Many American know Cinco de Mayo (May 5) as a celebration of Mexico. The date is not Mexico's independence day, but rather a commemoration of the Mexican victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. As such, it is more of a regional holiday in the state of Puebla. In the US, Cinco de Mayo is often an excuse to dip into stereotypes and chow down on tacos.   

But what America’s Cinco de Mayo misses is the traditional food of Mexico, named to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, a recognition given to only one other cuisine (French). And, nachos with refried beans, cheese wiz and jalapenos is nowhere on the list or in the country. Taco Bell has even tried opening up in Mexico but each time has failed, simply because no one will eat there.

What makes traditional Mexican fare worthy of such a distinction? You won’t find cumin soaked ground beef hard shell tacos topped with iceberg and cheddar. But, you will find lamb barbacoa that has been smoked underground in banana leaves or carnitas topped with queso fresco, pickled onions and homemade salsa verde wrapped in a warm homemade corn tortilla that has been ever so lightly heated on a comal. And Puebla, just so happens to be considered by many, including Rick Bayless and Mark Bittman, as the gastronomic capital of Mexico.

Therefore, learning about the authentic foods of the region would be an appropriate way to honor the region of Puebla. Smithsonian looks at the origins of three dishes from Puebla: Mole Poblano, Chalupas, and Chiles en Nogada, with links to recipes you can try yourself. Besides, tacos are for any day.

Tom Scott climbs to the top of a wind turbine so that we don't have to. We find out what it looks like inside, what the view is like from the top, how not to fall off, and for the purpose of the video, how to get down safely in an emergency. Now I'm convinced that all hard hats need a pair of googly eyes.

In the 21st century, any studio planning a summer blockbuster is looking to build a franchise. If it’s a hit, there will be sequels down the road. It wasn’t always so. George Lucas did not have nine movies planned out when Star Wars premiered in 1977. Today’s fans have valid criticism about how the final Star Wars trilogy should have been planned better, but that has nothing to do with what happened in the 1970s. And that sort of criticism has affected discussions of the 1985 movie Back to the Future.

Of course the irony in this is that Back to the Future was not planned as a trilogy; this was a “universe” structured around only one story, with its sequels acting as mere expansions on those initial foundations. Even the “cliffhanger” ending of the first movie, with Marty, Doc, and the original Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells) piling into a now flying DeLorean to “do something about your kids,” was never meant to be more than a gag.

“We never designed the first Back to the Future to have a sequel,” director Zemeckis confirmed on the 2002 DVD release of Back to the Future Part II. “The flying car at the end was a joke, and it worked as a great joke and a great payoff. Everyone assumed we had this grand design like George Lucas did about Star Wars and had all these sequels. My only hope for Back to the Future ever was that it would make its money back.”

But of course it did, and there were two sequels that only made a trilogy in hindsight. Read how Back to the Future came about and how it ended up with two more movies at Den of Geek. -via Metafilter

Tom was born in 1896, and spent his first two years catching rats and mice in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He was a scrappy cat, fighting other cats and generally doing whatever he pleased. Then he decided to join the navy. He wandered aboard the USS Terror and decided that's where he wanted to live.

Tom was immediately adopted by the crew of the Terror, and full enlistment papers were drawn up giving him the rank of rat killer and mascot. The papers were properly filed, and Tom’s life at sea as a member of the United States Navy began.

Following Tom’s service during the Spanish-American War, where he worked alongside other navy cats such as Tom of the USS Maine, the USS Terror returned to northern waters. Tom and the rest of the crew joined the receiving ship Franklin.

From the Franklin, Tom was transferred to the USS Monongahala, which at this time was a ship-rigged sail training ship for the United States Naval Academy. Life on board the ship was made as pleasant as possible for Tom, but as they say, you can take the cat out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the cat.

While Tom discharged his pest control duties well, he did not like taking orders, and eventually became a deserter. Read how he got away from his commanding officer and evaded a search to join another ship at The Hatching Cat. -via Strange Company  

Tic-tac-toe is a quick but rarely interesting game that usually ends in a draw, unless you are playing someone who is new to the game. That's why it's usually considered a children's game. If you want to memorize the best tic-tac-toe moves, you get that in less than two minutes here. The rest of the video is the theory behind mathematical games. -via Digg

Why would anyone build a church out of cast iron? Believe it or not, in this case, it was because cast iron is not as heavy as the amount of stone needed to create the large building. And a large ornate building was exactly what the Bulgarian Orthodox Church needed to establish a footprint in Istanbul.  

Although it looks like stone, the Bulgarian St. Stephen Church with its richly ornamented façade on the shores of the Golden Horn in Istanbul, Turkey, is made of iron. It was cast in Vienna, floated down the Danube and across the Black Sea on barges, and bolted together here in Istanbul in 1871. It is possibly the largest prefabricated cast iron structure in the world.

The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church is grand inside as well as outside. And while it may be the largest cast iron church, it's not the only one. See more of the Istanbul church and other cast iron churches at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Michael Kam Barngrover)

The United States Postal Service is celebrating Star Wars Day by releasing a new set of Star Wars postage stamps. The forever stamps are in celebration of STEM education and will feature the droids of the Star Wars universe:

Featured in a pane of 20 stamps, and arranged in staggered, horizontal rows, the stamps vary in size and depict 10 of the more well-known droids in the “Star Wars” universe — IG-11, R2-D2, K-2SO, D-O, L3-37, BB-8, a 2-1B surgical droid, a GNK (or Gonk) power droid, C-3P0 and C1-10P, otherwise known as Chopper.

The First Day of Issue Ceremony will be held online on Tuesday at 11AM Eastern time. And May the fourth be with you. -via Boing Boing

Travelers and travel writers have either been sidelined or else have had some extraordinary adventures during the pandemic this past year. James Park went to South Korea to visit his parents in December, and was obliged to spend 14 days in quarantine before he could join his family. He was not allowed to leave his room at the facility, and meals were delivered and left outside the door.

Early in the pandemic, the Korean government-issued comfort-food packages for quarantining individuals got global attention, full of delicious instant noodles, canned tuna, ready-to-eat soups, rice, and more. It was an appetizing alternative to the meals other quarantine individuals had — like those poor NYU kids who basically got sad salad and warm orange juice. Rather than stay at an Airbnb or a government-assigned hotel, I’d chosen to quarantine at a resort owned by POSCO, the company my dad works for. It had temporarily been transformed into a quarantine facility — equipped with a cafeteria at which I can’t eat — for employees and their families.

The food rules are simple: It comes three times a day in bento box form, called dosirak in South Korea, and is left on top of the chair outside my room. Staff will call when the food is ready, and I can open the door to pick it up — the only time I’m allowed to open the door during the quarantine.

His quarters were Spartan, but he had internet communication and a nice ocean view. Park was fortunate to have a steady supply of meals from the resort, supplemented by deliveries from his parents and from local restaurants, so his diary of that period focuses mostly on the food he ate during his two-week stay. It is guaranteed to make you hungry.

There are hackers, and then there are Hollywood hackers. Guess which kind Alasdair Beckett-King (previously) is portraying. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The advent of powdered gelatin and refrigeration led us into a dark period of cuisine in which anything and everything was suspended in gelatin because it looked as if you'd put a lot of work into it. But suspending weird things in gelatin was big even before that, back when it really was a lot of work. And that's where we first encounter coffee jelly.  

Coffee jelly might seem like nouvelle cuisine of the highest order, seeing as most of us are used to having our coffee as a liquid rather than a solid. But it’s actually the opposite. Early recipes for coffee jelly are at least as old as Durgin-Park. One recipe, from an 1836 issue of New York’s Lady’s Book magazine, told readers to mix coffee with the gelatin produced by boiling a calf’s foot. With cream and sugar, it became an elegant dessert. Gelatin, for much of the 19th century, was a luxury, requiring boiled animal parts and a cool enough spot to allow it to set. A platter of shimmering coffee jelly, turned out of a decorated mold and served with a cream sauce, would have elicited oohs and ahs at a tea or dinner party.

In the 21st century, we aren't all that impressed with gelatin dishes, so coffee jelly pretty much died out in America. However, in the past hundred years, it has traveled around the world and back again. Learn where you can find coffee jelly, plus a recipe for making your own at Atlas Obscura.

Loic Suberville gives us short and funny skits about the way languages are constructed and used. While no language is exempt, he has had a lot of fun with French as it is heard by English speakers. There seems to be a wide gap in how we use vowels.  



The latest in the French series is labeled as part 107, although the numbering seems a bit random, as there are not 107 videos (it's about language, not math). You can browse through a ton of these videos at Suberville's YouTube channel. -via Laughing Squid

Deep in the heart of the Amazon, in the riverside town of Maués, they grow a fruit you may have never heard of. Guaraná grows in other places, but Maués is the heart of its production, as guaraná is not only a prized fruit made into a daily drink, it's a tourist draw. They even have an annual guaraná festival.

Guaraná contains high levels of caffeine – as much as four times that of coffee beans, as well as other psychoactive stimulants (including saponins and tannins) associated with improved cognitive performance. And numerous research papers explore its potential in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidepressant, intestinal regulator and even an aphrodisiac.

Maués might be dubbed the "land of guaraná" but the fruit's history long predates the town. The Sateré-Mawé indigenous people have been cultivating guaraná in their ancestral forests nearby for millennia. It was their ancestors who domesticated the species, learned of its properties and devised the best cultivation and processing techniques.

Guaraná has a traditional origin story that, yes, involves an eyeball, and long-held traditions on how to prepare and consume it. But it's also a moneymaker, working its way into South American sodas. It may even prolong life. Read about guaraná and what it means at BBC Travel. -via Digg

(Image credit: Anita Fortis)

Just found my new role model pic.twitter.com/f1HkBXSxyy

— human_not_bees (Beës) (@human_not_bees) April 25, 2021

Before you watch this video, remember that speed competitions involving food are often a bit gross, and should never be attempted in everyday life. She had the sandwich made and EATEN before he even got to the jelly! This one-on-one competition was over before it began, but it highlights the reasons why Guinness World Records has to establish rules and standards before they recognize any record holder. -via Metafilter

It's been 35 years since the world's worst nuclear disaster occurred in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. A complicated series of events led to explosions and a fire that burned for days at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, during which nuclear fallout rained over Ukraine and nearby Belarus.

April 26, 1986, started off like any other day for Alla Shapiro. The pediatrician, then 32 years old, was at work in the Pediatric Hematology Unit at the Children’s Hospital in Kiev, Ukraine. But everything changed when she learned that an explosion had occurred 80 miles north at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, just outside the city of Pripyat. In the hours that followed, hundreds of children arrived at the hospital by bus seeking treatment.

As a front-line worker, it was the first time that Shapiro and her colleagues were faced with treating patients during a disaster of Chernobyl's magnitude. Unfortunately, the Soviet government didn’t have any nuclear disaster protocols in place, and basic supplies were severely limited, leaving medical professionals to improvise and adapt. In the days and weeks that followed, Shapiro discovered that the government was misleading the public about its handling of the explosion, which was caused by a flawed reactor design, according to the World Nuclear Association.

Shapiro wrote a book about her experiences titled Doctor on Call: Chernobyl Responder, Jewish Refugee, Radiation Expert. She is now a consultant on the effects of radiation on human health. In an interview with Smithsonian, Shapiro describes the flood of children from Pripyat coming into her hospital coughing on radioactive dust, and the measures the staff took to care for them.