Paste (pronounced peyst)
(1) A mixture of flour and water, often with starch or
the like, used as a glue to cause paper or other material to adhere to
something.
(2) Any soft, smooth material or preparation which has characteristics
of plasticity.
(3) In cooking and baking, a transitional state of some
doughs, especially when prepared with shortening, as used for making pie crust
and other types of pastry.
(4) Any of various semisoft fruit confections of pliable
consistency (almond paste; guava paste etc).
(5) In manufactured food, a preparation of fish,
tomatoes, or other food reduced to a smooth, soft mass, as for a relish or for
seasoning (eg fish-paste).
(6) In pasta making, a transitional phase during preparation.
(7) A mixture of clay, water etc, for making pottery or
porcelain.
(8) In jewelry manufacture, a brilliant, heavy hard lead
(glass), (as strass), used for making artificial gems; an artificial gem of
this material.
(9) In slang, a hard smack, blow, or punch, especially on
the face; used figuratively (usually as “a pasting”) to describe a decisive
defeat by a large margin in political, commercial or sporting contexts.
(10) In narcotics production, a by-product of the cocaine
refinement process, later sold as a product and the basis for other forms.
(11) To fasten or stick with paste or the like.
(12) To cover with something applied by means of paste.
(13) In computers, to insert something cut or copied (text,
images, links etc) into a file.
(14) In physics, a substance which behaves as a solid
until a sufficiently large load or stress is applied, at which point it assumes
the characteristics of a fluid.
(15) In mineralogy, the mineral substance in which other
minerals are embedded.
(16) An alternative name for both pasta and pastry (both
long obsolete).
1350–1400: From the Middle English paste (dough for the making of bread or pastry), from the Middle
French paste (dough, pastry (and source
of the French pâte)), from the Late
Latin pasta (dough, pastry cake, paste), from the Ancient Greek πάστα pastē, pásta & pastá (barley
porridge), a noun use of the neuter plural of pastós, verbid of pássein
(to strew, to sprinkle). The sense of a "glue
mixture, a dough used as a plaster seal" dates from circa 1400, the
meaning extended by circa 1600 to "a composition just moist enough to be
soft without liquefying". The use
to refer to the heavy glass (made from ground quartz etc) and used most often costume
jewelry (imitation gem stones) began in the 1600s. A pasta was originally a kind of gruel
sprinkled with salt, gaining the name probably by association with baste. Paste is a doublet of pasta and patty. Paste had actually been in use as a surname
since the mid-twelfth century. The present
participle pasting and the past participle pasted & pasted. In the context of adhesive agents, the synonyms
include cement, fix, gum, plaster, stickum & glue.
The verb paste (to stick with paste or cement) dates from the 1560s and was derived from the noun, the meaning "apply paste to, cover by pasting over" emerging circa 1600. The slang sense "hit hard" was first noted in 1846, probably an alteration of baste (in the sense of "beat" and thus related in meaning to lambaste) influenced by some sense of paste. The form in the Middle English was pasten (to make a paste of; bake in a pastry). The noun “paste-up” was first used in 1930 in the printing trades to refer to "a plan of a page with the position of text, illustrations etc indicated", a direct formalization of the oral phrase, the adoption of the “pasteboard” on which the positions were marked, a simultaneous development (since the 1540s, pasteboard had been a type of thick paper, gaining the name from the original method of construction being several single sheets pasted together). The term pastiness (resembling paste in consistence or color) dates from the 1650s and was typically applied to someone looking slightly grey (a la the flour & water mix of paste) and thus ill, rather than someone with a pale complexion.
Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Paste Magazine is a monthly music and entertainment digital publication, the evolution of which is emblematic of the effect the internet has exerted on the industry. Taking advantage of the low-cost entry to global distribution offered by the conjunction of weightless production and the roll-out of broadband, Paste began in 1998 as a website which, as revenue grew, was able, between 2002-2010, to expand to include glossy print editions. However, the decline in subscriptions and the always low newsstand sales forced it, like many, to revert to an exclusively on-line presence. Focused on its target demographic, the content is what some analysts describe as: “middlebrow pop-culture, beyond a fanzine, short of academic analysis.”
The pastry in the sense of “food made with or from paste
or having it as a principal ingredient” was first described as such in the mid-fifteenth
century although as a dish, it’s an ancient recipe. It wasn’t originally limited to sweet &
fruit-filled creations and the adoption by the Middle English paste is thought
to have been influenced by the Old French pastoierie
(pastry (source of the Modern French pâtisserie)),
from pastoier (pastry cook) or else
the Medieval Latin pasteria (pastry). There had been pastry cooks and chefs since
the 1650s but the now-familiar specific sense of "small confection made of
pastry" didn’t become standardized until the years immediately before the
First World War (1914-1918). Toothpaste
(also as tooth-paste) was first sold in 1832.
Earlier there had been tooth-powder (from the 1540s) and tooth-soap (circa
1600), both of which followed the tradition method used for centuries to make a
paste for cleaning which was to mix powdered charcoal (or soot) with salt and water until
the desired consistency was achieved.
The adjectival sense “cut-and-paste” (made or composed by piecing together existing parts) actually pre-dates computers, noted first in 1938 to refer to edited photographs (also known as ”trick photography”). The phrase was borrowed in the mid-late 1950s to describe either outright plagiarism or work created variously in haste, carelessly, or without any sense of originally or inspiration and was applied especially to journalism. The companion term “copy and paste” in the 1970s joined “cut and paste” as technology evolved; in the 1980s, the two processes were integrated into computer operating systems, the two steps usually mediated by the user. To illustrate the practice, this blog makes great use of "copy and paste", reveals little which is original and seems not at all inspired.
Pasties were adhesive patches women wore over the nipples, the purpose either (1) to permit exotic dancers to perform while still conforming with local ordinances or (2) as a modesty device to prevent unwanted protrusions through clothing; the devices had been long available but were first recorded as being sold using the plural diminutive from the verb in 1957 and a rubber analogue was sometimes used on the dagmars which had been added to US automobiles since the 1940s. Often supposed to have been inspired by the propeller hubs of twin-engined fighter aircraft, the designers were actually invoking the motif of a speeding artillery shell and it was only later they came to be associated with anything anatomical. By the mid-1950s they'd developed to become increasingly large and prominent, the dagmar’s rubber pastie protecting both the device and whatever (or whomever) it might hit.
Gelesis released Plenity
into a buoyant market for tech stocks, underwritten by a SPAC (Special Purpose
Acquisition Corporation). Results
however, dependent essentially on commission-based sales staff marketing the
paste pills directly to family doctors (GPs), proved disappointing and in early
2022 the company announced layoffs. In
common with many tech stocks, valuations of the so-called "SPAC merger deals", sharply
have plummeted.
Good things can be wrapped or covered in pastry. Lindsay Lohan’s chicken pot pie with leeks and veal meatballs appears in Jamie’s Friday Night Feast Cookbook (Penguin Books, 2018). It serves 8.
Ingredients
2 onions
2 carrots
2 small potatoes
2 medium leeks
Olive oil
300g free-range chicken thighs, skin off, bone out
300g skinless boneless free-range chicken breast
4 rashers of higher-welfare smoked streaky bacon
1 knob of unsalted butter
50g plain flour
700ml organic chicken stock
2 tablespoons English mustard
1 heaped tablespoon creme fraiche
A ½ bunch (15g) of fresh woody herbs
White pepper
3 sprigs of fresh sage
300g minced higher-welfare veal (20% fat)
1 large free-range egg
300g plain flour, plus extra for dusting (for pastry)
100g shredded suet (for pastry)
100g unsalted butter (cold) (for pastry)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Peel and roughly chop the onions and carrots, then peel the potatoes and chop into 2cm (¾ inch) chunks. Trim, halve and wash the leeks, then finely slice.
Place a large pan on a medium heat with one tablespoon of oil. Chop chicken into 3cm (1¼ inch) chunks, roughly chop bacon and add both to the pan. Cook for a few minutes, or until lightly golden. A dd the onions, carrots, potatoes and leeks, then cook for a further 15 minutes or until softened. Add the butter, then stir in the flour to coat.
Gradually pour in the stock, then add the mustard and creme fraiche. Tie the woody herb sprigs together with string to make a bouquet garni and add to the pan. Cook for 10 more minutes, stirring regularly, then season with white pepper.
Meanwhile, for the pastry, put the flour and a good pinch of sea salt into a bowl with the suet; cube and add the butter. Using the thumb and forefingers, rub the fat into the flour until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Slowly stir in 100ml of ice-cold water, then use the hands to bring it together into a ball without over-working. Wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes, during which, make the meatballs.
Pick and finely chop the sage, season with salt and pepper, then with the hands scrunch and mix with the veal. Roll into 3cm (1¼ inch) balls, gently place in a large pan on a medium heat with half a tablespoon of oil and cook for 10 minutes or until golden all over, jiggling occasionally for even cooking.
Transfer the pie filling to a large (250 x 300mm (10-12 inch)) oval dish, discarding the bouquet garni. Leave to cool, then dot the meatballs on top.
Roll out pastry on a clean, flour-dusted surface until it's slightly bigger than pie dish. Eggwash edges of dish, then place the pastry on top of the pie, trimming off any overhang, pinching the edges to seal and make a small incision in the centre. Use any spare pastry to decorate the pie if preferred. Eggwash the top, bake for 50 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the pie is piping hot. Leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving.
As late as the mid-1970s, in the United States, the
medical establishment and scientists working the field entertained few
concerns about cocaine, essentially because (1) thousands of years of use in
South & Central America suggested the base ingredient was not harmful, (2)
there were any number of narcotics flooding the US market which were of greater
concern, (3) cocaine was anyway so expensive that it was used only by a tiny
number of people and (4) alcohol and tobacco use produced outcomes in society a
thousand time worse (doctors emphasizing the last two points by pointing out
that while clinicians would regularly see cirrhosis of the liver, most would
spend their entire careers never seeing a case induced by vintage champagne).
Indeed, in the late 1970s, the only people concerned about cocaine use in the US seemed to be politicians who equated the drug’s widespread depiction in film and television as a glamorized thing associated with wealth, power and decadence, with an actual popularity of consumption. Hence the origins of the moral panic around cocaine, something perhaps inevitable after the white power was “rediscovered” earlier in the decade after being barely noticed by law enforcement agencies since the 1940s. Many US scientists even advocated legalization. What changed both the concerns and the consequences in the US was paste. Known in Peru and Bolivia as pasta basica de cocaina (or more commonly) basé or basuco, paste was a glutinous substance that oozed from the solvent-soaked coco leaves during the manufacture of the white powder ultimately sold in North America, Europe and other first-world markets. Once discarded as a unwanted by-product, those with access to the paste had begun drying it to crumble in cigarettes. Smoked, it was absorbed almost instantly through the air sacs of the lungs (which have the surface area the size of a tennis court) a vastly more efficient mechanism compared with the nasal membranes which are the passage for the traditional "snorting" of cocaine. Reaching the brain within twenty seconds, the difference was extraordinary, users reporting a hit which offered an intensity of pleasure like no other. Unfortunately, there was a price to pay, the rush lasting only minutes, replaced as it dissipated by a craving as intense as the initial experience had been, addiction instantaneous.
Paste however wasn’t suitable for distribution in rich markets because it truly was an industrial waste product with side-effects, containing residues of not only the toxic solvents used in the process such as kerosene and battery acid but stuff as diverse as lead and cement dust. What was needed was a marketable, mass-produced form of paste because it had which had the two characteristics which cocaine lacked, an intense high and an irresistible addictiveness (like LSD, cocaine really isn’t addictive). The solution emerged in the US in the early 1970s in a relatively straight-forward process which removed the hydrochloride salt from the refined powder, thereby freeing the cocaine base which could be heated and inhaled, hence the slang “freebasing”. Chemically however, that was inefficient and made no economic sense so freebasing remained restricted to dealers, chemists (amateur & professional) or those with a lot of disposable income so inclined.
Rare though the economics of the early process made use,
the consequences were noted and it was clear to researchers that if ever it
became possible to produce an inhalable paste at scale and a lower price, there
would be an epidemic of use. A
combination of circumstances, including the change by the Carter administration
(1977-1981) of long-practiced US policies towards the helpful (if distasteful)
administrations in Central America and the subsequent actions of the Reagan
administration (1981-1989) in the region, meant that’s exactly what
happened. By the early 1980s, increases
in volumes and improvements in distribution had seem the street price of
cocaine in the US collapse, inducing producers to create a variation of paste, “crack”
cocaine (named because of the sound it made while being consumed) which could
be sold in tiny, conveniently packaged quantities to a vastly expanded market
which, given the extraordinarily addictive properties, created its own
inertia. As a business model, it was
good; cheap, transportable and enjoying a long shelf life, crack was highly
profitable and the scourge of many US cities for more than a decade after the
early 1980s. Crack transformed the
demographics of cocaine consumption in the US; what had been the preserve of an
upper-middle class elite shifted to be the choice of the lowest-income
communities and the effects were profound, including a reaction to the
disparity in sentencing between the few cocaine users actually prosecuted and
those imposed on huge numbers of crack users.
Still controversial are the allegations the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved with the distribution of crack in US cities as a by-product of the need to generate the funds needed to help effect regime change in Nicaragua, the money needed after the Congress shut off US assistance to the Contras, the rebel movement opposing the Sandinista government (which begat also the Iran-Contragate scandal). An internal CIA investigation found that while there had been some involvement in trafficking narcotics to fund the Contras, there was nothing to link the agency with distribution in US cities. Journalist Gary Webb's (1955-2004) 1998 book about the allegations (Dark Alliance) is an engaging but difficult read (a companion dramatis personae would help). It covers so much that unless one is an expert in the history of the trade, it's hard to draw conclusions. Relying on the reviews, one is inclined to be skeptical about many of the linkages he made.
No comments:
Post a Comment