Wanted: Good Friend, must be strong, dark and well-proportioned
March 10, 2005
As is the way with many things in life, I go through food phases. I find something I like and then I can’t get enough of it. I indulge in the beloved food item for a little while until my devotion and obsession gently fade away, and I’m left wondering why I was so enamored in the first place. I’ve been through the risotto phase, the Cambozola cheese phase, the sun-dried tomato phase, the Luna Bar phase, the Orangina phase, and I know there are more phases to come in my future.
Some foods, however, are above being categorized as a phase. They outshine phase foods, spanning the years of my life and refusing to fade away. I will always love artisan bread, and delight in its many forms; chocolate will always be my true food love; and for as long as there are mornings in my life, there will be coffee.
They say that coffee is an adult beverage. I agree – not because I believe all the stories about coffee stunting the growth of children (I’m really not sure about the truth in that at all!), but because I do believe that coffee appeals to the taste buds of adults more than to those of children. The bitterness and acidity of coffee requires an acquired taste – an adult taste.
Even amongst adult coffee drinkers, however, there is a huge disparity about what makes a good cup of coffee: some like their coffee strong, while others prefer a weaker brew, or what I like to call “hint o’ coffee”. Others still, those who enjoy lattes more than anything else, probably truly prefer milk over coffee. There’s nothing wrong with liking your coffee in any of these forms. What I cannot comprehend are those people who don’t have a preference at all, those who can get a cup of coffee just anywhere and be satisfied with it. I suppose their life is much easier than mine.
I just can’t enjoy a bad or weak cup of coffee. I would rather go without, truly. Even if it was morning and my body was waiting for its daily dose, I would abstain from a bad cup of coffee and drink nothing at all. That makes my life a little more difficult than the non-discriminating coffee drinker. They can stop in at any coffee shop, coffee stand, even coffee machine (gasp!) and get a cup o’ joe. Me? No, I have to plan ahead. I have to make my coffee at home or get to a coffee shop that I know will make me my strong cup of java. When going on vacation, I have to take what I need in order to make my morning potion.
This is actually good news, for it shows that I am not a coffee drinker for the caffeine, but for the taste (no, really – shaking as I type this!). I truly enjoy the taste of a good cup of coffee. It is the ritualistic start to my day, break in the afternoon and finish to a good meal at night.
The taste of coffee, much like that of wine, depends on the origin of the coffee beans as well as the roast of the beans. It has taken me a few years to figure out and define my coffee taste. Now that I know that my perfect cup of coffee uses beans from the Pacific or Indonesia that have a dark roast, and is brewed with a healthy amount of coffee per cup of water, it is very easy for me to prepare the perfect cup of coffee for myself at home. Finally, the risk of a disappointing start to every day has been eliminated.
I’m grateful for this acquired knowledge. I’m also grateful for the convenience of coffeemakers. In an email conversation with my father this past week, we spoke of coffee. He described to me how coffee was made in Trinidad before coffeemaker technology developed. I figure this must have been about three hundred years ago, when he was a little boy.
“The (very) old, traditional way to make coffee in Trinidad - the way they used to do it before percolators and coffee machines - was to put finely ground coffee (which is an important crop in Trinidad, of course) into a saucepan. Then, they put the coffee-containing saucepan onto the fire and let it get warm. This roasted the ground coffee a little more, and the whole place got to smell deliciously of coffee roasting. Without letting the coffee roast too much, they then poured the required amount of boiling water into the saucepan, and immediately took the saucepan off the fire. They let it “draw” a little, and when they thought that the water had absorbed enough coffee, they then put about a desert spoon of cold water into the coffee (still in the saucepan), in order to encourage the coffee grounds to sink to the bottom of the saucepan. Then, they drank it.”
Good Lord! Can you imagine? I think I’d need a cup of coffee to stay awake long enough to brew another pot! Sometimes I’m willing to put more work into my coffee-making, grinding the beans myself, boiling water and using a French press. For the most part, however, I use a coffeemaker. I love my coffeemaker and think of it as a good good friend - someone I want to say good morning to every day and before almost anyone else – now that’s a good friend.
You should try the Trinidadian way. Everything depends, of course, on the grind and the quantity.
I loved your comments about coffee. I haven’t experimented much with different blends and styles but I do have my favorite. I love Hazelnut. It seems to take the place of desserts after meals and I look forward to my cup of coffee. Coffee reminds me of chocolate but chocolate rarely reminds me of coffee. I even have Hazelnut Candles! Love your website, Meredith!
Hi Meredith
Love your website ive emailed you before. I was interested in trying Mom’s Accra. I first heard you on CBC toronto and well ive successfully made it come true. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Toronto but it is well known for its multi cultural diversity. Thus a very good selection of food of all types. I went to a place called the Kensington market that has two very good Carribean fish markets. I watched as the man chopped up whole fish into steaks for customers cleaning them with an expertise ive never seen. Anyway the selection of fish was amazing and there was the saltfish. I bought approximately a pound for two dollars which he chopped into about three pieces for me.Once home i set it to soak overnite. The next day i used your recipe (sorry i didn’t have the peppers or chives) but i did use a jalapeno pepper and a bit of onion. They were amazing I ate them like snacks over the next two days. Thanks. We also have an other market called The St. Lawrence Market. A beautiful huge historic building that houses butchers, fish markets, two or three cheese sections that seem to have just about anything you need. There i noticed saltfish that was skinless and boneless which is great because it save the deboning and skinning process. I’m going to use that next time. As i try your recipes ill let you know how they turn out. Thanks again for the recipes and now im going to go and have a nice dark strong coffee.
two thumbs up
Bruce lessard
Hi Meredith
My earliest memory of coffee making is as an impecuniuos student. I had a very beautiful, brown Denby coffee jug I had purchased in a local junk store. It was the shape that was special, nothing fancy, just sensuously bulbous! Not being as old as your father I didn’t have open fires to deal with, but boiled a kettle of water on my standard bed-sit gas ring, warmed the pot with a little of it, then poured it away and added the ground coffee which would then relase it’s intoxicating aroma, before pouring on the boiling water. Then came the fun bit - drawing the back of a spoon across the surface of the coffee to release the surface tension and allow the coffee grounds to sink magically to the bottom. The latter was explained to me by a particularly attractive male student from the science faculty, which of course,to an art student ignorant of such clever things made the whole thing so much more interesting!
Hi Merideth,
Since I am almost as old as your father…I have had coffee made that way at a Tobago guesthouse.. a little gritty but it was delicious.
Like you I Like my coffee strong..
I remember once being told in Venuzuela..Coffee should be as hot as hell, as black as the devil and as sweet as a woman: hot, dark and sweet…
My regards to your father…from a ex-fellow San Fernando resident.Your grandmother used to give music lessons to my brother..
Mereidth,
Really enjoy you on QVC… You always are so knowledgeable..