Tuesday, June 29, 2010

In praise of pigs and Chinese bean curd (Winston Churchill and Qu Qiubai)




I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

  -- Winston Churchill


 

A death which in its odd and different way .............was that of Qu Qiubai. He could not depart on the Long March because at 36 he was dying of tuberculosis. Captured by the Kuomintang, before his execution he composed a testament, called ''Some Superfluous Words,'' for which the orthodox have not forgiven him. Although expressing envy of the young who manned the barricades, he ended on a sardonic note, praising flowers, moonlight and factory chimneys, recommending ''Anna Karenina'' and ''The Dream of the Red Chamber,'' and stating, last of all, that ''the Chinese bean curd is the most delicious food in the whole world. Goodbye and farewell!''
 



Monday, June 28, 2010

Six Norman Douglas Recipes


Arista

This is a pretentious name for roast pork , but its derivation, if correct, is interesting. In 1430 the Greek and Roman Bishops held a Council in Florence to discuss some question concerning the Roman and Greek churches. One day at dinner they were served with this roast pork, which the Greek Bishops liked so much that they cried “Arista” (“excellent!”). Since then roast pork flavoured with rosemary and garlic is Arista for the Florentines and roast pork for everybody else. Here is the recipe:

Clean your loin of pork of the skin the part of the fat; make little holes in the meat and in each hole put pepper, salt, a clove of garlic, a spray of rosemary, and a clove or two. Salt well outside and put it to roast on the spit or in the oven. When cooked you may call it Arista, if you like.

Falsu Magru

Take enough lean of beef to make ten thin slices, which you beat well. Season them with pepper and salt. Spray on the top of each one a little layer of butter, sprinkle over some grated cheese mixed with grated bread, some parsley, chillies and sage all finely chopped. Make a layer on the top with sliced boiled eggs and cover each piece of meat with a slice of ham as big as the meat.
Roll each piece of meat up and tie with string.

Now make the following sauce in a casserole. One onion, one carrot, a piece of celery, two cloves, all finely chopped. Fry these ingredients in a casserole with a piece of butter; when the onion is brown, put in the casserole two cupfuls of broth, with a teaspoonful of tomato sauce. Let this simmer for ten minutes, then add your meat rolls, and let them cook gently till tender. Serve with the sauce over them.

Salad Rocket

Nec minus erucas jubeo vitare salaces. – Ovid

Et Veneres revocans eruca morantem. – Martial

He who would follow Ovid and Martial should take: twenty leaves of salad rocket, wash them thoroughly, and with half a lettuce and a clove of chopped garlic make into salad, seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar. Salad rocket is certainly a stimulant.

Recommended by Columella, and by Turner and Culpepper.

Shrimp and Rice on Toast

Cook your rice in broth and drain it well. Mix it with some chopped shrimps, already boiled, season with salt and put the above on pieces of toast.
Place a small piece of butter on the top and cook for a few minutes in the oven. Serve with Cayenne.

Pistachio Cream

Take out the kernels of half a pound of pistachio nuts, beat them in a mortar with a spoonful of brandy, and put them into a tossing-pan, with a pint of cream, and the yolks of two eggs, finely beaten. Stir it gently over a slow fire till it is thick, but do not let it boil. Put into a soup plate and when it is cold, stick some kernels, cut long-ways, all over it.

Early Birds

Heat a quart of ale mixed with a tablespoon of powdered ginger and nutmeg. Whisk up three fresh eggs with a gill of cold ale and two ounces of moist sugar. When well frothed up, add the warm ale, by degrees and a glass of eau-de-vie. When this is done, drink immediately.










Sunday, June 27, 2010

Dinner In Harrar


                                                                             
  
AZIFA (SPICED GREEN LENTILS)

(Serves 6-8)
1 1/2 cups washed green lentils
1/4 cup lime juice
Sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 green or red bell pepper, chopped
1-2 green chili peppers, seeded and
 chopped
2 cups chopped red onions
1 tablespoon Colman’s English hot mustard (in
 powder form.
1tbsp. vegetable oil
1/3 cup wine vinegar
Boil the lentils in 3 to 4 cups water for 20 to 30 minutes until tender. Test to ensure that lentils are al dente tender, but not overcooked. 
Drain, put in a mixing bowl, and mash, but do not puree. (You need to preserve the texture of the lentils). 
Combine with the rest of the ingredients. Adjust spices to taste.
Refrigerate for several hours until the flavors of spices, vegetables and lentils blend. Serve cold or at room temperature


YEGOMEN KITFO (COLLARDS WITH SPICED COTTAGE CHEESE

For the cottage cheese:

12 oz. cottage cheese
1/3 cup niter kebbeh (see below)
2 garlic cloves, slightly crushed
1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

For the greens:

2 lbs. collards, chopped
2 tbsp. chili pepper, finely chopped
1 tbsp. fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp. garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1/4 cup niter kebbeh
2 tbsp. onion, finely chopped


Mix the first group of ingredients together and let the flavors combine at room temperature for 15 minutes.  Remove the garlic cloves if desired.

In several tbsp. of water, steam collards for about 20 minutes.  Add the rest of the second group of ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Serve the collards and cottage cheese mixture in separate dishes or spoon greens over cottage cheese in one large bowl.


NITER KEBBEH (CLARIFIED BUTTER WITH SPICES)

1 lb. butter
4 tbsp. onion, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp. finely chopped garlic
2 tsp. fresh ginger, grated
1/2 tsp. turmeric
2-4 cardamom seeds, crushed
1 inch piece cinammon

2-3 whole cloves
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Slowly melt the butter in a saucepan, then bring to the boil.  When the top is covered with foam, add the other ingredients and simmer uncovered on lowest heat until the surface is transparent and milk solids are on the bottom (45-60 minutes).  Pour off the clear liquid and strain through a double layer of cheesecloth, discarding the spices and solids. Refrigerate.  If strained a second and third time, mixture will keep well either chilled or at room temperature for 2-3 months.


INJERA (FLAT BREAD)

4 cups self-rising flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 cups club soda

Combine flours and baking powder in a bowl.  Add club soda plus about 4 cups water.  Mix into a smooth, fairly thin batter.

Heat a large, non-stick skillet. When a drop of water bounces  on the pan's surface, dip enough batter from the bowl to cover the bottom of the skillet, and pour it in quickly, all at once.  Swirl the pan so that the entire bottom is evenly coated, then set it back on the heat.

When the moisture has evaporated and small holes appear on the surface, remove the injera. It should be cooked on only one side and not browned. If your first try is too pasty and undercooked, you may need to cook it a little longer or make the next one thinner.  But as with French crepes, be careful not to cook them too long or you will have a crisp bread that may be tasty but won't fold around bits of stew.

Stack the injera one on top of the other as you cook, covering with a clean cloth to prevent their drying out.  To serve, lay them on a platter in overlapping concentric circles, beginning with the inside and moving outwards until edges of the outer ring fall over the edge.




The Ge'ez script

The <br />Ge'ez script
The <br />Ge'ez script
The <br />Ge'ez script - variant letters




Friday, June 25, 2010

Peter Alexander Greenlaw Quaife

Pete Quaife on recording "The Virgin Soldiers Theme"

"Ok. As you might know I used to live opposite Ray on Fortis Green - which meant that I was often at his place listening whilst he was composing. I was there when he finished The Virgin Soldiers theme and, being very fast on the uptake, I had the melody and arrangement down pat. Ray suggested that, as I knew the piece, I play session bass on the recording - which I agreed to. When I arrived at the studio the room was filled with real, live musicians! This was a first for me and so I proudly made my way over to the bass amplifier and plugged in - in full view of the professionals (who were probably wondering who the hell I was). After a while the arranger came round handing out the sheet music to each musician. He got to me and asked "Are you the bass player?" "Yep!" I replied, smiling at the others. I put the music on the stand and began to studiously study it - dismissing the fact that I couldn't read a note! With a cool shake of the head I sat back complacently and waited for the first run-through. We went through the number several times without any problems. I can tell you I had never felt so proud. Suddenly the arranger decided to make a change to the arrangement....! I knew now that my musical ear was about to be tested to the max! I sat and listened as hard as I could to what the pianist was doing. After a couple of tries I felt I had it in the bag - the change wasn't that drastic. However, the arranger began to make his way slowly around the studio making the necessary changes to each musician's score. When he got to me he again asked, "And you are the bass player?" I nodded and he took my music score and went to make the changes. Suddenly his face took on a confused look as he studied the score - then, with a sigh he turned the score upside down - that is, the right way up....   Can you imagine how I felt?"








Thursday, June 24, 2010

Howard Hodgkin: Extremist, Part 1




 



"I wonder how Mr. Hodgkin reacts to words like “beautiful,” “voluptuary” and “immaculate.” He has bristled at being called an intimist, which years ago became his burden in the way that “colorist” became a knock on Bonnard. Mr. Hodgkin now makes some very big pictures, while he continues to make very small ones, sometimes decorative (another standard put-down), but more often tough and muscular. The ravishment of color belies the ambition; only occasionally does it undermine it. As the film critic Anthony Lane, a longtime admirer of Mr. Hodgkin’s, points out in the show’s catalog, Mr. Hodgkin has been, on the one hand, “applauded as a Chardin de nos jours and, on the other, scorned as a kind of advanced interior decorator.”


He asks, “Is Howard Hodgkin an artist of the small scale?” Then he answers his own question: No, he is “an extremist.”

That’s a surprising way to describe a careful painter, but I know what he means. Mr. Hodgkin is not a small-scale painter, even when his pictures are small; he can be uneven, but his best work is, in a sly, almost deceptive way, what serious abstraction ought to be about.  It is inspired by memories or “emotional situations,” as Mr. Hodgkin says. He rarely reveals what these are. His titles hint teasingly at them. He’s a reader, a collector, an expert on Indian miniatures, a widely curious consumer and an assimilator of art history. His paintings are full of more or less buried allusions." 



Michael Kimmelman, reviewing the Yale Center of British Art show of Howard Hodgkin, New York Times, Feb. 20, 2007





Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Worth Noticing -- The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States -- Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts -- Imagine Dr. Barnes, minus the fortune.



Watching the Vogels attending various Manhattan galleries and museums during the 1970s and 1980s was a curious delight -- they were almost like living works of art.


The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States

Dates:
June 26 – September 12, 2010

Location:
Walter & Leonore Annenberg Gallery, Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building
Description:
Imagine Dr. Barnes, minus the fortune.

Herbert and Dorothy Vogel collected Minimalist, Conceptual and post-1960s art over the course of more than four decades. Herbert (b. 1922) worked as a postal clerk, and Dorothy (b. 1935) as a reference librarian. Setting their collecting priorities above those of personal comfort, they used Dorothy's salary to cover their living expenses and devoted Herbert's salary to the acquisition of contemporary art.

In 1992 they pledged more than 2,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures, to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and are now distributing 2,500 more pieces to institutions across the country.

PAFA has been designated to receive fifty works from The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States program being administered by the National Gallery. These fifty works, a diverse assortment of mostly small-scale works on paper (plus some small canvases, constructions, and sculptures), comprise the exhibition. Of the 31 artists included are examples by important figures such as Robert Barry, Lynda Benglis, Lucio Pozzi, Edda Renouf, Nam June Paik, and Richard Tuttle.

While the Vogels’ best-known art interests are minimal and conceptual art, their collecting also encompasses the diversity of directions that characterize the post-minimalist period, including works of a figurative and expressionist nature.

As the first collectors to buy work by many artists who were then unknown to a wide audience, the Vogels offered encouragement at the start of the careers of several figures who went on to achieve considerable acclaim. Owing to these artists' continuing close relationship with the collectors, many works of art collected by the Vogels were gifts, marking special occasions—such as Dorothy and Herbert's birthdays and wedding anniversary—and often personally inscribed. In this sense the Vogels' collection is a keen reflection of their friendships with artists.

Curator:
Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art




Monday, June 21, 2010

Happy Birthday, Ray Davies


Good Day
The sky is blue but there are clouds in my head,
With big decisions looming ahead.
The sun is out but the room is so grey,
So much confusion headed my way.
Get positive, try to be gay.

News Of The World, tea and biscuits in bed.
The headlines said that Diana is dead.
She couldn't act much but she put on a show.
She always smiled even when she felt low.
I used to fancy her a long time ago.

So today has got to be a good day,
Today is gonna be a good day,
Today is gonna be a good day,
Good day, good day, good day.

Holes in my socks and I can't find my shoes.
It's no surprise that I'm singing the blues.
So many holes in my life still to mend,
And someone just said that the world's gonna end.

So today better be a good day,
Today is gonna be a good day,
Today has got to be a good day,
Good day, good day, good day, good day.

If we blow away the past with a bloody great blast,
Make it fast, make it fast.
So have a good day today because it could be your last,
Make it last, make it last.

Will it light up the sky?
Will it blot out the sun?
Well we've waited this long,
So it better be a good one.
Good day, good day, good day.

Yeah, it's gonna be a good day.
Hey baby, if you come back home it'll be a good day today.
They could drop a small atom bomb on this city today,
But if you walk through that door honey, you know it'll be a good day.

And now survival is my only aim.
I call friends and see if any remain.
Who was that girl who used to be my flame?
I'd call her if I could remember her name.

So today is gonna be a good day,
Today has got to be a good day,
Today is gonna be a good day,
Good day, good day, good day, good day.

Hey Diana, I've really got to learn to take a tip from you,
Put on my makeup and try to make the world take notice of you.
Yeah, it's gonna be good day today.

Good day, gonna be a good day.





Sunday, June 20, 2010

The science of cake

As Britain tightens its belt for a new era of austerity, Andy Connelly takes solace in the science and magic of cake.



Baking a cake makes you feel better about the world, and understanding the science puts the icing on it. Photograph: Colin Campbell/Guardian
"I am inclined to think that cakes and ale prevail most freely in times that are perilous and when sources of sorrow abound." Anthony Trollope
There's nothing quite like sharing generous slices of mouthwatering homemade cake with family or friends. In making a cake you are taking advantage of some magical scientific transformations to create something sugary, delicate and delicious that everyone will love – and love you for.

Like many people, I was inducted into cake making at the apron of my mother. Some of my most treasured memories are of scooping fairy cake mixture into little paper cases, dipping my fingers into the melted chocolate icing, and the satisfaction of eating the misshapen creations for tea. 

Making cakes like these might seem like an ageless tradition, but actually this type of light, airy cake is a relatively new invention.

The first skilled bakers were probably the ancient Egyptians. At this time cakes were basically breads, with egg, fat and honey added to create the recognisable essence of cake: richness and sweetness. The earliest English cakes were still essentially bread, their main distinguishing characteristics being their shape – round and flat – and that they were hard on both sides as a result of being turned during baking.

Cakes as we know them today only came on the scene during the 18th and 19th centuries when the lightness created by the leavening power of yeast was replaced, first by eggs, and then by chemical raising agents such as bicarbonate of soda. Raising agents provided a greater leavening power than yeast with much less time and effort.

A classic of risen cakes is the English pound cake, on which the Victoria sponge is based. These cakes generally contain equal weights of the four major ingredients: structure-building flour and eggs; and structure-weakening fat and sugar. This recipe provides the perfect balance of these ingredients. With any more fat or sugar the delicate scaffold of egg and flour collapses, making a dense, heavy cake (like a fruit cake).

Recipe

250 g (10oz) of self raising flour
250g (10oz) of caster sugar
250g (10oz) of butter (at a cool room temperature) or margarine
Five lightly beaten eggs (assuming each egg weighs about 50g (2oz))
Pinch of salt

Take the sugar and fat and beat together until the mixture reaches a fluffy consistency similar to whipped cream. This can be done either by hand if you are feeling strong, otherwise use an electric whisk.

Much of the tender, melt-in-the-mouth texture of cake comes from gas bubbles, which subdivide the batter into fragile sheets. The majority of this air is added in this initial stage by vigorous mixing of the fat and sugar – a process called "creaming". Air is carried along on the rough surfaces of the sugar crystals. This is why we use caster sugar, as the smaller the crystals, the more air is incorporated. These bubbles of air are encased by a film of fat, creating a foam.

Creaming can be hard work. In 1857 Miss Leslie (an American author of popular cookbooks) described a technique that would allow cooks to beat eggs "for an hour without fatigue" but then advised: "to stir butter and sugar is the hardest part of cake making. Have this done by a manservant."

Take a break from beating and collect some of the mixture on your finger to taste. Notice how the smooth buttery flavour hits your mouth first, and then the sweetness comes in as the gritty sugar dissolves in your saliva. Notice that the mixture is lighter and softer than butter on its own: this is all the air you have incorporated.

Also notice how the fat coats the inside of your mouth. It is this coating ability that allows the fat to play another crucial role, that of a "shortener". The fat coats the starch and protein of the flour with an oily film, and in so doing reduces the formation of tough (bready) gluten. Fruit purees can also take on this role. This leads to a cake that has a tender and "short" crumb.

In factory cake-making, creating a fat that is plastic enough to spread over a large surface area of flour grains but soft enough to form globules requires the application of much science. Companies spend a lot of time mixing blends of various vegetable oils to get the perfect properties. At home, however, the third role of fat for me takes precedence: flavour. That's why I use butter. Although the fluidity isn't carefully controlled it always makes great cakes, and has done for hundreds of years.

As a child, the overriding characteristic of cakes was the sweetness of refined sugar. However, the role of sugar in cake is much more complex. Initially it carries air bubbles into the mixture. It has a tenderising effect, as it softens flour proteins. It also lowers the caramelisation point of the batter, allowing the cake crust to colour at a lower temperature. Finally, it helps to keep the cake moist and edible for several days after baking.

Salt is another vital ingredient as it acts both as a taste enhancer and to strengthen the gluten network.

Beat the eggs into the mixture and then gently fold in the flour, preferably with a metal spoon.

Beaten egg is added to the mixture to stop the fat-coated air bubbles, created by creaming, from collapsing when heated. The egg proteins conveniently form a layer around each air bubble. As the temperature of the cake rises in the heat of the oven this layer coagulates to form a rigid wall around each bubble, preventing it from bursting and ruining the cake's texture.

The eggs also provide the majority of the liquid (water) for the cake mixture. You will know the water provided by the eggs is sufficient – it usually is – if the mixture forms a thin coat on the back of a metal spoon. If it doesn't, add a little water or milk to loosen up the mixture.

Tasting is vital at every step of cake making, and I love tasting this stage, despite the raw eggs. For me the very buttery, sugary taste is the taste of childhood – the treat of cleaning the bowl out with a spoon. It you concentrate you can taste the eggs and flour as gentle background flavours. 

The flour gives the mixture a slightly pasty texture, which makes it stick to the inside of your mouth.

It was during the 17th century that eggs became the dominant ingredient for raising cakes, gradually replacing yeast. This was before chemical raising agents, so all of the air in the cake had to be added by vigorous beating. One early recipe states that four eggs should be "beaten together for two hours" to lighten a fine biscuit bread. These air bubbles were then trapped during the baking, a little like in a soufflé, to produce a light and fluffy cake.

This all changed with the discovery of chemical leavening agents such as those in self-raising flour. The chemical leavening agent is essentially baking powder: a blend of a dried acid (for example cream of tartar and sodium aluminium sulphate) and an alkali (sodium bicarbonate known commonly as baking soda). Adding water (and heat) to this mixture allows the acid to react with the alkali to produce carbon dioxide gas. This is trapped in the tiny air pockets of the batter that were made when you creamed the fat and sugar.

This means you don't have to add as much air in your mixing because the chemical leavening agent will do some of the work for you. In fact, the quality of modern leaveners and other ingredients (and equipment like the electric whisk) means that mixing all the ingredients together all at once can still produce a light cake. However, I think the traditional method of beating the butter and sugar first is the most satisfying.

Flour takes the role of structure-builder within the cake. The starch in the flour is a reinforcing agent that stiffens and helps strengthen the egg foam. Some of the proteins in the flour join together to create an extensive network of coiled proteins, known as gluten. It is this gluten that holds the cake together. Its elastic nature allows the batter to expand during baking (to incorporate gases) and then it coagulates into a strong network that supports the heavy weight of sugar and shortening.

The gentle folding action used to incorporate the flour avoids breaking the bubbles you have worked so hard to put into the mixture. It also reduces gluten formation because although this is vital to the structure of the cake, excessive beating creates too much gluten, resulting in a cake with a heavy, bready texture. Modern cake flour is made from "soft" wheats with a low protein content, as opposed to bread flour which is "hard" with a high protein content.

Divide the mixture between two greased 20cm cake tins.

I always use my little finger to scrape the excess mixture from the spoon into the tins. My mother used to say that the little finger is the cleanest. While I doubt this, the habit has been passed down to me through her genes. As I pour the mixture into the tins I love to watch its gloopy consistency, its slightly grainy texture and marvel at its rich yellow colour. The beautiful yellow comes from the eggs and from carotene in the butter, the same chemical that makes carrots orange. It originates in the grass on which the cows have grazed.

Place in a pre-heated over at 180C for around 25-30 minutes.

There are few things better than sitting in a kitchen as it fills with the smell of baking. So make a cup of tea and relax for the next 30 minutes, letting the warm smells emanating from the oven envelope you. The smell of warm butter; the slightly sulphury smell of the eggs as they coagulate; the dark caramelising smell of the browning reactions (and, if you get distracted, the acrid smell of burning). 

Over time the smells get darker, richer, more caramelised. Baking a cake on a cold, drizzly, miserable day can't help but make you feel better about the world.

Baking can be broken into three stages: expansion, setting and browning. As the batter temperature rises, the gases in the air cells expand the stretchy gluten from the flour, then the chemical leavening agents release carbon dioxide. As the batter reaches 60C, water vapour begins to form and expand the air cells even further. Carbon dioxide and water vapour account for approximately 90% of the subsequent expansion of the batter, the remaining 10% being due to thermal expansion.

At around 80C, the risen batter adopts its permanent shape as the egg proteins coagulate, the starch granules absorb water, swell and form a gel, and the gluten loses its elasticity. The texture produced at this point is then held until the cake is set by the coagulation of the egg and flour proteins, producing the familiar porous structure of the cake crumb.

Finally, flavour-enhancing browning (Maillard) reactions take place on the now dried surface. It is at this point you have to decide whether the cake is ready – one of the most critical points in the whole process. The cake will shrink slightly away from the walls of the tin and the crust will spring back when touched with a finger. Because the batter has coagulated, a wire or thin knife poked into the cake should come back clean.

After removing the cake from the oven, let it stand in the tin for about 10 minutes, then loosen and turn out gently onto a wire rack to cool. Avoid excessive handling while hot.

Something not quite right? If the oven temperature was too low then the batter will have set too slowly, and expanding gas cells will have coagulated to produce a coarse, heavy texture, making the upper surface sink. If the oven was too hot then the outer portions of the batter will have set before the inside has finished expanding, which produces a peaked, volcano-like surface with excessive browning.

While the cake cools, make some of your favourite icing and apply generously. Mine is butter icing – 2:1 icing sugar to butter by weight, beaten together with a little lemon juice or milk.

At last, you can cut a lovely thick slice, sit down with another cup of tea in a comfy chair and enjoy a quiet moment with your beautiful creation. It might not be as good as your mum's but it will taste great and everyone will want a slice.

Dr Andy Connelly is a cookery writer and researcher in glass science at the University of Sheffield

Saturday, June 19, 2010

When The Ship Comes In




Oh the time will come up
When the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be a'breathin'
Like the stillness in the wind
Before the hurricane begins
The hour when the ship comes in

And the sea will split
And the ship will hit
And the shoreline sands will be a'shakin'
And the tide will sound
And the waves will pound
And the morning will be breakin'

Oh the fishes will laugh
As they swim out of the path
And the seagulls will be a'smilin'
And the rocks on the sand
Will proudly stand
The hour that the ship comes in

And the words that are used
For to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they're spoken
For the chains of the sea
Will have busted in the night
And be buried at the bottom of the ocean

A song will lift,
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts out to the shoreline
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in

And the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a'touchin'
And the ship's wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin'

Oh the foe will rise
With the sleep still in their eyes
And they'll jerk from their beds and think they're dreamin'
And they'll pinch themselves and squeal
And they'll know that it's for real
The hour when the ship comes in

And they'll raise their hands
Sayin' "We'll meet all your demands"
And we'll shout from the bow "Your days are numbered"
And like the pharoah's triumph
They'll be drownded in the tide
Like Goliath they'll be conquered