January 28, 2010
Beyond Cream and Sugar: Coffee With Cheese, Eggs and Reindeer Bones
Cheese in coffee, courtesy Flickr user daftgirly
The New York Times restaurant critic, Sam Sifton, recently tweeted something about “kaffeost,” a Finnish concoction in which hot coffee is poured over chunks of soft cheese. I have to admit, it looks decidedly unappealing to me in this YouTube video—but as food writer Meredith Modzelewski responded, “traditions exist for a reason,” so maybe it’s worth a try!
It got me thinking about other unusual things I’ve heard of people putting in their coffee, both before and after brewing. Here are a few:
1. Reindeer bone My grandmother, who is mostly Norwegian and has been to Norway dozens of times, says she’s seen at least one relative toss what looked like a smooth, whitish stone into the coffee grounds before brewing. He told her it was a piece of reindeer bone, to make the coffee taste less bitter. I can’t find any Internet references to this tradition (other than Laplanders putting fresh reindeer milk in coffee), so it may be just a quirky family habit or even a joke. But it makes some sense to me on a basic level: bone contains calcium, which counteracts acid.
2. Salt This was a hot topic on the CHOW discussion board a few weeks ago, after one poster asked if anyone else put a pinch of salt in their brewed coffee. Apparently, it makes a certain ubiquitous chain’s burned beans taste less bitter. Others recommend putting salt in the coffee grounds, rather than the final product, to improve the brew’s flavor. Personally, I’d like to try the Taiwanese salted coffee recently featured in Time; I like the idea of combining several taste sensations at once (sweet, bitter, salty—and, perhaps, kokumi).
3. Ice cream Back to my grandma again: Her favorite way to drink hot coffee, last time I checked, is with a scoop of ice cream floating on top (preferably coffee-flavored, but vanilla will do). What a nice way to get your cream and sugar, right? When we traveled to Germany together, she felt right at home: Germans love Eiskaffee. It’s a cold, blended drink there—coffee and ice cream, topped with whipped cream—and wildly addictive, in my experience.
4. Eggs Some people believe that adding crushed eggshells to coffee grounds improves the flavor, probably similar to the reindeer bone theory (eggshells are full of calcium, too.) And others crack an egg or egg whites into the coffee itself, making “egg coffee.” This Scandinavian tradition is popular in the American midwest—or at least in Hendricks, Minnesota, where the town website features egg coffee recipes in “family” and “Lutheran Church” sizes. Even John Steinbeck is a fan of this method: In his road-trip narrative, Travels with Charley, he describes adding both an egg white and shell to his coffee pot before percolating, “for I know nothing that polishes coffee and makes it shine like that.”
5. Okay, this is amazing. There is an entire blog called “Putting Weird Things in Coffee.” Its author, a Canadian grad student, has already experimented with everything from smoked salmon cream cheese (dissolves into a curdled-cream texture, bad idea) to bacon in coffee (“time-saving and delicious,” he claims). Why? Because, as he puts it, “I drink coffee every day, but get bored with the same old cream and sugar.”
Your turn. What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever had in coffee?
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I don’t know if this counts as “in” coffee, but when I was a kid, my grandfather always dunked his toast in his coffee. It’s something I do every so often now, just to remind me of those breakfasts with him, when he’d let me dunk *my* toast in his coffee. It’s a nice taste, honestly.
The weirdest thing I’ve ever had in coffee is bacon. OH WAIT, you already knew that. Thanks very much for the link, and for some more ideas for the blog. :)
This isn’t strange, but it is good…
Sweetening coffee with brown sugar or maple syrup makes for a delicious coffee difference, IMHO.
I’ve done cardamom (spice) in turkish coffee. I’ve also quite enjoyed an unfiltered coffee made with dried candied ginger in the grounds (the package said Kopi Jahe – which is apparently indonesian). I’ve also dumped espressos into fruit smoothies before; I suppose that meets the requirements, but seemed more like coffee in something else instead.
My grandfather always used to run his coffee through the grounds twice in the electric coffeemaker – once plain and once with eggshells in the grounds. I always loved the smell but couldn’t ever get into the taste of coffee myself.
[...] half shell, john steinbeck, snot chunks by Mike The Smithsonian’s Food & Think blog has just posted about coffee, and putting weird things in it. They gave a much-appreciated shout-out to this here blog, and also gave me lots of ideas for [...]
I add orange rind/peel in the coffee press… its delicious!
[...] via Amanda Bensen (who notes that her family used to brew coffee with reindeer [...]
I like to add either chocolate or vanilla milk (milk to go) to my coffee. It is lower fat than cream and adds a nice flavor to the coffee, also it is sweetened so I need to add less sugar.
One thing we have been doing lately is to add a couple sprinkles of cinnamon and nutmeg to the coffee grounds before brewing (regular drip coffee maker). This is awesome. It makes homeade coffee taste like expensive coffeeshop 4$ a cup stuff, with very little extra cost. It just adds that little something that takes it from plain coffee to something to take notice of.
We also experimented with adding a little cocoa powder to the grounds, and this added a nice flavor as well, but it also often clogged the filter and caused grounds to overflow into the pot.
I’ll have to try the ice cream in coffee this summer, sounds good. I’ve done this in hot chocolate before, but never thought to try it with coffee.
Amber – My mom always dunked turkey sandwiches in coffee, and it’s really good. I remember her letting me dunk my sandwiches in too, before I was old enough to drink coffee, and it was always a treat. Although you only want to have cream in the coffee (no sugar) and it needs to be a plain turkey sandwich.
Whole eggs are whisked into coffee in Indonesia and Vietnam as well — popular morning pick-me-up (for men only).
Peanut Butter. Not in coffee, but with it. A big spoonful of PB, which some people find strange anyway, and a cup of strong unsweetened coffe with cream: lick the spoon, sip the coffee, repeat. They seem to complement each other.
I have stirred in ice cream on occasion and my mom’s family all put eggshell in the grounds. They each had an empty coffee can with cleaned eggshells in the pantry next to the can of coffee. I will have to try the orange peel sometime, maybe when I coldbrew some next summer.
Sugar and milk is all I put in my coffee. But try dunking bread in Coca-cola. Very good. You can’t leave it for too long otherwise it’ll god soggy and drown.
I used to operate a pizzeria where this one customer would come in and purchase a cup of coffee and proceed to peel a couple of cloves of garlic and put the cloves right into the coffee.
I believe he may have been homeless and/or a street person. And I also believe that this was one of the ways he had of keeping himself healthy.
I, however, was never tempted to try it myself.
Affogato is a must-try – a scoop of icecream with a shot of espresso poured over it. I live in New Zealand and we’re not exactly exotic, but affogato is pretty commonplace in most cafes…I would’ve thought it’d cottoned on over there?
I used to mix equal parts of black coffee and coca cola to make a caffine rich pick me up before energy drinks became so popular. I’ve explained it as being similar to vanilla coke but obviously coffee flavoured. It does froth a bit though.
[...] a “snow julep;” another likes a “snow margarita.” And hey, speaking of putting weird things in coffee…okay, yeah, that would probably just make for cold, watery coffee. But you could make coffee [...]
I add orange rind/peel in the coffee press… its delicious!
I’ve tried ‘brie noir’, which is brie cheese that’s been aged for about 8 months until it’s dry, crumbly, and acrid. It’s pretty inedible, but was told that they best way to eat it was to dip it in coffee, like the locals do.
It sounded suspect, but I tried it and was surprised that it was pretty palatable. Not exactly what I want to start my day with on a regular basis, but not bad!
i know someone, who adds lemon juice into their coffee
without suger. just lemon juice. i don’t know why
i add chocolate and chilli. but it isn’t wired, is it?
Best thing: Muscat grappa
Weirdest thing: …ground red hot chili pepper! By a good friend of mine, Carlo Q., a renowned wine-maker here in Monferrato…
My grandfather used to put honey in his coffee, and I have a friend who does the same, but I’ve never tried.
I sprinkle Pumpkin Pie spice into my french press, along with a pinch of salt. yummy…
I’m a purist. I do enjoy egg coffee, being a midwestern scandinavian, but in a way that takes away from the coffee rather than adding. But I don’t want cream or sugar, just coffee. Stronger the better.
That being said, I used to serve a homeless man when I worked in a little café, and he always added a pat or two of butter to his coffee. He said it was a normal thing to do and delicious, but I wondered if he just needed the extra fat.
My (dutch) grandmother always put pepper in the coffee before percolating, she said it made it smoother
Not weird, but good: vanilla bean ice cream, grappa, cookie dough ice cream…I’ve often run out of milk, but rarely am out of ice cream.
Equal parts espresso and bittersweet chocolate. DELICIOUS. Also, chocolate ganache (truffle filling) or fudge. Kind of a no-brainer, and not at all weird.
All sorts of spices: ginger, cayenne, cinnamon, and probably more that I haven’t tried yet. If you’ve got an espresso maker, just put ‘em right in the portafilter. Add more than you think is a good idea. I got the idea for ginger from Kopi Jahe, as previously mentioned — and then kinda rolled with it.
Also, maple syrup can be poured uniformly over a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and coffee.
*Back in the mid-50s, we lived in Chicago Heights, IL. *The water was yellow with iron and also enough sulphur that the water had a strong rotten egg smell. *We were advised by “natives” to beat a raw egg slightly and mix the raw egg with the fresh coffee grounds in the percolator. *Surprisingly, the fresh coffee came out clear and good tasting. *Only place and time we ever made coffee that way. *We also had gallon jugs that we took with us whenever we visited family/friends in other suburbs. *The empty jugs were filled with water and brought home with us for drinking water.
Surprising thing to learn from these comments: apparently if I’m ever homeless, garlic-butter coffee is the way to go!
Cherry brandy. Absolutely wonderful.