The back does explain that it’s 76% organic petite sirah, and 24% non-organic grapes. I just thought it was a pretty funny thing to put on the front label, and wonder which consumers are going to be more likely to buy it, knowing that it’s 76% organic.
For some time, I’ve watched the War on Bottled Water with amusement. I don’t disagree with figuring out how to reduce waste, and so on and so forth, but the railing against bottled water per se struck me as not thought out very well.
The major reason for my thinking is that I never heard any of the venomous railing against water extending to any other drinks that come in bottles. To my mind, it seemed that a Coke, hey, that’s okay, but if you start with one and take out the sugar, the caffeine, the artificial flavors, and CO2 you end up with water. Coke okay, water evil.
Me, sometimes all I want is a cool drink of water. More often, I want something a little more. I’m very fond of those fizzy waters with a bit of essential oils in them, as well as iced tea. But I don’t want the sugar. I want an artificial sweetener even less, and often when faced with decisions, water is what’s available. When I’m traveling nearly anywhere, I think I’d rather have it in a bottle, thanks.
The prejudice against water comes from thinking that it’s just water. Rarely is there such a thing as just water. The only just water there is is distilled (or in a pinch deionized) water, and that is itself special because it is unusual for something to be just water.
And now, I can’t help but think, “Uh huh” as I read, “Millions in U.S. Drink Dirty Water, Records Show.”
The summary is that more than 20% of US water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years. The violations include sewage bacteria, known poisons and carcinogens, parasites, and so on. Mid-level EPA investigators say that the government has been interested in other things and just not enforcing things, and they don’t think change will happen.
Security isn’t just going after terrorists, it’s basic thing. Like water.
Mordaxus emailed some of us and said “I hope this doesn’t mean MG has jumped the shark.” What was he talking about?
Apparently, ThinkGeek now has a “Molecular Gastronomy Starter Kit.” For those of you who’ve been hiding in a Cheesecake Factory for the past few years, molecular gastronomy is the art of using science to do things to food beyond your typical applications of heat with fire or its close analogs, acids baths beyond marinades, combinations harder to achieve than hollandaise, and whipping things without egg whites. See, it’s really a continuum and continuation of what chefs have been doing for years. Really, poaching eggs and poaching jolt cola are all about understanding and using the chemicals available in your kitchen in new and interesting ways. Ten years ago, not a lot of people brined their chicken, and twenty years ago everyone but the Japanese overcooked their tuna. Wasabi wasn’t a normal ingredient. Kitchens change. There’s chaos and experimentation. Some of what emerges is good, and some of it’s embarrassing. Some of it’s the home Sous Vide kits, and some of it’s the starter kit.
The real question is what’s going to emerge next in the market, and what’s going to emerge in your kitchen?
He said the criteria used by the Smart Choices™ Program™ were seriously flawed, allowing less healthy products, like sweet cereals and heavily salted packaged meals, to win its seal of approval. “It’s a blatant failure of this system and it makes it, I’m afraid, not credible,” Mr. Willett said.[...]
Eileen T. Kennedy, president of the Smart Choices™ board and the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, said the program’s criteria were based on government dietary guidelines and widely accepted nutritional standards.She said the program was also influenced by research into consumer behavior. That research showed that, while shoppers wanted more information, they did not want to hear negative messages or feel their choices were being dictated to them.
“The checkmark means the food item is a ‘better for you’ product, as opposed to having an x on it saying ‘Don’t eat this,’ ” Dr. Kennedy said. “Consumers are smart enough to deduce that if it doesn’t have the checkmark, by implication it’s not a ‘better for you’ product. They want to have a choice. They don’t want to be told ‘You must do this.’ ” (“For Your Health, Froot Loops™“)
Yes, every single one of these is a better choice than a petri dish full of salmonella. Guaranteed, or your money back.
I’ve added ™ marks where I think the New York Times™ should have included them.
Via JWZ.
It’s appetizing news for anyone who’s ever wanted the savory taste of meats and cheeses without actually having to eat them: chemists have identified molecular mechanisms underlying the sensation of umami, also known as the fifth taste.
…
The umami receptor’s shape is similar to that of sweetness receptors, he said, and his team’s research could eventually suggest alternatives to sugar. But more work is needed to determine exactly what happens when signals are sent from tongue to brain.
“Molecular mechanism for the umami taste synergism” By Feng Zhang, Boris Klebansky, Richard M. Fine, Hong Xu, Alexey Pronin, Haitian Liu, Catherine Tachdjian and Xiaodong Li. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 52, Dec. 30, 2008.
Via Wired, who didn’t link to the article, and so we won’t link to them.
“Science Behind Mysterious ‘Fifth Taste’ Revealed,” By Brandon Kim, Wired Science Blog, December 22, 2008.
There was a very interesting article in the New York Times, “Fish Tale has DNA Hook,” in which two high school students used DNA testing to discover that nearly 1/4 of the sushi they tested and identified was mis-labeled. The article only identifies one of the vendors:
Dr. Stoeckle was willing to divulge the name of one fish market whose products were accurately labeled in the test: Leonards’ Seafood and Prime Meats on Third Avenue. John Leonard, the owner, said he was not surprised to find that his products passed the bar code test. “We go down and pick the fish out ourselves,” he said. “We know what we’re doing.” As for the technology, Mr. Leonard said, “it’s good for the public,” since “it would probably keep restaurateurs and owners of markets more on their toes.”
I was amused by this, but Robin Hanson had an interesting comment:
This is a huge fraud rate. Will diners continue to tolerate it? Probably, yes – I suspect diners care more about affiliating with impressive cooks and fellow diners than they do that fish is correctly labeled.
I think that there’s a related phenomenon in software security. It’s hard to accurately identify secure or insecure software. It’s usually easier to look at other elements of what makes a program useful. Which makes for a very fishy market.
Photo: “Dinner at Masa: O! Fishy fishy fishy fish” by mobil’homme.
I find it interesting that security people and foodies are strongly correlated. Or at least are strongly correlated among the ones I know. Very Good Taste has a list of things called The Omnivore’s Hundred, a list of things worth trying, modulo this and that. You mark things you have tried, and mark things you would never try or try again.
I found it via Cygnoir, who also gave a pointer to an easy-to-fill-out web page that will give HTML.
My results of that page are below.
—————————————–
To make the filling out of this form and generating the HTML for it a bit easier, ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
reddywhp has played around with some PHP. Go to http://reddywhip.org/lj/foods/ and fill it out there. After filling it out, you will be given the code to copy and paste into your blog.
Livejournal users, remember to use your LJ-Cuts!
Hot dog from a street cartMcDonald’s Big Mac MealHostess Fruit PieEggs BenedictSpam
At WD-50 I saw something done to the potatoes that makes a cook scream, “yes!” A method of cooking the potatoes with an explanation using true understanding of the molecules inside the potatoes and the effects of heat on them.
The potatoes are peeled, sliced, and cooked in a water bath at 65 degrees celsius for 30 minutes. The potatoes are transferred to an ice bath to cool completely. At this point the potatoes are still crisp, seemingly unchanged. Once cooled, the potatoes are cooked just as you would have had you just peeled them. If the potatoes are seemingly unchanged, you might ask what on earth did they just do?
For the answer, you’ll have to read Today’s Secret Ingredient…Heat at TastingMenu.
And the McGee article she refers to is “The Invisible Ingredient in Every Kitchen.”
There are few things more chaotic than fire, and few emergent results more yummy than a nice pizza cooked in a brick and wood oven.
Photo: January 6th by Lili’s One-a-Day.
How clean is that piece of food that you dropped on the floor? Do you really want to eat it? Harold McGee explores the five-second rule in the New York Times. Personally, I always heard it as the thirty-second rule. I guess that it’s a good thing I have a strong immune system.
Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller and Harold McGee have issued a statement on the New Cookery:
In the past, cooks and their dishes were constrained by many factors: the limited availability of ingredients and ways of transforming them, limited understanding of cooking processes, and the necessarily narrow definitions and expectations embodied in local tradition. Today there are many fewer constraints, and tremendous potential for the progress of our craft. We can choose from the entire planet’s ingredients, cooking methods, and traditions, and draw on all of human knowledge, to explore what it is possible to do with food and the experience of eating. This is not a new idea, but a new opportunity.
Mmmm! I love what happens when constraints are removed. Sometimes it may get a little silly, but often, it’s sublime.
Both McGee and the French Laundry has been alluded to and mentioned in “The French Chef Model of Intellectual Property,” a subject mentioned in the statement:
We also believe in the importance of collaboration and generosity among cooks: a readiness to share ideas and information, together with full acknowledgment of those who invent new techniques and dishes.
Photo by Tamzen on eGullet.