Improbable Research

The Tripe Marketing Board wants to inform, tell, persuade or suggest to you, or to someone, that:

“The Tripe Marketing Board was set up in 1992 to replace The Tripe Council when its CEO, Paul Mellor, left to pursue a solo career. The Tripe Council was originally known as The Tripe Industry Development Council and, briefly, the British Tripe Council. Before that it was known as The Association For The Legal Disposal Of Unwanted Cow Products.”

BONUS: The two conflicting meanings of the word “tripe”, according to some or other dictionary:

1. The rubbery lining of the stomach of cattle or other ruminants, used as food.

2. Informal Something of no value; rubbish.

In the view of the Tripe Marketing Board, the second definition is not tripe, and very much is.

BONUS: The recording “Tripe fights back”:

The formation of holes (a.k.a. ‘eyes’) in Swiss Cheese has been the focus of intense scientific scrutiny for more than a century. For a state-of-the art review of the literature – as it was around 100 years ago – see the work of William Mansfield Clark, [pictured right] late DeLamar professor of physiological chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who authored the landmark study On the Formation of “Eyes” in Emmental Cheese in 1917. (It was published in the post-inaugural second issue of the Journal of Dairy Science.) The professor concluded that the mysterious growth of large holes (rather than myriads of small ones) was akin to crystal formation, in that they appeared to be ‘seeded’.

“There is really little reason, as well as little evidence, to support the assumption that the gas necessarily separates as gas bubbles where it is produced. It is not at all irrational to suppose that the gas, having first saturated the cheese mass, separates at advantageous points which have no necessary relation to those localities rich in bacterial growth. In other words we may suppose a process similar to the growth of crystals to take place.”

The lack of an exact description of the eye-forming mechanism provided impetus for future investigators of affinage. Since then, teams of cheese-bubble researchers across the globe have used Scanning Electron Microscopes, Computerised Image Analysis, X-rays, Ultrasound and even Nuclear Magnetic Resonance techniques to probe, measure, quantify and generally investigate the holes – with the objective of finally pinning down exactly how they form. For those keen to evaluate the latest progress, an entire chapter in the Technology of Cheesemaking (Second Edition) 2010, entitled ‘Eye Formation and Swiss-Type Cheeses’ is devoted to explaining the recent developments in the area. But comprehensive though the 22 page resumé certainly is, the authors point out that after all this time, enigmas still remain …

“A nucleus is necessary for the eye formation (Clark, 1917). It could be an air bubble attached to a solid curd particle, but the nucleation is not yet clearly understood.”

NOTES :

For cheese gourmets, holes can either add to, or detract from the attractiveness of cheese : Emmenthal is generally considered to be desirable if it has large ‘eyes’, Gruyère often has eyes too, but smaller, while others such as Beaufort are normally preferred ‘blind’.

FURTHER IMPROBABLE READING around the philosophy of holes in general :

• Fillable Entities

• The Shape of Holes

• Heidegger meets Macaroni

• Almost nothings

This medical paper demonstrates how to intrigue the reader right away, in the first two sentences:

“Fracture penis: a case more heard about than seen in general surgical practice,” Manash Ranjan Sahoo, Anil Kumar Nayak, Tapan Kumar Nayak, Anand S, BMJ Case Reports, 2013.The authors, at SCB Medical College, Cuttack, Odisha, India, begin their report in compelling fashion:

“A 36-year-old man presented to the emergency department with a history of trauma to genitalia during intercourse. The patient reported the forceful collision between his penis and the bed and audible clicking sound with swollen penis thereafter.”

 

Gary L. Collison, former editor of Markers, as pictured in the publication shortly after his decease.

The Association for Graveyard Studies takes a scholarly approach to graveyards and the contents thereof. Their official word on themselves:

The Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) was founded in 1977 for the purpose of furthering the study and preservation of gravestones. AGS is an international organization with an interest in gravemarkers of all periods and styles.

An FAQ offers practical advice “for the newcomer to gravestone studies”, including “answers to basic questions about gravemarkers, such as, ‘Gravestone Rubbing Do’s and Don’ts’”. The web site describes a host of membership benefits. Our too-quick perusal failed to find discounts or other special offers pertaining to a member’s transition to permanent ownership of a grave or of a graveyard.

The members, many of them, produce reports. The Association lists several kinds:

Markers: Annual Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies. Markers publishes definitive illustrated articles on cemetery and gravemarker topics as well as an extensive annual international bibliography of recent scholarship. (FREE to all members).

 The AGS Quarterly: Bulletin of the Association for Gravestone Studies contains feature articles and regular columns on conservation, epitaphs, and international gravestone studies. (FREE to all members).

The subcontrabass flute may or may not be exactly the same thing as the double contrabase flute. That depends on who you talk to about it, and how knowledgable they are, and how prone to suddenly become violent and attempt to pummel you for raising what they may regard as the spectre of heresy.

Several flutemakers make subcontrabass flutes. One of them Eva Kingma, offers this review, which makes clear the opinion of the reviewer as to the are-they-the-same-thing question:

Paige Dashner Long [pictured here], Director of the Metropolitan Flute Orchestra in Summer Residence at New England Conservatory: “This unique instrument is very versatile, and fills the gap between the Contrabass and the double contrabass. In choirs it supports the Contrabass, and it literally propels the double contrabass.”

This video shows Stefan Keller playing, to the best of his and the instrument’s ability, a subcontrabass flute: