Your local burger joint is not immune to the enshitification. “Wendy’s will start experimenting with surge pricing, much like Uber and Lyft, as the company rolls out digital menus to all its United States restaurants by 2025, according to the company’s February earnings call. Under the test, burgers, Frosties, and other menu items will have “dynamic prices,” costing more during times of increased demand.”
food
Cory Doctorow and his daughter, Posey, have a regular sushi date. “Every week or two, we visit a different sushi restaurant, usually near our place in Burbank, and have a (usually) fantastic meal. We bring along a little notebook and take notes and keep scores on everything we try, and then (usually) we give the restaurant an overall rating.” They call it the Sushi Chronicles. What a cute idea.
New Pasta Just Dropped
The culmination of Dan Pashman’s three-year passion to invent a new type of pasta shape is now ready to get into your tummy. All of his hard work has paid off with the introduction of the Cascatelli pasta (Italian for “waterfallsâ€).
Pashman and Sfoglini engineered the new shape to maximize the three main characteristics:
- Sauceability: How readily sauce adheres to the shape
- Forkability: How easy it is to get the shape on your fork and keep it there
- Toothsinkability: How satisfying it is to sink your teeth into it
Bringing the pasta into fruition seems to have been quite the ordeal. Pashman says he spent several thousand dollars and pushed the release of the shape back months, all to add half the thickness of a credit card to its shape, thus increasing the toothsinkability.
Dan has put together a five-part podcast detailing the concept, design, production, and subsequent birth of the new pasta – you can start with the first one here.
You can purchase a box of Cascatelli from Sfoglini. Though supplies appear low and you may need to pre-order.
Farm To Table
This is a clip from the film Samsara, directed by Ron Fricke (also the director of Baraka and the director of photography for Koyaanisqatsi) packs a real punch, without saying a word. If you are not too squeamish, stick to the end, the last scene is the kicker. This is not comfortable or pleasant viewing. It is dystopian and confronting and robotic. Both tragic and beautiful. And definitely worth a watch.
Don’t let this stop you from watching the entire film though.
Samsara is a Sanskrit word that means “the ever turning wheel of life†and is the point of departure for the filmmakers as they search for the elusive current of interconnection that runs through our lives. Filmed over a period of almost five years and in twenty-five countries, Samsara transports us to sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial sites, and natural wonders. By dispensing with dialogue and descriptive text, Samsara subverts our expectations of a traditional documentary, instead encouraging our own inner interpretations inspired by images and music that infuses the ancient with the modern.
Farmer’s Toast
Before most of us sit down to gluttonously gorge on our Thanksgiving Day feasts, we should take a moment to thankfully reflect on all hard workers who plant, harvest, process, pack, transport, prepare, serve and sell our food.
Farmer’s Toast (Godspeed The Plow)
Come all jolly fellows that love to be mellow,
Attend unto me, and sit easy;
A pint when it’s quiet, come lads let us try it,
For thinking can drive a man crazy.By plowing and sowing and reaping and mowing,
King Nature affords me a plenty;
I’ve a cellar well-stored, and a plentiful board,
And my garden provides every dainty.I have lawns, I have bowers, I have fields, I have flowers,
And the lark is my morning alarmer.
So you jolly boys, now, here’s a health to the plow,
Long life and success to the Farmer.Let the wealthy and great roll in splendour and state,
I envy them not, I declare it.
For I eat my own hams, my own chickens and lambs,
And I shear my own sheep and I wear it.Were it not for my seeding you’d get but poor feeding,
I’m sure you would all starve without me.
I’m always content when I’ve paid my rent,
And I’m happy when friends are about me.Draw near to my table, my lads if you’re able,
Let me hear not one word of complaining.
For the jingling of glasses all music surpasses,
And I love to see bottles a-draining.For here I am king, I can laugh, drink, or sing,
And let no man appear as a stranger.
But show me the ass who refuses a glass,
And I’ll treat him to hay in the manger.
This song was originally published as a broadside in the early 19th century, the verses can be found on plates and mugs produced at the time. Nobody knows who wrote it, but he was probably not a farmer.
Old School Tabasco Advertisement
Image via Vintage Ads LiveJournal
Great ad for a great sauce. Indispensable for the table and in the kitchen. Imparts delicious flavor. Insures good digestion.
I would love an old style bottle topper like that for my own tobacco bottles. Anybody know where I could find one?
via Boing Boing
An Inventory Of Live Animals Being Sold On Amazon.com
How To Tell If Your Sriracha Is Fake
Over at Eat Drink & Be Merry blogger Dylan James Ho points us out to a bottle of counterfeit Sriracha he found in Little Saigon (Los Angeles). The fake is pretty easy to spot (the blue cap and the unicorn on the front are dead give-a-ways) but it’s obvious it’s produced to deceive the customer. Huy Fong Foods Inc., the original manufacturer of Sriracha, reports that its sauce is often poorly imitated and suggests these four ways to be sure you have the real thing:
1. That taste is not identical to our product.
2. Below the green cap of our bottles, there is a protruding plastic ring, which is the same diameter of the green cap. The counterfeit product’s ring is much smaller.
3. Our product’s batch code consists of two lines printed with a laser etcher, which produces a clear, colorless imprint. The first line states the product/batch code (must start with an H) and the second line states the expiration date. The counterfeit does not have a product/batch code but has an expiration date that may be either be printed in black ink or or hot-stamped resulting in a colorless, blurry imprint.
4. Finally, our bottle has ‘Huy Fong USA’ embossed on the bottom of our bottle. The counterfeit does not.
…
The 57 Varieties Of Heinz
The “57 Varieties” slogan was not developed because their product line included exactly 57 varieties. In fact, there were over 60 products when the slogan was proposed. The number 57 was picked by H.J. Heinz by combining his and his wife’s luck numbers. However, to print his “57 varieties” in his cookbooks (The Heinz Book of Meat Cookery, 1934, H.J. Heinz Company) he needed to combine a few products. The list, as it was printed in their cookbooks, can be found below. Today, the H.J. Heinz company has over 5,700 products.
apple butter
apple jelly
baked beans in tomato sauce without meat
baked beans with pork and tomato sauce
baked beans without tomato sauce with Boston-style pork
baked red kidney beans
beefsteak sauce
black raspberry preserves
blackberry preserves
cherry preserves
chili sauce
chow chow pickles
cooked macaroni
cooked spaghetti
crab-apple jelly
cream of celery soup
cream of pea soup
cream of tomato soup
currant jelly
damson plum preserves
dill pickles
distilled white vinegar
evaporated horseradish
fig pudding
grape jelly
green pepper sauce
homestyle gravy
India relish
manzanilla olives
mayonnaise
mince meat
peach preserves
peanut butter
plum pudding
prepared mustard
preserved sweet gherkins
preserved sweet mixed pickles
pure cider vinegar
pure malt vinegar
pure olive oil
queen olives
quince jelly
red pepper sauce
red raspberry preserves
ripe olives
salad dressing
sour midget gherkins
sour mixed pickles
sour pickled onions
sour spiced gherkins
strawberry preserves
stuffed olives
sweet midget gherkins
sweet mustard pickles
tarragon vinegar
tomato ketchup
worcestershire sauce
Food Porntastic
I found this video, directed by Frenkel Schönfeld & Daan Oskam, among the staff favourites at Vimeo. The video was released in September of last year but I think it deserves to go viral. The music is A song called “Le Big Bob” by Dutch producers Iason Chronis and Coen Berrier aka Mason. The images are all sexy-as-hell stock footage. Have a napkin handy.