Category Archives: Food

Manna From Heaven (Angelic Food)

Arkane Curiosities

Manna was a supernatural food given to the Israelites during their 40-year trek through the desert. It brings up images of divine bread and even Jesus’ miracle with the loaves and fishes. In the Bible it’s called the “Bread of Heaven,” “Angel’s Food,” and “Spiritual Meat.”

The World’s First Instant Meals

When the Jews set out from Egypt, they very quickly ran out of food. God sent a magical dew to the desert floor and when it evaporated, it left a flaky substance on the ground (resembling frost). 

The raw manna tasted like water made with honey. The Israelites ground these flakes with hand mills. They boiled the manna in pots to create flat cakes, which tasted like pasties baked with olive oil. 

The manna continued to appear on the ground each morning (except Sabbath, where they collected a double portion the day before). The Jews consumed this angelic food for 40 years until they crossed the border of Canaan. Once returned to the promised land, the divine foodstuffs vanished forever. 

Constant Whining for Better Food

Eating the same thing day after day can get monotonous. Soon, people pined for the tastes and textures of food back in Egypt — yearning for cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. They also wanted to nosh on some fresh meat. 

God compiled and sent an enormous flock of quail along with the manna. The people greedily collected days worth of quail. This so angered God, that he struck the Israelites with a plague. 

The First Superfood

As a divine food, manna was made up of only nutritious matter. The body absorbed every morsel and the Israelites expelled no waste. Additionally, manna had a fragrant smell that women would use as a perfume. 

Manna Rivers

The Jewish people had only four hours to collect the manna before it melted under the scorching desert sun. The melted manna created streams, giving sustenance to deer and other wildlife. Should a foreigner eat an animal who drank of these streams, they would taste the divine food. Otherwise, tradition states, that manna tasted bitter to gentiles. 

Tim Kane

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Eat Your Undertale Obsession: Spider Cider

Still salivating for Undertale, but don’t want to jump on the Genocide bandwagon? Maybe you can whet your appetite through foodstuffs. Yes, it’s another recipe from the amazing Toby Fox game, Undertale. If you haven’t yet played this wonderful game, be aware there are spoilers in this post.

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I’ve had my share of apple ciders before, so I know the recipe isn’t difficult. But 9999 gold? Come on Muffet. That’s price gouging. You know we all scrounged to pay for it, just to avoid having to fight you. And for the record, I never stepped on any spiders.

Most cider recipes are pretty basic. Apple cider (or apple juice) jazzed up with some spices. I like this recipe by Pretty Cake Machine because she adds an amazing sugar spiderweb to the top of her spider ciders. Check it out:

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All right, because I love these cider webs so much, I’m going to give you the recipe for the cider here, but you’ll have to go to Pretty Cake Machine for the instructions on how to make the webs.

SPIDER CIDER

  • 1 quart apple cider
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 5 allspice berries
  • 10 cloves
  • 1 small orange, slices
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
  1. In a large saucepan, combine the first group of ingredients. Heat on low for 30-40 minutes or until steaming nicely; do not bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and strain the cider to remove all the spices.
  2. In a small saucepan, combine the berries and sugar with 2 tbsp of the mulled cider and bring to a boil. Boil for about 3 minutes, stirring regularly, until the berries have broken down. Mash the berries thoroughly, then run the syrup through a sieve to remove the berry skins. Stir the blueberry syrup into the mulled cider.

Enjoy,

Tim Kane

 

 

Eat Your Undertale Obsession: Spider Cider Doughnuts

I’ve spent the past month playing through Toby Fox’s Undertale. Twice. If you’ve never heard of the game, go check it out. It’s amazingly addictive.

Be aware. If you haven’t played Undertale yet, they may be some minor spoilers in this post.

Anyway, I played with my daughter (she actually did all the work). We ran the neutral route first, not knowing that you could spare people. We ended up killing Toriel, which haunted us for weeks. Finally, we restarted and ran a pacifist route.

On our second try at the game, I noticed how many food items were scattered around the Underground. Of course, we snatched up as many as possible to be able to survive some of those boss fights. (Ahh Mettaton!)

Then I discovered that recipes for these foodstuffs exist all over the Internet. So I thought I’d collect them here.

First off, we have Muffet’s Spider Cider doughnuts

Muffet

Muffet

We never got a chance to try these because we only encountered them outside of Muffit’s lair. If you’ve played the game, you know that here they cost 9999 gold. Too rich for my blood.

Spider Cider Doughnuts

Spider Cider Doughnuts

I found this recipe on Jaybug Jimmie’s Web but the recipe is originally from toxiccaves. The recipe is shown below. I added the salt because, as a home baker, I know salt enhances the flavor of the other ingredients.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1/3 cup of sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 2 teaspoons of baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons of apple sauce
  • 4 tablespoons of apple cider
  • 1/2 cup of milk
  • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • 4 teaspoons of vegetable oil
  • Purple food coloring (a mix of red and blue)
  • Sprinkles

Directions

  1. Preheat your oven to 325° F.
  2. Mix together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda, salt.
  3. Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl: applesauce, apple cider, milk, oil, and vanilla extract.
  4. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ones, and mix. Once thoroughly blended together, add a few drops of purple food coloring until the batter is the right shade of purple.
  5. Pour the batter into a donut pan, (or a muffin tray is a fine substitute) and then pop it in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until a toothpick test comes out clean.
  6. Once they are done and have cooled down, roll them in a cinnamon sugar, or a glaze (made of powdered sugar and water).
  7. To decorate, look for spider-shaped sprinkles (best available at Halloween time), or use black and purple ones. Black sugar crystals will melt into the donuts a bit and make it look like you have tiny spiders baked into the dough.

You can choose to sell your spider cider doughnuts in the ruins for a reasonable price, or jack it up just outside Muffet’s lair. Stay tuned for a Spider Cider recipe.

Tim Kane

Hessian Global Goods is My Coffee and Kitsch Dealer

Long ago, I wrote how I would buy my coffee from a “dealer” in the part as if it were an illicit transaction. The reason for this strangeness was that the pair of San Diego ladies who supply my coffee had close shop in 2011. The coffee was so darned good, I had to continue buying from them. Now, they have opened a new shop in Uptown San Diego where I can not only get my coffee fix, but also delve into kitsch from Africa and Asia.

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The ladies, Viviana and Verena, hail from England. They set up Hessian Global Goods under the auspices of Pannikan, but they quickly expanded beyond that. Their new shop clearly shows that they are now more of a global goods purveyor than simply a coffee broker. Honestly, they put World Market to shame. The ladies travel abroad quite often, packing kitschy artifacts into their suitcases when space allows. (Actually, I asked them about this, and when the went to Morocco, each one nested two suitcases inside their main one.)

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Let me be honest, if you ever are in San Diego, visit her for the coffee. It’s stupendous. They have beans from parts of the world most people didn’t even know grew coffee. Come for the coffee, but leave with some kitsch.

I covet this vacuum coffee maker.

I covet this vacuum coffee maker.

The ladies color code their supplies, so as you walk in, you see walls of color: orange, red, black, green. Sprinkled in between the coffee cups and coffee pots are tin toys, dolls

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They also collect artifacts and art from Africa including the types of wooden statues you’d expect to see in museums.

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My favorite new addition are these stuffed animal heads. Instead of a real dead animal staring down at you, check out these cute “stuffed” animals made of corduroy and buttons.

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Check out Hessian Global Goods. They’re located a giant renovated red house in San Diego (4034 Park Blvd). You can also call the ladies at (619) 239-7891.

Tim Kane

Inside Your Cup of Coffee

I can’t live without my cup of Joe, but as I read through the book Uncommon Grounds, I find out more and more about this mysterious beverage.

Coffee

Like how a goat herder in Ethiopia discovered it when his goats went missing. He found them jumping around, buzzed off the red coffee berries. Fast forward a few centuries, and we have coffee in every store on the planet. But what exactly is in a cup?

coffee-berry

It all starts with a coffee berry. Too bad what we really want is nestled deep inside. Two seeds surrounded by a silver skin that’s hard to remove.

Acording to Al Rayan, there are many grades of roasting you can get from a bean. (Side note, when Americans first got hold of these beans, we liked them green. Then we’d roast them right before making a cup.)

roasts

The bitterness associated with coffee comes from the roasting. Think about licking a singed hunk of wood. Yeah, not so great.

The bitterness comes from O-caffeoylquinic acids, present in raw coffee beans. A light or medium roast dehydrates the acids to create various lactones and a pleasant bitterness that most coffee lovers adore. Keep roasting, and the lactones break apart to from 4-vinylcatechol, which goes through some more chemical steps to create compounds that give a harsh bitter that lingers on the tongue.

Once roasted, coffee beans can stay fresh for months. Once ground, however, and you have only about two weeks to make your coffee (key here, grind your own). But even after being brewed, the chemistry of coffee changes. Lactones become free acids, dropping the pH from between 5 and 5.2 down to a 4.6. This shifts the acidity from a green bean level to that of a tomato.

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The longer you keep your coffee hot, the more sour and bitter it will taste.

Although many studies have found antioxidant qualities in coffee, you could be canceling these out by adding cream or sugar. A study by a fella named Crozier showed that adding cream to strawberries slowed the absorption of antioxidants. So if you want the best health benefits from java, drink it black.

This fun video shows you some of the more interesting compounds in the aroma of coffee. Check it out.

Happy drinking, and check out my Pinterest collection of all things coffee.

Tim Kane