By the time I was done taking notes I'd developed a formula for the rate at which humans use volumes of time (measured in liters).

This pleases me.

The History of Beard Bread.
by Zak Jarvis

One of the most remarkable foods in the world began in the middle of the fourteenth century when a merchant vessel set sail from Cascais in Portugal. They were headed for the spice markets of Morocco with grains and other goods when a storm blew them off course. The ship wrecked on an island 45 miles west of the rocky shores of Sagres.

The sailors certainly knew of the island. It was said to be the home of devils. Console Dos Diabos they called it in their logs. Others had named it Pedras Gritando, Ventos do Sangue or Árvores Sujas. It was not a popular destination. For reasons lost to history, that group of sailors settled the island despite the superstition surrounding it. They built a small fishing village and a church. The tradition of beard bread followed shortly after. The island is now called Pão do Medo and to this day their unique culture has survived almost unchanged.

The men of the island shave only once a month. Some go to the communal Barbeiro Grande, but most shave at home. No modern shaving products are used there, however. Each family has a set of straight razors that have been passed down through generations, some of which can be traced back to the famous blades of Damascus. Butter is used where others would apply shaving cream. The shaved beards are all brought to the town center, they're organized by hair color and given to the bakeries. Most bakers specialize in a single color but some make mixes. The hair is put into a vat with fermento do homem, a special yeast found only on the island. It's mixed with a bit of spelt, a pinch of salt and some spring water to make a fragrant slurry. Depending on the weather it can take between 45 minutes and 2 hours for the fermento to convert the hair slurry into a workable dough, then the bakers begin their work. The dough is shaped into crosses and wreaths and baked in stone ovens.

All the baked bread is taken to the church and a communal dinner is held after sunset. Most all beard bread smells the same, but each has unique characteristics. Red beard bread is considered to be the finest. It's crust is a beautiful dark copper color. It's taste is difficult to describe, being similar to soughdough but with a distinct steak-like flavor, imparted from the presence of iron. Brown beard bread is more rye-like in appearance and even somewhat in flavor, but its predominant taste is of slightly over steeped black tea. Blond beard bread is very mild in flavor, and similar in appearance to wheat bread. It lacks the bitterness that characterizes brown beard bread. Black beard bread has no real analogs. Its crust is richly black and glossy and its flavor is overwhelmingly bitter. As with any food that comes in such variety, each style has its adherents.

The bread is possible only because of the unique yeast, Aspergillus barbicans. The yeasts used to make regular breads (and many alcoholic beverages) are fundamentally different. Saccharomyces cerevisiae digests the sugars in wheat and potatoes to make carbon dioxide. A. barbicans does the same with keratins, usually a completely indigestible organic compound.

Why does Pão do Medo play host to such an unusual mold? One answer is that is a graveyard for green sea turtles. In late senescence the turtles swim north from African waters and strand themselves on Pão do Medo. Their shells (like all turtles) are made almost entirely of beta-keratin and this in turn is digested by A. barbicans. Further study is needed to learn why the mold is unique to this island.

You might have guessed that beard bread could also be made from other substances. Indeed, though some claim to be able to distinguish between them, it is unlikely that there is any significant difference between beard hair and any other human hair. Nail clippings can be used, but the texture is said to be poor and the flavor musty, like very old pu-ehr tea. Claws can be used, but they must be pulped before they can be fermented and they supposedly taste much like fingernail bread. Some experimentation has been done with silks, but this is expensive. Cooks and bakers around the world are only now beginning to experiment with this unusual yeast. But the future is uncertain.

In 2006 the European Union began investigating a ban on beard bread citing sanitation concerns and fears that it could be a vector for prion diseases. Over the last hundred years the islanders have come to accept boiling the hair to rid it of lice or other pathogens. As long as butter is reintroduced most say the flavor is the same. So far there is no evidence of prion diseases being expressed in hair, though it isn't out of the question that some retroviruses could be transmitted. The World Health Organization has sponsored a research program to study the long-term effects of beard bread. Only time will tell if this traditional food will go the way of ortolan and casu marzu or if it will eventually be available in your local market.

After a delight-filled journey to Ikealand the drive home was quiet. In that quiet, a thing unfolded in my head. It goes like this:

Pernicious McGee was inspecting his collection of antique blow-gun darts. Suddenly a powerful gust of wind filled his damp apartment with the smell of baking bread.
"<sniff>", he said. "<sniff><sniff> Aspergillus barbicans! Someone is baking beard bread!"

I have no idea where it goes from there.

So over the last few days I've been working on finishing up the effects shot I'd been flailing at, and now I've made serious progress on that front. Plus, I've been playing around with personal art stuff. I'm back to doing landscapes, which I adore as a kind of meditation. I may have actual pictures to post later, but not at the moment.

Also there's this 8-bit cyberpunk story. It started out as another brain-flexy thing from the great Steering the Craft. I worked on the theory for a couple of days that it was just going to be a really fun little short story, but now it's perilously close to being not only a novel, but a novel that I'm going to start writing as soon as I clear away a little time for writing. I hadn't planned on that, but I know mrissa is often getting jumped by stray novels while walking around the wrong mental neighborhoods. My thought process was wearing a pretty provocative outfit, but I just cannot quite make the leap to 'was asking for it'.

And yes, I'm perfectly aware that I just implied that my brain uncomfortably violated itself. These things happen, you know.

I overslept today. Had to drag myself out of bed mid-dream. You know how sometimes even though you aren't in bed anymore, the sleep just won't let go of you? Well, that's how I feel at the moment. I expect this post to be nonsensical later.

The thing that was keeping me asleep (other than having had a pretty tiring day out at the tidepools yesterday), was the series of dreams I was having. They were viscious, cruel and hilarious. Full of nameless horrors, eschatalogical portents and slapstick comedy.

What was going on in the dream when I woke up was this:

I'd been left in charge of a modern-day, realisitic pirate ship with a crew of misfits and malcontents. We'd thrown together a really hasty defense against the gathering army of spectacular malevolence. The enemy found us, and I wasn't really prepared to take command of my troops. Oh, and the forces they brought to whither us with... The first wave I personally had to deal with was a prim little woman who announced her name was Kaelie and promptly fired an ASCAP licensing violation bazooka at us. Not particularly effective against pirates.

I took the bazooka from her and shoved it down her throat, then bellowed to my scallawags, "hey everybody, watch me pull a bazooka out of Kaelie's ass!"

And I did.

That's when I woke myself up because if I didn't I was going to sleep all day long in order to stay in this dream.