Go to any science museum in the U.S., and what will you find near the checkout? Bags of "Astronaut Ice Cream," that is, freeze-dried ice cream. Once upon a time there was a wider variety, and today like in that photo you can still sometimes find strawberries (which are nasty, FWIW). But there is always Astronaut Ice Cream.

Except...freeze dried ice cream has flown in space exactly once: in 1968, aboard Apollo 7. Turns out actual astronauts would rather eat M&Ms.

Dippin' Dots, the Ice Cream of the Future, has never flown in space.

Some of you already know that each day I wake up disappointed I wasn't born in the Low Countries. Naturally, I often wonder why the Low Countries are so awesome, beyond my beloved one-day races.

Most will point to windmills and dikes as the key to their prosperity, others to their extensive colonial empire, some others to their heretical ways (wink wink /u/sunagainstgold ). Yet there is one key factor that is often overlooked: herring. Or to be precise, salted herring.

Back in their Burgundian Low Countries days, there was a rather major shift in herring population from the Baltic to the North Sea. This led to the so-called Herring Wars as the traditional strong powers such as Denmark both lost their access to herring and their income from the toll of the sea lanes. The Low Countries giddily built fleets of the so-called herring buiss, essentially a floating processing plant for salted herring. This led to increased wealth, and very rich food. The trade in herring brought them to the Portuguese coasts where they traded salted herring for salt and other goods such as spices. In essence, it whetted their appetite for global riches.

At that time the Low Countries was largely a collection of all sorts of duchies and counties, all preferring their own approach and their own interests. Flanders and Brabant preferred a standing merchant marine. Holland was strongly against it. Their Burgundian masters forced them to comply with each other, leading to the founding of a merchant marine system that eventually empowered the watergeuzens decades later.

Finally, my favorite character Charles V of Gent, loves his salted herring. His appetite for fish is well-known, and he was once heard lamenting that his greatest regret was that he didn't bring more of those potted herring from his beloved Low Countries as he retired in Yuste, Spain.

Since today’s Tuesday Trivia is about pickling and preserving, I thought I might do a quick translation of a relevant recipe from the Southern Song dynasty recipe book, Pure Offerings of the Mountain Hermit (山家清供).

The Treasure of the Cold Pot (冰壺珍)

Tang Taizong asked Su Yijian, “Among the foods that can be called ‘treasures,’ which kind is truly the best?” Su replied, “There is no true standard when it comes to matters of taste; as long as the food is palatable to a particular person, it can be called a ‘treasure.’ Personally, I think of pickled vegetable juice as the most delicious flavour.”

Tang Taizong asked him why, so Su Yijian replied, “Once, on a bitterly cold evening, I warmed up some alcohol and drank to my heart’s content; I drank until I was utterly drunk, then I covered myself in a thick quilt and drifted off to sleep. Later, I was suddenly roused by a feeling of great thirst; thanks to the moonlight illuminating my courtyard, I was able to spot an earthen pot of pickled vegetables protruding from the snow. I didn’t presume to call for my servant; instead, I promptly washed my hands in the snow, filled several cups with the juice in the pickled vegetable jar, and drank them all. At that time, I said to myself, this tastes as though it has been sent down from the heavenly kitchen of the immortals; I fear that nothing will ever compare to the excellent flavour of this juice! I have often wished to put this story to paper, and title it “The Biography of Mr. Cold Pot,” but I have not yet had the opportunity to do so.” Taizong laughed, and agreed that pickled vegetable juice must indeed be the most treasured taste in the world.

People of later generations have asked about how to make The Treasure of the Cold Pot, and I can provide an answer: take plain noodles, and immerse them in a soup made from pickled vegetable juice. Wait until you are drunk before you eat it.^1 Some people say that this is not the correct recipe, but if you don’t believe me, feel free to ask Mr. Cold Pot himself!

1. The implication here is that consuming this meal will cure a hangover.

太宗問蘇易簡曰：「食品稱珍，何者為冣？」對曰：「食無定味，適口者珍。臣心知虀汁美。」太宗咲問其故。曰：「臣一夕酷寒，擁爐燒酒，痛飲大醉，擁以重衾。忽醒渴甚，乘月中庭，見殘雪中覆有虀盎。不暇呼童，掬雪盥手，滿飲數缶。臣此時自謂上界仙廚，鸞脯鳳脂，殆恐不及。屢欲作《氷壺先生傳》記其事，未暇也。」太宗咲而然之。後有問其方者，僕荅曰：用清麵菜湯浸以菜，止醉渴一味耳。或不然，請問之氷壺先生。

Well everyone's posted something disgusting so far (aside from /u/sunagainstgold, because freeze dried strawberries are in fact wonderful and I keep hoping Special K will get with the program and finally produce "Special K: Oops! All Berries") so I will post about some nice wholesome tomato conserva, the older (and now posher) version of the humble 40 cent can of tomato paste.

So in Italian/Western cuisine, eating tomatoes raw is quite modern, first things first. It is dependent on the selective breeding of tomato varieties for new purposes after the mid 19th century, such as the much tooted San Marzano variety, which was bred to be commercially canned. Not all tomatoes taste very good without processing.

So raw tomatoes are not very tasty or even available all the time, and home canning didn't come around until the early 20th century, so how did you enjoy that great tomato flavor from your harvest year round? You make your homemade tomato conserva of course, which is also a great way to reduce a whole peck of tomatoes into a single handy jar. Modern recipes call for the oven, but here's the Vero Autentica Ricetta Tradizionale:

1. Wash your tomatoes and boil them in salt until they are reduced.
2. Put through sieve or food mill to remove seeds.
3. Spread/stretch on a wooden board outside in the sun.
4. Keep moving and mixing it while it dries outside for at least a week.
5. Scrape it all up off the board and put it in a jar, cover with a bit of oil to keep fresh.

To use it's kinda like bouillon, you scoop yourself out a piece of the paste and add it to soups and sauces. If you are concerned about the sanitation of drying tomato paste for a week in your yard, Pomodoro! A History of the Tomato in Italy provides vivid description of cleanliness.

Ireland of days long since past was very much a pastoral society, and cattle were the center of the rural world. Less hay was available, and what fodder existed during the winter was needed for dairy and breeding cattle, so the bulls would need slaughtering with some regularity; which meant fresh meat was the norm, so preserved varieties were far less common.

Compounding this salt may have been expensive, as salted meat appears to have been much more valued than fresh. This is not to say that Ireland did not produce preserves - salted beef and fish were still common enough, though perhaps not quite as ubiquitous as in other parts of the world.

Still, there were some unusual preserves that could be mentioned. In addition to the normal use of blood in cooking, in impoverished areas blood drained from cattle was pooled into blocks and left to coagulate into a kind of jelly viscous paste, which was then salted. These were then chopped into narrow pieces, to be eaten during the lean parts of the year.

More interesting still was rather than salting butter, the practice of flavoring freshly made butter with herbs, then enclosing it in a wooden casing and burying it in the bog for preservation. This bog-butter is still unearthed often today, and I'm determined to eat some eventually - no doubt horrifying some archaeologist.

^(Emyr Estyn Evans. Irish Folk Ways. Norfolk, England: Lowe and Brydone Printers Limited, 1979.)

^(Caoimhín Ó Danachair. In Ireland Long Ago. Dublin, Ireland: Mercier Press, 1962.)

If it's okay to ask a question in here, does anyone know when or why dill became such a popular flavor for pickled cucumbers? I'm speaking at least about the US, but I assume other countries also like it since I've seen flavors called "Polish Dill".

Can I ask how long Christmas plum puddings were really aged? Anyone know how this affects the flavor?

I'm going to ask a question. In France the practice of preserving meat is sometimes done by putting the meat in a clay pot and using hot fat to cover the meat, sealing it from air, thus preserving it. They call it "confit"

How far back does this practice go?