A sandwich revolution!
QUESTION What’s a Cuban sandwich? How do you make a perfect one?
A CUBAN sandwich is a long sandwich made with ham, spiced roasted pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard and regional variations of Cuban bread.
According to most food historians, it originated among Cuban workers in the cigar factories in Key West, an island city at the southern extremity of Florida, or further north in Tampa.
The cigar industry employed many Cuban workers at Key West until the industry moved to Tampa in the 1880s, and tens of thousands of Cuban workers moved to the area over the next decade.
The first recorded mention of a distinct Cuban sandwich is in descriptions of workers’ cafés in the Tampa districts of Ybor City and West Tampa from 1900, suggesting it was a Cuban-American fusion dish.
To construct a true Cuban sandwich, you must adhere to a strict formula. Cuban bread requires a yeast-risen dough that contains a little bit of fat.
This is allowed to rise under a palmetto leaf, which keeps the dough moist and also adds flavour. The process produces a long white roll which is soft on the inside with a thin crust on the outside. Cuban bread must be eaten on the day it’s made before the lard hardens and the bread goes dry.
The sandwich filling must contain: mild, smoked ham; roast pork marinated in mojo, which blends spices such as bitter orange, oregano, cumin, garlic, onion, vinegar and salt; Swiss cheese; American mustard and three types of pickle. It can be served hot, toasted on a barbecue or cold. The only variation to this formula is the Miami Cuban sandwich, which also contains salami.
Gary Foulds, Hertfordshire.
QUESTION What is the alien superstructure theory about Tabby’s star? Has it been proven?
IN 2015, a group of amateur astronomers called the Planet Hunters discovered a new star, which was given the forgettable name KIC 8462852.
It is better known as Tabby’s star in honour of Tabetha Boyajian, a professor at Louisiana State University, who pointed out some highly unusual features of this star found in the western reaches of the constellation Cygnus the Swan.
Boyajian had been studying data from the Kepler Space telescope. This was originally designed to study brightness fluctuations in 150,000 stars, hoping to spot the silhouettes of planets passing in front of them.
But in the process it found a number of other astronomical oddities, including the strange case of Tabby’s Star.
KIC 8462852 is 50% bigger than the Sun: technically, it is an F3 main-sequence star. It has one bizarre feature: its brightness can fluctuate from 0.2% to as much as 21%.
These dimming events happen at random and can last between one and three days. The dips are not periodic. This is highly unusual: conventional astronomy holds that an F3 main-sequence star can’t have variations in brightness of more than 0.01% on any time scale shorter than millions of years. They must also be periodic.
The star is so unusual that scientists have considered the possibility that it is surrounded by a phenomenon known as a Dyson sphere. This is a hypothetical swarm of alien artefacts, such as a fleet of giant solar collectors circulating around it to provide power to an extra-terrestrial civilisation. The concept of the Dyson sphere was the result of a thought experiment by physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson.
More conventional explanations include a swarm of comets or fragments from a shattered planet, which would create significant clouds of dust and debris that could occlude the star’s light.
But, so far, there is no simple, single explanation for the dimming seen around the star.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.
QUESTION After walking in the woods, my dog and I came home covered in small green caterpillars that had been hanging from threads. Were these a type of silkworm?
THESE are the larvae (caterpillars) of the winter moth
(Operophtera brumata). They are of the family Geometridae, which derives from the Ancient Greek geo ‘the earth’ and ‘measure’ in reference to the way the larvae appear to ‘measure the earth’ as they move along.
This is why they are known colloquially as inchworms. They move this way because they have three pairs of front legs and two or three pairs of rear legs, but no legs in the centre.
When walking, inchworms move their rear legs forward, creating a loop in their middles, and then move their front legs forward.
Winter moths lay their egg masses near leaf buds. The distinctive pale green larvae emerge
en masse following a succession of warm days in the early spring.
The larvae then set about denuding their host, feeding on leaf buds and later foliage for six weeks. They are particularly fond of oak and apple trees.
The caterpillar’s abseiling behaviour is a defensive mechanism and a fast method for the caterpillar to leave the tree top.
By mid-May, the larvae descend to the ground and burrow into the soil. Pupation occurs in the soil in late May. Adults emerge from the soil in late autumn to early winter when, upon mating, the flightless female lays eggs in bark crevices and on branches.
The silkworm Bombyx mori is not a member of the inchworm family. The silkworm is native to China, though because of its value it has spread to India, Korea, Japan and the West.
The caterpillars do not hang from threads. It is, in fact, the cocoon that produces the valuable silk.
OCharles Dann, Gloucester.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.