Tag: animals

Vegan Eggless Meringue Cookies {Recipe}

Posted in Blog.

Yup, you read that right—meringue in a vegan recipe. In December 2014, French chef, Joël Roessel, discovered that the liquid from canned beans such as chickpeas has a chemical composition that mimics the functional properties of egg whites. Hence, aquafaba (“water from beans”) was born and the word coined by Goose Wohlt.

There is so much buzz on the internet about this amazing discovery that I couldn’t possibly reiterate it here, but I will say that some people find that unsalted chickpeas work better than those that are salted; I haven’t necessarily found that, but there you have it.

Ingredients

Liquid from 1 can (15 ounces or 425 g) of chickpeas (about ¾ cup or 180 mL)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

⅛ teaspoon salt

¾ cup (150 g) white granulated sugar, made fine by first pulsing it in a coffee grinder

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200 °F (100 °C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone liner, and set aside.

Drain the liquid from the can of chickpeas, and add it to a mixing bowl along with the vanilla extract, cream of tartar, and salt. You may use a hand-held mixer or a stand mixer (using the whisk attachment). (Mixing by hand will only wear out your wrists and not give you the peaks you’re seeking.)

Set your mixer on high, and slowly pour in the sugar as the beater is running. Beat for 10 to 15 minutes, though you may need to stop once or twice to scrape down any sugar that sticks to the side of the bowl.

After 10 minutes or so, check the meringue. You’re looking for the stiff peaks characteristic of meringue. There have been times these peaks have formed after only 6 minutes, so just keep an eye on it.

At this point, if you’d like to add any food coloring gel, spoon a portion of the meringue into a separate bowl, and carefully fold in the coloring.

Use a pastry bag or a spoon to dollop the meringue onto the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 1-½ hours, then turn the oven off. If you want a crisp outside and chewy center, this is essential. You may open the oven door just a smidge, but leave them in the oven for at least an hour — up to 24 hours.

Store in a cool, dry place. They are best eaten the day you make them, but if your environment is very dry (not humid), they can last a few days in an airtight container.

For Your Edification

Aquafaba is not only the liquid from canned chickpeas but from chickpeas made from scratch, as well.

Ingrained: A Crush of Color

Posted in Animalogy Podcast.

When something is ingrained, it’s “deeply rooted” or “firmly fixed,” pertaining to qualities, dispositions, or habits. This figurative use of the word ingrain came into English in the 1850s, but its original sense is from the 1300s and had to do with the dried and pulverized insects used to make a color.

In this episode, I share all the colors whose names come from the animals whose bodies we crushed or from whom we extracted secretions to make dyes, colors, and pigments.

Toady: Lick My Boots and Curry My Favor

Posted in Animalogy Podcast.

A toady is a person who flatters and ingratiates himself or herself to another person in a servile way; a toady is a sycophant, a flatterer, especially someone who does distasteful or unprincipled things in order to gain favor. Celebrities and politicians are often accused of toadeating, and toadeating is exactly how we get the name of someone who kowtows.

Pay close attention to this episode, as several animalogies are hiding within. Submit the ones you hear in the comments below!

Gerrymander hides an animal!

Posted in Blog.

Did you know that the word GERRYMANDER is an animalogy? It’s a combination of Gerry—named after the governor who 1st redrew districts in his favor— and Salamander because of the shape of the newly drawn district on the map.

From TheFreeDictionary.com:

Word History: In 1812, as governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry signed a bill authorizing the revision of voting districts in his state. Members of Gerry’s party redrew them in order to secure their representation in the state senate, and out of Gerry’s home county, Essex County, they carved an unlikely-looking district with the shape of a salamander. According to one version of the coining of gerrymander, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper editor’s office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district with ahead, wings, and claws and then said to the editor, “That will do fora salamander!” “Gerrymander!” came the reply. The image created by Stuart first appeared in the March 26, 1812, edition of theBoston Gazette, where it was accompanied by the following title: The Gerrymander. A New Species of Monster, which appeared in the Essex South District in Jan. 1812. The new word gerrymander caught on instantly—within the same year gerrymander is also recorded as a verb. (Gerry’s name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hard (g) sound, although the word which has immortalized him is now commonly pronounced with a soft (j) sound.) Gerry ran for reelection in 1812, and popular outrage directed at the flagrant use of the technique we now call gerrymandering doubtless played a role in his defeat.

For more, listen to Animalogy Podcast, which is all about the animal-related words and expressions we use every day.

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Who Owns the Word “Milk”?

Posted in Animalogy Podcast.

For years, the dairy industry has been trying to make it illegal for nondairy milk companies to use the word “milk,” asserting that the word “milk” should be used to refer only to the lacteal secretions of cows. Today, I’m joined by Michele Simon, public health lawyer and director of the first trade group to represent plant-based foods companies, to talk about the history and motives behind this agenda.

Thank you for sharing and supporting Animalogy.

Do you see the bear in ARCTIC?

Posted in Blog.

Did you know that the word ARCTIC is an animalogy? It comes from the root word for “BEAR.”

OTHER BEAR-BASED ANIMALOGIES:

*the constellation Ursa Major — it means “Great Bear”

*the constellation Ursa Major — it means “Little Bear”

*the constellation Arcturus — it means “Guardian of the Bear”

*the names Ursula and Orsa

*the names Orson and Arthur

*the word ursine pertaining to the characteristics of bears

For more, listen to Animalogy Podcast, which is all about the animal-related words and expressions we use every day.

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The Fate of a Tragic Figure

Posted in Radio Editorials.

Traditionally, a tragedy was characterized by a protagonist whose flaw in character leads to a series of events that cause his downfall, a trope that began with the Greek dramatists, reached an apotheosis in the plays of Shakespeare, and prevails in both our contemporary literary realm as well as in the real world of power and politics. The fate of the tragic figure is predestined because fate is the manifestation of one’s character. Listen to today’s commentary for KQED Radio.

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Interested in a longer episode about the word tragedy and the goats in its history? Listen to Tragedy: A Goat’s Lament.

Animals in the Alphabet

Posted in Animalogy Podcast.

Animalogy is all about the animal-related words and phrases in the English language, but did you know there are animals in the very letters that make up our words? If I haven’t blown your mind yet, check out this episode to learn more about this fascinating history.

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Are You Writing the Future for Animals?

Posted in Blog.

I recently returned from a dream trip to Rwanda seeing mountain gorillas, golden monkeys, and chimpanzees — all of whom are threatened due to human activity. But still I have hope.

Afterwards, we saw lions, giraffes, impalas, warthogs, ostriches, hippos, zebras, and elephants in Botswana, a country that banned trophy hunting but is still dealing with poaching. But still I have hope. In fact, we were in Botswana when we heard the news that China is banning the legal trade in ivory, which is a thing to celebrate although the work is not done. It never is.

Even as I stood awe-struck looking at the animals characterized as “exotic,” I thought of the animals in my Oakland backyard—the ones considered mundane—the deer, the squirrels, the foxes, opossums, raccoons, skunks, crows, and jays. Rather than pay to view them, people pay to eradicate them, but nonetheless, they’re valuable to me, to themselves, to the entire ecosystem.

I thought of our state’s coyotes, mountain lions, and wolves—all of whom are demonized by private ranchers who use public land to graze their livestock, then blame the predators for being who they are.

I thought of our nation’s animals, who will be negatively impacted if the current administration makes good on its promises to support fossil fuels, curtail plans to cut carbon emissions, withdraw from the Paris Agreement, construct oil pipelines, dismantle the Endangered Species Act, and build a wall that will impact the lives and migratory habits of native species.

And still I have hope. While I daily urge our federal congresswomen and congressmen to pass legislation that protects animals and reject legislation that harms them, we have much work to do on a state and local level, both of which can get neglected when our fears are focused on an animal-, environment-, and human-hostile White House.

I have hope because possibility dwells in uncertainty. The darkness that lies before us is not inevitably bleak; it’s just unwritten. And we are its authors. We have a future to write—for the animals near and the animals far. For the human and the non-human animals. And I intend to write it.

Will you join me?

Tragedy: A Goat’s Lament

Posted in Animalogy Podcast.

Tragedy n. “goat song” Named for the dramatic plays of the ancient Greeks, characterized by a protagonist whose flaw or error in judgment leads to a series of events that cause his downfall. How it relates to goats, you’ll have to listen.

You’ll also discover yet another bit of our anatomy named after an animal (in this case a goat) and another Greek word for goat, aig, which gives us even more English words. Without being under the aegis of this episode, you might otherwise be tempted to jump into the Aegean sea.