"I asked him to join me, and when he accepted I went into my house and set coffee to cooking and, remembering how Roark Bradford liked it, I doubled the dosage, two heaping tablespoons of coffee to each cup and two heaping for the pot. I cracked an egg and cupped out the yolk and dropped white and shells into the pot, for I know nothing that polishes coffee and makes it shine like that."
Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, via Better Matters.
I read this last night, and it sounded familiar. Nate told me once all the old veterans he knew (how does Nate know all these old veterans?) swore by it, as this is how they made coffee in the Army in World War II. He explained it thusly: “Ask any veteran and they’ll tell you that you’ve got to put the egg shells in it just like they did for the mess back in the day. And that was the best coffee they’d ever tasted. Of course, I think that has more to do with running ten miles everyday and fearing for your life than egg shells.” Well, possibly.
Nate and I have made coffee like this a couple of times, and I can confirm that it is pretty tasty this way, particularly if you’re using a percolator. We have referred to this method as “Guadalcanaling,” which seemed reasonable considering the circumstances of its possible creation. The author Roark Bradford, referenced by Steinbeck, served in the Naval Reserve in World War II, so perhaps it is something related to mess halls and canteens.
So, reader, if you find yourself sometime either over here at S. 12th, or at Nate’s place in Louisville, in the morning you can ask, “Hey, Guadalcanal that coffee, could you?” And you’ll get your coffee from a percolator with eggshells. I suppose, though, you could also ask for your coffee to be Roarked, Bradforded, Mess-Halled, Semper Fi’d, Ardennes’d, Omar Bradleyed, D-Dayed or Operation Overlorded, and we would probably get the message, too. Nate and I are pretty good at picking up on things like that.
