Tofurky, Bac-Os, Cool Whip, movie popcorn "topping" - the list of fake foods goes on and on. But why do people feel the need to create substitutes for widely available foodstuffs? There are a number of reasons, says the Chicago Tribune, in an article on the history of fake food. Money is one reason - hydrogenated soybean oil is cheaper than butter as a popcorn topping. Shelf life is another: Cool Whip and Cremora stay good a lot longer than fresh cream. Tofurky, soy dogs and Fakin' bacon serve the vegetarian market. Ritz Cracker mock apple pie and fake oysters made from corn were American frontier settlers answers to the lack of apples and oysters along the road.
But what accounts for "mock cox comb" or a faux standing roast made from Canadian sausages? The answers may be lost to history.
After a week spent wandering the halls of Tales of the Cocktail in July 2008, sipping many finely stirred and shaken libations; I said to myself, "These special cocktails need to be shared with the world." So I bring you Cocktail Hour, a finer way to celebrate the end of the day; with these recipes. They have either been created specifically for Tales of the Cocktail, or re-designed for a new approach on the traditional version by some of the top Mixologists in the world. Many are being presented to the public here for the first time. Enjoy! St-Germain cocktail recipe after the jump
Australian food history blogger The Old Foodie has an interesting series on the history and meaning of food coloring, both naturally-occurring and man-made. A few choice tidbits:
- The crushed body of the cochineal insect, native to Mexico and South America, was the the original red food coloring. It's still possible to get cochineal dye, but it's expensive: It takes about 70,000 cochineal insects to make one pound of dye.
- Food coloring was sometimes used as paint for formal occasions. In 1846, renowned French chef Alexis Soyer painted a portrait of the Pasha of Egypt in pineapple cream for a state diner.
- Alfred Hitchcock once held a 'blue dinner party,' with blue-dyed soup, trout, chicken, venison, peaches, ice cream, bread and more. The guests were said to have been repelled.
As many of us here at Slashfood know geeks love to play with their food. And what geek doesn't love computers? Here's a birthday cake that combines the love of computers with that playful approach to food. It's a sugar-laden cartoony rendition of a motherboard. That Intel chip is an After Eight chocolate mint, and you can see that the gal who created this cake for her boyfriend also made liberal use of vanilla and chocolate wafer cookies. The circular gold things are Rolos. I haven't had one of them in years. Seeing the gold-foil wrapped treats has me wanting to run out and buy a pack.
I stumbled upon this sweet rendition of a motherboard on Geekcake, an entire site that's devoted to geeky cakes. What are some of the other cakes geeks are making you ask? Naturally, Star Wars is a common theme. There's a cool-looking Jabba-The-Hut wedding cake. And since nerds worship role-playing games, there's a cake fashioned after a 20-sided die. In high-school I played my fair share of D&D. But my favorite cake on the site is a Rubik's Cube cake. I'm guessing that's its not a fully functional Rubik's Cube. I'll bet it tastes good though.
After a week spent wandering the halls of Tales of the Cocktail in July 2008, sipping many finely stirred and shaken libations; I said to myself, "These special cocktails need to be shared with the world." So I bring you Cocktail Hour, a finer way to celebrate the end of the day; with these recipes. They have either been created specifically for Tales of the Cocktail, or re-designed for a new approach on the traditional version by some of the top Mixologists in the world. Many are being presented to the public here for the first time. Enjoy! Belvedere Earl Grey Fizz cocktail recipe after the jump
Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you folks. That's a pair of Mickey D's Chicken McNuggets in their natural habitat slurping down some barbecue sauce. They're part of the Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill that opened in New York City's West Village earlier this week. Other critters at this decidedly strange pet store include a pair of fish sticks swimming happily around a bowl. There's also a wide selection of hot dogs that behave oddly like snakes as they enjoy the warm rays of heat lamps. There some more conventional pets too, like a rabbit that preens in its cage applying her makeup.
I haven't been to the Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill yet, so I'm not sure what kind of food they serve. It strikes me as kind of cruel to eat chicken nuggets and hot dogs once you realize they're sentient beings. If I were a betting man I'd say the whole operation is a big hoax and that they don't sell any pets or cook anything on a charcoal grill at all. And that's because it is a hoax of sorts. All of the "pets" at the store are actually animatronics designed by the prankster artist Banksy as part of his latest show.
Village Pet Store is located at 89 7th Avenue between West 4th and Bleeker Street and is open from 10 a.m. to midnight until Halloween. Those not in the New York City area can check out the bizarre goings on in this video. I'll leave it up to the critics to decide whether this weird little emporium qualifies as art. At least the dude found an amusing way to repurpose Chicken McNuggets.
I'm on the computer waaayy too much, and my wrists are seriously weak as a result. So what's a girl who loves wine to do? I've experimented with plenty of wine openers trying to find one that won't kill my wrists, especially when I run into a bottle with a plastic cork, which is the worst closure anyone could have possibly invented. Please, wineries, just use a screwcap if you can't spring for the real thing. Those of us who don't have the arm strength of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his bodybuilding days thank you.
Now I've found a wine opener that's easy on both my wrists and budget: the Penguin Corkscrew. It's kind of a Rabbit knockoff with a sleeker design, and at $50 it's a little spendy, but much preferable to carpel tunnel surgery. You just raise the lever, put the Penguin on the bottle, pull the lever down and then up, and voila, the cork is out in less than five seconds.
I used to work in a fancy restaurant in college where I had to open bottles perfectly with a waiter's corkscrew, but I'm glad those days are over. Now it's all Penguin, all the time. What's your favorite corkscrew, or do you just wish every bottle had a screwcap?
Ladies and gentlemen, shut down the Michigan borders. A 450 pound pumpkin has gone missing.
Bill Teer of Grand Blanc Township, Michigan, spent five months growing a great pumpkin of Charlie Brown proportions. It was stolen from his yard during the night last Thursday, as his wife discovered when she left for work at 5:30am. He's offering a $200 reward and hopes someone will find it.
"You can't miss the thing," says Teer. No joke!
We're still waiting for a series of ransom notes with a couple of seeds enclosed in each letter. Truly, we wish Mr. and Mrs. Teer luck and hope it's just someone playing a practical joke. Perhaps a giant jack-o-lantern will appear on their doorstep on Halloween!
An Orange Country school board trustee was arrested recently for petty theft when he was caught tucking a bottle of ketchup under his clothes and trying to sneak out of the school cafeteria.
The trustee, Steve Rocco, reportedly wears dark sunglasses and a knit cap all the time. Think unibomber. He also apparently really, really likes ketchup.
APNews says Rocco could face up to 45 days in jail if charges are filed. Now, that's a great way to warn the local kids about stealing from school!
We're actually a little more concerned about his street cred than his potential jail time.
.000001%* of the population will be paid actual cash money to step foot into the on deck circle at Yankee Stadium. Still, that doesn't stop hordes of fans from TiVoing Inside Baseball, poring over box scores and suiting up in team regalia on game day. For some of us, food holds an equally compelling balance of gut-level devotion and wonkish stat-based compulsion. A reservation at elBulli is akin to scoring home team dugout seats for the seventh game of the World Series. Food fans -- here's your program.
It's said that 2,000,000 requests a year come in for just 8000 seats at Ferran Adrià's Spanish temple of molecular gastronomy. The closest many of us will come is grazing through this brand new 528 page play-by-play, A Day at elBulli An insight into the the ideas, methods and creativity of Ferran Adrià. It's not so much the common parlance's "food porn" as it is a post-millennial culinary junkie's process orgy, documenting each staff motion and motivation, every microgram of alginate and liquid nitrogen, and fetishistically breaking down quantity and custom and customer/server semiotics.
The proverbial sausage has never been so obsessively, graphically made for public consumption, and rarely has it been so deliciously presented. There are pleasing pictures and recipes, to be sure (Hazelnut praline air, anyone? Perhaps some Garrapi-nitro pine nuts?), but sans easy access to an Isomalt-R-Us, it's a fever-dream cookbook. It is, however, a deeply heartening food-ifesto.
So. Diet Coke kills sperm on contact. We thought you should know.
We feel sort of shocked, and also sort of remarkably unshocked.
Scientist Deborah Anderson and her team have been awarded one of this year's Ig Nobel Awards from Improbable Research for their work on both Coca Cola Classic and Diet Coke's contraceptive qualities.
Will this knowledge ever come in handy? Well, with a desperate situation and a little yoga, anything is possible. Never say never, right? Okay, yeah, maybe this once.
Other things we bet kill sperm: Jagermeister, Ramen Noodle broth, Tang, and everything at Taco Bell.
Each Friday afternoon (or evening), I offer up eight tasty links that have captured my food curiosity. Here are the links for this week!
Forbes Traveler has put together a list of what they consider to be the 11 Classic American Dishes. Included on the list are the Philly cheesesteak, pasta primavera and the overstuffed burrito.
It's been just over a week since Marisa mentioned the end of Carol Blymire's French Laundry at Home, and now we've got the final recipe: "Cornets" -- Salmon Tartare with Sweet Red Onion Creme Fraiche. A simple, buttery cone filled with onion creme fraiche and some chopped salmon tartare? It sounds like a nice and delicious end to me, and as Carol describes it, the cornets are "Perfect. Absolutely perfect."
With this, she has done the whole cookbook. The end. But this is one of those times when language fails to adequately describe the power of reality. Think of it this way: Whether we're cooking a Thanksgiving dinner, making a difficult cake, throwing a dinner party, or cooking something beyond our comfort zone, it's ONE meal. The hours from prep to plating fly by, and then we sit down, exhausted and fulfilled. Now imagine that feeling 100 times over, with many intricate and difficult recipes spread out over a couple of years -- all set to a kickass playlist. Carol is the home kitchen's Wonder Woman.
After a week spent wandering the halls of Tales of the Cocktail in July 2008, sipping many finely stirred and shaken libations; I said to myself, "These special cocktails need to be shared with the world." So I bring you Cocktail Hour, a finer way to celebrate the end of the day; with these recipes. They have either been created specifically for Tales of the Cocktail, or re-designed for a new approach on the traditional version by some of the top Mixologists in the world. Many are being presented to the public here for the first time. Enjoy! Chamomile & Lavender Fizz cocktail recipe after the jump
Australian food history blogger 
I'm on the computer waaayy too much, and my wrists are seriously weak as a result. So what's a girl who loves wine to do? I've experimented with plenty of wine openers trying to find one that won't kill my wrists, especially when I run into a bottle with a plastic cork, which is the worst closure anyone could have possibly invented. Please, wineries, just use a screwcap if you can't spring for the real thing. Those of us who don't have the arm strength of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his bodybuilding days thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, shut down the Michigan borders. A 450 pound pumpkin has gone missing.
An Orange Country school board trustee was arrested recently for petty theft when he was caught tucking a bottle of ketchup under his clothes and trying to sneak out of the school cafeteria.
.000001%* of the population will be paid actual cash money to step foot into the on deck circle at Yankee Stadium. Still, that doesn't stop hordes of fans from TiVoing Inside Baseball, poring over box scores and suiting up in team regalia on game day. For some of us, food holds an equally compelling balance of gut-level devotion and wonkish stat-based compulsion. A reservation at elBulli is akin to scoring home team dugout seats for the seventh game of the World Series. Food fans -- here's your program.
Soy and chickpeas might help stroke victims
The world of pie and tart crusts
Starbucks launches the Piadini 
