Gum Arabic Quotes

The idea of mixing pigments and gum arabic together to make watercolor paint is very old. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century the English chemists W. Winsor and H. Newton were the first to add glycerin to the blend to make the paints maintain a semi-moist consistency when stored in paintboxes.

An adhesive popular for a thousand years, gum arabic, comes from the acacia gum tree. The resin of trees of the genus Boswellia is a particularly nice-smelling glue called frankincense. Myrrh, another aromatic resin, comes from a thorny tree of the genus Commiphora. Resins were often used in medicines as well as in perfumes, perhaps because their active chemical components, like phenols, had potent antibacterial properties. Frankincense and myrrh were so highly valued in antiquity that they were given as presents to queens, kings, and emperors, which is why their presence in the Christian nativity story is so significant.

I close my eyes and all I can think of is red. So I get a tube of watercolour, cadmium red dark, and I get a big mop of a brush, and I fill a jar with water, and I begin to cover the paper with red. It glistens. The paper is limp with moisture, and it darkens as it dries. I watch it drying. It smells of gum arabic. In the centre of the paper, very small, in black ink, I draw a heart, not a silly Valentine but an anatomically-correct heart, tiny, doll-like, and then veins, delicate road-map of veins, that reach all the way to the edges of the paper, that hold the small heart enmeshed like a fly in a spiderweb. See, there's his heartbeat.

It has been noted in various quarters that the half-illiterate Italian violin maker Antonio Stradivari never recorded the exact plans or dimensions for how to make one of his famous instruments. This might have been a commercial decision (during the earliest years of the 1700s, Stradivari’s violins were in high demand and open to being copied by other luthiers). But it might also have been because, well, Stradivari didn’t know exactly how to record its dimensions, its weight, and its balance. I mean, he knew how to create a violin with his hands and his fingers but maybe not in figures he kept in his head. Today, those violins, named after the Latinized form of his name, Stradivarius, are considered priceless. It is believed there are only around five hundred of them still in existence, some of which have been submitted to the most intense scientific examination in an attempt to reproduce their extraordinary sound quality. But no one has been able to replicate Stradivari’s craftsmanship. They’ve worked out that he used spruce for the top, willow for the internal blocks and linings, and maple for the back, ribs, and neck. They’ve figured out that he also treated the wood with several types of minerals, including potassium borate, sodium and potassium silicate, as well as a handmade varnish that appears to have been composed of gum arabic, honey, and egg white. But they still can’t replicate a Stradivarius. The genius craftsman never once recorded his technique for posterity. Instead, he passed on his knowledge to a number of his apprentices through what the philosopher Michael Polyani called “elbow learning.” This is the process where a protégé is trained in a new art or skill by sitting at the elbow of a master and by learning the craft through doing it, copying it, not simply by reading about it. The apprentices of the great Stradivari didn’t learn their craft from books or manuals but by sitting at his elbow and feeling the wood as he felt it to assess its length, its balance, and its timbre right there in their fingertips. All the learning happened at his elbow, and all the knowledge was contained in his fingers. In his book Personal Knowledge, Polyani wrote, “Practical wisdom is more truly embodied in action than expressed in rules of action.”1 By that he meant that we learn as Stradivari’s protégés did, by feeling the weight of a piece of wood, not by reading the prescribed measurements in a manual. Polyani continues, To learn by example is to submit to authority. You follow your master because you trust his manner of doing things even when you cannot analyze and account in detail for its effectiveness. By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. These hidden rules can be assimilated only by a person who surrenders himself to that extent uncritically to the imitation of another.

There is no fault that can’t be corrected [in natural wine] with one powder or another; no feature that can’t be engineered from a bottle, box, or bag. Wine too tannic? Fine it with Ovo-Pure (powdered egg whites), isinglass (granulate from fish bladders), gelatin (often derived from cow bones and pigskins), or if it’s a white, strip out pesky proteins that cause haziness with Puri-Bent (bentonite clay, the ingredient in kitty litter). Not tannic enough? Replace $1,000 barrels with a bag of oak chips (small wood nuggets toasted for flavor), “tank planks” (long oak staves), oak dust (what it sounds like), or a few drops of liquid oak tannin (pick between “mocha” and “vanilla”). Or simulate the texture of barrel-aged wines with powdered tannin, then double what you charge. (““Typically, the $8 to $12 bottle can be brought up to $15 to $20 per bottle because it gives you more of a barrel quality. . . . You’re dressing it up,” a sales rep explained.) Wine too thin? Build fullness in the mouth with gum arabic (an ingredient also found in frosting and watercolor paint). Too frothy? Add a few drops of antifoaming agent (food-grade silicone oil). Cut acidity with potassium carbonate (a white salt) or calcium carbonate (chalk). Crank it up again with a bag of tartaric acid (aka cream of tartar). Increase alcohol by mixing the pressed grape must with sugary grape concentrate, or just add sugar. Decrease alcohol with ConeTech’s spinning cone, or Vinovation’s reverse-osmosis machine, or water. Fake an aged Bordeaux with Lesaffre’s yeast and yeast derivative. Boost “fresh butter” and “honey” aromas by ordering the CY3079 designer yeast from a catalog, or go for “cherry-cola” with the Rhône 2226. Or just ask the “Yeast Whisperer,” a man with thick sideburns at the Lallemand stand, for the best yeast to meet your “stylistic goals.” (For a Sauvignon Blanc with citrus aromas, use the Uvaferm SVG. For pear and melon, do Lalvin Ba11. For passion fruit, add Vitilevure Elixir.) Kill off microbes with Velcorin (just be careful, because it’s toxic). And preserve the whole thing with sulfur dioxide. When it’s all over, if you still don’t like the wine, just add a few drops of Mega Purple—thick grape-juice concentrate that’s been called a “magical potion.” It can plump up a wine, make it sweeter on the finish, add richer color, cover up greenness, mask the horsey stink of Brett, and make fruit flavors pop. No one will admit to using it, but it ends up in an estimated 25 million bottles of red each year. “Virtually everyone is using it,” the president of a Monterey County winery confided to Wines and Vines magazine. “In just about every wine up to $20 a bottle anyway, but maybe not as much over that.

Eugenie was sitting cross-legged in a corner, rubbing grains of sand between her fingers. She was giving him her harshest stare. “Can you tell me what the hell we’re doing here, my dear Franck?” Sharko couldn’t see clearly; he was blinded by tears. His lips opened in a sad smile. Blood began pouring from his nostrils and gums. “You really think I had a choice?” Atef knit his brow. He brandished his clamps again threateningly. “What are you talking about?” Eugenie stood up, eyes blazing. “You always have a choice!” “Not with my hands tied behind my back.” Sharko’s eyes were rolling in their sockets, following the girl’s movements around the room. Atef took a step back and turned around. Then the inspector leaped up and charged forward, headfirst, while still bound to his chair. He butted Atef in midabdomen with all his strength. The blow sent the Arab flying backward. There was a sharp intake of breath as he hit the wall. A steel spike jutted out of his left breast. His limbs went limp, but he wasn’t dead. His face was contorted in pain and his mouth gave no sound. He raised his hands to the metal rod, but had no strength to do anything more. Blood began flowing from his lips. Surely a perforated lung.

You probably don’t think of your lunch as being constructed from powders, but consider the ingredients of a Subway Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich. Of the 105 ingredients, 55 are dry, dusty substances that were added to the sandwich for a whole variety of reasons. The chicken contains thirteen: potassium chloride, maltodextrin, autolyzed yeast extract, gum Arabic, salt, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, fructose, dextrose, thiamine hydrochloride, soy protein concentrate, modified potato starch, sodium phosphates. The teriyaki glaze has twelve: sodium benzoate, modified food starch, salt, sugar, acetic acid, maltodextrin, corn starch, spice, wheat, natural flavoring, garlic powder, yeast extract. In the fat-free sweet onion sauce, you get another eight: sugar, corn starch, modified food starch, spices, salt, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate and calcium disodium EDTA. And finally, the Italian white bread has twenty-two: wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, sugar, yeast, wheat gluten, calcium carbonate, vitamin D2, salt, ammonium sulfate, calcium sulfate, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, potassium iodate, amylase, wheat protein isolate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, yeast extract and natural flavor. If

What is a crime? The dictionary would have you know it is an act or omission punishable by law, but the law of one country is not the law of another. Gambling, for example, is not a crime in the United Kingdom, yet Islamic law forbids it. Chewing gum is illegal in Singapore; unmarried couples may not cohabit in the United Arab Emirates. So you see, a “crime” can be many things to many people.

She knew about bundling up against the wicked cold. She knew about Paradise Plums—hard, oval candies, cherry-red on one side, pineapple-yellow on the other. She knew which West Indian markets along Lenox Avenue carried them in tilt-back glass jars on the countertops. She knew how desirable Paradise Plums were to sweet-starved little children, and how important in maintaining discipline on long shopping journeys. She knew exactly how many of the imported goodies could be sucked and rolled around in the mouth before the wicked gum arabic with its acidic british teeth cut through the tongue’s pink coat and raised little red pimples.