One of Martin's postings inspires me to produce a companion-piece on
coffee-making. We used to make coffee with a device called a
`Vesuviana', a sort of ersatz espresso-maker, by following the
following procedure:
1) Fill the base of the machine with cold water.
2) Insert coffee-resevoir, and fill with ground coffee.
3) Screw top of machine on *tightly*
4) place machine on stove & turn on (electric) burner
5) wait for the machine to `erupt' (the water in the bottom boils,
is forced through the coffee, and collects in a resevoir in the
top section, producing a distinctive hiss/gurgle type sound)
6) turn off stove & pour out coffee.
But it took us *years* before we could follow this procedure accurately
almost every time. Very often, we'd leave out some step, producing one
or another kind of coffee-disaster, such as:
a) forget to put in the water (the coffee cooks, and maybe even the
gaskets start to melt)
b) fail to screw the top onto the bottom tightly enough (much
of the coffee gurgles out through the screw-threading & makes
a mess on the stove)
c) fail to put in the coffee, so you make hot water instead of coffee.
d) fail to turn on the stove (the `null coffee disaster').
On the other hand we didn't normally fail to collect the coffee after
eruption (simple stimulus, simple response ...)
Eventually we couldn't find an adequate replacement gasket for the
Vesuviana, so we got a `Bodum' instead (I think this is generically a
`French Press', but I'm not sure), where you follow the following
procedure:
1) put ground coffee into (glass) cyclinder
2) pour just-boiled water in over coffee to desired level
3) lightly insert plunger (to reduce heat-loss from evaporation)
4) after a few minutes have elapsed, push plunger down
5) pour coffee.
This procedure is far less prone to error than that for the Vesuviana.
The only thing that occasionally goes wrong with it is that I forget
to boil the water before pouring it in (I don't think my wife has ever
done this). Sometimes we don't grind the coffee quite as fine as we
ought to, also.
So why the difference in followability between the two procedures? My
hypothesis is that the Bodum procedure takes the form of a series of
Configurations, each involving visually overt evidence that the preceeding
stages have been followed correctly. E.g., if you haven't added the coffee,
it isn't there to be seen when you pour in the water (and the water
in would stay clear, instead of getting brown). If the water isn't boiled, it
doesn't feel hot when you pour it (but in a distracted state, I occasionally
fail to notice this, since it's a bit less luridly obvious than the
color of the water). If you don't put in the plunger, the whole
thing doesn't look normal. Likewise if you try to pour before
inserting or pushing the plunger.
With the Vesuviana on the other hand, there was little or no viusal evidence
in the current configuration as to whether the preceeding steps in the
sequence had been followed properly. Once the top was on, you couldn't
see whether water or coffee was present, & you also couldn't see whether
it was on *tight*. Plus the stove being electric, you couldn't see whether
it was on or not.
What's puzzling, I think, is the relatively extreme difficulty, for me
at least, of perceiving that the correct sequence is being followed,
as opposed to that the correct configuration obtains.
Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.ause