Thunderclap Headaches

About five years ago in this space, I wrote about the official announcement of the world's hottest pepper - the Carolina Reaper, with a heat index of up to 2.2 million Scoville units (for comparison purposes, a good old jalapeno pepper checks in at between 5,000 and 15,000 Scoville units).

This is, as we say, a seriously hot pepper.

Well, Dear Readers, the Carolina Reaper is back in the news in this article, which reports that a man in Cooperstown, New York, was hospitalized with a debilitating "thunderclap headache" after eating one of the brutally hot chilis in a contest*. A thunderclap headache is so called because it strikes with the force of a thunderbolt, often without warning. It can be caused by any number of triggers that drive the body to a sudden reaction ... like chowing down on a pepper so hot that people who handle them usually wear protective gloves.

According to this summary from the Mayo Clinic, other signs and symptoms of thunderclap headaches include fever, seizures, and an altered mental state**. One might argue that you need to be in an altered mental state just to consider eating a thermonuclear chili pepper, but I guess it takes all sorts of people to make up this sad old world.

So, Dear Readers, if you feel a thunderclap headache coming on, run quickly to the nearest emergency room (if you have unwisely ingested a Carolina Reaper) or to your local polling place (if you have voted unwisely in a past election).

Who needs headaches, after all?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Reminds me of the old joke that asks what a redneck's last words are ... "Hey, y'all, watch this!"

** Which can be brought on either by excessive belief and trust in a manifestly unqualified and erratic president, or by excessive fretting over ignorant and unbalanced tweetstorms.

Shaken (Up), Not Stirred

If you are a Faux News sort of person and despise National Public Radio (NPR) on principle as a leftist commie pinko waste of the broadcast spectrum, you would have missed this March 1st report on NPR's Planet Money show: Is There Really A Difference Between Expensive Vodka And Cheap Vodka? As it happens, my poison of choice is gin*, but we do have a few bottles of vodka of various flavors in the freezer for special occasions, like thirst, and so my ears perked up when this report came on.

If you don't care to read the transcript of the show (linked above), here's the key point: There is actually a federal law - 27 CFR 5.22(a)(1)** - that requires all vodkas to be more or less identical. The text of the law reads,

“'Vodka' is neutral spirits so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color."

"Without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color." What this means, of course, is we consumers pay a very hefty price for a super-premium brand-name vodka that - by law - is virtually indistinguishable from the cheapest bottle on the lowest shelf at your local spirits store.

Who knew?

When I first met Agnes and was trying to impress her with my worldliness and savoir faire, it didn't take her long to realize that I was selecting wines based on the attractiveness of the label ... if it had a picture of a castle or a few naked ladies cavorting with bunches of grapes, it had to be good, right? She soon straightened me out on that. But here we are, 36 years later, horrified to discover that the elegant, frosted-glass bottles of premium vodka prominently displayed at our bar are ... well ... pretty much the same as the cheap stuff, particularly when mixed with other ingredients.

I need a drink.

Of course, the distillers of the super-premium vodkas like Grey Goose, Belvedere, Skyy, and so on see things differently, particularly for their flavored vodkas. But if you're living on a tight budget and trying to economize ... if, for instance, you're a school teacher wondering how you're going to afford the gun and ammunition the NRA and the GOP want you to bring to your classroom on top of everything else ... isn't it good to know that plain old bottom-shelf vodka offers you a chance to save money without compromising your standards?

Bottoms up!

Have a good day, and drink responsibly (and cheaply, where possible). More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* I have made my own gin at home, using a kit my daughter bought for me at a local cooking store and, as the base liquid - plain, cheap vodka. It was actually pretty good, too.

** Here's how to read the whole citation: 27 CFR 5.22 = Title 27 (Alcohol, Tobacco Products, and Firearms) of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Chapter I (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, Department of the Treasury), Subchapter A (Alcohol), Part 5 (Labeling and Advertising of Distilled Spirits), Subpart C (Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits), Section 5.22 (The Standards of Identity).

I'd Like a Helping of the ... uh ... Never Mind

If you've traveled overseas, or if you've eaten in an ethnic restaurant here at home, you have almost certainly encountered some of the amazingly disastrous translations of various dishes from the original language into English. One of my favorites goes back to a restaurant I used to frequent in Berlin many years ago, where one of the house specialties was the Zigeunerspieß - mouth-watering chunks of meat and vegetables served on a skewer (Spieß, in German), seasoned in the spicy gypsy (or Zigeuner) style, and roasted over the coals. Unfortunately, the menu rendered the Zigeunerspieß as Gypsy Spit ... which carried with it the undesirable imagery a swarthy fellow with a big black mustache hawking a loogie onto the plate. This is the problem that arises when you translate using a dictionary without considering the suitability of the various options ... a skewer in English can indeed be called a spit, but context is important.

I thought about this when I read this interesting article on Atlas Obscura - Why Menu Translations Go Terribly Wrong. As it turns out, there are a lot of reasons for bizarre menu translations, not all of which are just the selection of the wrong option for a single word (spit, rather than skewer, in my example above). For instance, there are the issues of translating between languages like Chinese that use ideographs, and our alphabet-based language - ink fish is the Chinese pictorial rendering of the delicacy we know as squid (although an alphabet-based German would also call it Tintenfisch, or ink fish, as well ... go figure).

Other complicating factors include, according to the article, unusual styles of preparation or ingredients unique to a particular culture. All of these lead to the sort of menu translation howlers with which you are familiar from my Great Moments in Editing and Signage posts, like these ...

I can understand the unfortunate translation of "donkey" as "ass" in the first example, but would welcome the advice of a Chinese linguist who could explain the "Immortal Old Duck Soup."

All things considered, I'll just take the hamburger and fries, please.

So, Dear Readers, next time you encounter a bizarre translation, have a bit of understanding for the poor, linguistically and/or culturally challenged person who had to come up with that memorable name. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Have a good day and a memorably-named dinner. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo