Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader@ (52 page)

FRANGIPANE:
This almond-based pastry filling was imported to America from Belgium in the 1800s. The name is traced to 16th-century Italian nobleman Mutio Frangipani, who created a perfume which included oils from the flowers of the plumeria tree, now commonly known as the frangipani tree. The almond pastry was said to have a similar scent, so it got the name too.

JERK CHICKEN:
Also called “Jamaican” jerk chicken, this spicy dish combines the influences of the island’s native, Spanish, and African populations. The cooking process known as “jerking” involves marinating meat or fish in a mix of spices—the key being pimento berry (Americans call it “allspice”) and habanero chili—and then slowly cooking/smoking it. “Jerk” comes from the word
charqui,
Spanish for dried meat, from which “jerky” is also derived.

YAKITORI:
Most commonly yakitori is skewered and barbecued chicken (the word means “grilled bird” in Japanese), but other meats and fish are often substituted. They’re flavored with either salt or a mix of soy sauce, sugar, and
mirin
—sweet rice wine. Yakitori has been a luxury item since the 1600s, became extremely popular after World War II, and it made its way from Japan to the U.S. in the 1960s.

iHave (money): The iDiamond Ear is a $6,400 set of diamond-studded earphones.

HIBACHI:
The word has been part of the English language since the 1860s, but the mini-barbecues didn’t become popular until the 1970s. A Japanese
hibachi,
meaning “fire bowl,” is a round container, often made from clay, in which charcoal was burned—but they were used to heat rooms, not cook food. The Japanese grill that most Americans would recognize as a hibachi is called a
shichirin
. It’s been suggested that shichirin was too hard for English speakers to say…so they were called “hibachis” instead.

OXTAIL SOUP:
A type of “soul food” still popular in parts of the American South, this is a stewlike soup based around beef tails. Similar stews have been eaten around the world for many centuries; the American variety most likely has its roots in an English dish of the same name.

UDON NOODLES:
You’re probably familiar with the thick, chewy wheat noodles commonly served in Japanese restaurants. They’re actually Chinese in origin, and, according to legend, were brought to Japan by a Buddhist monk in the 8th century. They were introduced to Americans when the country’s first Japanese restaurants opened in San Francisco in the 1880s.

REVIEWS OF THE BEATLES ON
THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW,
FEBRUARY 1964

“They wear sheep-dog bangs. The sound of their music is one of the most persistent noises heard over England since the air-raid sirens were dismantled. It’s high-pitched, loud beyond reason, and stupefyingly repetitive.”

—Newsweek

“The Beatles are 75 percent publicity, 20 percent haircut, and five percent lilting lament.”

—New York Herald Tribune

“Their musical talent is minimal. Their weird hairstyle is merely a combination of the beehive and the ‘little moron’ hair-do.”

—Washington Star

“Imported hillbillies who look like sheepdogs and sound like alley cats in agony.”

—Washington Post

Fat fact: The average American gains one pound during the holiday season.

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION

More words that only
seem
naughty…but are actually quite nice
.

T
itration:
The practice of gradually adjusting the dose of a medication until the desired affect is achieved.

Organ meat:
The internal organs (eyes, lungs, brain, etc.) of a butchered animal. Depending on the animal, the organ, and the culture, it’s either considered a delicacy or tossed out in the trash.

Barfi:
An Indian dessert made from condensed milk cooked in sugar, and often flavored with fruit. It’s also known as “Indian cheesecake.”

Pista Barfi:
Barfi flavored with pistachio nuts.

Drip Dickey:
A brand of “wine collar” that fits over the neck of an opened bottle to prevent the wine from dribbling down its side.

Cockaleekie:
A soup from Scotland. The two main ingredients: 1) a game bird, or
cock,
and 2) an onion-like vegetable called a
leek
.

Homogamy:
A marriage between people who are culturally similar to one another.

Shittah:
A species of acacia tree that features prominently in the Old Testament: The Ark of the Covenant is said to be made of
shittim,
or wood harvested from a shittah tree.

Decocker:
The part of a firearm that allows you to uncock the weapon safely, without risk of it going off.

Great Tit:
The largest member of the tit family of songbirds, native to Asia and Europe.

Assiette:
French for “dinner plate.” It can also mean a selection of cold cuts served on a just such a plate.

Horny-handed:
Someone whose hands are calloused from physical labor is said to be “horny-handed.”

Spanker:
The rear-most sail on a square-rigged sailing ship. (Modern racing sailboats have a spanker called a “blooper.”)

Laywoman:
A woman who is training to become a Catholic nun, but who has not yet completed the process.

Crapulent:
Sick from eating or drinking to excess.

Gun control: In 1882 a Texas cattle association banned cowboys from having six-shooters.

THE PORTMANTEAU
MOVIE QUIZ

A
portmanteau
is a word that results from two other words being combined. (Example:
WALL-E
+
E.T.
=
WALL-E.T.)
So, here’s a wordplay game we came up with: We took two movies and made portmanteaus of their titles. Can you guess the movies, and their combined titles, based on these combined plots? Answers are on
page 536
.

1
.
A ragtag group of Midwestern teenagers (Jennifer Gray, C. Thomas Howell) band together, get their dads’ guns, and fight off a surprise aerial attack from Russian Communist zombies who want to eat their delicious teenage braaaaaains.

2
.
A corporate axeman (George Clooney) spends most of his time flying around the country from one office to another, terminating redundant employees. Disenchanted, he thinks he might want to settle into a life of more permanence, when he falls in love with a golden retriever that plays basketball.

3
.
Stuck in both a dead-end telemarketing job and a loveless marriage with a career-driven wife (Annette Bening), a suburban man (Kevin Spacey) has a midlife crisis and falls in love with a fur-covered, animated monster (voice of Robby Benson) who lives in a castle full of talking candlesticks and teapots, and just may be a kind-hearted prince under that gruff exterior.

4
.
Billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) builds a metal suit that gives him superhuman powers, and uses it to create a new identity for himself: Don Quixote, an elderly knight who wanders the medieval Spanish countryside in search of adventure (while singing “The Impossible Dream”).

5
.
A little girl (Abigail Breslin) and her eccentric family pile into an old Volkswagen microbus to attend a beauty pageant three states away. The surprising “talent” she shows off in the contest: the ability to quickly and efficiently clean up a room after deaths and homicides.

Barbie’s first car: A pink 1962 Austin-Healey.

6
.
A young assassin (Uma Thurman) is left for dead on the eve of her wedding, and after emerging from a coma, she begins a mission of revenge against those who tried to kill her, and claim the daughter she’s never met. First up: two dumb, metal-head teenagers (Alex Winter, Keanu Reeves). Can she catch them as they travel through time trying to find historical figures who will help them write the term paper they need to graduate?

7
.
Grotesque alien beings crash land in South Africa and are detained in a walled, prison-like ghetto of Johannesburg until one night when a few violently break out to enjoy a sexually charged series of romantic encounters with Mickey Rourke.

8
.
A suburban mother (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her daughter (Lindsay Lohan) magically trade bodies and experience life through the other’s eyes, before they put on hockey masks and team up to murder amorous teenagers at a summer camp.

9
.
A 1960s rock and roll band called the Wonders rises to fame on a single hit, but break up when they are forced to play a concert in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year, getting caught in racially-fueled riots and arsons.

10
.
A man (Ben Stiller) tries to win the heart of his true love (Cameron Diaz), competing with a sleazy private investigator and an NFL quarterback. He’s assisted by a British nanny (Julie Andrews) who is practically perfect in every way.

11
.
An army of Spartan soldiers marches into battle to defeat their sworn enemy: a horde of adorable black-and-white spotted puppies.

BONUS THREE-MOVIE QUESTION:
The head of a New York organized crime family (Marlon Brando) must contend with a son who does not wish to enter the family business, all the while having to deal with the many mishaps in the lead-up to the wedding of his daughter (Elizabeth Taylor) to a monster (Boris Karloff) that was made by a German scientist out of reanimated corpse pieces.

Nothing to sniff at: The perfume industry’s annual awards are called the FiFis.

SHORT STORY: THE MINI

For more than 40 years the Mini was one of the most recognizable cars on Earth. But because it wasn’t sold in the U.S. after 1969, few Americans were familiar with it. That changed in 2001, when BMW introduced a modern version to the U.S. market. Here’s the story of the little car that started it all
.

O
UT OF GAS
In July 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Though the canal is on Egyptian soil, in 1956 it was controlled by Britain and France. Four months later, Britain, France, and Israel tried to regain control of the canal by invading Egypt. But the invasion was opposed by both the United States and the U.S.S.R., and it failed. Even worse for Britain and France, Saudi Arabia cut off oil supplies to the two countries to punish them for the invasion. The resulting shortages sent the price of gasoline soaring in the United Kingdom, forcing the British government to ration supplies. Many drivers were limited to just 12 gallons, about a single tankful,
per month
.

THINKING SMALL

That sent the British auto industry into a slump, and consumers switched to tiny gas-sipping vehicles, many of them imported, which were derisively called “bubble cars.” The Messerschmitt Kabinenroller (“Cabin Scooter”), for example, was just that: A three-wheel enclosed scooter with a one-cylinder, two-stroke engine like a lawn mower’s. The BMW Isetta, described by one critic as resembling an “egg on roller skates,” was built like a refrigerator: The entire front end served as the car’s only door—you opened it just like a refrigerator, and climbed in.

Bubble cars drove purists crazy. Leonard Lord, head of the British Motor Corporation—the parent company of Austin, Morris, MG, and other makes—was outraged that motorists should be forced to drive such cheap, uncomfortable vehicles. He told his engineers to drive those “bloody awful bubble cars” off the road by building “a proper miniature car” that motorists would be proud to drive.

12% of American men say they never use their car’s turn signals. 44% tailgate to try to speed up the car in front of them.

Lord wanted the car, soon to be called the Mini, to be no more than 10 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 4 feet in height—the minimum amount of space he judged would be necessary to hold four passengers plus a small amount of luggage. He wanted it to have a “proper” four-stroke, four-cylinder engine, and the “proper” number of wheels—four. Adding to the challenge, he wanted it built entirely out of existing mechanical parts, since there was no money available to design new ones.