Text 392, 78 rader
Skriven 2006-04-15 13:59:07 av Glen Jamieson
     Kommentar till en text av Burton Ford
Ärende: FROM AUSTRALIA 500 60415
================================
 -=> Quoting Burton Ford to Michael Loo <=-

Burt, old boy,
 
 GJ> ...and an old emporium "where the change hums on wires" - a system
 GJ> of flying foxes radiating from a central raised cashier's platform.
 
 ml-> This is also alien enough to me that it doesn't even conjure
 ml-> up an image in my head.

 BF> Oh I know that one.  When I was a kid in Syracuse a couple if the
 BF> hoity-toity Department Stores [Flah's, etc.] had a network of wires
 BF> overhead that ran from the sales stations to the second floor cashiers
 BF> or accounting offices.  If I remember, the sales person would put the
 BF> sales slip and cash in a popcan size cylinder on a wire.  Then they
 BF> would pull a lever and the cylinder would fly off to return later with
 BF> a sales slip and the customer's change in it.

I just _knew_ you would be of an age which recognised that system!
You probably also saw the alternative vacuum pipes, where the change
and docket were placed into a cylinder which was inserted through a
hissing door into a pipe, to be sucked into a mysterious neverland.  A
couple of minutes later there would be a bang and a thump, and the
cylinder would pop out of a trapdoor into a catching basket.  The
salesgirl would twist the cylinder to release the change and receipt.

In those pre-electronic days mechanical engineers ran the world.

We go back to a generation before young Michael..

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.05
 
      Title: General's Spicy Hot Chicken History
 Categories: Info, Chinese, Chicken, Historical, Loo
      Yield: 4 Servings
 
      1    Info file
 
  General Chau (also spelled Tso), a famous Chinese general from the
  Hunan province, is reported to have concocted this dish more than one
  hundred years ago. It's hot, spicy and quite tempting. This
  adaptation is close to the Szechuan style dish as served at Hing's
  Restaurant in Oregon City before the owners closed the restaurant and
  moved on.
  
  This was one of the more faithful versions I've seen lately. The only
  thing I want to add is that the traditional garnish is watercress
  (not broccoli, as is seen in restaurants).
  
  For thousands of years, China was ruled by an elite who were chosen
  from the population by competitive examination. This system, though
  okay in a tranquil world, collapsed maybe a hundred years ago, with a
  quickened pace of life and the introduction of Western ways, both
  good and bad. General Tso was one of the last in the line of Chinese
  scholar-soldier-bureaucrats created by this old system. He was a bit
  of a gourmand, particularly fond of chicken and watercress and
  garlic; I don't know that he ever fought or in fact did anything but
  sit home in Changsha and eat chicken in garlic sauce with watercress,
  a dish that of course he would not have invented himself but that his
  cook would have made. But through some weird coincidence, his
  thoroughly uninteresting career has been memorialized by a dish that
  has become one of the most popular in American Chinese restaurants,
  most of which change it (I'd say ruin it) by adding large quantities
  of gloopy sweet sauce and tons of broccoli.
  
  This is the gist of the story as told to me by my father, who was
  roommates in college with some relative of this general (either his
  nephew or grandson, I forget which).
  
  From: Michael Loo                     Date: 19 Oct 98
 
MMMMM
 

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