Narcissism Of The Taste Buds
I live in America where we suffer from selective narcissism of the taste buds. We will happily gobble down anything served to us on a bun, but must each have a wholly personalised recipe for our ideal coffee:
“Chilled double latte with 50/50 steamed soy milk and 2%, a shot of almond, a sprinkle of cinnamon and chocolate, and 2 sachets of Splenda sweetener, NOT Equal. Easy on the foam.”
“Triple espresso with nutmeg, and a shot of 73% chocolate. Make it snappy and make it strong, people. I am terribly important and I want my coffee sharp and bitter just like me.”
Coffee seems to have become a way of communicating subtle information about ourselves that we’d like others to see and marvel at. “Why, he drinks soy milk and a subtle organic Colombian roast! He is clearly a sensitive man with a fine ecological outlook and who probably writes a good deal of poetry when not purchasing hemp clothing. I think I may fancy him for his coffee choice, despite his being 300lbs, wearing a NASCAR hat and sporting a confederate flag on his tee shirt.”
Fine, it’s all good, each to their own and no real harm done etc. But me, a mere instant coffee drinker and orderer of “your daily roast please, black” does tend to be looked upon with some disdain. “You mean you don’t have a coffee identity as unique as your fingerprint? Good God, woman! where are you from, the Outer Hebrides of Scotland?”
This rantlet, was sparked by having a friend pop round yesterday and my being embarrassed to not be able to offer her any ‘proper’ coffee. My husband is a coffeenista and has a stonking great industrial looking machine for his morning cup of joe, and no doubt my friend wondered why I didn’t just offer her some proper coffee from that. But I’m banned from it, see, following a rather nasty scalding milk splattering incident and failure to clean a nozzle correctly afterwards. A fact, that quite frankly made me laugh, nay roar, at the merry irony of that statement. I am Mrs. Finicky Corner-Cleaner in the kitchen (not as worried about the sitting room etc, but the kitchen must be clean at all times, it eez Prahblem-Kinder-Fraus’ ordahr, ya!) and it’s fair to say Dave is not Mrs. Anything especially Finicky Corner-Cleaner.
My friend, of yesterday coffee, is American and didn’t seem too bothered; she had tea and didn’t try and push the “My God, how can you drink that instant dishwater” thing. I can hold my own though and have done in the past with her husband, who is British, and seems to be into the coffee thing, protecting his taste buds valiantly and vocally from my barbarian instant-coffee attack. I think Britain is becoming more coffee-savvy as every time I go back I see more and more smoked glass and tubular steel type coffee bars have sprung up.
The line between sophisticated coffee and mere milkshake is being blurred though. Some of these morning jolts have upwards of 500 calories and as much sugar as ice-cream. If you don’t get the jolt today, you’ll surely get it one of these mornings from the heart attack.
In the end I always like the sip of whatever Dave orders, but am just too lazy to find my own coffee fingerprint, given the hundreds of combinations you’d need to try to discover it. I think, too, it’s a wee bit narcissistic of our taste-buds to demand such solicitous attention early in the morning.
Coffee’s not the only thing you can now pamper your epicurean tongue with. For the discerning, there is an hierarchy amongst salts. The coarseness of sea-salt is an important consideration, as is the relative bitterness of Kosher salt. That’s fine too, but I can’t help feeling that in our bloated West we get carried away sometimes and forget that a large part of the world lives on far less than 2000 calories a day and couldn’t care less what their food tastes like as long as they get some.
I understand we ought not feel guilty about every last thing we’re lucky enough to be able to do. I know I’m suffering from a cheesy, hypocritical (I have Nike stuff and eat Nestle stuff) Western white-person’s guilt for our exclusionary, unfair trade practices and our abominable histories of repression, but guilt is there this morning, and I don’t know what to do with it except write a curmudgeonly wee essay about narcisism of the taste-buds and maybe buy some Fair trade chocolate. Hope I haven’t spoiled anyone’s coffee. Just felt like a bit of “And another thing, whyowhy …” self-righteousness this morning. There might also be a jigger of unpleasant defensiveness about my provincialism in there too; it’s possible.
Apropos of nothing, I’m off to make an apple-crumble.
March 26th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
But coffee is…..beautiful. I love the ‘proper’ stuff and have to admit to not even considering the instant stuff as coffee at all. I am a self-confessed coffee snob! I have tried to repress these feelings but after living in Ness (also known officially as the Butt of Lewis, seriously, that’s what it’s called to every American’s amusement) where it was known for certain people to put Mellow Birds Instant Coffee Powder into a cafetiere thinking they were serving the real deal, I’m afraid I came out to the world as the coffee wanker that I really am.
….but I also like tea.
Aand….I chose the subject of coffee (how it was discovered, how the beans are harvested, etc) for my P5 project so I can safely say that my little coffee penchant has nothing to do with the Empire of Starbucks. Just a mild condition of Hot Beverages Nerdiness which set in around age 9.
March 26th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
2000 calories a day is too much for a human female. Try 1500. You’ll be hungry, but very healthy, and outlive all your classmates. Cockles and musles are the most human food, I would say.
March 27th, 2006 at 12:54 am
Mmmmmmm, apple cobler…
What sort of applse are you using?
March 27th, 2006 at 10:53 am
As a coffee addict, I have often dreamt of buying one of those frothing capuccino machines, but know I would, in a state of being half asleep, scald my face or explode the thing, so ho hum, back to the drip coffee machine. Intrigued to hear they are making progress in the field of non-instant coffee in the UK, but I believe Ireland still lags behind. I went into a small town in Ireland recently, and ordered a capuccino with two shots of espresso, and they brought me a mug of very strong black coffee and a jug of cream. Still, I suppose these little regional ideosyncracies are charming.
By the way, what does it say about those people who go into Starbucks and say “give me an extra hot latte?” Hot can you want an extra hot? What’s hotter than boiling? I expect they are people who enjoy the extreme sensations in life, like white water rafting and eating the hottest curry in the restaurant.
March 27th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
well, the scoop is….I think people who have been served a latte or whatever which is a bit cooler than they wished for have usually been given one made with milk that has been sitting for a couple of mins. This is more common when dealing with capuccinos as they use more froth than a latte and so are automatically going to be a bit cooler with having more air bubbles, etc. It just takes one experience of a not-as-hot-as-you’d-like coffee and you’ll be tempted to ask for it extra hot next time and so the craze catches on. I can say all this with geeky authority as I once worked for (and I’ll of course probably go to hell for this) a well-known chain of coffee house (clue; starts with St and ends with arbucks). Ah, those were the good ol’ free-coffee swillin’ days. Yes, I know, I should get out more.
March 27th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Hmmm, not sure if I can keep supporting you if you have no Starbucks presence. How un-American. At least tell us if you favor Maxwell House or Nescaafe.
March 27th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
We may be making progress here in the UK but I’m convinced the majority of British people don’t really like ‘proper’ coffee. Everybody buys these huge cardboard buckets of frothy milky stuff. Stick a decent espresso in front of most of them and they recoil in horror. Most of the time, if you want a decent cup of coffee in the UK, you should forget it and just go to France or Italy instead.
March 27th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Hi Sam
Thanks for popping by my site the other day. I can concur that the black stuff is becoming more popular, especially in the McCrumble household. I recently installed one of those fancy bean-to-cup machines. All I have to do now is press a single button and hey presto! It cost me upwards of ?800 but such a labour saving device can never be too expensive in my opinion. Even Mrs Dr McC has had to agree with me this time, as she too is reaping the benefits.
March 28th, 2006 at 5:18 am
I’m an instant drinker myself. Its… adequate.
I’d rather some nicer stuff, but I don’t drink enough to make it worth the effort of brewing. My wife doesn’t partake, and I’d end up discarding a lot of it. Sad.
When I’m out, I usually order whatever fair-trade coffee is on tap. I like it good, but not fancy. Two sugars, one cream, one cup.
I like my coffee in family restaurant style coffee mugs. The feel of the mug in my hand is at least half the experience. There’s a comfort there.
I find Big Boy and Ramshorn coffee tastes better than StarCrack coffee, probably because of the mugs.
March 28th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
SafeT – I am shocked. I thought everyone these days had their own cafetiere at least.
I try to buy Fairtrade, but its the same problem I have with their chocolate – it just doesn’t always quite hit the spot. Does that make me a bad person? I do eat Fairtrade bananas, which can be quite hard to find in the Scottish lowlands, let me tell you.
March 29th, 2006 at 7:13 am
I don’t even drink coffee. At all. That’s how provincial I am.
March 29th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Sam, re- Footeater’s ‘cryptic’ post, take first word from each sentence and create new sentence.
I hate it when people won’t explain shit to me either.
March 29th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
I drink real coffee (filter usually) at home and instant at work. I don’t mind instant; I just treat it as a different non-coffee drink, like soup or something. In Starbucks, for years I was Double Espresso, then Tall Skinny Latte, and now Grande Skinny Cappucinio with chocolate and cinnamon sprinkles. OK, maybe I’m sad, but I’m sad and WIRED.
Before Starbucks etc were common in Britain, I read an article (or it may have been in a book) by a Brit in New York who was trying to get a simple cup of filter coffee. Not espresso, cappucino, latte or anything stemaed, just, yiou know, coffee. After much consultation among the baristas and the management they came to the conclusion that what he meant to ask for was a “drip”. I rather like that.
March 29th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
I love the American habit of making a lot of a little. Tall skinny latte with chocolate and cinnamon sprinkles – I ask you, who but the septics could think up such wonderful mishmashes. I love that sweet/candy/dessert/pudding (?) called Rocky Road, which I have never been able to find a recipe for – an absolutely sinful concotion – and blueberry pancakes with whipped butter and maple syrup – enough calories for a whole month in a few bites!
March 29th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
Welcome Sexy Beauty, fatmammycat, Dr. McCrumble and King of Scurf. Thank you for stopping by! I hope you’ll come back. Shamefacedoccassionalnerd, I strongly suspect you of being none other than Fluffag, you coffee-wench you.
So, the survey would seem to suggest a somewhat 50/50 split in opinion about narcissism of the tastebuds. It is an awfully scientific study and your non-blog-reading control group were 15 camels in San Diego zoo who have consolidated their collective bargaining power and are available for awfully scientific studies of anything that doesn’t involve them to get naked. They turned out to like their coffee with hazelnut, half’n'half and a cocktail umbrella so this group actually came out looking like coffee under-appreciators.
Nevertheless, the coffeenistas have changed my mind on the subject and I now concur that developing a coffee recipe of one’s own is one of life’s small pleasures and is sorely needed as a pick-me-right-up in our modern world. Finding the right combination of flavours, it seems, can wind up being something like greeting an old-friend each morning. A steaming old friend, wrapped in cardboard which, Fluffag would agree, are a bit like some of our mutual friends at about 3am on some Sunday mornings.
Fatmammycat – thank-you! That puzzle left me feeling dimmer than Britney Spears’ prospects for a Nobel prize in Economics. Elitist? Certainly. But you know I’m right. Dim indeed. Anyway, thanks Ms. Cat. You clever feline, you.
March 29th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
Mr Tinspector: Granny Smith’s