Here’s a minor cultural quibble about Cecil’s mention of the Maasai people drinking cow’s blood.
My nephew spent a couple years as a volunteer eye surgeon in Kenya, which once was part of the UK protectorate East Africa. He told me the Maasai people do drink cow’s blood, mixed with milk, but it’s only done on ceremonial occasions, not for daily nutrition. The Maasai, like most Kenyans, are very poor, and the cattle are their only source of income. They can’t afford to bleed a cow just for a snack or a soufflé.
Interesting column - never thought of using blood that way. In the last paragraph, Cecil needs either a dash or a colon where bolded:
But come on: the fact that my cow blood produced a recognizable (and, I should add, edible) dessert at all is what I would call passing with flying colorsspecifically, a greenish-gray hue seen in both the meringues and the cookies, which, I’ll concede, eaters might be justified in finding off-putting. Perhaps this suggests opportunities for future innovation.
I’m not surprised blood can make a passable meringue. I don’t know if it is still true but a generation ago a major component in the fire-fighting foam used by the Navy was pig’s blood.
You mean Ed needs to add punctuation, because as we know Cecil is perfect and all the mistakes arise in the editing.
(Funny how all the newspaper writers I know personally – I spent ten years as a photojournalist at a middlin’ daily paper – say the same thing, but I’ve seen the printouts they sent to the the copy desk before and after the red ink. )
(Edit: I know spoiler tags are usually frowned upon for jokes, but I think it’s warranted in this case, it’s something a lot of people wouldn’t want to know.)
I was wondering if Cecil might have had better results with fresher (or at least less clotted) blood. He described using residual blood around a large clot. I’m guessing a lot of fibrin (ie- protein) was left behind in the clot and that the residual blood was probably protein deficient.
Still he said his results were similar to others, so maybe not a problem.
I don’t think I could go for greyish-green cookies, though. :dubious:
(And don’t even get me started on other bodily fluids!)
