Issue 37, containing: Home Improvement Through Hacksaws, Soap, Regarding Medlars, The Reading Society, &c.

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SOME EDITORIAL NOTES

What is a week? A lie and a fallacy. But sometimes weeks are real (SOMETIMES), and herein are some stories about them.

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HOME IMPROVEMENT THROUGH HACKSAWS

Imagine, if you will, a week of time I had off this spring. It had come to my attention that I should probably replace my couch; it was secondhand, from a work-based mailing list, and had already survived dog ownership and having its legs cut off for Reasons. It had taken a friend with a truck and a total of three burly friends to actually haul the thing up three flights and through my hobbit-sized landing and door, and during its tenure in my living room it suffered from:

• small children using it for ladder and/or trampoline purposes;
• fur (from cats);
• multiple spills;
• the slow decline of the cushions;
• clawing (again, cats);
• being moved multiple times at the whims of its owner;
• the springs deciding to make a bid for freedom through multiple planes of couch-geometry;
• a nonzero number of trichobezoars (the best word I have come across all week, but still again: the cats); and
• despite the previous owner’s professed thorough cleaning the discovery, within a deep crevice and several years into ownership, of one (1) entire dog bone. 

It was time for it to go.

For several reasons involving timing, finances, and probably the Moon, I had determined that the spring break I intended to take for myself was the perfect opportunity to remove and replace my couch. Tragically, however, that week did not align with the presence of burly friends to once again remove the couch– nor would I have access to their truck, with which to haul the old couch to the municipal dump.

The conundrum was real, but I was determined.

First, I checked into my city’s actual guidelines for large items of trash. To my delight, there was an extremely cheap option that only involved scheduling a particular day for pickup– removing the need for the truck and also providing me a definite deadline for somehow getting the couch down three flights of stairs without breaking either the staircase or myself.

This left me with the actual removal itself, and– I wish I could tell you, gentle readers, how exactly I came to learn that “just hack the thing apart” was a valid answer to the puzzle. I know for a fact that a search I did on “how to remove old couches” led to someone describing the process– in fact, it may have been this Reddit post, where user someguy984 wrote:

I had one just like you described, fake leather flaking off (F Jennifer Sofas). Too big to carry out, I bought a circular saw and dismantled it and threw it in regular trash.

–which could, in turn, have led me to “how to take apart old couches,” which reveals useful how-tos from such sites as BudgetDumpster.com and RecycleZone.org.

Be that as it may: I had a deadline. I had a new couch from IKEA coming mere days after that. And after a quick trip to a hardware store, I had a hacksaw.

The first day of my vacation, I turned on the excellent New Zealand comedy-crime drama Deadloch from the beginning and set to work with a box cutter, a pile of garbage bags, and a grim determination.

I do, as it turns out, have a livetexted record of this experience, which led me to rediscovering what I said when pointing out the spring situation:

The destruction of a couch is, I will say, incredibly therapeutic. However, for those who wish to follow this path toward certain enlightenment, be prepared for the following:

1. It will be dusty.

2. The springs will attempt to kill you. Protective eyewear, gloves, and long sleeves would not go amiss. At the very least, however, be sure to maintain some kind of tension on the springs when you (with the help of one or more strong pliers) release them from their cradles– there will be a brief jerk as they try to recoil, but if you have a firm hand upon them, they will not succeed in their murderous intentions. You may then carefully slacken your grip and let them relax before carefully removing them entirely and putting them with the rest of your trash.

3. The cats will be curious. They are not, however, adept with pliers.

4. Deadloch is pretty great, and also 8 hours’ worth of background noise. It will not take you the entire runtime to complete the couch destruction. Therefore, you should definitely watch it (while destroying your couch).

5. The staples and nails prevalent throughout the couch are in league with the springs. Trust none of them. Tidy regularly as you proceed so as to avoid Unfortunate Medical Situations.

My new couch is more akin to a long loveseat, and I have become Old and now keep it generally covered with a protector unless seated upon it. But I have a new appreciation and respect for the craft of furniture making and upholstery, one which I think I might not have otherwise gotten without the hours of effort and New Zealand accents that went into the removal of the old couch.

And, obviously: A new hacksaw.

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SOAP: FIT THE SIXTH

Following the glow-up of the lavender soap in Issue 36, I was filled with some trepidation regarding how they might dry. Would they have undergone a metamorphosisinto something even more delightful?

Or would they have succumbed to t̶͔̤̪͔̊̐̓͜ẖ̷̒̉̓̎̽̊e̸̪͈͎̓̒̚ ̸̬̖̹̥͜͝b̴̨̡͈͂͛͑̽̓͊ŗ̸̬̹̯̳̠́̏̚ò̸̡̼̼̟͎̑͌͑̑͘w̶̘͕̱͇̒͋͝n̶̹̟͊̉̓̄̓̕ ̴̧̮̘̼̖̳͐̃̚͝ḧ̸͇̩̹̣͖́o̶̖̳̭͔̐́̉ŗ̵̲̉͋̾̄͂͌r̵̨̛̳͚͓̮̐̇̆̉̚ô̴̯̟̹͇̾͒͝͝r̸͓̩̳̉̑͒̒̉̒ ?

I was filled with a terrible foreboding, but–

Some fast facts, collected at the time:

• They’d been drying for approximately… maybe 49 hours (and they had another 12 or so days to go, or longer if I could be patient enough).
• There was no sinking or losing shape that I could tell, nor significant loss of size (…though next time I’m gonna weigh them first, hoho).
• They’d darkened slightly into the brown range, but it was, crucially, a color completely even all the way around.
• They still had that neat speckled granite look to them… and with this color brown, and how round and nice they are, I could sort of imagine them having gilded stamps on them– it’d probably pop against the brown.
• They were not smooth to the touch– more akin to pumice, really, and I was Not sure how that was going to play when I tried them later.
• The smell wasn’t as sharply spicy as it was previously, which was a bit sad for me, but it was significantly more mellow, as one might expect a gentle soap to be. A fascinating combination with the light abrasiveness.
• They felt pretty solid, but then, I’d been pretty careful with them…
• …I wondered what would happen if I tried to press a pseudo stamp into one of them
• …

Preliminary results:

• YES, they took stamps like a champ.
• They wanted to be tenderly held rather than set on the table, else their bottoms get squished and it looks like maybe they crack a wee bit.
• I used a tiny flat-headed hammer and some beads, it was great.
• Bead 1 was a small star with rays around it– very successful, easy to pluck back out with pointy tweezers.
• Bead 2 was a kraken octopus pendant, which was a bit too big and unwieldy for nice stamping purposes.

And bonus: Because I was overcome with the rush of experimentation I got out some metallic markers just to See what would happen, and:

• On the one hand: not sure this helps the poop-look situation.
• On the other hand: …I bet I could Improve On This.

I did, however, say in my editorial notes at the top that this was an issue relating to the concept of A Week, and so I must further report that I, naturally, did not wait the full 12 days for the soap to dry before investigating them once again.

In the intervening time they had continued to shrink as they dried, but not significantly (though the stamped designs contracted a bit). The scent continued to mellow from the Spice Cookie of the original to a more complex one overall, but most fascinating of all was that it now had, delightfully, white bubbles.

Granted, they were tiny and there was still a very light brown lotiony-lather that appeared, but! It would seem that the addition of the orrisroot had begat many changes, regardless of what a pain in the ass it was for poor young Thomas to grind it to smithereens.

And did I take a video? OF COURSE I DID.

Of particular interest for me, and what is clear from the linked video, is that the shape of the wash ball very much determined its use. By which I mean, when I typically lather a bar of soap, I revolve it around my palms to build a lather– but with the ball, it didn’t seem to want produce anything if I used it like that.

Instead, I switched partway through to gripping the soap in one hand and using it to rub at my skin to clean– much like you might scrub at a piece of laundry, which is what soap was really used for in this period (prior to the development of The Nice Stuff).

All this made it clear to me that while this wash ball is… not ideal as a hand soap, it might very well be great as an exfoliating soap.

And because I am now clearly a Scientist– I went ahead and tried that. 

Starting shortly after the above video, I transferred the lavender wash ball to my shower and have used it a few times now. I can report the following:

• The soap becomes even more bubbly! Not a full-on lather like we may be used to, but hey, I’ll take it.
• In feel, the ball is scratchy almost to the point of being unuseable… but only almost. It makes an astonishingly reviving body exfoliant.
• The scratchy feel (of the god damned orrisroot) is tempered with the incredible silky smoothness of the base Nablus soap– like scratching an itch and soothing it immediately with a balm.
• Shortly after exiting the shower to dry off, an astringent/toning quality seems to activate– which, as it turns out, is probably from the cloves (…neat).
• The scent, though present while using, doesn’t linger on the skin (to my knowledge– no one’s said anything, anyway). And so far as I can tell, my towels have not been stained by any brown-ness remaining in the lather.

The little ball, after a few uses, has become more compact and remained solid. It has also, though, revealed more of its Inner Workings.

This is a wee man who one must learn to love, I think. I have two more levels of experimentation I want to do on this mostly-historically-accurate wash ball, though, which may yet save it:

• the replacement of in-house ground orrisroot with professionally ground orrisroot– and more than just 1 ounce of it– to see if I can increase the suds and lower the scratchiness;
• the use of an entirely separate process that’s sometimes mentioned, which involves reheating the soap and melting it down (so, basically, modern-day rebatching).

And, of course, there are other soap recipes to consider and… a new household good to start upon entirely: the pearl pomatum. 

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REGARDING MEDLARS

A week ago on Bluesky Faine Greenwood posted a link to a BBC article on the medlar and its common usage in the past (and the mystery of it no longer being as popular a fruit). I knew I had seen medlar recipes before, and said so; at which point, Faine and others made the mistake of asking me for said recipes.

Being who I am as a person, naturally I both answered and also provided more detail than was perhaps warranted. But in brief:

Medlars are a sort of apple-ish thing from the rose family that has two traits that make it ideal for humor and/or metaphor:

1. It was considered to appear very like a portion of mammal anatomy, which in turn led to it having several amusing alternate names such as “open-arse” and, in French at least, a variety of animal bottoms.

2. It’s foul off the branch; one must actually let it rot for a period of time (a process called bletting) before it’s fit to eat.

Most of the earliest stuff refers to its usefulness for physick (sitz baths for too heavy a flow and bloody hemorrhoids; eating or applying to the skin to help prevent miscarriage or premature birth; eating to help prevent nausea; crushing the seeds into a powder and mixing it into wine with other things, then drinking, to increase urine production and break up kidney stones, etc etc)– but there are a couple of other fun things that are much more Food like.

In The Herball, or, Generall Historie of Plantes by John Gerarde (1597), we have some methods of preparation and serving, including:

The fruit of the three graine Medlar [Neapolitan Medlar, or Azarola hawthorn], is eaten both rawe and boiled, and is more wholesome for the stomacke. […] These Medlars be oftentimes preserved with sugar or hony; and being so prepared they are pleasant and delightfull to the taste.

In Dyets Dry Dinner by Henry Butts (1599), we see it served with other fruits, and considered easy on the stomach (therefore good with pregnant persons, those who wish to avoid nausea, and those who wish to not become sick with drunkenness). He suggests that it can be served candied, among other things.

Finally, though, we have my bae Hannah Woolley writing in her 1675 book The Accomplish’d Lady’s Delight her recipe for “A Tart of Medlars”:

Take Medlars that are rotten, then scrape them, and set them upon a Chafing dish of Coals, season them with the Yolks of Eggs, Sugar, Cinamon, and Ginger; let it boyl well, and lay it on Paste, scrape on Sugar, and serve it.

And from the same book, we also have her recipe “to make a Paste for all manner of Tarts“:

Take very sweet butter, and put into fair water, and make it boyl on the Fire; then take the finest Flower you can get, and mix them well together, till it come to a Paste, and so raise it; but if you doubt that it will not be stiff enough, then you may mix some Yolks of Eggs with it, as you temper all your stuff together.

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THE READING SOCIETY

• The Wellcome Library’s online collection of formula/recipe manuscripts

One of the few easily accessible collections of scanned (though generally not transcribed) handwritten household recipe books, many of which are written in multiple hands and over several years. I suspect that there are hidden medlar recipes within those pages.

• Dyets dry dinner consisting of eight seuerall courses: 1. Fruites 2. Hearbes. 3. Flesh. 4. Fish. 5. whitmeats. 6. Spice. 7. Sauce. 8. Tabacco. All serued in after the order of time vniuersall. By Henry Buttes, Maister of Artes, and fellowe of C.C.C. in C. (1599)

I know I referenced it already, but I really how incredibly modern the Dyets Dry Dinner is– I’d love to see it reproduced. Each ingredient gets a simple breakdown (“choise”, or preferred parts/sources; “use”, or, well, how to use it; “hurt” or the cons of the ingredient; “correction”, or how to ameliorate the cons where possible; and “degree” and “season”, i.e. the humoral designations of it because HA HUMORAL THEORY FOREVER)–

But, even better, each ingredient gets at least one “Story for Table-talke”: a little anecdote or interesting factoid that the host can share. The one for hops, for instance, reads:

Our forefathers knewe not Hoppe: howbeit it is a most excellent hearbe, & exceedeth all other for good iuyce: for cleansing the blood, and scouring all the entrals. Besides the necessitie hereof in brewing of Beere, is sufficiently knowne to Germany and England, and all these Northerne parts of the worlde: yet I know not how it happened (as he merrily saith) that herisie & beere came hopping into England both in a yeere.

Or, modernized a bit:

Our forefathers knew not Hop: how it is a most excellent herb, and exceeds all other for good juice: for cleansing the blood, and scouring all the entrails. Besides its the necessity in the brewing of Beer, it is sufficiently known to Germany and England, and all these similar Northern parts of the world: yet I know not how it happened (as he says merrily) that heresy and beer came hopping into England both in a year.

IT’S A PUN. FROM FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. HE’S LAYING OUT A TERRIBLE JOKE TO DROP ON DINNER GUESTS AND ALSO PEOPLE HALF A MILLENNIUM IN THE FUTURE.

God, I love history.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

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-Until next time, be safe.