Black Forest Ham
Black Forest ham, or Schwarzwälder Schinken in German, is a variety of smoked ham produced in the Black Forest region of Germany.
Black Forest ham is also a traditional lunch-time meal for Public Works employees of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. It is thought that this tradition began when Olympic Peninsula members of the Industrial Workers of the World, during a 1922 sympathy strike with German food workers who had been locked out of the Black Forest, refused to eat German food exports. When the 18 month lock out ended with significant gains made by the German Black Forest ham hunters, their sympathetic counterparts in the U.S. celebrated with a Black Forest Ham festival. Black Forest Ham sandwiches and a Black Forest Ham muffin that is culinarily unique to the Pacific Northwest, can still be found in the lunch pails of Jefferson County Public Works Roads Department employees on nearly any given day.
Nougat
Nougat – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nougat is a term used to describe a variety of similar confectioneries made with sugar or honey, roasted nuts almonds, walnuts, pistachios or hazelnuts are common, but not peanuts and sometimes chopped candied fruit. The consistency of nougat can range from chewy to hard depending on its composition.
Vegemite – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vegemite – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vegemite is a dark brown, salty food paste made from yeast extract, used mainly as a spread on sandwiches and toast, as well as a filling of pastries like Cheesymite scroll, in Australia and New Zealand. It is similar to British Marmite and Swiss Cenovis.
Vegemite is made from leftover brewers’ yeast extract, a by-product of beer manufacture, and various vegetable and spice additives. The taste may be described as salty, slightly bitter, and malty – somewhat similar to the taste of beef bouillon. The texture is smooth and sticky, much like peanut butter. It is not as intensely flavoured as its British counterpart Marmite and is also less sweet.
Vegemite is popular with many Australians and New Zealanders, who often comically described it as their “national food.” Nevertheless, Vegemite is an Australian cultural icon and can be found in various shops around the world, particularly where there are large populations of Australian expatriates. It has not been successfully marketed in other countries.
Vegemite was invented in 1923 by food technologist Dr. Cyril P. Callister when his employer, the Australian company Fred Walker & Co, tasked him with developing a spread from brewer’s yeast, following the disruption of supplies of imported yeast spreads after World War I. Vegemite was registered as a trade mark in Australia that same year. The registration was later transferred to Kraft Foods, a U.S. multinational, which has maintained an interest in Vegemite since the 1920s.
Irish bog psalter – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An early medieval Christian psalter (prayer book) was discovered in a bog in July 2006, in the townland of Faddan More in north County Tipperary, Ireland. It is estimated to have been in the bog for between 1,000 and 1,200 years, but the book itself has yet to be formally identified, named or dated by Irish archaeological authorities. This discovery was hailed by the National Museum of Ireland as one of the most significant Irish archaeological finds in decades. An expert who was called in to advise on the discovery said that he believes the psalter is the first discovery of an Irish early medieval manuscript in two centuries.
The book is written in Latin on vellum pages and extensive fragments have survived. Large illuminated initials, typical of Insular art, are visible at the corners. Early research shows that the approximately 20 recovered pages are rectangular sheets, folded in the centre, with a wraparound vellum or leather cover (like “a very thick wallet in appearance”. It does not have a modern binding. It is believed to have been made by monks in the scriptorium of an Irish Celtic monastery. Low oxygen levels in the bog provide unusual preservation conditions, and bogs were often used by Irish monks as hiding places for valuables in the face of Viking raids. In addition to low oxygen levels, sphagnum moss, of which the peat bog is composed, produces an antibiotic substance called sphagnan that binds with proteins on the surface of microorganisims, immobilizing them. Its highly reactive carbonyl groups can alter chemicals and nutrients that would otherwise decompose organic matter. And above all the sphagnum moss causes organic material to undergo chemical changes itself that make it impervious to rot.
Vellum – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vellum (from the Old French Vélin, for “calfskin”) is a sort of parchment, a material for the pages of a book or codex, characterized by its thin, smooth, durable properties. Strictly speaking, vellum should only be made from calf-skin, but the term early on was used for the best quality of parchment regardless of the animal from which the skin came. There is also modern imitation “vellum” made out of cotton, although a small amount of true vellum is still made. The term can also refer to a manuscript or book written on such material.
Vellum was originally a translucent or opaque material produced from calfskin that had been soaked, limed, and scudded (a depilatory process), and then dried at normal temperature under tension, usually on a wooden device called a stretching frame. However, animal vellum can include any material made from calfskin, sheepskin, or virtually any other skin obtained from a relatively small animal, e.g., antelope. The terms vellum and parchment became confused early on; traditionally the former was made from an unsplit calfskin, and consequently had a grain pattern on one side (unless removed by scraping), while the latter was produced from the flesh split of a sheep or goat or other kind of skin, and consequently had no grain pattern. The important distinction between vellum (or parchment) and leather is that the former is not tanned but is prepared essentially by soaking the skin in lime and drying it under tension.
Blackletter – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blackletter, also known as Gothic script or Gothic minuscule, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to 1500. It continued to be used for the German language until the twentieth century. Fraktur is a notable script of this type, and sometimes the entire group of faces is known as Fraktur.
Blackletter is not to be confused with Old English, despite the popular, and untrue, tradition that Blackletter was used to write that language. Old English pre-dates Blackletter by many centuries.
Ankh – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The ankh (symbol ☥) was the Egyptian hieroglyphic character that stood for the Egyptian word ˁnḫ “life”. Egyptian gods are often portrayed carrying it by its loop, or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their chest. It is also known as the Egyptian Cross, the key of life, or as crux ansata, Latin for “cross with a handle”. It has been taken as a symbol by many Neopagans.
If I remember correctly, in the Commandeer Keen series of PC games, picking up an Ankh would give Keen temporary invincibility.
The 6 Symmetries of Music
Each symmetry of music is defined by a set of transformations, which, when applied in some way to music, leaves some perceived aspect of that music at least approximately unchanged.
- Pitch Translation Invariance: The musical quality of a tune is essentially unchanged if it is transposed into a different key.
- Time Scaling Invariance: This corresponds to playing music faster or slower. Although speeding up or down has more effect on musical quality that raising or lowering pitch, we can still recognize the equality of two versions of the same rhythm played at different tempos.
- Octave Translation Invariance: This is a subset of Pitch Translation Invariance, since a translation by an octave is a particular amount of pitch translation. But octave translation invariance applies to more things. For example, individual notes within a chord or bass line can often be translated up or down by an octave without significantly affecting the musical quality of a musical item.
- Time Translation Invariance: This says that the musical quality of a tune is much the same now as it is at a later time. Along with the next symmetry, it is not particularly a musical symmetry, and would be regarded as applying to all sound perception.
- Amplitude Scaling Invariance: This says that the musical quality of a tune is much the same whether played louder or quieter. This isn’t quite true, because we do enjoy our favorite music more if it is played more loudly. But apart from that the quality of music is not much changed by changes in volume.
- Pitch Reflection Invariance:This applies specifically to the consonance relation between notes. For example, the degree of consonance between A and C is the same as the degree of consonance between C and A. This symmetry does not imply that music can be played “upside down”, no doubt because there are aspects of melody perception that are more than just a function of consonance relationships between notes. However, there is an apparent “upside-downness” in the preferred choices of home chord in the diatonic scale (consisting of the notes A, B, C, D, E, F and G). The two preferred choices are A minor and C major, which are indeed mirror images of each other within the scale, reflected about the note D.
Theremin
A theremin solo was featured in live versions of the song “Whole Lotta Love,” by the band Led Zeppelin, the instrument being played by the band’s guitarist, Jimmy Page.
Japanese Balloon Bomb
On May 5, 1945, a balloon bomb which had drifted over the Pacific killed five children and a woman. The six who perished were the only known casualties inflicted by the Japanese attack on the US mainland during World War II. Japanese propaganda broadcasts announced great fires and an American public in panic, declaring casualties as high as 10,000.