Imponderables Read online

  Imponderables spoke with Bob Montgomery, of Nabisco Brands food service, who stated that although the red tear strip caused all kinds of problems, he resisted getting rid of it. The equipment used to wrap the Saltines gave Nabisco all kinds of problems, including snags on the high-speed production line. In theory, the red tear strip should have been easy for the consumer to grab by the fingertips—there was nothing theoretically wrong with the technology. But it just didn't work. Although there were not many consumer complaints (people don't tend to write to food companies about restaurant grievances), the red tear strip was slowing down Nabisco's assembly line, slowing down diners from consuming their crackers, and making their soup a lot cooler in the process.

  The world of restaurant crackers has changed over the last decade. Whereas many restaurants used to provide four-packs, today about 80 percent stock two-packs and only 20 percent offer four-packs. In 1976, Nabisco eliminated the red tear strip. It had become so identified with the product, a symbol of luxury and quality, that Nabisco had good reason to be reluctant to give it up—many people, today, think that the two-packs and four-packs still have the red tear strip. That red tear strip signified that the restaurant was classy enough to provide a “name brand.” Although Nabisco Saltine restaurant packs are now considerably easier to open (just rip the serrated edges—it's easy as pie), they've lost the embellishment that made their packages distinctive—a bittersweet trade-off.

  Many clothing labels recommend against bleaching, yet many laundry detergents contain bleach. What gives?

  Bleach does all sorts of nice things. It helps clean, whiten, and brighten clothes and works to remove soils and stains from fabric.

  The two types of bleach that are used most often by consumers are chlorine bleach and oxygen bleach. Oxygen bleach, while providing all of the benefits listed above, has a gentler action than chlorine bleach; but chlorine bleach also disinfects and deodorizes and works faster than oxygen bleach.

  Since it performs at least as well as oxygen bleach at all cleaning chores and also deodorizes and disinfects, most consumers prefer chlorine bleach as their laundry additive. But most detergents that include a bleach use oxygen bleach for one important reason—oxygen bleach is safe on any washable fabric. Chlorine bleach, stronger stuff, will wreak havoc on some sensitive but washable fabrics. If undiluted chlorine bleach comes in direct contact with some fabrics, tears and holes will result.

  Many new clothing labels distinguish between the two bleaches when specifying “Do Not Bleach.” When a label merely warns you off bleaching in general, be assured it is referring to chlorine bleach only.

  Why do we eat ham at Easter?

  The ritual of eating ham around Easter time predates Christianity. Ham was the entree at spring feasts for a very practical reason: Fresh meats were not available at the beginning of spring. So pagans buried prized fresh pork legs in the sand by the sea during the fall and winter. The pork was cured by the constant “marinating” of the salt water. The preserved meat was then cooked over wood fires. The pig was always a symbol of good luck and prosperity in the Indo-European culture, which made the choice of ham an even more felicitous choice for feasting.

  In the early days of Christendom, Easter was celebrated on the Jewish Passover, and the two holidays are connected in several other ways. Just as Passover celebrates the Jews' release from bondage, so does Easter celebrate Jesus' release from the constraints of death. The paschal lamb, the ritual sacrifice made by Jews for each Passover, became emblematic of Jesus for Christians.

  In ancient times, Jews ate the slain lamb for their Passover feast. They would never have contemplated eating ham, of course, since all pork products are proscribed by Moses in the Old Testament.

  Early Christians, however, believed that Jesus' instructions superseded Mosaic law. While the Orthodox Christians had ordained fasts, they believed that no particular food should be prohibited from the diet.

  Unfortunately, what started as Christian liberality in diet turned into some deliberate Jew-baiting. In particular, the English took to eating bacon at Easter in order to enrage Jews and repudiate everything Jewish. In the eleventh century, William (the Conqueror) I, who preferred ham to bacon, encouraged his subjects to make the switch. Pork, and particularly ham, has been the popular Easter meal in Western Europe ever since.

  Not all cultures eat ham at Easter. In fact, England and to a lesser extent the United States have joined Eastern Europe and much of the Mediterranean in consuming lamb for their Easter feast. The choice of lamb, of course, derives from the Passover paschal lamb (although in Greece, for example, there needn't be any excuse to eat lamb). To some extent, one can successfully predict whether a given country will eat ham or lamb for Easter by determining which meat is consumed more every other day of the year.

  The most likely explanation for the connection between eggs and Easter is that in medieval times, Christians were not allowed to eat eggs during Lent. So many eggs were accumulated during the forty-day fast that there were literally more eggs than they could eat. Why not decorate them?

  An old legend gives a more moving explanation for the decoration of Easter eggs. Simon of Cyrene, an egg peddler by profession, was forced to abandon his wares and carry Jesus' cross to Calvary. According to Luke, when Simon returned to his basket of eggs after the Crucifixion, the eggs were unexplainably, and miraculously, beautifully decorated. According to this legend, we decorate eggs today to commemorate the memory of Jesus' sacrifice and the nobility of the humble Simon.

  Why is film sold at 12, 20, 24, and 36 exposures?

  According to the Eastman Kodak Company, the first Kodak cameras “were darkroom loaded, and depending on the size used rolls of film for 48, 60, or 100 pictures. When the first of the daylight loading roll films on flanged spools were offered, they came in 12-exposure rolls. Later, many of them were also made in 6- or 2-exposure rolls.”

  The Kodak Brownie, introduced in 1900, provided cameras for the masses, combining ease of use with a comfortable price. The camera sold for a buck; a roll of film for 15 cents.

  While Eastman's flexible celluloid roll film eliminated the heavy and expensive glass plates that plagued casual users, the pictures were soft with inadequate detail; the serious photographer still could not find a combination of high-resolution pictures with portability. In the early twentieth century, the size of the camera was dictated by the size of the negative frame it held, until a man named Oskar Barnack revolutionized photography.

  Barnack was an apprentice mechanic for an optical equipment factory and an amateur photographer on the side. He wanted to make larger pictures with smaller cameras, but he needed to find a way to reduce the size of the negative. Barnack was hired by the Leitz Company, which at that time was primarily a manufacturer of scientific instruments. Leitz was working on a motion picture camera, and Barnack hit on the idea of using motion picture film for his still camera.

  Leitz shook the film industry by introducing the Leica camera at the Leipzig Spring Fair of 1925. Barnack created a camera that used 35-millimeter motion picture film and needed a mere 1× 1½ negative. Not only was the picture quality much better than American cameras, but the motion picture negative was capable of almost limitless enlargements with relatively little loss of detail.

  This Leica camera had a maximum capacity of 36 exposures. Originally, Leica customers had to load bulk film manually and insert it into the Leica camera. Kodak introduced preloaded cartridges in 1934, to fit the Retina, Contax, and Leica cameras, and Kodak adopted the Leica standard of 36 exposures as its length.

  In 1936, Kodak introduced 18-exposure rolls but increased the size to 20 exposures for transparency films in 1946 and 24 exposures for color negative film in 1977. The increased size was a response to consumer preference for slightly larger roll sizes and not a result of any technological change.

  The 12-exposure roll was first marketed by Kodak in Japan. Kodak introduced this size because of continuing interest in half-frame came
ras, which make twice as many pictures on a roll of film. The 12-exposure roll was introduced in the U.S. because of consumer interest in a short roll. Although more expensive per picture than the larger rolls, the 12-exposure roll was the answer to the perpetual problem of the photographer harassing friends and relatives at parties by imploring, “Come on! Just eight more pictures! I want to finish off the roll.”

  When a building is on a corner of an intersection, how do they decide which street' name it will have?

  If you were to build a department store in New York City and you had a choice between choosing 53rd Street or Fifth Avenue as your address, which would you choose? Fifth Avenue, of course, an address that conjures up images of elegance and affluence.

  But who decides whether our mythical department store can receive its prestigious address? It's not the post office, which has nothing to do with assigning numbers or street designations to buildings. Usually, addresses are the domain of city or county offices. Geographers and engineers are hired to monitor the topographical planning.

  In most cities, commercial buildings are handled differently from residences. In Manhattan, for example, most developers would prefer an Avenue address rather than a Street address. For some reason, real estate mavens consider Avenues ethereal and Streets as plebeian. The developer can receive his Avenue address if the building has an entrance on that avenue, even if the main entrance is on the other street and even if most of the property lies on the other street. Since many corner buildings have two entrances, the street address is essentially the owner's choice.

  Developers are also fond of catchy numbers in their addresses. Their particular favorite is 1 (it gives the impression that their building owns the street), but round, even numbers, such as 100 and 10, are also popular, probably because they are easily memorized and signify that the building is big and important.

  It is extremely common for small towns and industrial parks to accede to the wishes of companies in naming streets. At the very least, companies can nudge local governments into naming their byway “Park,”“Plaza,”“Court,” or “Avenue” rather than the prosaic “Street.” Many businesses like their address to be a walking advertisement. One of the most imaginative in this regard is Baskin-Robbins Place. whose Glendale, California, corporate address is 31 Baskin-Robbins Place. Most prestigious of all, perhaps, is when a corporate address is too rarefied and important to require something as piddling as a number: Campbell Soup can be reached at Campbell Place, and Kraft, Inc. at Kraft Court.

  If a building is large enough to occupy several city lots, it can be given any of the numbers ordinarily assigned to those spaces. Assume there are five existing buildings on a block, 110, 120, 130, 140, and 150. If a new building that is the same size as the other five combined is constructed on the corner, it could become 160, 170, 180, 190, or 200. City engineers might prefer the building to choose 180 since it best describes its location, but the building's owners would almost certainly prefer the more memorable 200.

  Residential owners in most localities do not have a choice over their street designation. Most local governments issue addresses based upon where the front entrance is located, even if the bulk of the house lies on the other street. If an owner builds a second entrance facing the other street, an application can be made to change the address of the house. It is possible then, if the entranceways are so located, that all four corner residences at one intersection might carry the same street name.

  What does ½ at the end of a street address mean?

  As the above Imponderable indicates, address numbers are assigned with a great deal of flexibility. On densely populated blocks, each building is given a number at least two away from its neighbor. But what if 116 Main Street is subdivided and 114 and 118 Main Street are already taken? If a new owner wants a separate address, there is nothing for city planners to do but give the new edifice the old address, 116, plus one-half, or 116½ (in some localities, the old address becomes 116A, the new one, 116B).

  Contrary to popular belief, a ½ designation does not necessarily mean that a building is small or is owned by the same person as the building with the same number minus the ½. Although city planners dislike using fractions in addresses, it is the only solution for numbering new buildings built between two existing edifices that are only two numbers apart.

  Why do wintergreen Life Savers sparkle in the dark when you bite into them?

  Be the life of your next party. Buy a few rolls of wintergreen Life Savers Roll Candy, cut all the lights, gather your friends in front of you, and bite down hard and fast. You'll sparkle in the dark. Your mouth will glow bluish-green.

  The explanation for this delightful phenomenon comes directly from the research and development department of Life Savers Inc., which is now a division of Nabisco Brands:

  Our manager of Candy Technology tells us that two ingredients are necessary for this reaction. The sparkling comes about because of a combination of mint flavoring and crystalline sugar. When you crack the crystal, the energy then stimulates a component in the flavoring to emit a light. The component in wintergreen is methyl salicylate.

  There are two possible hang-ups in producing the sparkling effect. First, the background atmosphere might not be dark enough (closets and bathrooms are highly recommended). Second, moisture seems to absorb the energy needed to produce sparkling. Do not expect good results in a sauna.

  Why do labels usually tell you that top-loading washing machines require more detergent than front-loading washing machines?

  Have you ever noticed, as Andy Rooney likes to say, that you have to dump twice as much detergent into a top-loader as a front-loader? And that somehow, you always seem to be using a top-loader? Is there such a thing as a front-loading washer? Do top-loaders really require more detergent or are detergent executives taking retreats in the Bahamas because we are dumping in needless cupfuls?

  We could answer these questions right away, but that would be too easy. For there are many factors besides whether your washing machine is a front- or top-loader that determine how much detergent you should use, and none of them are specified on detergent packages. You need to know the hows and whys of detergent labeling to enhance your detergent I.Q. You need to know, as Paul Harvey likes to say, the rest of the story.

  You'll never know a blasted thing about laundering until you learn about what we cognoscenti call the Big Three. The Big Three are the requirements for cleaning performance, and without further ado, these are the types of action needed to clean anything from lingerie to mattress pads: mechanical, thermal, and chemical. The neat thing about the Big Three is that they are totally interrelated. If any one is reduced in energy, the others must be increased to achieve the same level of cleaning. If one is increased, the other two may be proportionately lessened without hurting performance.

  Mechanical Action

  Letting soiled clothing soak in plain lukewarm water will result in wet, lukewarm soiled clothes. Some form of friction must be exerted to pull of dirt. Before electricity, women pounded rocks against clothes to loosen soil. Front-loading machines spin the wash around, much like dryers do. Top-loaders, with agitating action, provide more mechanical stimulus more efficiently. If the other two components of the Big Three are lessened, it is possible to achieve slightly better performance if the wash is agitated for longer periods of time, but this is the most difficult of the Big Three on which to gain performance.

  Thermal Action

  The temperature of the wash cycle is perhaps the most crucial element in determining cleaning effectiveness. The evidence is unanimous. Hot water cleans better than cold water. You might not need to use hot water to clean lightly soiled items, and certain items are too delicate for hot-, or even warm-water washing, but there is no intrinsic cleaning advantage in cold water. Cold water washing became popular not because of any claims for its performance superiority, but because of its energy savings.

  Heat is essential to combat stubborn oil or greasy soil. Most exp
erts recommend setting water heaters to 140 degrees. The actual temperature of the water in the washing machine will be at least ten degrees cooler due to the effect of the plumbing and contact with the room-temperature garments in the wash-basin.

  If you use the cold water setting on your washing machine, you are getting whatever temperature water comes out of the cold side of your tap. In Florida during the summer, the “cold” water might be 90 degrees; in Minnesota during the winter, 35 degrees. When the temperature of the water is less than 60 degrees during the wash cycle, there is hardly any cleaning action. What will happen if you use a cold-water detergent with water under 60 degrees? Not much. One of the main problems is that most powdered detergents don't dissolve well in temperatures below 70 degrees—even those touted as cold-water detergents.

  There are ways to compensate for the weaker performance of cold-water cleaning. Dissolve powdered detergents before using them. Not only will this unleash the full cleaning action of the detergent, it will also eliminate disgusting gunk from clinging to the clothes (remember Salvo, the convenient powdered cake that cleaned so well but refused to dissolve?). Another tip is simply to use more detergent—up to twice as much as the label of a regular detergent specifies—when using cold water. But the best solution of all, unless your clothes are too delicate, is to use warm or hot water to wash your clothes and use cold water for the rinse cycle. A cold-water rinse is just as effective as a warm rinse, and the hot wash and cold rinse will cost about as much money as a warm wash and warm rinse.