Published: June 05, 2008 08:40 am         

In These Otsego Hills

There is a segment on one of the morning cable talk shows which is called “News You Can’t Use.” We always think it is an odd moment as the viewer is always shown the news you can’t use which seems to us to be a waste of air time, not to mention the viewer’s time. However, as we have thought about it, we have come to the conclusion that the news segment is not terribly far removed from all the seemingly worthless information which we have spent years storing in our somewhat feeble brain. We suspect we will never have a use for about 99 percent of it. And yet, we always seem to encounter some discussion in which we can whip out this seemingly useless information to a gathering of people who appear to be convinced that we have absolutely no idea what we are talking about.

In fact, at one gathering a while ago now we were able to enlist not one, but two pieces of useless information. The first of these concerned the product Tang, the orange flavored drink mix of which the wee-we was quite fond during his formative years. When we were asked why we would have allowed him to drink the stuff, we pointed out that if it was good enough for the astronauts, it was good enough for the wee-we.

We further explained that it was used by the astronauts as it successfully masked the taste of the recycled water which was used on the spacecraft. In fact, we noted that the water probably needed all the help it could get as urine was filtered and purified in order to produce the water. To say that there were doubting Thomases at the gathering would be an understatement. They also were quite dubious regarding our explanation as to why there is really no reason to purchase sourdough starter from a bakery in San Francisco, an area known for its sourdough bread. The first few times the sourdough starter is used it will produce bread not unlike the San Francisco bakery. However, since sourdough starter will pick up yeasts from the air in which it is found, the starter will eventually change and reflect its new community in its flavor. In fact, we notice a difference between the Clinton Township, Ohio sourdough bread and the Cooperstown, N.Y. sourdough bread.

We tend to think the Cooperstown variety is better, no doubt reflecting our better yeast, but we certainly do not want the wee-we to learn our thinking on this matter.

We must say that the reactions to our somewhat useless information rather made us wonder if we really did not know what we were talking about. Consequently, when we returned home, we dashed to the computer to check out the Wikipedia’s, an on-line encyclopedia, thinking on these two subjects. We discovered that “Sourdough ... refers to the process of leavening bread by capturing wild yeasts in a dough or batter, as opposed to using a domestic, purpose-cultured yeast ...” It finished the discussion with “... each bakery’s sourdough has a distinct taste. The combination of starter, yeast culture and air temperature, humidity, and elevation also makes each batch of sourdough different.” We also learned that there is one bakery in San Francisco which still “... uses the same ‘starter’ yeast culture it developed during the California Gold Rush.” It was no doubt good that we didn’t have that little piece of information at our fingertips during the sourdough starter discussion.

We also checked Wikipedia for information on Tang where we learned “Tang is a sugared, fruit-flavored, noncarbonated soft drink from the USA. The original orange flavored Tang was formulated by General Foods Corporation in 1957 and first marketed (in powdered form) in 1959. It was initially intended as a breakfast drink, but sales were poor until NASA began using it on Gemini flights in 1965, and that use was heavily advertised. Since that time, it has been associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program.”

Under the “History of Tang,” Wikipedia notes that “Tang was used by the NASA Gemini space program. A NASA engineer working with the Gemini Space Program on a life-support module explains the story of how and why it was used. Paraphrased:

“... There was a particular component of the Gemini life support-system module which produced H2O (water) among other things. This was a byproduct of a reoccurring chemical reaction of one of the mechanical devices on the life-support module. The astronauts would use this water to drink during their space flight. The problem was, the astronauts did not like the taste of the water because of some of the byproducts produced, which were not harmful of course. So, they added Tang to make the water taste better ...”“. Enough said.

In closing, we do not normally, given our dislike of the kitchen, write columns dedicated to strictly food related topics. Yet, surprisingly enough, we have recently read up on two more undoubtedly useless food topics, namely the Oreo invasion of Britain and the Asparagus Capital of the World located in Schwetzingen, Germany. But take heart, we shall probably not use this information until we once again find that we have to be out of town for a family wedding.

We remain, In these Otsego hills,
The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer St., Cooperstown, N.Y. 13326, by telephone at 547- 8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com.