Do Elephants Jump? (16 page)

The machines that ask you to dip your credit card are, appropriately enough, called “DIP readers.” Once again, the industry has to adjust for those users who just aren’t smooth enough. Card-reader manufacturer MagTek’s director of engineering, Larry Meyers, explains:

Which came first: the big flour tortilla or the big burrito? If corn tortillas were as large as flour ones, and were stuffed accordingly, we’d be ordering fewer tacos at a pop, wouldn’t we?

Although there are no strict standards, most corn tortillas are about six inches in diameter (although 5½ inches is another popular size for prepackaged corn tortillas) and rarely exceed seven inches. Flour tortillas can be found that are as big as a medium pizza (twelve inches), although smaller ones also are available that are no bigger than their corn counterparts.

Corn tortillas are thought to date back several millennia before Christ and became the staple of the Aztecs’ diet by the sixteenth century. When the Spanish conquerors came to the highlands of Mexico, they found the native women pounding corn to make bread; the Spanish dubbed the bread
tortilla,
or “small cake.” The Spanish later introduced wheat to Latin America, and flour tortillas, created only in the past few centuries, were the result.

Traditionally, the first step in preparing corn tortillas was soaking corn in a lime solution that eliminates the husks. The corn kernels are then ground with a stone into masa, and the dough is then combined with water and mixed by hand into a golf-ball-sized sphere. The masa is then rubbed between the cook’s hands and patted into a flat pancake of approximately six inches. The six-inch dimension wasn’t a function of any particular standard, rather it was as big a dough as could be molded easily by hand. If it were any bigger, the tortilla would flop over the outsides of the baker’s hands and fall apart. The eponymous Maria Vega of Maria’s Tortillas in Los Angeles, California, elaborates:

Of course, commercial plants don’t make corn tortillas by hand. Tortilla presses are capable of flattening a ball of masa in a second or two, making perfect six-inch circles of corn, and are even available for home use.

The dough of flour tortillas has a different consistency from corn — it is too soft and sticky to be patted between the hands or even to be subjected to the tortilla press (although we heard tales of a few skilled Mexican women who have made paper-thin flour tortillas the size of Nebraska). Home bakers use a rolling pin to flatten the dough into a pancake on a heavily floured board. Unlike corn tortillas, these wheat flour cakes can be made into various sizes. You can get an even consistency without cracks, whether the pre-flattened ball is the size of a golf ball or a tennis ball.

Why is the consistency of the flour dough more flexible and resilient than corn? The answer is gluten, a protein found in wheat doughs (and in some others, such as barley, rye, and oat). The kneading process used in tortilla preparation enhances and strengthens the formation of gluten, and Rolando Flores, research-food engineer at the United States Department of Agriculture, explains why gluten is so important:

Presumably, the wheat flour is added to strengthen the integrity of the corn tortilla dough, to avoid dreaded taco spillage.

So we have arrived at the inescapable conclusion that flour tortillas are larger because they can be made larger! In Mexico, the most popular size for flour tortillas is six inches, the same size as corn tortillas. But in the United States, restaurants always think about super-sizing. Why offer a burrito the size of a taco when you can serve a gigante burrito, a quesadilla on steroids, or a taco salad served in a fried-flour tortilla “bowl” the size of a soup tureen? Surprisingly, flour tortillas outsell corn tortillas in Mexico and corn bests flour in the United States, according to Samuel Rodriguez, national sales manager of Olé Mexican Foods. In Mexico, the six - inch - diameter flour tortilla dominates the market, but even in the United States, the small size bests the large ones in sales, even if this doesn’t jibe with our experience in restaurants.

The solution to this sub-Imponderable is that the Mexican market within the United States tends to buy the small-sized flour tortillas for home use, while Anglos tend to buy the large sizes. Tortillas are literally the biggest thing since sliced bread, since only sliced bread out-sells tortillas in the United States. The Tortilla Industry Association proudly boasts that tortilla sales now exceed those of bagels and muffins, and tortillas now constitute a $6 billion industry in the United States alone, which does not even include the consumption of tortilla chips.

In
How Do Astronauts Scratch an Itch?,
we discussed why kids get more runny noses than adults. The explanation lay mostly in the greater propensity of children to catch colds and infections. But sharp-eyed
Imponderables
readers noted that our noses run during cold winters even when we are feeling terrific, and wondered why even graybeards dab their noses in the winter.

Otolaryngologist Dr. Steven C. Marks, on behalf of the American Rhinologic Society, explains the physiology:

Many medical problems, such as viral or bacterial infections or allergies can cause your nose to run. But the nose’s response to cold is a little different, as Marks explains:

What good does a runny nose do anyone but Kleenex? Keith Holmes, an ear, nose, and throat specialist from Dubois, Wyoming, believes that it is “a natural physiologic phenomenon of the organ to protect the warm lining of the nose,” as cold irritates the mucous membrane. Marks speculates that “the increased mucus flow may be necessary to improve the humidification and cleaning of the air in the cold environment.”

You give cartoonists far too much credit for imagination, David and Valerie. Long before there were punk rockers, bulls sported genuine brass rings.

The expression “bull-headed” wasn’t pulled out of thin air. Bulls are among the most stubborn and least accommodating of farm animals. When a human wants a bull to move and a bull wants to sit for a spell, verbal commands are unlikely to work. Neither will a friendly little shove on the rear. Bulls’ hooves have been known to crush the feet of owners who made them “see red,” and they love to kick, too. Those rings are inserted to allow owners to “lead them around by the nose.” As Richard Landesman, a University of Vermont zoologist, puts it, “Any tension on the ring will produce pain, and this can be used as a means either to train or restrain the bull.”

Most bulls are “ringed” before they are a year old, in a procedure that isn’t as delicate as a human ear piercing. For some reason, bulls don’t welcome a veterinarian driving a steel rod through their septum, so they are given a local anesthetic and placed in a “head bail” to keep them from moving at an inopportune time.

Nose rings come in various sizes, and it is not uncommon for bulls to graduate to a larger-sized ring (as big as three inches in diameter) as they grow. Dan Kniffen, of the National Cattlemen’s Association, told
Imponderables
that there are even temporary clip-on rings, called “bugs,” the bovine equivalent of clip-on ties, that don’t pierce the nostrils. Bugs can be used to shepherd the recalcitrant bull that needs to be moved occasionally.

It behooves the prudent farmer not to make permanent enemies of five- or six-ton creatures. Once the ring is inserted, vets urge owners to restrain the bull with a halter around his head, with a lead rope fed through the ring. Yanking on the ring directly is quite painful, and bulls have been known to carry a grudge. Hudson, New York, veterinarian Andrew S. Ritter also warns of the dangers of tethering a bull by the ring, lest it rip through the cartilage of the nose attempting to get free.

Why don’t cows have nose rings? Although the occasional delinquent cow (and horse) sports a nose ring, the distaff bovines generally have a sunnier, more docile disposition than their bull-headed mates.

If the more specific question, “Why is Morton Salt sold in round containers?” is answered, all will be revealed, for Morton has always dominated the sales of household table salt. Until the twentieth century, Morton sold its salt in cloth bags. Moisture infiltrated the bags with ease, leading to hard lumps. Consumers had to break up the caked salt (pounding the bag on countertops and pummeling the lumps with mallets were two preferred methods), and then put the salt into their own glass jars.

Morton experimented with square cartons at the turn of the century, which were more durable than cloth, but still didn’t solve the caking problem. Plus, salt stuck to the corners of the square box. The first round carton was introduced in 1900, but it had its own nuisance — a wooden spout that had to be plugged in between uses. Not until 1911 did Morton’s research discover the wonders of adding a smidgen of magnesium carbonate, which absorbed moisture and allowed the free flow of salt even in humid conditions (Morton now uses calcium silicate for the same purpose).

The only downside to the spiffy round container was that it cost more to manufacture than square ones, and the expense had to be passed on to consumers. The solution? Advertising.

The Morton Salt Girl, complete with umbrella, was introduced in a 1914
Good Housekeeping
ad trumpeting the company’s primary product benefit (“When it rains it pours”), and consumers proved willing to spend more money for free-flowing salt in the spiffy, blue round containers that Morton calls “cans” internally. Morton has held on to a dominant market share, the slogan, and a similar-looking container ever since. The shape has become so identified with table salt that other brands, including generic and store-brand competitors, have copied the packaging.

But there’s no inherent advantage to the round shape. In fact, Morton representative Don Monroe told
Imponderables
that the company still sells bales and bags of salt for institutional uses. For example, a pickler might buy a twenty-five-pound bale of salt and dump the whole bag into a vat to brine cucumbers. Morton and other companies sell specialty products, such as kosher, pickling, and tenderizing salt in rectangular packages.