Beer or similar alcoholic drink (e.g. cider) can be made from anything that contains starch, which is degraded by enzymes to simple sugars during the brewing process. If you consider sources of starch readily available in nature, chestnut is a viable option. It grows in forests all over the temperate climate in the Northern Hemisphere […]
Unusual Food
Cream cheese tomato and salted fish sandwich
The main problem with our food is that if we do not eat it fast enough it goes bad. The time when it goes bad differs, but in the end, everything turns inedible. Except maybe my Lembas (or Lembas 2.0). Anyway, how to prolong the edibility of our food is an eternal quest but today […]
Resin bread experiment
Resin bread: the background One of the interesting side observations in my exploration of bark and lichen bread was a clear menthol like aftertaste noted by some testers. This definitely was something worth a second thought since I also noted the taste and liked it very much. Upon pondering this for a while I came […]
Cold brew coffee
Introduction to cold brew coffee Summer is coming. And with it my favourite thing: ice coffee. Granted, the name is universal, but the substance served under this name can span a whole spectrum of appearances. From double espresso poured over ice cubes or long coffee over ice cream with heaps of whipped cream to espresso […]
Wild garlic pesto
Ever heard of Wild garlic pesto? Real Italian pesto or more precisely pesto Genovese is, as the name suggests, coming from the Italian city of Genoa. It is traditionally made from basil, garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese (parmigiano) and pecorino (cheese made from sheep’s milk), all blended or crushed with olive oil and finally salted […]
Lichen bread
How did I come on the idea of lichen bread? During my research into bark bread I have found a reference which is now sadly buried in the depths of internet. I remember it was a Youtube video describing a side story to the bark bread. In the nineteenth century (or thereabout) an important botanyst […]
Chocolate coffee beans
When searching for interesting things in a coffee shop, I stumbled upon a chocolate covered coffee beans, advertised as »providing a quick kick«. Naturally I got interested, but upon deeper contemplation, decided to first do some research and latter to prepare chocolate coffee beans myself! Background So, according to USDA, chocolate covered coffee beans can have […]
Bark Bread
When reading up on the life during World war II, I sometimes stumbled upon the mentioning of bark bread. This definitely sparked my imagination – ingenuity of people, who find a solution in a tough situation. I imagined people scraping the brown bark from the trees, kneading the bran-like brown substance into a perfect dough, […]