A plutocrat friend invited us to his daughter's marriage ceremony. Since he has been preesent in my daughter's ceremony and gave a nice cheque, it was impossible for me to escape. First station was the bar. I asked for a vodka and barman served me a generous Vodka+RedBull. Then cocktail of fried things somethings on toothpicks. Then fish with some sweet garniture and the main meat plate. Overcooked and covered with a thick, black, sweet-pepper sauce. I didnt stay for the sweets nor the coffee.
After the first vodka, total amnesia had descended on my mind and I forgot that during the last three months I had been fasting and my body was unready for this heavy food. I literally saw stars and fireworks. I could not sleep. Only after today's renewed fasting I feel the poisons are now more or less metabolized. I have heard that people liberated from concentration camps died at their first regular meal. I almost did.
Pic.: A marriage "hoopah". Jewish marriages are celebrated under a ritual tent. The main points are the signing and reading in public the marriage contract (the ketuba, which is in Aramaic), the examination of the ring (if it was bought by the man and if it is worth more than one prutah - cent), the public declaration "You are my wife under the law of Moses and Israel", and the promise that "Should I forget Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its power, etc."). And food. Poisonous, heavy, undigestible food.
16 comments:
I've never understood the mixing of alcohol w/ caffeine (as in Red Bull). They seem to pull in two different directions at once (like our inflationary/deflationary economy).
My father reported that some of his fellow KZniks died when they gorged themselves following liberation. I heard that for the trapped miners in Chile, food was reintroduced only gradually for this reason.
K
I have heard of people dying after drinking Red Bull and large amounts of alcohol. Perhaps that is just an urban legend, but I have to wonder if the poison was what you drank.
If you Google this, more than one person has died after drinking this combination. On the other hand millions of people drink the combo and nothing happens to them. So maybe those who died had some special vulnerability or were due for heart attacks in an event. Still not a combo I am interested in - I prefer my stimulants and depressants serially and not together.
K
If you watch the BBC regularly, you don't need a depressant.
Anon.
If Obama is your President, you neither need a stimulant.
Yeah it almost certainly the redbull + vodka that kept you up at night. Factoring that out, no doubt that your body was still quite unprepared. Interesting.
Speaking of vodka, last night I tried a new vodka, the "Pinnacle" brand from France (of all places). It is remarkably good for an inexpensive vodka (maybe 1/3 the price of Grey Goose - I paid $10 for 3/4 liter which is on the lower end of the range of US vodka prices, though not the rock bottom). They sell it in all sorts of horrid flavors for children (bubble gum, whipped cream) but the plain is an excellent vodka - very smooth and clean, no burn, no rubbing alcohol taste. And unlike some French "vodkas" which are really grape brandies, this is made from grain so it is a true vodka.
I drank it straight (with a little ice). No hangover, no aftereffects at all. Who says the French are good for nothing?
BTW, they have done studies on wine and liquor where they correlate price and preference in a blind tasting. Generally the correlation is slightly negative - the more expensive the stuff is, the less people like it if they don't know what it is they are drinking. Once you tell them, of course the preferences flip - the marketing of expensive brands adds "perceived value" - you are tasting the advertising, in effect.
At the same time, I also tried the "Denaka" brand (originally from Denmark, now being made in Canada). This was just an average vodka (for the same price) - suitable for mixing or for serving to guests I don't like, but not clean enough to be enjoyed straight.
K
The French are civilized people who take their drinking with due seriousness. I never heard of a French vodka, but if you say that has no rubbing alcohol aroma, it should be good. The Vodkas here they all have that background arome, it reminds me of the burning alcohol (called spiritus) that my parents used in Hungary to heat the food. It was colored blue so it would not be confused with drinking alcohol.
"French vodka" was basically the invention of one American Jewish man - Sidney Frank. It make him a billionaire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Frank
The cost of production of all brands of vodka, from the cheapest to the dearest, is less than $1/liter, whether it is made in France or the US or anywhere. Taxes add another couple of $. So if you can sell a millions of liters vodka for $30/liter as Frank did, it will make you a billionaire. The secret is persuading men that your vodka is prestigious and will cause women to want to sleep with you if you buy them drinks made with it. In high end restaurants, a cocktail made with "Grey Goose" (Frank's brand) can cost up to $15 for a single drink that might have 3 oz. of vodka in it.
Frank reasoned that even though there was no such thing as "French vodka", France had a good reputation with American consumers for high quality products, especially in the wine and spirits field. Technically the rectification of alcohol was no problem - there were many alcohol distilleries in France already due to their cognac industry, for industrial ethanol, etc. All that was missing was a fancy bottle and the proper marketing campaign. He supplied that and, voila, he became a billionaire. A classic Jewish success story.
Of course there are no real barriers to entry in the "French vodka" category and now there are many lower priced copycats, of which Pinnacle is one (and a very good one).
K
PS I just tried Pinnacle again (strictly in the interest of science) and it is still good - excellent actually. Mildly sweet tasting (in a good way, not cloying), no burn, no alcohol smell - you could do some serious damage with this stuff because it goes down SO easy - you could drink it like water. Vodka means a "little water" (diminutive of voda).
K
I drink on doctor's orders (is good for the circulation.) But your praiseworthy scientific curiosity is as good a reason as any. When in China, I had to invent a reason to refuse toasting and drinking (and smoking): I said that my religion forbid it.
They just did a study in which they ranked 3 groups in order of death rate - non-drinkers, moderate drinkers and heavy drinkers. The moderate group had the lowest mortality by far, which is what they expected. However, what surprised them was that the highest mortality was not among the alcoholics but among total non-drinkers.
K
It's funny - I don't smoke at all, but when people in China would offer me a cigarette I would accept just to be polite. The same thing used to happen in Israel (maybe 30 years ago) but I assume that has changed. In the past it was assumed that all men smoked.
The problem with refusing drink on "religious" grounds is then you have to be consistent and not drink at all. But the multiple gan bei ("drink it all" - the Chinese l'chaim) toasts can be a problem, especially since baiju (Chinese liquor) tastes like neft to a Western palate. Later I found out that the more expensive the stuff, and the fancier the jar ("good stuff" comes in pottery jars, not bottles) the worse it tastes to us. Finally I found a brand (Red Star) that every blue collar worker and grandmother in Beijing drinks (because it is so cheap - a small bottle is less than $1) and the cheapness means that it's mostly alcohol with very little flavor so you can actually drink it without retching.
K
It is only expectable that those wretched people who go through life in joyless sobriety would die off promptly. Who can survive a week in this world without a drink?
The problem with drinking are accidents, falling and driving. And violence, of course, but that is very rare among Ashkenazi Jews.
The Chinese (I am talking of the Communist functionaries I met) had in my time the compulsion (learned from the Russians) to force the other fellow to drink too much, till he falls under the table. I found their rice vodka quite drinkable, specially after the first glass. At banquets, there was always a packet of cigarettes in front of each seat. In those times, China was very poor.
I'm not sure whether this was learned from the Russians or not. The Chinese seem pretty confident in their ancient culture and don't need lessons on how to eat or drink from others. Russian /western style vodka is not commonly available - the Chinese prefer their native liquors made according to their own methods (distillation probably started in the Arab lands and went East/West).
This forced drinking is still going on - last year I was at a rooftop restaurant in Beijing where at the next table there was a banquet going on and the host kept proposing toasts to compel his guests to drink themselves blind.
Again with smoking the Chinese are only a few decades behind. I remember at the time of my bar mitzvah (1969) in the US it was still the custom for every table to have a bottle of whiskey and a bunch of cigarettes (nicely displayed in a dish, not in the pack). At that point Americans, even American Jews, still drank whiskey (usually Seagrams Canadian whiskey) and not vodka.
K
PS most Chinese liquors are not made from rice, they are made from sorghum. Rice is not as common in Chinese culture as Westerners think. Rice only grows in the southern part of the country, just as in the US.
K
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