On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 09:28:40 -0700, hancock4 wrote:
> The meat product has been around for years. It was given to troops
> during WW II. Complaints then arose about it, but they were NOT about
> the quality or taste of the product, which was fine. The problem was
> that the troops in the field were given that as meal three times a
> day, seven days a week and they got sick of the monotony.
My father wouldn't touch the stuff afterward. In Hawaii I understand
it has become a part of the local culture. Go figure.
> Getting back to words and communication, it is interesting how the word
> "pig" is so contradictory. As I understand it, the pig is actually a
> nice animal and some people have them as pets.
There is also the old saying, "I haven't seen so much excitement
around here since the day the hogs et my baby brother." From what I
understand, it has happened, but my father again, who practiced
medicine in a rural community for over 50 years cannot recall an
actual incident. My former father in law was very strict about keeping
his young daughters away from them. They will eat pretty much anything
thrown to them, including rats, and I have read of them scavenging the
dead on Civil War battlefields, so I tend to believe it has happened.
People keep young ones as pets, but a full grown hog is huge. The ones
you see being trucked to piggy heaven are prepubescent. Even the pot
bellied pigs that were popular a few years ago tended to get too big
for many owners.
> (*balogna, salami, hot dogs, sausage, liverwurst, etc. Scrapple is a
> popular Philadelphia food made from scraps.)
Don't forget head cheese, or souse. Gelatin replaces the fat in most lunch
meats, so I think it is a bit healthier. Also, the name keeps the price
low.
> (**The combat cooks used mobile gasoline stoves, but the stoves required
> unleaded gas otherwise the burners would clog up from the lead. The
> army stocked leaded gas for vehicles, carrying a separate fuel was
> another burden. As an aside, apparently gasoline fired stoves and
> heaters were popular at one time, but no longer. Anyone know why?
> Gasoline too flammable? Why didn't they use safer kerosene back then?)
I got interested in gasoline fired appliances many years ago when I
had a larger collection of Coleman equipment. Since I was a grad
student, and it was probably the slow summer period, I went over to
the law library and looked up the original patents from the early
1920s. There is a whole series granted to the eponymous Coleman and to
his engineer, whose name escapes me. Basically what they figured out
was the generator, used to gasify white gasoline. This led to the
familiar Coleman lanterns and stoves, but also to whole house systems
with table lamps and kitchen ranges, presumably for unelectrified
homes. There are UL standards for how to pipe the stuff around.
There are kerosene stoves on yachts that work on the same principal,
but they are more complex. Kerosene is harder to gasify, so the
generator has to be preheated with a fire in a small can of
alcohol. There are also alcohol stoves that work much the same way,
but are started by drizzling a bit of alcohol into a pan beneath the
burner and lighting it there. Gasoline is a no no on yachts because
of its tendency to collect in the bilge and launch the crew beyond the
Styx. I don't know if the kerosene stove had been developed by WW2. It
might, since the Coleman patents were mostly still in effect, have
come later. At any rate, it would still have been a second fuel, since
I don't think you can use #2 diesel, and white gas was not one of the
top danger elements at the time.
There are also kerosene mantel lamps, of which I have one, that date
from around the same period as the Coleman lamps, maybe earlier. Mine
isn't presently in working order, but I have had it so in the past. It
puts out about as much light as a 40-50 watt light bulb, but enough
heat to light a cigarette off the outflow of the chimney. Those lamps,
made by Alladin, work entirely differently. They have a circular wick,
with air fed up the center, that indirectly heats the Wiesbach
mantel. If you turn the wick up slightly too high, the mantel will
carbon up. For some reason, a few grains of salt dropped down the
chimney will clear it much quicker. There are one or two places that
sell these things on the Internet, but I got my parts at an Amish lamp
shop in Chester, IL.
LPG seems to be the dominant fuel these days, but it isn't necessarily
better. It has less heat value than white gas or kerosene, and its
fumes are as dangerous as gasoline. It is more convenient, and I guess
we can spare a few launched yachties.
John McHarry (jmcharry@comcast.net)