Dum Luk's Sauce

In my back yard are two apple trees. One grows sweet red apples that ripen in early September. The other gives tart green cooking apples in mid July. The picture shows the latter's crop this year, processed, ready to go into the cupboard. (The loaf of bread has nothing to do with this post, but it fills the foreground and lets me show off my Gages Slough sourdough. That's another post.)

George L Herter was an ur-blogger who wrote about a great many things in the guise of cooking and housekeeping. Like a blogger his information is subject to reader approval. The sources are not always clear or independently verifiable. Yet many who tried this or that of his recipes testify to their goodness. The Bull Cook is still available in both hard and soft cover versions, on line or in your favorite used bookstore, for about $10. Here's a sample of his style and a good recipe:

ORIGINAL WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE BY JOHN CRAFTON

This famous sauce was originated in Worcester, England, by John L. Crafton a chemist in 1835 and is an adaptation of early French sauces. He wanted desperately to make his every day food taste better and he certainly succeeded. The sauce was first called Worcester sauce then changed to Worcestershire sauce by commercial companies who tried to vaguely copy the original sauce. The story that the recipe was brought out of India by the third Baron Sandys in 1837 is entírely untrue. Several other chemists at the time brought out similar sauces.

The original recipe is nothíng at all like the present day commercial recipes. Commercial recipes for the most part are a black looking watery mixture of water, soy sauce, pepper and vinegar. They might be alright on chow mein or chop suey but hardly on anyhíng else. Real Worcestershire sauce is a líght reddish brown in color, is not at all watery but quíte a heavy bodied liqud, It contaíns very líttle water, has no soy sauce flavor at all although it does contain a Iimited amount of soy sauce.

Made by the original recipe ít costs only about 75¢ a gallon to make. People really IÍke it and your family will use a lot more of it than catsup. If you have it available for them Make up some for your church suppers also and put it on the table in old peanut butter jars with a spoon in it. lt will create a real sensation whenever you serve it.

Worcestershire sauce is not at all difficult to make.

Take an old gallon vinegar jug or one gallon jar and put in the following:

Take one 15 ounce can of red kidney beans, (costs about 10¢) drain and pass fhrough a food mill. Commercíal makers list tamarinds as a part of their recípe so that housewives will think that they cannot make their own as tamarinds are hard to find. Actually tamarinds are nothing but the pod from a tree in India that is nothing but poor cattle food and if eaten in any quantity is a severe laxatíve. One 6 ounce bottle of soy sauce.

1 level teaspoon of garlic powder, two State of Maine American sardines packed in soy bean oil They come packed six ardines to a can and cost about 10¢ a can. Remove two sardines, put them into a small bowl of vinegar and wash them off. Remove and mash up with a fork and add. Commcrcíal recipes say that they use anchovies to confuse housewives. Anchovies are actually nothing but a salt cured sardine.

Take about six or seven quarts of apples, either green or ripe. Peel them and slice them up and place them in about a six or eight quart cookíng pot. Cover them just to the top with brown vinegar. Add one onion sliced up about three ínches in diameter. Add the following to the sliced apples: three level tablespoons of ground cloves, two level tablespoons of ground tumeric, two level tablespoons of ground nutmeg, three level tablespoons of ground allspíce, three level tablespoons of powdered coffee or three cups of boiled down black coffee. Bring to a boil and slowly boil for two hours. As the water in the vínegar evaporates add half water and half vinegar to replace it. Stír frequently as apples burn easily, and also tend to stick to the bottom of the pan. Remove and run through a food mill and add eight cups of the puree to the jug or jar.

Now add: two level teaspoons of red ground pepper, four level tablespoons of corn syrup, six level tablespoons of salt, three level tablespoons of mustard, one level tablespoon of sugar.

Now fill the balance of the jug or jar up with vinegar. Shake up well and leave stand for 24 hours and it then is ready to use.

Worcestershire sauce is used for seasoning fish, meat, fowl, vegetables and vegetable juíces Here are jut a few of the many ways that it can be used:

1. Poured dírectly over mashed boiled potatoes and mashed in. This is a popular Irish custom and very good Be sure to try it.

2. Add three tablespoons to a glass of tomato juice.

3. In cooking pork chops sprinkle generously over the pork chops as you cook them, Gives them a clean, fresh flavor

4. Beef stew Add three tablespoons for about every quart of the stew.

5. Blend in two tablespoons into about each cup of brown gravy.

6. Sprinkle generously over turkey, chicken, duck, or goose dressing just as you serve them. It does wonders for dressings.

7. Sprinkle generously over beef hash just before serving.

8. Add one level tablespoon to each bowl of tomato soup just before servíng.

9. Sprinkle generously on hamburger buns before puttíng in the ham.

The Bull Cook, by George L. Herter, Page 155-157

The Original Worcestershire Sauce above is the now distant springboard for Dum Luk's Sauce. Herter's sauce is mostly vinegar with spices to detonate your taste buds and apples to thicken the result. Lots of people like it. When Del ran a restaurant he couldn't make it often enough for the diners. I find Herter's sauce too unbalanced -- too acidic. So this is milder and, I like to think, more subtle, more balanced, more Chinese. Oh, all right, nuanced. There I said it.

Dum Luk's Sauce

Wash and quarter about five pounds of tart apples: Bransons, Granny Smiths, Braeburns, etc. Simmer until soft. Pass through a food mill to remove seeds and such.

For each quart add: 1 cup -- or to taste -- sugar, teaspoon powdered anise, 1 teaspoon cloves, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, teaspoon cayenne, teaspoon celery seed, 1 teaspoon Coleman's Mustard, I tablespoon minced garlic, 2 tablespoons Mae Ploy, or other brand, Sweet Chilli Sauce, and 1 cup oyster sauce, 2 well rinsed sardines and 15 ounces drained canned kidney beans. The last adds fibre to thicken the sauce. Liquefy the above in a blender. Return puree to clean pot and simmer.

Meanwhile chop a medium yellow onion and cook just under a simmer with half an Anaheim Pepper and 8 black pepper corns in 1 cup of strong coffee for about 20 minutes. Liquefy and add to apple mixture. Add 1 cup Apple cider vinegar. Simmer for two to three hours. Let rest overnight. Return to a simmer and bottle.

-- by Martin Langeland

As an historical footnote of a more or less spurious sort remember that tomatoes are native to the western hemisphere. Before the 1500's nobody made tomato based sauces in Europe. England, in particular, had a lot of apples. My bet is that some of the apple sauce was made as uppity as the local herb and spice supply permitted as a sauce for goose and gander.

The cat on the label? That is the before picture. After a nip, he'll be sleek and fat!


-- ml


Technorati Tags: Worcestershire Sauce, Dum Luk's Sauce, George L. Herter, The Bull Cook

Bagged by a Meme Tag

On my daily noontime browse through blogtopia I reached the oasis of wit, style, and wisdom that is archy and settled to read a meme post. Read. Chuckle. Read. Mammoth. Yeah! Snark. Read. Chuckle. Uhuh. OMIGOD He tagged me! My first. As a lowly multicelled microorganism critter I boggle.

a hem

Why do you blog?
There are two or three books I mean to write just as soon as ... Every someday writer will recognize and shudder at the last phrase. Two years ago, as a Christmas gift I took a typescript for a children's novel written by my wife's grandfather and turned it into an actual book -- designed, printed, and bound for family and friends. How disappointing that the copyright office does not consider this publishing! What was neat about it was watching Larry's great-grands connect to him who before had only been a vague figure in family stories. Armed with new resolve I clung to the idea of blogging as a means of overcoming inertia.

How long have you been blogging?
Since April of 2005. Greatly regret that I started late so I missed the altogether appropriate Fool's Day blogiversary. Fortunately I had the manners to wait a week after Shakespeare's anniversary.

Self Portrait?
Always hard for me. I just don't seem to fit in -- ever. I mean to. I try to. But I don't. As a friend described it: "I spend half my life trying to keep the toads from hopping out of my mouth, and the other half chasing after the ones that got away." I call myself itinerant because I have lived in various places over half the globe. Yet I have lived in Skagit County for more than half my life. My career is a hotchpotch ranging from government bureaucrat to trade show coordinator to impresario to nail maker all very loosely strewn about the theatre.
This causes confusion. I can say "I am a programmer" because I occupied a job with that title. But do not ask me which assembly languages I know as I am talking about booking participants at a Folklife Festival -- not writing code. So it goes. Like Porky Pine's Uncle Baldwin (See Pogo) I appear menacing and cantankerous so long as I keep my overcoat tight buttoned. Without it I am a squishy naif. Perhaps the sharpest limn is this: I am an old western fart.

Why do readers read your blog?
Hmm... Hard to say. I am delighted that between 25 and 30% of my readers come from anywhere in the globe but the US.
I am bumfuzzled by the variety of search phrases that include Dum Luks' fairly high in the results. So as the site is eclectic, so is its readership.

What was the last search phrase someone used to get to your site?
"aioli sauce recipe made with mayonnaise" resulted in Dum Luks at number 22 on Google with a discussion of Kitchn Sink potato salad.
Just before that "absurd fashionable belongings" brought a Russian visitor to Yahoo's #9 listing of "Absurd Decisions."

Which of your entries unjustly gets too little attention?
The Politician's Tale which tells a story by and about NW Rep Warren Magnuson I heard from then Rep Al Swift.
Also a recent post which seems to have disappeared in the Pre Labor Day Glaze Over about Absurd Decisions. Both of these contain thoughts worth a moment's attention as we enter the final stretch of this election cycle.

Your current favorite blog?
There are about twenty blogs organized in bookmarks such as 'AM', 'Noon' etc which I read daily. These range from biggies like Atrios, Daily Kos and WWDN in Exile, through hard corpse Economics like Brad De Long, Max Sawicky and Michael Perelman, to biggies in deserving if not in numbers like archy and Alicublog. Of these, favorite is the one I'm reading at the moment.

What blog did you read most recently?
archy

Which feeds do you subscribe to?
The cats like friskies but I stay away from the stuff. Too many carbs.

What four blogs are you tagging with this meme and why?

Richard at the Peking Duck for his news of the orient.
Will at Imagethief for his fine tales of the PR game Peking style.
Syllabub for her evocative prose approach to recipes.
For design excellence, humor, tutorials and just about everything I wish I could do at least half so well: Mediatinker.

That's almost enough trouble caused for one day.
--ml

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Absurd Decisions

Looking a gift book in its binding is, no doubt, an impolite act. Yet am I so pig-ignorant that that was my first response when friend Kenji very kindly sent me a copy of his latest book. As you can see it is all in kanje and kana. As I mentioned earlier, Japanese is one of the languages I can be misunderstood in. That is a silly way of saying I don't it speak well. At all. But my speech is fluent -- not to say mellifluent -- compared to my undeftness at reading the characters. I did, after much searching, Identify the glyph for Yama or 'mountain' which forms part of Kenji's surname. It is in the line closest to the devil at about the height of his belly button. It is three upright stokes joined by a horizontal stroke at the bottom, rather like a letter 'E' on its back. That made me pretty sure that Kenji had something to do with making the book because the yama was in the right place for the translator's name. On the reverse of the title page are the only words that appear in Roman characters, and very informative they are, to. They announce that "Les Decisions Absurdes by Christian Morel" is copyright 2002 by Editiones Gaulliard and is published in Japan by permission. Okay. That checks out.

But ... What's it about?

The picture on the front is suggestive ... Of all the wrong things, no doubt. Is the Devil hectoring that poor maid because she loved her man and he done her wrong? i.e. the usual sex and violence artistic types are always shoving in our faces while claiming it's cultural uplift? That sorta fits with the title.
Alas! Inside there are diagrams. One looks like two boats with their courses plotted as they collide and lots of explanatory remarks
Not so much of the sex. Just the violence.
So I turn to a more academic pursuit. Look at the marvelous economy of design in the making of this paperback book. The front cover consists of the title, author, translator and attention grabber image. Standard paper back layout. Then there is the bottom section which appears to be marketing. A teaser, perhaps, or a handful of rationalizations for purchasing the book.
Now it gets interesting.

The marketing is on a band that is tucked around the cover. That makes it easy for the publisher to change the copy if needed. It also allows the purchaser to remove it to have an uncluttered cover. What I particularly relish is that the cover art does not extend beneath the band. Why waste the ink?

Now it gets elegant.
All that glossy cover is a dust jacket. Slip it off to reveal a very sober, not to say plain, cover.

Well this was good for an afternoon's fun, but I was still stuck with the need to embarrass myself to death by asking what it was all about. So I Googled.

Turns out Christian Morel is a PhD in Poli Sci who directs Renault's Commercial Vehicles Division HR. He researches negotiation and decision making in a sociological context. "Les Decisions Absurdes" is one result of that research.
Suppose you rejoice in the bosom of your family group when a suggestion is made: "let's go to X" X happens to be an unpleasant journey away, but, no matter, it is a place that some members enjoyed in the past. So, having discussed the plan, off you go, across a dessert in a car without air conditioning to X. Well, conversation gets to this point:

"Hope you enjoy this."
"Why? Don't you?"
"Not really"
But you said ..."
"I only said because you said"
"But I just went along with everybody else. I didn't want to come here today."

An absurd decision. But one which the group agreed to after discussion.

It could be worse: Two oil tankers on a passing course. One decides there is no need for action and continues. The other decides to divert but goes the "correct" way (which is irrational in this case) causing a collision.

Absurd decisions are those made through errors of reasoning, group think, or loss of direction.
Everybody at NASA knew that the joint seals would degrade in freezing temperatures. Everybody at NASA knew their part of Florida rarely if ever froze. So when it did freeze nobody thought to take the responsibility to check the seals before launch. The result was the Challenger disaster.
A jetliner was on final approach into Portland in 1978 when the Captain became suspicious of the landing gear. They made several tests and circled the tower for some time. They were still trying to get the gear down when they run out of fuel and crashed. Nobody took responsibility to monitor the fuel level. There was lots at the start of the landing.

Or here is Kenji's favorite head shaker. A Swiss pilot was landing in New York after crossing the Atlantic. I imagine the radio conversation as something like the following:

"GCA, this is Swiss pilot requesting landing instructions." Spoken in a hyper professional calm voice.
"Swiss pilot please wait."
"Roger, GCA."
Time passes.
"GCA, This is Swiss Pilot. Our fuel is low." Spoken in a very cool, hyper professional calm voice.
"We hear you Swiss pilot. Maintain."
Time passes.
"GCA This is Swiss pilot. Our fuel is exhausted.' Spoken in a superbly cool, way hyper professional calm voice.
"Roger, Swiss pilot. Maintain."
Time passes.
"Swiss pilot? Swiss pilot? Where are you? You are off our scope. Swiss pilot?"

The pilot was so professionally laconic that the tower failed to understand what he told them.
This analysis of how absurdities creep into decisions is fascinating to a story teller like me. Lots of potential scenes to show character and move plot. But it is essential for any manager who wishes to avoid such absurdity in his bailiwick.
Christian Morel published his book in France in 2002. Kenji translated it into Japanese in 2005. But there is no notice of an English translation that I could find. Distressing.
Here's what I did find:
The French Publishers Agency
Le Journal du Management (in French)
But the most extensive is a talk Christian Morel gave to L'Ecole de Paris
--ml
Technorati Tags: Christan Morel, Les Decisions Absurdes, Absurd Decisions

Fear or Spheres

We live near a large river which has been known to flood. Although the river takes a great meander about a mile away, a slough cuts the oxbow at the end of our road. A farmer's field separates us from the downstream part of the slough that is designed to catch the overflow. A lot survey determined that though part of our lot is in the hundred year flood plain, every bit of the house, at ground level, is just above it in the five-hundred year flood plain.
So picture an oxbow with the water swirling past through sturdy dikes and between that and our house a drainage slough which opens into a large field downstream. During the last serious flood the authorities required the people downstream of us to evacuate but only recommended evacuation for us. So we told the deputy that visited us that we would stay based on what we considered to be a rational risk assessment. The Deputy marked our window with a glyph that noted that fact and went on.
Later that evening, as the rain continued, we were knitting and reading when there was a loud thump on the door. It was our neighbor to ask if we were leaving, as they were. D and I both agreed that that thump had shot adrenalin through our system almost to the point of complete panic.
The flood passed within the dikes of the river with no more overflow than the slough could contain. With perfect prevision no one needed to evacuate. In the case it was prudent for those required to go to leave. It was also reasonable to permit us to go or stay as we choose.

Still it was astonishing that one thump could breed such panic.

There is an excellent diary at Daily Kos which continues this meditation in the context of aviation security:

Daily Kos: Don't Mention the Elephant in the Hand Luggage
Terrorism is not a legitimate threat to Westerners. There are almost no terrorists in the world who want to kill us, statistically speaking. We know this because any dispassionate examination of the state of Western society should be telling us that if there were large numbers of terrorists who wanted to kill us, we'd be under constant, unrelenting attack. And we aren't, so there isn't.

-- ml

Technorati Tags: fear, aviation security, security hype

Nobody Likes Science. He's Weird.

From DarkSyde at Daily Kos

While the demotion of distant Pluto has attracted considerable press, the news that Dark Matter Exists was virtually invisible. Sean Carroll discusses it on NPR's Science Friday.

Of course what we call a frozen rock is much more important than the discovery that there is a quarter of the universe we have only one clue about: it is.
--ml

Technorati Tags: Dark Matter, Pluto

Friday Goldpigs

The new crop flourishes.
-- ml

Technorati Tags: Friday Cat, Friday Birds

Matt Does His Best

Matthew Yglesias | TPMCafe

Alan Brinkley's review of a new book on Lyndon Johnson touches, of course, on the ever-present "two Johnsons" theme -- "At his best, Lyndon Johnson was one of the greatest of all American presidents . . . [b]ut Johnson was not always at his best

Unlike Our Current Incumbent, who is never near any one's best.
Except to steal it.
--ml

Technorati Tags: Yglesias, Bush, LBJ

Science is a Bitch

The Observer:

Sean McCarthy says that no one was more sceptical than he when Steorn, his small hi-tech firm in Dublin, hit upon a way of generating clean, free and constant energy from the interaction of magnetic fields. ... But when he attempted to share his findings, he says, scientists either put the phone down on him or refused to endorse him publicly in case they damaged their academic reputations.

Successful science must not stray too far from conventional wisdom.
--ml

Technorati Tags: science, energy, magnets

Analects of Management

My boss:
"My knowledge is a mile wide but only an inch deep.
When I need to go deeper you will provide."
--ml

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Friday Cat Blogging

In Other Media

The early Midwestern sun warmed the roof of the chicken coop next to the small brick house in the middle of a field. On it lay a small ball of orange marmalade tiger fluff in very great pain. Henry peered at it. Then he ran to get Dorothy. "Mother! It's Daffodil! She's hurt!" We called her Daffodil because she was born when the daffs were in bloom.
Dorothy ran to see. The kitten, a male of course, had argued with a passing car and lost. But it still lived, the pink tongue moving weakly as the only token of a mew. Ann and Leonard and the three year old materialized beside Dorothy. "Run," she said. "Get a cardboard box to carry her." Henry scampered with Leonard not too far behind. "Here," said Henry, offering a box only just bigger than the cat. Dorothy set it on the coop roof and gently lifted the kitten into the box. "Open the door for me," she said as she moved to the car. Ann was already there and opened the door and pushed the seat forward to give access to the back bench. Dorothy settled the box in back. "Ann you sit next to it and keep the box steady."
We piled into the car with a bit less of the normal pushing for position. Dorothy backed onto the quiet street and headed for the vet's.
Holding the box with the four of us variously attached to her, Dorothy faced the Vet. "Please take care of our kitty," she said.
We climbed back into the car and drove home.
Our attention quickly diverted to other concerns.
Seven weeks later the Vet called. "You're kitty is ready to come home." "you didn't put her to sleep?" said Dorothy who thought her statement's intent had been clear.
Back we piled into the black sedan and crowded round as the Vet placed a somewhat bigger orange tiger cat in Ann's arms while Dorothy wrote the check.

The accident damaged the cat's head. The Vet wired the jaw back together in seven places. Most of the cat's teeth were gone. The few stumps remaining were not able to hold her saliva. She drooled excessively and developed a champion case of halitosis. Her left eye had been on her cheek. The Vet placed it back in its socket, but it was sightless. She had the equivalent of a lobotomy. This removed all the normal predator aggressivity of a cat. It left her a most placid animal. No matter how often she was brushed she shed enormous bales of short orange hairs.

We shortened her name to Daffy. Naturally.

As an adult Daffy construed her life purpose to be an ambassador to those benighted humans who did not like cats. She had an unerring sense for the cat hater in the room. She would jump into the unwary guest's lap, compose herself with forepaws on their chest, shedding, and gaze fondly into their horror struck face. She exhaled a loud purr, a cloud of atrocious breath, and a river of drool as if to say: 'There, don't you just really love cats?'

Daffy loved to be in warm places. The freshly stopped and emptied dryer was her favorite. Inevitably one day Dorothy was in a hurry and threw the next load of wash in without looking. The dryer began turning and emitting incredible yodels, yowls, and yells. Dorothy stopped the dryer and opened the door. Placing one paw before the other with the dignity of a Third Dynasty Pharoah Daffy strode forth. Thereafter the rule was to look before filling.

For some reason Dorothy fed Daffy pork kidneys. She purchased them whole from the butcher shop. We cut them up into small pieces Daffy could gum and swallow. I am certain this contributed mightily to her stench-e-licious breath.
They all too frequently returned from Daffy's delicate digestive system. Pork kidneys are not a pleasant sight straight from the butcher's. They do not gain by liberal slatherings of feline digestive juices. The other problem with pork kidneys is that they go off in no time at all.
To the revulsion of my own digestion.

Once Daffy was minding her own business in the front yard when a large airedale interloped by and challenged Daffy with a belligerent 'Woof!' Daffy ascended a nearby elm. The dog woofed again and Daffy went out on a limb over the dog on the sidewalk below. Daffy looked at the airedale who gruffly woofed a third time. Daffy stepped further out on the limb past its ability to support her. It bent and Daffy slid. With grace she landed, on her paws, on the dog's back. She dug her claws in. The dog slowly (14/15ths of a nanosecond) comprehended that the tide had more than turned. He started running to evade the searing pain. Daffy, who was just regaining her bearings, declined to continue this passage, released her claws, and stepped to the ground.

Every summer we moved some hundred and seventy five miles north to the family cottage for the summer. This involved packing the needful into the car including us kids and Daffy. After much fuss and feathers we would finally set off down Main Street to the highway. This was not an expressway but a two lane road with grass verges. At about mile ten every time, going or returning, Daffy would begin to heave. On the first heave everyone began to shout. Everyone pushed Daffy to the floor near the door. The driver was in a race to pull off the road and get the door open before the inevitable. Sometimes they were fast enough. Daffy would stagger out and barf. Then, her motion sickness dealt with, she would climb back into the car to enjoy the balance of the journey undiscommoded.
If the driver was slow, the noise increased and, once the car did stop, much opening and closing of doors, exiting and entering of cars ensued as Dorothy cleaned the vomit out of the car and everyone changed seats in hopes of evading the smell.

One morning Daffy attempted to scale the kitchen counter top and failed bringing a certain amount of crockery after her. From amidst the shattered remains Daffy looked with great embarrassment up to Dorothy.
Alone Dorothy took Daffy, full of years, to the Vet to consult. The Vet agreed and Daffy was put to sleep.
The Vet did an autopsy and found the largest kidneys he had ever heard of, or seen, in a cat. He pickled them and displayed them thereafter.

-- ml

Technorati Tags: Friday Cat Blogging