Coffee addiction and other food fads.

Years ago, when David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" was first seen on British TV, we were amused by Agent Dale Cooper, played by Kyle MacLachlan, and his love of coffee. At least once an episode he was heard to declare, "This is damn fine coffee". We still echo him from time to time.

Now I think that Agent Dale Cooper was simply an alter ego for David Lynch who says that his "relationship with coffee" began at the age of three. Modern mothers would throw their hands up in horror at the prospect of their three year old drinking coffee but I can remember people who gave their small children weak milky coffee in a bottle. No wonder they sometimes had trouble sleeping!

David Lynch reckons that at one point he was drinking as many as 20 cups a day. Nowadays he averages 10, but the size of the cup has increased. I wonder what size of cup he drinks nowadays, considering that what Starbucks calls "small" seems to me to be enormous! A good coffee, David says, “should have no bitterness, and it should be smooth and rich in flavour. I like to drink espresso with milk, like a latte or a cappuccino, but the espresso should have a golden foam. It can be so beautiful.” A coffee lover!

I thought of him the other day when I drank coffee with my German friend in the Vienna Coffee House in Manchester. She was drinking an Americano and expressing her annoyance at the Americans having claimed ownership of the large black coffee, which she said should rightly be called a German, or possible Austrian, filter coffee. Nonetheless she enjoyed coffee, declaring it to be very good. Which is ironic as in her house she serves rather poor instant coffee.

Of course, the other big irony is anyone laying claim to coffee as belonging to their nation, apart from tropical Africa where it originated. I wonder if Donald Trump knows that this so American drink, served with just about every meal and cups refilled frequently in diners, is really an immigrant!

I have to confess that Phil and I have become awful coffee snobs. Instant coffee has not been seen in our house for a long time. We remember, with a shudder, my mother making coffee with milk but no water and the merest sprinkle of instant on top of the hot milk. She more or less showed it the coffee jar and that was it. No doubt she would really enjoy the caramel lattes, cinnamon lattes, vanilla lattes and all the other abominations that are offered in coffee shops these days.

Other famous people are known for their eating fads too. Steve Jobs was vegan most of his adult life, believed in fasting, and had periods of being a fruitarian, eating nothing but fruit and nuts. He is said to have believed his diet prevented him from sweating and so did not always wash regularly or use deodorant - not really advisable when you work closely with others! He is also known to have sometimes lived on nothing but apples and carrots, convinced that they gave him everything his body needed. I could almost share that belief, having lived on almost nothing but apples at times during my student life. I am doubtful about the carrots side of it ever since a friend of mine went on a strict carrots and potatoes diet and found his fingers beginning to turn orange from a surfeit of carotene! 

Jackie Onassis is said to have eaten one baked potato a day stuffed with beluga caviar and soured cream. She watched the scales “with the rigour of a diamond merchant counting his carats”, according to her social secretary Tish Baldrige. If she went a couple of pounds over her usual weight, she would fast for a day, then confine herself to a diet of fruit until she was back to normal.

Such are the oddnesses of people's eating habits!