MOTnews 56 (23/12/2004)

Happy Holidays!

The Museum has traditionally closed for a week between Christmas and New Year. Starting this year, we want to give our staff a little more time to get their festivities off to a flying start, and for this reason we will be closed on Friday 24 December.

In light of the usual New Year festivities - hangovers and exhaustion included - our doors will reopen on Wednesday 5 January 2005. We appreciate your understanding and wish you all the best in bringing in the New Year!

The MOT is getting ready for next season...

While most people are using the chilly days of winter as a time to relax, while the bears are hibernating and while the hedgehogs are rolled up in their nests, the MOT team is hard at work in preparation for the spring.

Every winter, the MOT chooses a new project to be implemented when the new season starts. Last year we built a forge which we use to give demonstrations. This year we are renovating the reception area in the Guldendal. No effort is being spared so that we can welcome this spring's visitors in a stylish new reception area. You are all warmly invited to come and take a look next year!

GRANDMOTHER'S RECIPES

You don't need to start a chemical war to get rid of bad smells. In grandmother's day, people used household remedies that were healthy, safe and effective. Put away your aerosols, air fresheners and other hazardous "sledgehammers to crack a nut", and try a recipe of old!

There are fragrant plants to make a room or linen smell nice. The best known of these is lavender, which you dry and put in bags that you hang in your clothes cupboard. You can also use essential oils, which are the concentrated aromas from plants or fruits. It is better to mix such oils with water and let the mixture evaporate instead of using them pure. If people have been smoking in your living room all evening, you can get rid of the nasty smell by evaporating a few drops of juniper berry, lemongrass or sage oil in an evaporator or in the radiator-mounted humidifier.

Eliminate cooking smells from the kitchen with a bowl of hot water containing a few drops of lavender oil. Don't have any lavender oil on hand? Then just put a pot of water and vinegar on the stove and let it boil for a while. The smells will soon disappear.

A tip for the smallest room:

Do you want to be courteous to the next visitor, yet you cannot stand those sickly air fresheners with their artificial floral or vanilla smells? We have a simple, cheap and effective solution for you. Just light a match and blow it out and you can leave without blushing!

SAY WHAT?

In this MOT-news item we try to explain proverbs and sayings that have their roots in our technical history. Similar proverbs are found in different languages, but each language has it's own typical sayings. Therefore we do not translate this item in English.

KIDS news: something to tell your children tonight

In the olden days, there were no refrigerators or freezers. Our grandmothers had to use other ways to preserve the fruits of the garden and the orchard. During the harvesting season, they kept themselves busy sterilising produce in special glass jars, not to mention salting and smoking fish and meats.

During the winter months, you ate only winter fare (being what was available at the market during the winter) such as cabbages and leeks, alongside preserved or canned foods. The menus were much more limited than today, because you could not just head over to the nearest supermarket and pick up, say, some strawberries or tomatoes from Morocco or Kenya.

Did you know that many delicacies were invented as a means of preserving food? Think of anchovies, rollmops, sauerkraut, pickles, fine meats like Filet d'Anvers, Parma ham and pâté, smoked sausage, bacon, sun-dried tomatoes and many more. Let's not forget butter and cheese, most dairy products were invented as a way of preserving milk.