I’ve always considered the Old Fashioned to be a “Dad Drink”.
Because whenever we’d visit, my father would ask “Can I make you an Old Fashioned?” I’d say sure, and his next words would always be a variation on “Stand back, I’ve got to get to work here. I’m going to construct a Wisconsin Old Fashioned.”
Well, actually, he’d just say “Okay, you go in the kitchen and chat with your mom.” He wanted you out of his workshop/wet bar so he could get working, because the Wisconsin version starts with MUDDLING. Cutting up an orange and adding it to a sugar cube and a Luxardo cherry in the bottom of a flat-bottomed glass. Then he’d take his well-worn “muddler” (a tiny wooden baseball bat) and go to town smashing it all together.
There’s more that happens, involving a propane torch and Graf’s 50/50 soda, and sometimes filling the glass with hickory smoke, but you get the idea.
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Puff, Puff, Pass…
(who says you don’t learn anything from your kids?)
Nowadays, Russians use teabags and electric or stovetop kettles like most of us. However, you need a samovar for the traditional Russian way of making tea.
A modern samovar will have an electrical element for heating the water inside it. Older ones had tubular chimneys that ran through them vertically. The water inside was heated by burning charcoal in the chimney, which could be extended to take the smoke and noxious fumes away.
The loose-leaf tea was prepared separately. The traditional way was to boil it until it was very strong, almost like an extract of tea. The tea was transferred to a pot and poured into a glass in a metal holder called a podstannik. It was then diluted with hot water from the samovar.
The rest of the tea was kept warm by disconnecting the extension and placing the pot on top of the chimney.
In the past, jam was often served along with tea. Take a small spoonful of jam, a sip of tea, repeat. Older people can still be seen putting sugar cubes between their lower lips and front teeth and sipping tea through it. You can usually spot these individuals by their decayed front teeth.
At the institute I attended in Moscow, there was always a tea hour in the afternoon. A very nice older lady dispensed the tea from a pot and added hot water from an urn. Sugar and slices of lemon were always available, but I usually put milk in my tea. After I asked about this, the tea lady started bringing a big can of condensed milk every day.
Only twice in my life I have sent back a bottle of wine because it was corked, and both times, the waiter/sommelier tried to argue with me about it, I mean, why ask me to taste it if you don’t want to accept that it might be corked! Which just proves the point that the practice has become mere ritual for most servers, going by the shock when I’ve actually responded with a negative. (I was right both times too, because, as you note, a corked bottle is really obvious).
I’ve occasionally sent back a bottle which has turned out to have a ‘natural fizz’ - if you don’t point that out on the menu, don’t be surprised if I object.
I’ve never sent a bottle back, but on a cruise the sommelier opened a bottle and knew immediately there was a problem. He ran off and returned with another bottle.
Good to know the Russian for them. I have a pair of podstakanniki(?) acquired shortly after the fall of the USSR, when companies were looting the vaults of anything they could cart off to sell to the West.
I assume you’re joking? I’ve eaten at probably over 100 Mexican restaurants, including some in Mexico, and have never seen guacamole prepared tableside or associated with any kind or ritual. My grandmother and MIL were both born in Mexico. Neither had any kind of ritual with making or serving guacamole, unless you count squeezing the avocados to see if they’re ripe or not.
Huh. Several restaurants and chains do it around here. It lets you customize your guac, which is good because I like mine with particular proportions, and they aren’t what is “normal.”
Showy tableside guac assembled from a serving cart directly into a molcajete is much the rage in the trendy gourmet variant of Mexican food.
My local place has a small dedicated crew of guac makers who don’t wait tables or run food; they just make tableside guac. And quite a show it is. For what it costs, it oughta be.
NB these are the same type of thing as the ornamental cup holders (zuruuf/zarflar) that hold Turkish coffee cups, or teacups, that do not have handles of their own. I suppose Oriental coffee can also be ritualistic: you are supposed to offer a guest coffee. Perhaps with something sweet to go with it.
Some fortune tellers offer you a cup of coffee or tea and, after you are done, turn it upside-down to read the patterns…
2 or 3 times I’ve seen flambe / flaming Irish coffee prepared at restaurants. I don’t remember the details because it was 30+ years ago, but the waiter did put on a bit of a show, with the glass and liquor being set on fire. Flaming Irish Coffee Recipe (grouprecipes.com)
According to George Macdonald Fraser, the “richt Hieland way” to drink Scotch is to alternate sips of whisky with sips of water from a separate glass, preferably from a Highland burn. He did imply that this was performative Scottishness, meant to display the drinker’s tartan cred.
I had no idea this was a thing. Around here (South Texas) guacamole is served either already in a taco or burrito, or served already on the plate next to a serving of things like rice, refried beans, or pico. At home people usually place the molcajete on the table with the guacamole already prepared, and everyone serves themselves. Maybe it’s more of a California style Mexican food thing, or an Americanized version of Mexican food served up north?
