Posted by Jonathan Labaree on September 10, 2003 at 13:21:30 from 207.5.234.19 user JLabaree.
In Reply to: Re: "Coffee" - lines that use the word posted by Katharine Edgar on September 10, 2003 at 07:48:04:
I'm glad to have Robert's clarification of "camp" coffee. I have never really cottoned to chicory in my coffee, so I can understand the general disregard for the product.
Katherine, I am happy to provide a bit more detail of what I have known as "camp coffee", a humble brew that has sustained me many a morning in the woods, at anchor, and even at home (also called “cowboy coffee”). It is made simply by boiling coffee grounds in water - no filters, no percolator, just grounds in the water. As kids, we sometimes added a pinch of salt because we were told this was “Navy” coffee. I’m not sure we go that idea but, willing to believe anything that would make us “saltier”, we adopted the practice. Turns out that many American diners (restaurants, not people) add salt to their coffee machines. I have seen it done in many such establishments with highly satisfactory results.
The eggshell (you presumably are having eggs for breakfast and therefore have one handy) is added to encourage the grounds to stick together so that when you pour your brew, you don’t get bits of grit in your cup (you inevitably end up with some, but that’s part of the experience). It’s very effective, though I’m not at all sure why (rather like adding a dash of vinegar when you are making dropped eggs to keep them from spreading throughout the water). The same result can be achieved by pouring a bit of cold water in the coffee pot just before serving. Although adding cold water to a steaming beverage seems counter-intuitive to me, I have seen this done and it does work, though not quite as well as the eggshell. I guess the cold water descends to the bottom of the pot and helps keep the grounds down there.
Just as clarification, you can use fancy coffee if you’d like, but I suspect that boiling the coffee removes some of the more subtle tastes, so using expensive stuff is probably not worth it. If you grind your own beans, be sure to grind them very coarse – finely ground coffee tends to spread out a lot and doesn’t clump together as well, eggshell or no.
I’m a bit foggy this morning, so I’m not coming up with any literary references to this technique, but I’m sure there are some: Childers? Knight? MacGregor?