I’ll brook no argument (a silly verb I grant you). The best tin-opener in the world is the Brabantia Profile. No longer available in this form the model name is still retained and I can’t believe Brabantia has lowered its high – and frequently expensive – standards. It costs £9.32 and passes the ultimate test.What test? The traditional corned-beef tin is a symmetrical trapezium in frontal elevation, thus one end is smaller in area than the other. OK if you have tag and twisty key; if not you need the Profile. To ensure the contents can be pushed out neatly in one piece, you need to remove both ends and it’s the short-radius corners on the smaller end that test cheapo openers. Easy with the Profile and no jagged edges. One caveat: even the Profile suffers wear, notably the cutting disc and the sprocket that “drives” the tin. Be prepared to replace the Profile in a dozen years or so. But then perhaps you don’t eat corned beef.
BEST WURST Mrs BB is back from her continental Christmas market visit: last year Prague, this year Munich. My prezzie is a Steirische Burgsalami in a dinky hessian sack resembling a bucolic Xmas cracker. Huge flavour, even a huge bouquet. But so, so hard. Denture wearers needn’t apply.FANCY THAT I write a lot and take a physically active break now and then. Hence the piano keyboard. No big deal, often just hymns. Did you know the seventh and eighth lines and one note of the ninth of Ye Holy Angels Bright:
Or else the theme,
Too high doth seem
For…
are a C-major octave plus one? Makes things easy.
12 comments:
I have always found the C of E Christian hymnal about an octave too high for this male's voice, hence a strained renderance.
Guess that's why I enjoy Gregorian chant. It is like little hammers gently tapping at the base of the skull. "Dies Irae" comes tops.
Oh ... oh ... oh ... eine Burgsalami! Oh! I have just the ale to go with that. Oh! And what ever do you mean about the Hessian sack being dinky? Ei jei jei!
When I was a young bride I gave my new husband a salami for Christmas (not, of course, his only present). We met at Oxford: I was American and a bit high fallutin'; he was British and lower middle class, and genuinely puzzled: all his Christmas pasts had led him to expect socks and (under)pants.
I don't think the dinkiest of hessian sacks would have mitigated his disappointment.
Avus: The great thing about having one's own (musical) keyboard -it's touching my left elbow as I type - is you can pick the key you're comfortable with, you're not being dictated to by the church organist.
Mind you, if you can sing plain-song you're well ahead of me. My mother bought a very early LP of the monks of Solesmes Abbey in France, famed for bringing the Gregorian Chant to a wider audience (we're talking very early fifties), and she used to iron to it. And to Wilhelm Backhaus playing the Hammerklavier which you might find more difficult to sing along to.
RW (sZ): Dinky: small, decorative rather than utilitarian, edging towards kitsch though only the half-hearted GB form not the full-blown Teutonic.
DO: Welcome, or did you once appear on WW many moons ago? I was seized by your opening words, wondering whether they foreshadowed a rather less rambunctious version of the Twelve Days of Christmas, only to be led into something much more titivating. All that overt class stuff from an American who has clearly metamorphosed into some other nationality entirely. I'll be into your profile as soon as I'm finished here.
You are so right about that design of can-opener. I've had the same one for more than 25 years. We had a food parcel from Germany containing among other wurst containing a tin of freshly made weisswurst and some of the sweet mustard which must always accompany these delicate veal and pork sausages.
Interesting to compare the packaging of English corned beef and German salami. We know which is more readily accessible :-)
Plutarch, we had some fresh locally made weisswurt (unpackaged in sausage shapes), sweet mustard, and large soft pretzels served by a German member of our artists' group at our Christmas potluck lunch last week.
Plutarch: I was puzzled by the combination of meat you mention thinking the sausage was otherwise a bratwurst. However, Google tells me a bratwurst is made from veal, pork or beef which is strangely vague for something German. So I take it the mix is what results in a weisswurst.
M-L: Yes, but corned beef would quickly go bad if it weren't tinned.
I have been asked by my siblings to create a "wish list" on Amazon for Christmas prezzies. After ditching several tin openers over the last twelve months I have put the Brabantia on the list and await with a sense of foreboding in case that ends up with all the others.
Sir Hugh: Looks like I'll bear a heavy weight of responsibility over Christmas. However, if the Profile does fail within the ensuing year I'll be quite prepared to make a federal case about the failure with Brabantia. Don't forget, you have been satisfied by one of their products - a kitchen device which you admitted "changed your life"
Weisewurst is very special. It is the sort of sausage which has to be cooked. But it must be cooked very gently. It is generally eaten on the day it is made, and served from the water in which it is poached. It is invariably accompanied by sweet mustard and eaten with freshly baked pretzels.The weisswurst, which I referred to came in a tin, but it had been newly tinned for transport and in order to retain its freshness, by the butcher who made it. It is one of Germany's best kept gastronomic secrets.
It should be spelt as I did the first time. weisswurst.
I like the way you write. Awesome, keep it up.
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