Cooking with cannabis
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Cooking with cannabis concerns the preparation and cooking of foods with the drug cannabis in herbal or resin form as an alternate way to experience the effects of the drug without smoking it. Commonly it is cooked into a cake, cookie, brownie, or other baked product to be distributed socially. There are many different names and slang terms for these recipes. Most are based on standard recipes for brownies, cakes or cookies. The addition of hash, cannabis, weed, pot or the more euphemistic space, magic, adult, special prefixes gives some of the more common names like hash brownie, space cake etc.
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[edit] Preparation
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active substance in cannabis, and other cannabinoids are hydrophobic oils, which are insoluble in water but soluble in alcohols, fats, and other oils.[1] The oil-solubility of cannabis extracts has been known since ancient times, when Sanskrit recipes from India required that the cannabis (ganja) be sautéed in ghee before mixing it with other ingredients.[1] Cannabis extracts can be prepared in the form of either butter, milk, cream, coconut oil, lard, or liqueurs, and then used for a variety of cookings.[2] Making a tea by boiling cannabis in water is a highly inefficient way to extract cannabinoids, although if the cannabis is of good quality and has plenty of resin on the outside, a portion of resin can be softened by the heat and float out into the water.[3]
Some authors claim that oral consumption of cannabis, when properly cooked, is a more efficient way to absorb cannabinoids than smoking it.[2]
[edit] Butter
"Cannabutter" or "marijuana butter" is a butter-based emulsion which has been infused with cannabinoids. This is achieved by heating the raw cannabis along with butter and allowing the cannabinoids to be extracted by the fat. The exact procedure for this varies greatly. The equipment necessary for the manufacture of cannabutter can be as simple as a sauce pan and spatula or as complicated as a double-boiler, or crock pot, cheese cloth or tea strainer and funnel.[citation needed]
Another way to produce cannabutter is to boil a large pan of water and then add a block of butter and add cannabis trimmings (the leaves and stalks). The water prevents the THC from being damaged by heat as the mixture will never reach over 100°C. After half an hour or so of boiling, sieve the mixture to remove the leaves and cool the liquid in a fridge. When it has cooled you are left with a potent layer of cannabutter on top of dirty water.
The flavor and color of the oil or butter used are changed depending on the method used.
[edit] Milk
Marijuana can also be prepared with whole milk. Using a double boiler, you can heat milk and add your marijuana. The use of a double boiler prevents the milk from mixing with the water. When heated, the THC is activated and fused within the milk. Strain with a cheese-clothe and let cool.
[edit] Liqueurs
Because cannabis resins are soluble in alcohol, a good way of adding them into dishes is through cooking brandy or rum infused with cannabinoids.
Creme de Gras is a flavored liqueur made from cannabis.[4] It can be added to coffee and other beverages.
[edit] Leary biscuit
A Leary biscuit is a snack consisting of a cracker, cheese, and ground up marijuana bud, named after Timothy Leary. It is heated in a microwave oven and causes a cannabis "high" in the eater. The heating is said to release the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in cannabis. The plant material of cannabis is not easily digested, and so the THC is not readily absorbed into the bloodstream unless it is first dissolved in some kind of fat, oil, or alcohol. This is why cheese is used for the Leary biscuit - cheese has a high fat content, suitable for dissolving THC and making it more readily available for digestion.
[edit] Hash cookie
Hash cookies, also known as space cookies, hash cakes or space cakes are relatively common in regions with liberal drugs policies, including parts of Europe (particularly the Netherlands). They are bakery products made using one of the forms of cannabis, including hashish.
Hash cookies are essentially the same as marijuana cookies, and are also seen in cake, ball, and brownie form. To make them, large amounts of hash (typically half a gram to as much as a gram a cookie) are baked into the product in careful steps, so that the user is able to achieve a high without actually smoking anything. Some users report that the high is not quite as intense as smoking, but instead it is felt throughout the body as a feeling of lightness, sometimes known as a "body high". The main benefits to preparing these cookies is that they can be used in many places where smoking is not convenient, as they can easily be brought to parties, cafes, and work. One is not usually able to tell the difference between regular baked goods and those containing drugs, but they tend to have a slight greenish tinge with marijuana, and they often emit a faint odor. Many resources for recipes, preparation, and dosage are available online, though they vary greatly in effectiveness and quality.
The writer Alice B. Toklas's inclusion of her friend Brion Gysin's recipe for "Haschich Fudge" in her 1954 literary memoir The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook caused a sensation at the time, and led to her name becoming associated with cannabis food with the use of the phrase "Alice B. Toklas brownies" for many years afterwards.
[edit] Psychoactive effects
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Eating such a food can result in a similar psychoactive effect or "high" as smoking marijuana, although it may be delayed or mitigated due to slower absorption of the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) through the digestive tract. Some believe it imparts a smoother "high". However there are many accounts of stronger, longer lasting highs resulting from eating cannabis. Whereas the effects from smoking cannabis are usually felt within a few minutes, it can take up to two hours to get high from ingesting it.
Contrary to smoking, where one can feel the high coming gradually; the way the THC is digested can result in a lighter high that can last for hours. Products containing cannabis are widely available in cannabis coffee shops in the Netherlands (and various European cities), where the consumption of marijuana is effectively legal.
[edit] Cultural influence
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- The brownie was used in the 1968 film I Love You, Alice B. Toklas, in which a character portrayed by Peter Sellers becomes disillusioned with his mainstream life after falling in love with a free spirit, only to become just as disillusioned with the hippie subculture. Marijuana-spiked brownies are a key plot element.
- In "Garage Sale" - the second season premiere of the FOX sitcom That '70s Show - Steven Hyde makes "special brownies" that end up being consumed by Red, Kitty, Midge and Bob.
- In the movie Eurotrip, Scotty, played by Scott Mechlowicz, and Jenny, played by Michelle Trachtenberg eat some brownies in a Dutch bake shop that they assume are hash brownies and "suffer" the symptoms. They learn, however, that the brownies contain no cannabis, with the staff referring to the establishment as a "simple Dutch bakery", much to their embarrassment.
- In an episode of Grounded for Life, "Henry's Working for the Drug Squad", Sean Finnerty eats cannabis brownie batter, still containing the seeds. He stumbles to his backyard and throws up. A marijuana plant grows in the vomit.
- In an episode of Arrested Development, following a comic misunderstanding with his nephew Michael, Oscar Bluth succeeds in getting his sister-in-law Lucille high on cannabis by "putting it in her brownie."
- In Taxi, a pot brownie completely derails the life of a straightlaced Harvard student, turning him into the junkie cabbie Reverend Jim, played by Christopher Lloyd.
- As part of his "Part Troll" tour, the stand-up comedian Bill Bailey encouraged the audience to suggest alternative foods that can be cooked using cannabis. On the DVD suggestions included lard, shepherd's pie and beef stroganoff.
- In the FOX animated series Family Guy, when Stewie is hallucinating due to fever brought on by immunization shots and Meg asks what is wrong with him, Lois responds: "He's just having a little hallucination from the fever, just like when you were 2 and ate those adult brownies I was saving for the Doobie Brothers concert."
- In season 4 of the TV series Desperate Housewives, Lynette's mother feeds her hash brownies so she can overcome her nausea caused by chemotherapy. This causes Lynette to hallucinate at Susan's charade night.
- In Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalow, space cake was consumed by Deuce. He questioned the content of the cake but once he was persuaded it was "what astronauts eat" he willingly consumed it. A short while later he was having weird hallucinations.
- In The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chboski, Charlie eats a pot brownie thinking it is a normal brownie, and gets high for the first time.
- In season 5 of the TV series The L Word, some "party brownies" are prepared by Shane for Jenny's party.
- In the Frasier episode "High Holidays", Niles eats what he believes to be a pot brownie and thinks he is high. However, his brownie is a normal one and his father Martin has eaten the "special" brownie.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ a b Gottlieb, Adam (1993). Cooking with Cannabis: The Most Effective Methods of Preparing Food and Drink with Marijuana, Hashish, and Hash Oil. Ronin Publishing, p. 7. ISBN 0914171550.
- ^ a b Drake, Bill (2002). The Marijuana Food Handbook. Ronin Publishing, p. 18. ISBN 0914171992.
- ^ Gottlieb, Adam (1993). Cooking with Cannabis: The Most Effective Methods of Preparing Food and Drink with Marijuana, Hashish, and Hash Oil. Ronin Publishing, p. 8. ISBN 0914171550.
- ^ Gottlieb, Adam (1993). Cooking with Cannabis: The Most Effective Methods of Preparing Food and Drink with Marijuana, Hashish, and Hash Oil. Ronin Publishing, p. 31. ISBN 0914171550.
[edit] External links
- Cannabis Recipes at Cannabis.com
- The Straight Dope column on Alice B. Toklas brownies (includes original text of recipe)
- Totse.com – How to make Cannabutter
- Erowid.com recipes for cooking with cannabis
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