It was
John G. Hanna, yacht designer and author, who maintained that you can make good
coffee on even the simplest of yachts. “I cheerfully endorse the statement that
perfect coffee can be made in a tea kettle, when you let it boil the right
way,” he said. “The moment it reaches a full boil, snatch it off the hot spot
and let it simmer a moment before you add the cold water. Reason: continued boiling would carry away in
the steam the very volatile oil on which the pleasant aroma of coffee depends;
yet the solution must come up to full boiling temperature, at least briefly, to
extract the full flavor of the bean.”
When he
talks about a tea kettle, Hanna means the old-fashioned standard coffee pot —
“a pot, equivalent to a kettle, completely free of all percolators, drippers,
or other fancy gadgets. The same thing that is official equipment in many
millions of American homes, regardless of the increase in the plethora of
complicated coffee concoctors, a shape evolved by experience of generations — a
truncated cone, broad on the base, it does not upset easily, takes up the
minimum of space and is easier to handle and pour from than a kettle.”
Hanna’s
method of coffee-making, presumably, was to add some ground coffee to water in a
pot, bring it to the boil, and add a dash of cold water to the top to settle
the grounds. Ever since coffee drinking
began, there has been this question of how to separate the grounds from the
liquid coffee. I’ve never tried the cold
water trick, but I imagine you’ve got to be careful about how much cold water
you use, otherwise you end up with cold coffee also.
I have
read that if you simply leave the pot alone, the grounds will settle to the
bottom after about five minutes. Another piece of advice I’ve seen is this: “ Just before you are ready to drink, crack a
couple of raw eggs and drop them in the pot. Stir it around and pour the coffee
into your cup. The egg congeals and collects the coffee grounds! Feed the egg
and grounds to your burro so he has the energy to plow your fields!”
I guess you could use a fine-mesh tea-leaf
strainer to separate out the grounds, and I know people have tried discarded
nylon stocking for the same purpose, but with what success, I don’t know. Anyway, the point is that the preferred
beverage is distilled from freshly ground beans and water that is not allowed
to boil for more than an instant. This
ought not to be beyond the capability of sailors with enough gumption to handle
a sailboat and navigate it to a safe anchorage, although I do know one who,
disdaining what he calls the esoteric mumbo-jumbo of coffee concoction, drinks
coffee made from those soluble coffee crystals prepared by Folgers and Nescafe.
One small spoon of dried coffee crystals dissolves in seconds in hot water, and
you’re done. Tellingly, though, deep
here in Starbucks country, he doesn’t go around boasting about it.
Today’s Thought
When we decode a
cookbook, every one of us is a practicing chemist. Cooking is the oldest, most
basic application of physical and chemical forces to natural materials.— Arthur E. Grosser, Professor of Chemistry, McGill University.
Tailpiece
“What’s
the matter with your leg?""I went to a seafood buffet last night and pulled a mussel."
(Drop by every
Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
