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Next Issue: The Monkey's Paws Recent Issues: Beavis & Butt-head Extravaganza
I've intentionally avoided _I Love Ester_
at the newsstand for nearly a year. Although this zine appeared to be
well laid-out and professionally printed, the title -- and the fact
that it's polybagged -- suggested that it was the product of someone's
less-than-wholesome preoccupation with an aloof girl next door or some
slickly airbrushed supermodel. However, at the urging of a friend I
picked up the latest issue (Number 5: Winter '97) and was surprised.
Unfortunately for you stalker fans out
there, the zine _I Love Ester_ is not about a woman. It's a zine
about artificial flavors and smells: chemicals known as "esters."
Written by industrial food chemist Benning
Brown (an alias), _I Love Ester_ alternates between goofy fun and
technical detail that would daze a graduate student. However, despite
the sometimes technical subject matter his prose is clear and often
funny, and is peppered with the half-hearted cynicism of a man who
loves a job that he knows everyone else finds upspeakably nerdy.
The issue I bought is entitled "Butter and
Shoe Polish" and follows what appears to be a well-established format.
The first section, four pages long, is devoted to "Lab Report." Here,
he details new equipment his company (always refered to as "a Large
Food Company") has purchased, and any new synthesis or anlaysis
methods he's stumbled across.
In this issue, Benning gushes about his
brand spankin' new "Fluid Data Excel V" gas chromatagraph as well as a
new synthesis shortcut that -- I am led to understand -- reduces waste
of certain expensive reagents.
For the budding amateur food-chemist this section may be invaluable, but
to me, it is the least interesting section of the zine. You can tell he
likes his job, but Benning's enthusiasm does not make the subject matter any
more accessible. In fairness, I suppose that some of the panegyrics to
hardware in computer magazines would sound equally dry to someone outside
that field.
"Lab Report" is followed by several short
historical essays about the triumphs and failures of food chemistry.
We are treated to a page about the inventor of the flavor in Circus
Peanuts (menacingly named "SP-51"). Having always had a soft spot for
this underdog of the candy world, I especially enjoyed learning how
this flavor came about. Not surprisingly, it was a failed attempt at
synthetic bannana that was rushed into production in order to have a
new candy for the Halloween season.
On a similar holiday theme, Benning tells
us how a co-worker of his was responsible for the short-lived pumpkin
pie-flavored Pez that was marketed during Thanksgiving of '86. Until
these two essays, I had no idea that food-chemistry was so driven by
seasonal market pressures.
In the third and final essay, Benning
writes of the artificial flavors and smells that were used in the MREs
("Meals Ready to Eat") carried by U.S. soldiers during the Gulf War.
This essay is the longest, and it is clear that he is proud of the
work he did. The challange in this product was to create flavors and
smells that would not only be palatable and "have a fine nose," but
would be durable enough to last through months or years or storage,
and months of desert heat.
The final section of _I Love Ester_ --
"Smell This" -- is it's crowning glory; the sparkle of genius that
makes this zine worth buying. "Smell This" is a collection of
scratch-n-sniff and "scratch-n-lick" patches covering the last six
pages of this issue. Each patch is numbered and indexed to a postpaid
card in the back. What Benning Brown wants you to do is smell (or
taste) each patch and tell him what you think.
This issue's theme is "butter and shoe
polish" but is only loosely followed. (And don't worry, none of the
lickable patches taste like Kiwi brand bootblack.) Only eight
scratch-and-sniff patches are butter or shoe-polish scented, while the
others run the gamut from vaguely cinnamony all the way to noxiously
floral. My favorite scent (#34) smelled remarkably like fresh wood.
Out of the total 34 patches, 25 are
scratch-and-sniff and nine are lickable swatches of flavor. I found
that I could lick each patch two or three times before it lost all
flavor. Unfortunately, doing so made the pages of my zine stick
together. There are no ugly surprises here, so don't worry about
unwittingly getting a taste of of "Sun-bloated carp #3."
Benning Brown has put together something
that is both experimental and entertaining. I've never before seen a
science-oriented zine, and certainly didn't expect to see such a
well-written one. With the caution you'd expect from a chemist,
however, Brown makes no promises that his zine will last out the year.
He does not offer subscriptions, nor does he trade-in-kind. So send
your checks, get your back issues, and lick away, because "I Love
Ester" -- like some of the confections produced by his lab -- may be
too good to last.
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