurried out to confront the cannon-wielding intruder, and eventually ventured out myself. (I'm a great first responder as long as I get to go last.) The horror! The entire kitchen and most of the living room were coated in goo, glass, pickle bits, vegetable shrapnel, and what-have-you from floor to ceiling. I was still working on the cannon hypothesis and totally baffled, but my baker roommate was bold enough to taste a fingerful of guts hanging from the ceiling and determine that the culprit was the jar of sourdough in the refrigerator, which had blown up and blown the fridge door open and rained terror on the rest of the apartment. It was as if the Pillsbury Doughboy had  strapped on an explosive vest and declared jihad on the leftovers.

So I'm not usually the first one to figure things out. It takes sharper minds than mine to connect the dots in any situation. Take the current childhood obesity crisis in this country. Turns out that Richard Nixon once concluded the odds of getting re-elected were very low if people had to pay too much for groceries, and he directed that food be kept artificially cheap. That's when the massive price supports for corn began, and to this day we have tons of crappy high-calorie food made out of corn syrup, and it's really, really cheap. So our first lady can encourage us to eat fresh fruit and vegetables all she wants, but for most people they're too damned expensive compared to our subsidized crap. Ultimately they aren't as expensive once you factor out our tax contributions to the corn growers and the diabetes epidemic, but there's no real danger we'll be giving up that subsidy any time soon. Your average consumer will look only as far as the first jar--his grocery bill--and swallow the new narrative that the liberal elites are the ones who don't care about poor people, and nobody will follow the trail of syrup back to the jar in the rear of the cupboard. Even though it's our kids who are blowing up.

28 comments:

  1. Murr-made Raspberry Syrup on Death By Chocolate Ice Cream. That sounds so good, I've got to act. Please put aside one jar with my name on it. When they finally catch me and put me away, this is what I want for my last meal. Between now and then, I have to deny myself; one serving would blow my Weight Watcher's points for a solid month.

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  2. My dad has a great story about sitting at breakfast and hearing successive explosions in the basement. His mom, seeking to build his mettle under fire, sent him down to investigate. About a dozen quart jars of fermenting saurkraut had exploded, and another was in the process as he came down the steps. He advised his mom that it was probably preferable to wait until the explosions ceased before beginning clean-up. She agreed, and he quickly scooted out the door to school.

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  3. My dad dabbled in home brew once, a long time ago, and the same thing happened: the closet exploded. I didn't realize there is anything in sugar and raspberries to combust, however. As always, I smile when I see there's a Murr post, and I am lowering the bar for your commenters, so they don't all feel like they have to be funny and smart, like the first two. :-)

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  4. I smiled, too, when I saw you had a new post. They always go so well with my morning coffee. I have nothing else to add, except this was so well-written I am giving you a sitting ovation. Bravo!

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  5. Roxie sez
    During prohibition, my Russian grandfather brewed beer in the basement. One day, Father Poncelli was visiting my good Catholic grandmother, when an explosion occurred in the basement. Father and Grandma stared at oneanother in shock untill the yeasty fragrance wafted up to them. Father smiled, and carried on as if nothing had happened, through several more explosions. Never said a word about it, then or later.

    The sourdough crock blowing the door off the fridge is a great story. Did the landlord appreciate it?

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  6. I'm not sure I ever got full appreciation of a landlord. Now that I is one, it should be payback time. And Teresa Evangeline: you just made me realize what would be the greatest group Murrmurrs tribute ever. A Sitting-on-the-pot ovation!

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  7. I love raspberry syrup. I am always surprised at how hard it is to find in the store, lots of strawberry but very little raspberry.

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  8. It sounds like you've read Michael Pollan's 'In Defense of Food'. If not: do!

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  9. Frankly, if things *aren't* exploding, yer not having enough fun (or making enough alcohol).

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  10. ". . . and things that blow up in the night." Sigh. That declare jihad on the leftovers? Well, somebody has to!
    Following the corny trail is interesting. And sad. But now I have a clearer picture of what ticks in American agriculture and politics. Very interesting.

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  11. Ah.....Murr.....you have tickled me again.....wonderful post......reminded me of some bottles exploding in the pantry during my childhood. I don't remember what was in them but it doesn't matter.

    Your posts always make me happy. Thank you.

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  12. I love this post, Murr -- the thought process behind it and the post itself. I agree: our kids are blowing up, and it's way messier than a sourdough explosion.

    I need to try the raspberry syrup trick with honey! I have way too many ripe raspberries out there.

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  13. The most palatable condemnation of corn fructose I've ever heard. Wish I was quick enough to tie my stories to current issues. I'm not knowledgeable enough to zing them.
    Once I worked in a convenience store and someone left a can of biscuits on the counter. It blew up and I thought it was the register, but the register still worked. I finally found the empty can but like I said it was empty. A female teacher in a black coat came to the register a little later and GLOP something white fell on her head and coat. It had stuck on the ceiling and dropped when she was below it. Another mystery solved.

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  14. For you, maybe, Curmudgeon. I'm guessing she didn't figure it out right away. And thanks! I always try to keep my condemnations palatable.

    Hi Sarah! Good luck with the honey. Some things I just consign to the category of "likely to kill me" and try to make it a slow demise.

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  15. It's that old for every action an equal reaction thingy. I believe past time itself, it's the one irrefutable law of nature. The problem comes with the fact that most of the time you can't see, or even tell, that there has been a reaction. Even as we're all dying from it. A tricky girl, that God.

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  16. Do any of the sugarless sweeteners work in this sort of preserved fruit, or do you have to use the real thing?
    Non-cook Whose Raspberries Have Grown Exponentially Since Last Year

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  17. My grandparents were brewing pumpkin wine in the front hall closet, pastor visits, explosion happens, pastor ushered out. My grandmother did not wear her fur coat for any social occasion for a long time after that, the odor would have given her away. This was during Prohibition, my grandfather was a respected lawyer, and his father was the local judge. We had a similar episode with homemade root beer bottled too soon, big impression on us kids.

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  18. And then there was the time just out of undergrad school when I was making a Scandinavian raspberry dessert from a mix and boiling and stirring it in a ceramic casserole. Oh. You're not supposed to use it on top of the stove? What a mess of shards and raspberry goo after that exploded!

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  19. Speaking of household wine production . . . One day Michael and I decided to try my cousin’s recipe for a jug of wine, a poor-student concoction made from water, sugar, brewers’ yeast—and Welch’s canned grape juice. The recipe suggested securing a balloon to the top of the jug to release the bubbles of gas as the mixture fermented. In the Bloomington dime store, the only big balloon I could find was Casper the ghost. / That’ll work, I thought, and we stretched the balloon mouth-to-mouth over the jug and set the whole contraption in the middle of the kitchen floor. / At first the airless Casper flopped over, but, as the gas built up, the balloon blew up as if by itself and Casper rose as if from the dead. Then, as gas escaped, Casper flopped over the other way. And there was [box turtle] Terretektorrh on the floor in front of Casper, staring up at him, his red eyes stuck on the ghost and following every move with a swing of his head—-back and forth, back and forth, over and over—-watching as if he were at a turtle’s ping-pong match played at quarter speed. --from WIP Diode's Experiment: A Box Turtle Investigates the Human World

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  20. Having made dandelion wine this spring (I have five fine wine bottles now resting in a second refrigerator) I am interested in making the raspberry syrup. From what I read, you put it all together, and just let it work in a cupboard, without refrigeration? Then drain out the raspberries?

    It took some effort to make the dandelion wine; it's not going fast. All my friends are afraid to taste it. I have. And I'm still here. It is pleasantly sweet, for a more modern drink, it would go great with a soda mix over ice, as a cooler. Having been weaned on dry wines, it is a little to the fruity side. Anybody up for a taste?

    Next time I make a new friend, they have to pass the dandelion wine test...

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  21. It's that fluffy finish that gets you on the dandelion wine. Correct, you put berries in a big jar and add sugar to fill in all the spaces. You can put in whatever amount you've collected and just add to it later until you're at the top of the jar. I don't know how long it takes to be "done," but we always wait months. This year, we probably won't. We're almost out of the 2010 batch.

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  22. I have about 30 raspberry canes this year (we planted a dozen or so last year), but only two of them had berries, which we ate. However, your recipe for raspberry syrup is too good to pass up, so we'll try it next year.

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  23. I'm thinking jelly and syrup making is kinda dangerous. So I'm just going straight for the ice cream.

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  24. "It was as if the Pillsbury Doughboy had strapped on an explosive vest and declared jihad on the leftovers."

    Oh dear God, I love this line.

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  25. Not only am I magnificently entertained but I learned about obese generating corn subsidies. I now had a tidbit of knowledge to impress others with. But that seems to always happen when I plunder my way through your posts.

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  26. Thank you for the wonderfully informative post. I always suspected that all our ills could be traced back to Nixon.

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  27. Ha, ha, ha. Have experienced so many of the same kinds of adventures but it's always so much funnier when it happens to someone else. : )

    @Rosemary: Can't recommend artificial sweeteners for canning. Try finding a copy of "Canning & Preserving Without Sugar" by Norma M. MacRae. About the time I got it, divorce intervened and I've never tried any of the recipes but I'd think any of these would be better than these hideous sugar-free items at the grocery.

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