Long blank video (1:46:39)

I created this video with the YouTube Video Editor (http://www.youtube.com/editor) by duplicating several times the one in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFbc7LWUL8g . This one too is completely empty: no images, no audio. It is uploaded here for experimental reuses in closed captioning platforms. Obviously, it is in the public domain, even though YT does not offer this licensing option.

Update Jan 14, 2012: As I tried to explain in the comments to irate/baffled/amused viewers. I uploaded this video for a purely instrumental purpose: seeing how online collaborative subtitling/captioning instruments can be diverted to collaboratively translate normal texts, and to then export the translation, as you would export the file of translated subtitles.
Of course, you can also collaboratively translate on a wiki page, but the advantage of doing it in a subtitling app is that the original text above the translated part cannot get deleted: this makes revision easier.

I started toying with this 2 and half years ago with DotSUB: see http://etcjournal.com/2009/04/05/collaborative-text-translation-with-dotsub/ . But the problems with DotSUB for that are that a) it does not allow you to have subtitles longer that what its programmers deemed suitable; b) subtitles HAVE to be time-coded and can only be exported in time-coded formats, and it's a bore to have to delete all the time codes if what you want is just a plain text translation of a normal text.
So I decided to try again with Universal Subtitles, where you can transcribe without time-coding. and where you can translate the "non time-coded" transcript, and export the translation as a .txt file.
So I used this irritating blank video to create http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/xHZzawTR9MLF/ , to which I added, as if it were a transcript of the video, Cory Doctorow's "Constitutional Crisis" short story (1). And then I started to translate it in Italian in the http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/xHZzawTR9MLF/it/222759/ subpage: click on "Edit Subtitles" if you wish to see the translation interface.
That's all this empty video is about: just a means to create a translating interface for a text that is just a text.

Update Nov. 7, 2012 Changes to the Amara software made it impossible to re-use the already used "subtitle sets": I therefore asked for the deletion of the above-mentioned page, and made a new one in http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/69iJjyH8euXi/info/long-blank-video-14639/ .

(1) from his "With a Little Help" collection, whose text can be bought in print or downloaded under a , under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ license as a digital file from http://craphound.com/walh/e-book/browse-all-versions
----
Update March 5, 2012:
As people inexplicably continue to view this empty video, I'm annotating it with links to real videos of interest. So far:
- Say NO to ACTA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=citzRjwk-sQ
- " Se la mafia... Il mulo de Paniz" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG8m7-pMJ_c (see description for interesting links)
- "Listening is learning" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o67wV-MhlY8
- V4B - Video4Blind ("Ho scelto il Costa di Lecce! (V4B)" http://youtu.be/K_BidSCokLc

(June 16, 2012)
And now: Don't Leave Me Out, with subs so far in English, French, German, Hebrew and Italian: http://youtu.be/w91A_nB4rx0 .
The video can be subtitled into further languages at http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/zBpewNm5P8GV/info/dont-leave-me-out/ .

Funding for the Story of Cooking is provided by:

FIT4MOM

Walkabout Outfitter

Biagio Cru and Estate Wines

Chef Revival

FOODYTV

Chefs in the Kitchen

and Taste This TV

Hi and welcome to the Story of Cooking
Today we're here at Delmonico's

Which most people know because it's one of the
oldest restaurants in America

It opened up its doors in 1820 when Swiss brothers
John and Peter Delmonico opened a restaurant

that served french pastries

it didn't become a full-fledged restaurant until
1837 when John and Peter Delmonico

along with Lorenzo opened a nice big fine dining
establishment

In the 1700s New York was littered with Oyster
sellers and coffee shops

but there wasn't any fine dining

and Delmonico's was the first to do that

in fact they were the first to use the word
restaurant, which was a French term

so that's why they're credited with opening
the first restaurant in America

So let's go inside and check it out!

Hi and welcome to the Story of Cooking!
I'm Sarah Nicholas!

Hi chef, nice meet you!

Hi, welcome to Delmonico's

Thank you, we're here with chef Billy Oliva

and he's the executive chef and you've been here
about six years

Almost seven years, yeah, six and a half years

And we're here to try some classic dishes
and we're going to learn a little history about them

Sure and there's loads of history here, lot of firsts:
Baked Alaska, Bggs Benedict, Lobster Newburg

You name it, all kinds of history as well

Awesome, well let's do it!

Why don't we head back to the kitchen

Okay!

All right chef, so we're back in the kitchen

and you're going to show me some of the dishes
that were invented here

and obviously probably signature dishes
of Delmonico's

Absolutely so we're going to start with
Eggs Benedict

Why don't we start with our brio,
so we're just going to

Do you make your own brioche?

We do downstairs, actually. We make all our own
bread all our own desserts

ice creams, everything is here

Wow!

And so, again, this was invented at
Delmonico's, correct?

Invented in Delmonico's

So the Delmonico brothers liked to name dishes
after their patrons

so Mr and Mrs Le Benedict used to come all the time,
They were regular customers

and one day they says, you know
what we come here all the time

we're bored of the menu, create us a dish

and this is what the Delmonico brothers
came up with

Well, thank you!

and it's been around ever since

so we're just going to pop this in the oven

Okay

and the next thing we'll do is

first thing we have to remember is not
to forget that

Okay, yeah, that's usually what happens right?

It's always what happens!

And then we're going to start our hollandaise

so here we have just some egg yolk that we cracked
already

I will dump that in

and we have a little Tobasco

You want me to put some of this in?

Yeah, absolutely. We'll do a little lemon juice.

Couple dashes?

Yeah a couple dashes

And we'll put a little tarragon vinegar

So this is a tarragon vinegar reduction
with pepper corn shallots

Tarragon obviously

Worcestershire

(Sarah) Worcestershire sauce, okay

So now the fun part

Now we're going to whisk

so if you want to do that we'll go over here to

without you burning your hand you might want
want to take a towel

and just a figure eight motion, as kind of fast as
you can

Figure eight? Like this?

Yeah

So now we're going to add our butter

and then here we have just a little cold water
if it gets too thick we'll just thin it out a little bit

So, shall we go together? Yup

Is my hand in the way?

No

And that looks about good

Now the trick is to keep it so it doesn't break

(Chef) Keep it warm

First we're going to season it
a little salt and pepper

and then we'll just take that

how are we going to do that without

actually got the right consistency

Am I hired?

That's it! When can you start?

If this is my only job I'm sorry I have to decline

I will keep that warm for a minute

So, we have to lightly grill the prosciutto cotto
so for that we have to go down to the broiler there

Already?

Make sure we have all our tools

so we're going to come here

Okay

and we're just going to... this is cooked already
so we just want to warm it up

Sure

That's going to go on the grill for a second

Just flip it

Okay so we just want to cook that, just want to
warm it through

So that's good, we don't want to dry it out too much

Just going to grab our plate

and we're almost ready to... you can actually
smell the rosemary and the thyme

Okay so we'll go back down on this side

where we have our ham, we have our brioche

so we're going to put this pot out of the way
we'll slide that little one over

On the flame, or no?

Right on the flame, yup

Oh we're going to reheat our eggs?

We're going to reheat our eggs

So we poached these earlier just so it will be
a little bit easier

when we poach them we use a little vinegar,
white vinegar

Do the swirl?

Do the swirl

and we crack the eggs into a small cup and they go in

(Sarah) Just dump them all in?

(Chef) Dump them in nice and easy

All four?

Yeah, this way in case we have an accident with one

(Sarah) Poached eggs are very delicate

So while the eggs are heating up

we can start to plate the rest of the Eggs Benedict

Perfect

So, we'll move some of this stuff out of the way

And bring this over here

If you want to do it, or I can do the ham

Okay

(Sarah) Is this on you brunch menu?

(Chef) This is on the menu all the time, never cut
lunch, dinner

and we sell tons of it

So, that's ready and now we just wait for our
eggs to get hot

and because they're already poached we don't need
to cook them for a long time

we just need to warm them through

The reason we do this is because
we just sell so many of them

Yeah, you would have to do it in
advance I would think

This is all the space we have, so

Eggs Benedict is one of my favorites so I'm
really looking forward to trying this

I'd say these are probably hot enough

Just drain the water really well

and whenever the egg doesn't roll off
that's a good thing

(Sarah) You want to just?

(Chef) Yeah right over there

(Sarah) Well that failed

Are you going to wipe the edges?

(Chef) Yeah, we'll clean it up. We could change the plate

That's good.

(Sarah) Obviously I like a lot of hollandaise sauce

(Chef) We might need to change the plate!

So now what we're going to do, we're going to

-Do you like truffle?\
-I do, I do

-A lot of truffle?
-I do

Do you want to shave the truffle or do you want
me to shave the truffle?

You shave the truffle I don't want to ruin anything

Okay I'll shave the truffle

(Sarah) You had me at truffle when you said it earlier

It's a rich dish

(Chef) and then we're going to finish it with just
little caviar

So tell me about the truffles and the caviar

So these are Périgord truffles from France

they're in season now until about... I think they're
around for about another month

and the caviar is just an American caviar that
we use to garnish stuff with

(Chef) Might as well go all out

and then just a little bit of green and that's it

Perfect. Beautiful.

Besides my mess up on the side of the plate

other than that that was beautiful

All right, this looks fantastic, now how
about a Delmonico steak?

That sounds good, let's go to the grill

All righty!

Okay so this is a lot of beef, it's beautiful.
Go through your different cuts

So here we have the boneless Delmonico steak

this is a bone in Delmonico steak that's dry aged

and this is our double Delmonico steak

All right so how do you dress this up?

It's very simple and we don't do a lot to these steaks

it's just salt, kosher salt, and pepper

and we'll just grind it up

So we're just going to pull it out

let's throw these on in the back

Should we put this guy on?

(Sarah) So do most people come in here and want
medium rare steak?

Always when I go to a restaurant that has good steak I
always ask, well what does the chef like to cook it to?

I would say probably the most is medium rare

but we get well done and medium well and

Yeah

Sometimes... they're paying for it so it's their choice

So these are just about done, so we'll have our guys
finish them and we'll move on to the lobster newberg

Perfect, thank you

Awesome

We'll get started

So what we're going to do we're going to just take
a little bit of oil and the lobster

Just tell me what you need

The lobster has been kind of cooked already
so we're going to start with the lobster

I'll take him

And you said that it's been cooked in
the sous-vide machine

Yeah we cook it at a very low temperature

and we cook it about say 50%, and then we cool it
off really quickly and then we finish it to order

Just because it would take too long, oh I'm sorry

No you're fine

So next we're going to take a little bit of
the butter now

And you can see as the lobster is finishing cooking
that the shell is changing color

and then we're going to go with some
hedgehog mushrooms

The next thing we're going to do is, we're going to
deglaze it with a little bit of brandy

This is the fun part

Watch out (laughing)

Staying back

(Chef) Okay, so, put in a little brandy

(Sarah) Flambé, right?

(Chef) That's the fun part, that's actually why I
wanted to become a chef

So have the lobster there

Very dramatic

We have some lobster stock in that copper
pot there

So we're going to add that

(Sarah) and there's no cream in that?
Or just a little cream?

(Chef) This is very little cream in this

this is just the richness of the vegetables

we use a little bit of star anise in here

Oh wow, okay

The star anise, fennel, onion, celery

garlic, a lot of herbs

(Sarah) It smells good

And now we'll take all our vegetables, we'll take
a little bit of asparagus, a little bit of carrots

and this is really just for garnish

the original dish was just lobster and toast and
sauce

So the vegetables just give it a nice...
make it more interesting

Lighten it up make it a little more... have a "fear"

So next thing we're going to do is we're
going to throw our brioche in the oven for a minute

So you hand me that and I'll grab a tray

So what are the menus that you always have,
how often do you change your menu?

We try to change about four times a year

(Sarah) Just based on whatever is in season?

(Chef) Yes

and occasionally if I get bored every now and again
it will change

Have you invented any recipes here at Delmonico's?

The bacon that we do on the menu now is mine

one of the chickens, we do a
Himalayan salt brick chicken, which is mine

This?

Yeah I take the rest of the lobster

Oh Himalayans, I love cooking with Himalayan salt

Yeah so we actually have bricks and we press,
it's kind of like a brick chicken

That sounds delicious

(Chef) We press it with the Himalayan salt

(Sarah) Nice

(Chef) It comes out really well

We're going to grab just a little cayenne and some
of the herbs

Chives?

Yup, chives and Italian flat leaf parsley

And in the sauce, when we make the sauce, there's
a little bit of tarragon as well

Kind of bring out that star anise flavor?

Yeah. I kinda like that flavor

It smells delicious

This is just little bit of stock to
just to thin it out a little

so we can thicken it back up
and make it a little richer

(Chef) All right so we're about ready

our butter is kind of incorporated into the sauce

we're going to plate it, take our brioche out

it's kind of a dish that gets a little messy

so we're going to slide over just kinda to the
table there

and we'll use this dish here to plate it up

So our brioche is going to go on the top

Oh it really does smell really good

Going to take this out

So you can see that

We leave it in the shell

the reason we leave it in the shell is we
just think that the shell protects the cooking

protects the meat, keeps it from shrinking

-and then sometimes the waiters
-Will take it out?

(Chef) Will take it out

So I need a spoon from back there

Oh sure absolutely, here you go

It's a little big but it will work

Let me just get some of the sauce

Think we have enough sauce

Okay, we're good

Now we're going to finish it

Kind of like we finished our Eggs Benedict

Oh, so delicious

This really is a rich dish

When the truffles are in season we try and
use them as much as we can

Well people love truffles right?

Yeah they go crazy for them

The white truffles even more

and then just a dollop of caviar on top

clean the plate and that's it

This looks beautiful, I can't wait to try it all

Let's go out to the table and we'll talk a little bit
about the history of the three dishes

and obviously enjoy some good food

Sounds good

All right chef, so again everything looks beautiful,
let's kind of start somewhere, where would you like to start?

Why don't we start with the Eggs Benedict

It's definitely a popular dish in the south too

I kind of always thought of it as being a
southern thing until I came here

And Sunday brunch and hangover food and all
kinds of stuff

Yeah it's good hangover food, that's true

Gotta get everything in there

Tell us again what's all in the dish as well

So we have Périgord, we have some nice toasted
buttered brioche, we have a little prosciutte cotto

a cooked Italian ham with rosemary, thyme

we have some American caviar and some
Périgord truffle

That ham is really delicious

Yeah it has nice flavor. It works really well with
the eggs

And that hollandaise sauce is second to none!

That was yours!

That's delicious I like that a lot

So let's move on to the lobster newberg
and we'll save the steak for last

So we have a lot of history about this dish

It was Captain Wenberg who was a good, he was a
fisherman, spent a lot of time in the ocean

in the 1800s, he was also friends with, he
was a trader, an importer/exporter

He spent a lot of time here when he would be in
New York with the Delmonico brothers

they became very good friends

and he brought this recipe to them

and he says well, you have to make it for me
and they did

and they loved it

then the Delmonico brothers had a falling out

so they took the dish off the menu and their
customers complained

so they said okay, we have to put it back on the menu

but we're not going to put it back on the menu
as lobster ala Wenberg

because we don't want to speak to him anymore
and we don't want to associate with him anymore

so it became lobster newberg

That is delicious

That sauce is amazing

That star anise really comes out

Yeah it comes through, and a little bit of the cayenne

It's a little bit of a process to do but it's worth it

We're going to save that for later

and then the last one is the Delmonico steaks

And this is the...

This is the wet aged boneless rib eye

Okay

And it's just grilled salt and pepper, and we
finish it by brushing it with a little bit of butter

and some fried onions

and there's a history behind this?

Well what I know about the Delmonico steak was
back in the 1800s

the Delmonico brothers, it wasn't always a rib eye

it was whatever they thought was the best that
was available to them at the time

Today it's the rib eye just because of the
fat content, the richness of the steak

and it works really well for us,
we sell hundreds of them

Oh I bet

I'll push those to the side

Okay

So this isn't steak related but I hear there's
some supernatural history as well?

Oh there is a little bit of supernatural history

Is it haunted?

They say it's haunted

Back in the 1800s the restaurant was actually
nine floors

So there was a restaurant, there was a hotel,
there was all kinds of things going on here

And the rumor is that somebody was murdered
upstairs and a lot of ghost stories

There was another gentleman who used to clean
up here at night

and he said every night the ghosts had
a party here down in the basement

Well this place actually was a site for a lot of
parties, cotillions, balls back in the day

it was where the rich elite Europeans and
Americans came to visit

Sure, there was a lot of firsts here

The first lady's luncheon was held here

It was the first restaurant also to hire a woman

it was the first restaurant to
allow women to congregate

as well as all the different firsts on the
culinary end

And it was the first place to use the term restaurant

Restaurant, printed menus

This steak is delicious by the way, if I didn't say so

All right so these are Abe Lincoln's
favorite potatoes, correct?

That's it

and there's a lot of history too about people who
were patrons here, correct?

So a lot of favorite people. Mark Twain, every
president since Abraham Lincoln has been here

Charles Dickens, the Wolf of Wall Street was
another one that used to frequent here

I bet you have people that come back here
everyday for lunch too

Not necessarily famous people

We get a lot of regulars, yeah

The bar is filled with a lot of characters that
come in every single day

So these are the potatoes, the Abe Lincoln potatoes

So the story about this is Abe Lincoln loved
these potatoes, and I'm sure I'm going to as well

Oh I thought there were going to be mashed

There's just a few calories in here

Oh my goodness

That's amazing

Can't really go wrong though

Cheese baked and cream, butter, potatoes

Awesome

That would go good on the side of a steak

It works perfect

And the next dish we have is our dessert

Baked Alaska

And it was invented here by Charles Ranhofer

who was one of the first celebrity chefs

so it's a layer of baked meringue and inside is
what we call, it's kind of a cross between

an ice cream and a semifreddo, so say
a banana semifreddo

There's an apricot jam

Nice

underneath that, and then on the bottom is
walnut sponge

Wow I'm kind of embarrassed to say I've never
actually eaten one of these

We're going to cut it open

So you can see the meringue, then you have the banana,

then there's the apricot jam
and on the bottom is the walnut sponge

I'll turn it around so we can get a better look

and then from there just dig in

That's never a problem

The perfect baked Alaska, you should be able to,
what we tried for anyway,

you should be able to get everything

the middle part can't be too cold, otherwise if it's
too cold you won't be able to go all the way through

It's delicious

and the apricot and the banana go really well
together

They do, they really do; and the walnut cake

Thank you so much, chef, everything has been
absolutely delicious, beautiful and great history

and I've really enjoyed myself thank you so much

Thank you

Thank you so much for joining me on this
Story of Cooking

I'm Sarah Nicholas and just remember behind every
story is a great recipe!

Funding for the Story of Cooking is provided by

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Walkabout Outfitter

Biagio Cru and Estate Wines

Chef Revival

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Chefs in the Kitchen

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on today's show

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