[ti]Tongue[/ti]Detective Stories - can you solve them?

Here's my guess:




EDIT: I misread the story. I accuse the , for the same reasons given.

(thanks, moni!)

moni, ummm, depends on how complete the "answer" really is. Too easy to identify the liar. So if that is all there is to the answer, I'd opt for skipping to the next level. But if the answer includes the rationale for how we are supposed to make the leap from liar to thief, then I think this "easy" question is kind of hard 'cause how one makes that leap is not totally obvious yet, at least to me.

I edited my post. Am I right?

Valkara, so I'm curious - what happens if you freeze chocolate instead of just chill it?

For one thing, good luck biting into it until it thaws. That bucket of frozen chocolate would have been impossible to work with, if it had really been frozen, which it wasn't (the chocolate that "squelched" wouldn't have done that).


There's a reason why you don't put chocolate molds in the freezer; they weren't intended to take temperatures like that. I found out the hard way when my molds cracked and became unusable.


Also... once upon a time, 25+ years ago, I was active in the Society for Creative Anachronism (nonprofit educational organization that researches and re-creates the life and knowledge of the Middle Ages - defined as the years between 600-1600 AD, in places that had verified, documented contact with Europe, founded in 1966... it's two months older than Star Trek and there are many science fiction and fantasy authors who were among the founders; I joined in 1986 and left in 1998, though you never really leave; there are some parts of that life that are still with me).

One of the things our Shire did twice a year was put on feasts and host tournaments - archery in the spring and heavy fighting (swords) in the fall. This particular year, our spring feast and tournament came just after Shakespeare's birthday, and I'd had an idea for one of the desserts for the feast (a friend was the autocrat - the organizer of the event).

I don't cook, unless you call tossing something in the microwave for 2-3 minutes cooking. But by that time I'd learned to make chocolate haystack cookies, and had tried making chocolates. I was good enough at it to satisfy my dad and grandfather, so I figured I'd get ambitious...

Everyone's tried chocolate-dipped strawberries, right? Well, I wondered if chocolate-coated grapes would work. A quick taste experiment confirmed that yes, the flavors work together (green seedless grapes and dipping chocolate). But the real problem was in how to produce several dozen of them, nicely dipped, without there being a flat side from laying them on waxed paper (presentation matters). And how would I make sure the chocolate didn't just drip into a huge mess?

The solution was in making stands to set each grape individually, on the toothpick I'd stuck into them. I had to work quickly, dipping each grape and immediately getting it into its place on the stands in the fridge, or the still-melted chocolate would have run down the toothpick and made a mess. I made the stands from cardboard egg cartons, poking 12 holes in them with a needle so I wasn't trying to fight with them with a grape coated in still-warm chocolate. It was funny, seeing the stands in the fridge, each holding 12 grapes, all lined up like little chocolate soldiers at an inspection.

One thing I learned (through a day of experimenting that left a trail of chocolate from one end of the kitchen to another and all over my apron) was that before you start dipping the grapes, you need to make sure they're perfectly dry. That includes the place where you picked the grape off its stem; any juice at all would mean it would interact with the chocolate and wouldn't set properly. When it was set, if the grape juice hadn't been soaked up with a paper towel before dipping, it would leak, run down the toothpick, and make a sticky mess. That would mean an unpleasant experience for anyone touching the toothpick, as they'd get sticky fingers with no quick and easy way to clean them (our feasts weren't fancy enough to use fingerbowls). Besides, it looked awful, and as mentioned, presentation matters.

So this was the experiment, and then came the time for making the actual grapes for the feast. That happened at my then-boyfriend's house, as he had two fridges we could use.

Things were chaotic, because while I'd perfected the time needed to microwave the chocolate, and the dip-swirl-stand-fridge sequence, my boyfriend and another friend hadn't. It does take practice and you have to move fast.

So there was a huge mess, and time went on... we had 10 dozen of these things to make. Finally we started running out of room in the fridge upstairs, and had to work double-quick to get a dozen ready to pop down to the fridge in the basement.

And then my boyfriend got the bright idea to use the freezer. It would be faster, he said. He was tired of all the running up and down the stairs.

I hadn't experimented with the freezer, because everything I'd learned up to that time about chocolate-making is that you don't put it in the freezer. It affects the hardness and the chocolate gets a waxy look to it that's very off-putting to look at. The texture is also affected negatively.

But... we were desperate, running out of time and temper, and the feast would be by candlelight, so maybe a bit of waxy appearance wouldn't be noticed...

The intention was to just leave them in for a few minutes to harden them enough to make it easier to put in the fridge to keep them chilled (this is crucial for this particular dessert - to keep them chilled until the moment they're served, or the chocolate gets melty and the taste/texture gets a bit disgusting; you want them chilled and crunchy, and when you bite into them, there's an explosion of chocolate and grape for your tastebuds to enjoy).

But as bad luck would have it, we forgot them. My boyfriend rushed to the freezer, took them out, and saw that the lovely, smooth chocolate surface had cracked and grape juice had leaked out where the toothpick and grape touched. He let out an "AUUGGHHHH! GRAPESICLES!" and we had to discard that batch (we took care of the discards by eating them).

So... lesson learned. This dessert, when done right, takes one heckuva lot of finicky twirling to get excess chocolate off before quickly sticking the grape in a stand in the fridge. Repeat 119 more times. It's an all-day thing, at least when you're making enough to feed 40 people. I know, because I did it by myself for the fall feast, after seeing how well it went over at the spring feast.

That spring feast was important for another reason. There was a guy in the group who figured he knew everything about everything, and when we were putting on a demo earlier in the day at one of the art galleries in town (the event was Shakespeare's birthday; we were there in costume, explaining various things about life in the early-middle Tudor era), he'd asked me what foods we'd be eating at the feast. So I mentioned chocolate-covered grapes, and he was instantly dubious and told me no, it wouldn't work, it would taste awful, not a good idea at all, etc. and so forth.

So I figured I'd show him otherwise, and vindication came a week later at the feast when I saw him pick up a toothpick, pop the chilled, chocolate-covered grape into his mouth, start chewing, and his eyes widened as the flavors of grape and chocolate mixed, the taste and texture of chilled, slightly crunchy fruit and thin chocolate coating mixed... and he said, "This IS good."

Those three words made all the effort worthwhile. Vindication.

Later on I experimented with yogurt-flavored dipping chocolate, and my grandmother declared that she liked the yogurt kind better than the chocolate.


Oh, and I did other experiments with chocolate. I developed my own recipe for peanut butter cups: The filling is one part peanut butter to one part honey, add maraschino cherry syrup to even out the taste and texture so everything was even; you don't want either the peanut butter or honey flavor to dominate, but you want to be able to taste them at the same time. This was a challenging recipe to develop as I got this idea at a time when my allergies and digestive system kicked into high combat with each other and I actually couldn't have chocolate or many other foods. But this recipe requires a taste test to make sure all the flavors are balanced and the texture of the filling is right. So I had to settle for a quick taste on the tongue but not swallowing it.

Again, some of the people in the shire were dubious. The idea of putting honey in peanut butter cups seemed just plain weird to them. But once again, I showed them it would work (this was never served at a feast as it's too modern, but I contributed it several times when we had potlucks).

Again, you don't want to freeze these. The molds would crack, the chocolate surface coating would be waxy, and you'd be asking people to bite into what would essentially be chocolate-flavored miniature hockey pucks.

Yikes! That isn't something that we ever did, though I confess I'm not up on customs in other kingdoms.

If anyone is curious about the SCA, there's a novel called Murder at the War, by Mary Monica Pulver. It's about a murder that takes place at Pennsic War (this is an actual SCA event), and when Detective Peter Brichter's wife, Kori, is the prime suspect (she was the last to see the victim alive and had had an altercation with him earlier), he must figure out who the real killer is. Brichter's attempts to solve the murder are complicated by the local cops, who are befuddled by all these people running around in costume and answering to names that make no sense (it's not uncommon for SCA-folk to not know people by their mundane (real) names).

moni, If you've finished all your chores (!!), could we please have another case?