The 5 Second Rule - Expanded

For every rule, there are exceptions. Even something like the 5 second rule, which has saved many a spilled college student's dinner. Check it out:

Source:Audrey Fukman and Andy Wright

I like to advocate a realistic approach to bacteria in the world around us; while it’s probably not the best idea to eat a pound of soil (for several reasons), contact with non-pristine surfaces doesn’t necessarily make food irreversibly spoiled. In fact, researchers have shown that food may be okay after being left as long as 30 seconds on a cafeteria floor.

There’s lots of places you wouldn’t want to eat food off the ground (hospitals, barnyards, and daycares come to mind) but its possible that we’ve become so accustomed to clean environments, and grown so afraid of all bacteria that we’ve lost perspective on the world around us. Not that long ago the closest thing to a table available was a tree stump or rock. And no one wiped those down with Lysol first.

Sapporo Ushers in a New Age of Brewing

It seems Sapporo knows what it’s doing when it comes to marketing. They’ve taken barley that spent time on the International Space Station, grown it, brewed it, and made….SPACE BEER!

Genius. Just plain genius. Similar in spirit but hopefully much less tragic than Budweiser’s ill-advised Nuclear Ale.

Wired Science: Barley + Space = Space Beer!

Vitamin Water is a Stupid Product

Alas. It’s been a long time since work has kept me up till 3am. But I have something to share - I loved this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic:

Coffee contains – gasp! – CHEMICALS!!!!!!

Ever wonder just what is in a cup of coffee? At first, you might not want to.

Photo source: Simone♠13

On the short list, in addition to caffeine, your average brew also contains:

• Dimethyl disulfide, which contributes to the odour of human waste
• 2-Ethylphenol, a cockroach pheromone
• Putrescine, a toxic breakdown product of rancid meat 

While I don’t believe the article writer set out to have this effect, a couple comments indicate he has in fact scared some readers. Of course, it all depends on how you want to take it. Some might be made uneasy at the mention of strange-sounding chemicals with scary qualifiers, and opt to eschew their coffee tomorrow morning. I, however am not about to abandon my sweet, caffeinated nectar of the gods morning cup just yet.

Coffee’s been around for a while now, and (debates about small effects on overall health aside) it’s safe to say that the compounds in coffee, especially at cup-a-day levels, are harmless. This presentation of facts is a good illustration that one shouldn’t be scared of something just because it has chemical names attached to it. The unknown is scary and chemicals particularly intimidating, but any everyday material could be made to sound scarier if placed in the right light.

That cup your coffee’s in? Aluminum and silicon oxides
The table it’s sitting on? Reducing sugar polymers and lignins
The spoon you mixed with? Smelted iron-carbon alloy

You don’t even want to know what sort of nasty phytochemicals are in that banana you were about to eat.

The point being, just because you can name something chemically (and even describe potentially unsavoury places it might be found in nature or industry), that doesn’t make it bad for you. When someone says that a product contains (cue spooky music) chemicals, that person is trying to scare you, usually to buy their product. Case in point:

Note that they never say those chemicals are not present in their product (they are), just that they are present in the competitors. Sneaky bastards.

Anyways, that said, I’m thirsty. I’m off to grab a nice cold glass of dihydrogen monoxide.

Source:
Wired Science: What’s Inside a Cup of Coffee?

Global Warming, You’ve Gone One Step Too Far…..

I read about some sad news this morning. It seems that in addition to making island nations disappear and driving polar bears toward extinction, global climate change has contributed to another, undeniably more heinous offence – destroying the quality of beer.

Source: deege@fermentarium.com

Reported in the journal Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, the paper, titled The impact of climate change on the yield and quality of Saaz hops in the Czech Republic reports that important flavour-influencing compounds (referred to as alpha-acids) in Czech hops have been decreasing over the last 50 years, correlated with increasing average air temperatures during this time, and the trend is liable to continue. I’m sure more validation is in order, but if true, then global warming has crossed the line.

Climate Change should know the rules of engagement set out in the Taurus conference (Al Gore giving a talking to himself in his car). Those rules were:

1. No cute and cuddly animals are to be harmed. Mosquitoes are fair game.
2. Unreasonably warm winters are welcome. Unreasonably hot summers are not.
3. Beer, coffee, cheese, and other delicious foods and beverages are not to be tampered with.
4. You do not talk about fight club.

Of course if Global Warming is indeed playing hardball and we will continue to see the quality of our pilsners drop with time, I see only one logical way to deal with this.

Drink up!

Discovery Space Disco: Now We Have a Problem: Global Warming is Impacting Beer Production
Research Article: The impact of climate change on the yield and quality of Saaz hops in the Czech Republic

Random internet find for the day: Car-Baked Cookies

Car-Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies

Rationally, I know there’s really nothing wrong with it, but it just seems weird. I’m sure they’re fine to eat, but it seems that you would only do this once, to say your car gets hot enough to literally bake in.

Amusing? Yes.

Tasty? Very possibly.

Practical? Maybe if you don’t own an oven. And it’s the summer. And you have a potluck to go to that evening. And you have lots of spare cookie dough lying around…

Lüttje Lage - drink of the Niedersachsische Hauptstadt

See above the preparation of a round of Lüttje Lage, the traditional drink of the German city Hannover. Hannover is the capital of the state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) and where I spent my last summer. Note the lesson on proper drinking etiquette occurring in the background, as is common to see where this drink is served.

According to my extensive research on the subject, Lüttje Lage (pronounced loot-cha lahg-a) traces its roots back to the 16th century, to the Broyhan brewery, which established a tradition of drinking spirits with beer. German efficiency being what it is, the Hannoverians decided to do it at once. But it can't just be as simple as mixing them together. Oh, no. What followed was the formation of an amusing and bizarre way to drink beer.

Despite the oddness of it, the drink has persisted to present day, and every summer young and old take advantage of this traditional drink to celebrate their hometown pride. There's a lot of tradition surrounding the drink, and costumes. There's even a local men's club that among other things, preserves the culture of the drink. The local tourism authority offers Lüttje Lage tours a couple times each year, which are of course topped off by a sample.

So what is the drink itself? Well, the big glasses you see are 5 cL glasses full of beer, typically a variety specific to the purpose. The small glasses are 1 cL of corn schnapps. It tastes about as good as that sounds. However, people don't consume the drink for it's taste.


Lüttje Lage is mostly seen at local fairs, most notably the Hannover Schützenfest and Maschseefest. Purists would grit their teeth to hear this, but the drink is pretty much a novelty, specific to Hannover, or more specifically, Hannover's festivals. You'll find few who drink it on a regular basis, or at home. People travelling to Hannover from other parts of Germany will most likely have never heard of the drink. That being the case, when in Hannover one must have one, or you did not truly experience the city. Berlin has the Berliner Weiße, Cologne (Köln) has Kölsch, and Munich has, among other things, the Radler, but those are much better known and widespread. Lüttje Lage is strictly unique to Hannover, and no where else.

The best thing about the drink is the method in which it must be done. Typically, it requires practice, and a lack of prior impairment. One must hold the two glasses in one hand, and tip them properly so that the schnapps flow into the big shot as it then goes down. Things can get messy at the best of times. Step-by-step picture instructions are here.

Should one like to try for yourself, and just can't wait until you find yourself in this fair city, the luettje-lage.de site offers to sell you everything you need. Not that I would recommend it, you may as well just make your own.

One can see it all properly done here, which appears to be at Schützenfest. Of course, this style of drinking is not unique to Hannover, but the class and prestige at least pretended to be associated with it is. Also, keep in mind there's nothing that restricts one to a single schnapps glass........

Pizza Crazy Dog

Ugh, this is terrible. I still have backlog of things from the summer I wanted to write about then and started posts of, only to stop after a few sentences. Here I start to remedy that.

During my last week of work, the boss happened to be gone on vacation, and so several informal gatherings and such were set up to just hang out without the pressure of a PI breathing down your neck. One of which was a pizza lunch, where we ordered in from the local place.

You may have heard how pizza in Italy is nothing like pizza in the US (Canada here falls in the same with the US). Well, while German pizza falls somewhere between, it is also in a way genuinely distinct. I was lucky to get to try out "Pizza Crazy Dog", which was just bizarre, with crisped onions, sliced hot dogs, pickles, and ketchup. Or rather I got to try half of one.....

During the lunch, the reality that I was leaving all the friends I had made for the summer behind hit me, and fast. Which will really kill your appetite. So, I left my food in the fridge, knowing that that meant I could save on lunch the next day (funds were starting to look extremely tight for me for the rest of my stay in Germany).

How absolutely terrible that the following day, my second-to-last day of work, I went to get my leftovers from the fridge, and found.....an empty box. After already in a lousy mood from the day before, this just sent my spirits crashing through the floor. Who the hell steals food from their coworkers?

This following the theft of the bicycle generously lent to me by one of my coworkers, I was not a happy camper.

Bremen

Bremen am Weser

Bremen is one of three cities in Germany that has retained independence as its own state (Bundesland) in the country. The others are Berlin (the capital, makes sense) and Hamburg (another huge city, also makes sense). But why is Bremen also an independent (and the smallest) Bundesland? Well that's history, folks.

Looking at the map of Bremen the fact that it was once a medieval port jumps out quite strongly, as the old city moat has remained largely preserved, and lies in the middle of a city park. Bremen was part of the medieval Hanseatic League (I have learned that in North Germany you can't escape this word) and as such became quite prosperous, and asserted itself as an independent city-state throughout almost its entire existence

The old city hall of Bremen is a UNESCO site and iconic of the city. Out front stands the enormous statue of Roland, a knight and sovereign of the city.

Bremen City Hall - Rathaus

More importantly than all that stuff, the sight that can't be missed in Bremen is the world-famous Beck's brewery. Forget the fact that so far as German beers go, it tastes like crap, I've been there!

Each one of those boxes is an entire crate of beer bottles. Jaw-dropping.

The conclusion to our tour

The Haake Beck Regatta

The day we landed in Bremen was coincidentally the day of the Haake Beck (local brew/brand put out by the Beck's brewery) Regatta. We caught Bremen on the day of this momentous event where brave souls compete to doggy-paddle up the Weser on inner tubes to claim victory over the other competitors. The prize? Guess.

The Bremer Stadtmusikanten

And no trip to Bremen would be complete without visiting (and groping at) the Bremen Town Musicians. These guys are from a Grimm's Fairy Tale that unfortunately everyone there but myself seemed roughly familiar with. All the same, they're cool guys. I'd sit down for a Beck's with them anytime.

Things I have learned so far about food in Germany

1. Chocolate does not make for a great breakfast food. The sugar high lasts just long enough to get you to work before crashing.

2. Buying cheese when you don't understand the language can be a dangerous undertaking.

3. Gigantic German lunches kill productivity. The temptation to sleep through seminars becomes overwhelming.

4. No-name Nutella® is indistinguishable from the original, and half the price. Making #1 a lesson learned a second time.

5. Germany not only has strong beer; a cup of coffee in the morning can triple the speed of work. The concomitant jitters only cause twice as many mistakes.

6. Quark - something between cream cheese and yogurt, is delicious and filling.
6b. To make a German cheesecake, just add quark to a pie shell and bake it. Have not made up my mind on this yet.....

7. You pay for the fat in milk, and not the removal. 3.5% = 0.68 1.5% = 0.62

8. If you are in North Germany, fish can indeed be traditional German food.
8b. If you are in North Germany, fish is indeed the traditional smell.

9. Not only beer, but wine and spirits are ridiculously cheap, which begs the question of how much of the cost of alcohol worldwide is actually just tax. It also begs the question of why there are not noticeably more alcoholics running around.

10. An extra serving of meat can, in fact, count as a vegetable.

German Ingenuity

When the twist-off is regarded as something for the lower-class, the lazy, the North Americaners, the pop-top beer bottle dominates. And as necessity is the mother of invention, this means that the German Volk have invented multiple unique ways of opening bottles. Coming here I was familiar with banging a bottle off a table corner (Table Open), but that was a simpler time, and I was naive.

The quintessential way of opening you'll find here is the lighter. Meaning that many Germans who do not smoke carry around a lighter so that they can drink. Figure that one out. The method involves wedging the base of the lighter under the cap, getting some leverage, and popping the cap off that way. One must be a little brave as lighters have been known to (a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-mine) crack and trigger a small explosion. Like Russian roulette but involving alcohol. Appropriately, this is the Lighter Open.

More impressive than that is opening a beer with another beer, the I'm Really Unprepared Open. It doesn't get much better than opening a cold one using another cold one. If you want a rewarding feeling, successfully completing one of these Opens provides just that.

Rumor has it of a way involving two bottles, some sort of theatrical jump and a kick, though I'm not sure how this works, and apparently it is so rare many Germans go their entire lives and never see it. Hence the name, the Bigfoot Open.

The exact way not to open one was discovered by yours truly, when only a spoon was handy. The Spoon Open involves sliced knuckles and is not recommended to anyone. Important lesson learned in Germany: You are not German.

Ask later how I managed to open a wine bottle without a corkscrew. I don't think even the Germans have figured this one yet.

Keinjägermeister

Trink Keinjaegermeister!

And all this time I thought that the best drinks were the ones that don't involve pastel colours.

An experiment in the Czech Republic

Anecdotal evidence: A bilingual friend of other travellers reported that she felt she received better service when speaking English than German in Prague.

Hypothesis: Service workers in Prague give better treatment to tourists who speak English than those who speak German.


Introduction: It was previously reported (unpublished data) that service varies in The Czech Republic based on the language used. While it is tempting to believe that this is the case, a lack of formal, controlled experimentation means that no definite conclusions can be made.

Prague is a worldwide tourist destination. Virtually untouched by war, the city is a beautifully preserved example of architecture of all periods from Medieval times to modern day. The city is dense with tourists and a gigantic tourism industry has grown out of this. In Wenceslas Square, in particular, many fast food stands make particularly good business serving various American and German-style fast foods all along its length.

This report details the investigation of the effect of language on service in the Czech capital city, Prague. Wenceslas Square was chosen as the experimental site due to the density and ease of availability of the same product in multiple locations in close proximity.


Materials and Methods: One hungry traveller looked for something to eat, and stopped at two stands consecutively for the cheapest fast food offered, the Hamburger (25 Kc). At one stand the experimenter requested "one hamburger, please" and at the other "einen Hamburger, bitte" and recorded the results in terms of service and food quality.


Sample size: 1


Results:
English: researcher received polite treatment, and an outstanding hamburger, complete with ketchup, lettuce and a perfectly toasted bun.

German: The experimenter received rude, rushed service, and hamburger was hastily thrown together, with a soggy bun and overall poor quality.

Relative quality of service ratio (E/G)*: 100

95% Confidence interval: Relative risk of approximately 0.1 - 10000

*Subjective judgement of the experimenter

Discussion: It was found that service was much better when English was the language employed, but unfortunately with the sample size employed, the difference could not be considered significant. Further studies are required to support the findings of this report. Nevertheless the findings are encouraging, and are what would be expected if the hypothesis is, indeed, true.

It should be noted that in both cases, the servers replied in English, regardless of the language the meal was ordered in, indicating a bias in service, and this could not be controlled for.

In addition, it was discovered afterward that although payment was made in the form of a 50Kc bill at both stands for a 25Kc meal, at the end the experimenter had only 25 + 15Kc in change, meaning that one stand did not return the appropriate change. This requires further investigation, as it is not known if this discrepancy occurred when the English or German transaction occurred.

Unfortunately, although both stands were owned and operated by the same company, location was a confounding factor as the "German" stand was noticeably busier than the other.

A limiting factor in this experiment was that the experimenter does not speak any Czech, and so an important control could not be conducted. However, after two Czech-style hamburgers were consumed, there was little desire for another and so this control would likely have gone unperformed anyway.

Conclusions: Although no significant results were obtained due to the limited sample size, the results support the hypothesis that English-speaking tourists do in fact receive better treatment in Prague than German-speakers.

Recommendations: Further testing is required. The sample size employed did not allow any definite conclusions to be drawn, although the observations recorded are encouraging with respect to the hypothesis. A randomized trial with multiple subjects and locations would prove very informative in establishing the presence or absence of an effect.

A trip to the Supermarkt

So one morning you decide to go to your local grocery store, step inside and bam! with a flash of light, loud popping noise and disorientating feeling of being turned sideways and being forced through the eye of a needle, everything changes. You try to get your bearings but before you can, a mother of 3 comes wheeling by with her shopping cart, hitting you and giving you a glare for having the audacity to get in her way. As you find safety between the huge stacks of plastic-bottled beverages, you look around and realize that somehow you are now in a grocery store in central Germany. Some other things you notice are:

- A whole aisle full of sausage, be it link sausage, Leberwurst, salami, or bologna in the shape of a teddy bear with different colours of pink meat, forming a creepy smiley face.

- Fleischsalat. Literally, meat salad. Think chopped ham and mayo. Being a salad, it counts as a serving of vegetables, right?

- You now have some serious choices in the ketchup department. There is Gewürtz ketchup (spicy ketchup), Thai ketchup, salsa ketchup, chili ketchup, curry ketchup.......

- There is a sizable portion of the store devoted to their selection of chocolate bars.

- Cereal with chunks of milk chocolate. Probably the best idea anyone's ever had.

- Milk, stored at room temperature in tetra packs. Us North Americans really dislike this idea but it is more or less the norm here. You can get frisch milch if you want, but then that takes up room in your fridge........

- Insanely cheap dairy. No lie. 1L of milk for under €1. 1L of YOP-like yogurt drink for less than €0.50. Sizeable chunks of Brie for €1.50. Apparently this is actually upsetting the Dairy farmers in Germany, but it is definitely not upsetting me!

- Forget cheese, the popular flavour for corn puffs is peanut. I couldn't make this up.

- Inexplicably, everyone is obsessed with Spärgel (Asparagus). This perennially hated food is gigantic here. It defies rationality.

Enjoy it while you're here. There's a lot to be learned about food. Mostly how many different ways sausage can be produced, but that's an important life skill, right?

When in Rome......

Prost!

Start the day off right!

Something about your 80-year-old landlady offering you a beer right after waking up is both slightly embarrassing and extremely awesome at the same time. I love this country.