Today was going to be a serious Friday. Today was going to be all about dressing down the FDA for suddenly declaring tomatoes safe after instigating a months-long salmonella scare that didn't identify the source of the outbreak but did cost the tomato-growing industry something in the neighborhood of a quarter-billion dollars.

Today was supposed to be for questioning the ethics of an administration that approves labeling something as grotesquely engineered as high fructose corn syrup "Natural." We were going to insinuate that high-level FDA officials were in the pocket of the corn lobby, even as they also approved a combined $1 million in bonuses for themselves, "pushing their pay above that of members of Congress, federal judges - and even some cabinet secretaries."

But you don't want to hear about that, right? You want Fun Friday. You know what you want? You want to see a pickle get electrocuted as a metaphor for converting to Christianity. Look, it lights up and smoke comes out! Can the FDA do that? Only listen to Grandpa John and don't try this at home.

Thanks FDA....for nothing. [Accidental Hedonist]
FDA Lifts Warning About Eating Certain Types of Tomatoes [FDA Press Release]
As FDA says tomatoes are safe, growers criticize agency [Sacramento Bee]
FDA Execs Reap Lavish Bonuses [CBS]
Holk V. Snapple civil verdict [Corn.org]
Man electrocutes pickle to demonstrate power of Christianity [Boing Boing]

• Lotsa Lebanese food in Beantown. [MP: Boston]

• In case you were wondering, it costs a lot to fill a Jacuzzi with Chicken McNuggets. [MP: Chicago]

• Mexican wrestling masks on restaurant walls? Yes, please! [MP: Philadelphia]

• Happy birthday, umami! [MP: San Francisco]

• Miami lives la bonne vie. [MP: South Florida]

The normally staid British newsmagazine The Economist has some real cheeky monkeys on staff. Let us explain.

Stephen Dubner is the co-author of the bestselling book Freakonomics and writes a blog of the same name for the New York Times. In a July 8 blog post, he called out a perceived spelling error in a recent Economist story:

"Consider this lead from a recent article about a huge Mexican mining company called Fresnillo, which was recently listed on the London Stock Exchange:

In the hills north east of Mexico City it is not uncommon to find Cornish pasties for sale.

They meant to write “pastries” but, considering that miners work really hard, they might also be hoping to encounter the kind of people who go shopping for pasties."

You see, Stephen Dubner thought the Economist was talking about, we don't know... shortbread cookies. Not cornish pastys — meat-filled British turnovers that are also the ancestors of Jamaican beef patties.

That's when The Economist decided to send Dubner a cornish pastie in the mail. As shown in the picture above, Dubner received a cornish pasty in the mail courtesy of the magazine.

More commentary is available over at Serious Eats and Net Writing.

Pasties, pasties everywhere [Freakonomics/NYT]

[Photos via Stephen Dubner/NYT]

A recent commentary on Marketplace really struck a chord, especially after a dinner some months ago that ended with married best friends bickering over the price of a drink, about eight eyeballs straining to reach the ceiling first, and the embarrassing situation of taking so long that the staff milled about the table, hinting with no subtlety at all that it was time to go.

While this is an extreme version of check-splitting, and was probably called for as it was not a regular dining group, Dan Ariely's assertion that splitting a check causes more mental distress, in total, than does one person treating, never seemed truer.

But there are a couple problems with his point that may not be surmountable, especially to younger diners. First, you need a regular group in which everybody is willing to join in this method. If one person wants the check to be traded from meal to meal, and one wants it to be split every time, it will never work.

Also, picking up the check for a table of four at a moderately priced restaurant can be cost-prohibitive, even for comfortably middle-income people. A meal for $60 might be a ding to the pocketbook, but a $240 check just blew your whole weekend's entertainment budget.

Still, Ariely's got a good point about the "pain of paying," and if you can get to where you only have to experience that pain every fourth dinner, you're doing pretty well. It's all about figuring out who'll pick up the first check...

Splitting the check increases the pain [Marketplace]

[Photo: revjim5000/flickr]

We've recently become a little obsessed with the idea of "hacking" non-electronic, everyday things. For example there are these guys who hacked the McDonald's Menu, the well-known Starbucks iced latte hack (the ghetto latte), and now, with blazing turnaround time, the chocolate chip cookie hack.

You probably read the New York Times article last week that included advice to let chocolate chip cookie dough sit for 36 hours to fully absorb the liquid from the eggs. But who has 36 hours? Ridiculous. We want cookies now!

Well, Ideas In Food came to the rescue quickly with this handy hack of writer David Leite's painstaking findings: If you vacuum seal the cookie dough, it only takes about three hours for the liquid to absorb thoroughly enough to make those same perfect chocolate chip cookies.

What I can tell you is that the dough darkened and VacuumSealedDough became fully saturated, similar to the way that the dough usually looks after a couple of days in the refrigerator. It also changed the texture of the dough, making it a bit more elastic to the touch. The just made dough was too soft to shape and needed to chill, so I left in the fridge for about three hours before baking.

The resulting cookies were pretty damn good. They had a slightly cakey texture in the center with chewy yet crisp edges and rich buttery, caramel flavors. It was impossible to eat just one and I was thankful that I had not baked off the entire batch. Were they better than David Leite's? I really couldn't say. On the other hand I think it was clear that vacuum sealing did have a positive effect on the process, and from now on plastic wrap is out and vacuum bags are definitely in.

Vacuum Sealed Cookie Dough [Ideas In Food]
Perfection? Hint: It’s Warm and Has a Secret
HOWTO trick McDonald's into serving you "breakfast" at lunchtime and vice-versa [Boing Boing]
How to hack Starbucks [Slate]

[Photo: Chocolate chip cookie pie via Bakerella/flickr]

While the Benihana experience was novel when Aoki introduced it in the mid-60's, teppanyaki is about as authentically Japanese as a piece of chicken with a can of salsa dumped over it is authentically Mexican. It's considered western food by most Japanese, and there is no doubt much snickering over American stupidity that we flock to it as an "ethnic" experience.

Rocky Aoki was as controversial as his restaurants: he was infamously combative and chauvinistic, had three wives (at least one a former mistress with whom he had a simultaneous family with the first wife), innumerable girlfriends, and proudly admitted that in one calendar year he had fathered three children by three women. He was the subject of a scathing story in New York magazine in 2006, with which he cooperated fully - even with the realization that he might not be painted in a positive light:

A celebrity chef who couldn’t cook a dish, Rocky became a star by mastering the fine art of cheap publicity stunts. He posed for photos in the hot tub in his stretch Rolls-Royce and drove a cross-country race in a stretch Volkswagen bug. (“I also have stretch Corvette.”) He cameoed on Hawaii Five-O, won a national backgammon championship, and set a world record when he became the first person to cross the Pacific in a hot-air balloon (stamped with the Benihana logo, of course).

He was also on Japan's 1960 Olympic wrestling team (he didn't compete), survived a horrific speedboating accident in 1982, and often threatened to disinherit his children if they didn't live up to his standards of wealth and fame (his favorites: daughter Devon, who is an actress/model, and son Steve, who is a DJ with questionable facial hair).

Whether or not he will be missed is up in the air, but his contribution to America's culinary landscape - for better or for worse - is indelible.

Rocky Aoki, Founder of Benihana Chain, Dies at 69 [Bloomberg]
Rocky Aoki's Family Horror Show [NYMag]

[Photo: The Benihana experience, via Are Nold Rob Bore's Flickr]

Perhaps you saw Dickson Despommier on the Colbert Report last month, or maybe you first came on the name in today's FYI. Whatever. Point is, this guy is one weird public health scientist who is taking this whole "build up, not out" concept of urban design, and the locavore concept of eating food, and mashing them together in his hands to come up with something like this:

That there is a vertical farm, people. A place to grow food right here in the city, avoiding the costly, stinky diesel motors involved with trucking produce all over the country. Not exactly amber waves of grain, but still quite a striking symbol.

However, Armando Carbonell, chairman of the department of planning and urban form at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts, states in today's International Herald Tribune article, "Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an investment banker for space in a high-rise? My bet is that the investment banker will pay more." That seems to be the rub.

You could design around sunlight problems and other functional hurdles, but in the end, city-center real estate is just really expensive, and shows little sign of getting less so anytime soon. How far into, say, New Jersey, would you have to build one of those towers in order to make it economically viable? And by the time you're that out of New York City, wouldn't it make more sense just to farm the regular way?

One hopes not. The vertical farm really should work. It's such a cool solution to a growing problem. Maybe they could put offices in it too, to jack up revenue. Maybe by the time one of these things gets built, produce will be so expensive that the tomato really could compete with the investment banker. For right now, it seems it's a project that would have to rely heavily on outside funding. But that could be ok, too.

Whatever the method, this really needs to get built, not just for practical reasons, but because it will bring us so much closer to a flying-car, curvy-building, jetpack-having future utopia.

The Colbert Report: Dickson Despommier [Comedy Central]
Country, the city version [International Herald Tribune]
The Vertical Farm Project [Official Site]

[Photo: via the Vertical Farm Project]

"I am not good at anything, but I can eat and I can ride a bike, so you put those two things together and I've got a chance."

What is this? an autobiography? No, it's a quote from a trailer for a documentary about the Tour de Donut, which has rolled through Staunton, IL, for 20 years now right around Tour De France time.

As Sidel Evans fights to keep the yellow jersey for Silence-Lotto with a one-second lead over Rabobank's Oscar Freire in France, here in the United states, athletes in a different league altogether fought to keep their lunch down Saturday as they ate up glazed doughnuts along with miles of asphalt.

Fortunately for all involved, the Tour de Donuts is a one-day race and not a multi-stage tour like the Tour de France. Still, to a rider stuffed with fried dough and struggling through the hilly terrain, it probably feels like it lasts forever. The 30-mile ride is set up like a regular one-day classic, with the minor difference that riders are given the chance to scarf doughnuts at two checkpoints along the way. Each doughnut consumed knocks five minutes off a rider's time, so it behooves riders to gorge, but they must not throw up.

"I don't think I'll make my goal. It's tough to hold it back now," Steve Striker told The Telegraph, of Alton, IL. It seemed incredible that people would do this race at all, but then it turned out the serious competitors pack in 20 to 30 doughnuts during the race. That would, honestly, kill us. Check out this trailer for the documentary, and, if you think you're tough enough, think about signing up for next year's race. It could be your chance for greatness.

Cyclists test their legs — and stomachs — at annual Tour de Donut [The Telegraph]
Tour De France [Official Site]

Well, it's happened. Looks like the days of the gigantic American brewery turning out case after case of watery swill are officially over. No, Miller, Coors and Budweiser haven't gone out of business, but as of Sunday, they're now all subsidiaries of foreign companies.

Anheuser Busch, the last American-owned national brewery, finally sold to InBev, a Belgian company that makes Stella Artois, among others, for $52 billion. InBev's been gunning for AB for months now, and it would appear the pressure got too great and the pot too sweet to resist.

The end result is that if you want to drink American beers you'll have to start going small and local. Your high-falutin' microbrews, once the subject of derision by red-blooded Budweiser fanatics, now represent the last bastion of truly American brewing. Several medium-sized brands like Yuengling and Sierra Nevada, are still fully American-owned, but you'd be surprised at how many "domestic" brands actually fall under the umbrella holdings of foreign companies.

Meanwhile, you can see a list of truly American beers here. It was published a few weeks ago, though, so ignore the inclusion of Budweiser.

Anheuser-Busch being sold to InBev for $52B [AP/International Herald Tribune]
Who Owns What Beers? [Drink American]
Two Six-Packs of Truly American Beers for the 4th of July [Drink American]

[Photo: Mike Licht, Notionscapital.com/flickr]

Remember when your mom first learned to use the internet and she sent you e-mails every day with links and jokes and whatnot in them? totally annoying, right? But sometimes you chuckle at the jokes, right? Good, because here are a bunch of waiter joke links for a lazy Friday:

• You may not eat soup ever again [Coldmud]

• A whole bunch of waiter jokes that barely leave the realm of the popsicle stick [Workjoke]

• The New Yorker's given quite a bit of cartoon ink to the subject [Cartoonbank]

• Finally, the Muppets take on that fly in the soup:

Happy Friday!

• Boston coffee shops get hip to this "local foods" trend they've been hearing so much about. [MP: Boston]

• We're very excited to welcome new Chicago editor Helen Rosner to the MenuPages family! She's been rocking it on the Chi-town blog all week. [MP: Chicago]

• Lions and pythons and black bears (oh my!) are for dinner in Philly. [MP: Philadelphia]

• Vodka cocktails and excellent produce? Yes, please! [MP: San Francisco]

• Mango-based bartering reigns supreme at one Miami restaurant! [MP: South Florida]

Now that there's a new Batman movie out and all, how about we go retro with a look back at McDonalds' Batman Happy Meals from 1992?

McDonalds' Batman Happy Meals [YouTube]

This is how one's world gets expanded when one reads Coldmud: First, who knew that New Zealanders traditionally eat fruitcake at weddings? Not us. Second, turns out fruitcake is, not surprisingly, going out of style, in favor of (get your mind ready to be blown) cheese cake. No, not cheesecake, cheese cake. Look:

That there is a wedding cake made out of cheese. Isn't that beautiful? Don't you want one? See, the problem with wedding cakes in general is that they come at the end of the meal. After you've had several glasses of champagne, maybe danced a turn or two, and just generally partied down a bit, do you really want a big, sugary chunk of cake and icing? Or fruitcake? No, you do not. You want sustenance, and something to accompany that third glass of bubbly. Go, cheese!

The trend is taking hold outside New Zealand as well, especially in the UK, but the Kiwis probably have the most to gain from it, considering their traditional alternative. Fruitcake. It makes you wonder.

Cheese takes the cake at weddings [Dominion Post]

[Photo: via gromgull/flickr]

This is easily the saddest thing I've read today:

"I think that in 20 years chocolate will be like caviar," says John Mason, executive director and founder of the Ghana-based Nature Conservation Research Council (NCRC).

"It will become so rare and so expensive that the average Joe just won't be able to afford it."

The reason for the worry? Cacao is a rainforest plant that likes shade and biodiversity, but it's grown as a monoculture in lots of sun, which drains the soil of any nutrients and halves the lifespan of the trees. So then farmers have to clear more rainforest to plant more cacao. They're running out of usable space in West Africa, where most of the world's supply of cacao is grown, and the yields are down quite a bit. This might not only deprive us of chocolate, but it could also wreak havoc on the economies of some of these cacao-producing nations.

There is some good news. It appears farmers and environmentalists have realized they have common goals and are beginning to work together. Cadbury is currently working with 60 farms in Ghana, according to the CNN article, to figure out how to do this sustainably.

And on the disease-fighting front, Mars is collaborating with the USDA and IBM on a $10 million project that will attempt to sequence the genome of the cacao plant, in order to develop varieties that are resistant to diseases like the fungus that recently devastated Brazil's cacao crop.

Chocolate's bitter sweet relationship with the rainforest [CNN]
Safeguarding the World's Chocolate Supply [NPR]

Photo: icyshard/flickr

So is the guy a bigot, or just an asshole?

Something about this article in the San Francisco Chronicle about an ambiguously homophobic comment by a doorman struck the same chord as the ongoing debate in the New York food publications over dress code. Both discussions seem so open-ended and fruitless that the temptation is to say, "go to that establishment or don't go there but shut up about it."

But that's not how problems get solved. "You don't like that the back of the bus, Ms. Parks? Well, I don't like hearing about it, so just walk." No, that doesn't work at all. Nor is it really analogous, but you get the point. So let's get into it a little.

To summarize, the San Francisco issue was with a gay man dressed in an outfit he described as, "totally faggy" who was told by a bouncer at an "edgy and popular bar" that, "Obviously this is not your kind of place." Writer Chris Colin wonders weather the bouncer was being homophobic or just gruff, and asks, "as a society, how do we disentangle generic rudeness from bigotry?"

Meanwhile, a debate has been simmering in the comments boards of New York Times critic Frank Bruni's blog and Adam Roberts' Amateur Gourmet site over the appropriateness of dress codes in restaurants. Roberts contends that dress codes are outdated relics (my words, not his), while Bruni makes the case that a restaurant has the right to control its ambiance by controlling what people wear.

Initially, I was inclined to agree with Bruni. It is the restaurant's prerogative to control it's atmosphere, after all, and it does feel a little cheap to go to a three-figure dinner and still feel like you're on the subway. But on some level, isn't a restaurant that hands an under-dressed patron an ill-fitting loaner jacket saying, essentially, "Obviously this is not your kind of place?"

"Maybe it's looks-ism. It could be you're too straight for a gay bar. Or too gay for a straight bar. Or too rich for a poor bar. This one's such a gray area," Selisse Berry, founder of San Francisco's Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, states in the Chron article. That's a good word, and it seems to apply to both the doorman and the dress-code issue.

Roberts states that the younger generation of mid-to-high-end diners feels comfortable going to dinner in whatever attire they want because the food is the focus, not the dress. "We're looking at Gourmet, not Vogue, before we head out the door," he writes.

A restaurant with its own future in mind would want to attract these diners, but at the same time can't risk alienating its regulars, who are used to coats and ties and cocktail dresses. Similarly, a bar that stays popular because it stays "edgy" can't neuter its staff's personality, but it can't risk alienating customers with gruffness that seeps over into bigotry, even perceived bigotry.

So what are bars and restaurants that want to have a say in their own atmosphere to do? Well, a modicum of flexibility and politeness all around would be a good starting point. Perhaps the bouncer could have conveyed the same message while avoiding offense by saying something like, "wow, that's a hell of an outfit. I think you look cool, but I hope you won't feel uncomfortable inside."

The Maitre d'hotel of a restaurant that insists on keeping a dress code might put its jacketless clientele at ease by sympathizing with them: "I'm sorry sir, I know it's boiling outside, but you may find the climate in the dining room a little too chilly without a coat. Perhaps this gray one?" The restaurant could also benefit from having some halfway decent coats on, and bending to a patron that adheres to the spirit, if not the letter, of its rules.

Overall, though, no person or establishment will ever please everybody. As long as an establishment treats its customers fairly and respectfully, and serves them a hot meal, a cold drink or whatever else they order, it seems debates over dress codes and attitudes may have to be relegated to the dinner table.

And that is where it will do the most good, anyway. By continually discussing and debating our mores, our society becomes stronger. With any luck, in time, alienation and hostility surrounding these issues will give way to humor and grace, and that would be simply delicious.

Homophobic, or just edgy? [San Francisco Chronicle]
When You're All Dressed Up, You Need Somewhere To Go
No Jacket Required (An Anti Dress-Code Manifesto) [Amateur Gourmet]

[Photo: via slushpup/flickr]

On one hand, any visit to New York's 2nd Avenue Deli is elevated from good to heart-stoppingly great via the free bowl of gribbenes, a.k.a. chicken skin fried in chicken fat, that's plonked down on our table when we sit down. So it stands to reason that if the fried skin of the humble chicken is spectacular, then the fried skin of the magical, wonderful pig will be transcendent. On the other hand, they make footballs from the stuff.

Speaking of sports. Our favorite farm league team, the Brooklyn Cyclones, has decided that the relationship between the pig and baseball needs to move beyond the Denny's Grand Slam, and are coming down squarely on the side of Pork Rinds Are Awesome with their upcoming themed evening: A Salute To The Pork Rind, sponsored by Utz brand pork rinds.

The salute will involve plenty of pork rind-related activities:

One of the between-inning contests will also feature two fans diving into a pool of pork rinds for a hidden treasure, and another will see contestants toss pork rinds at a target.

You've got to pre-register to participate in the pork rind contest, so if you find yourself planning to be in Coney Island next Monday, drop a line to Ricky Viola. Willy Wonka, eat your heart out.

[Photo: pig made of pork rinds, via Brooklyn Cyclones]

How do you demonstrate your commitment to solving world hunger? Do you attempt to eat enough in one sitting to feed a third world family for a couple days? If you're a leader of a G8 country attending that summit on the Japanese Island of Hokkaido, the answer is, "maybe yes."

As they put on their serious faces and sat to discuss the growing global food crisis, the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized democracies (that's Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), were served a total of 24 courses — six for lunch and 18 for dinner — that included such staples of the working poor as, "milk-fed lamb flavored with herbs and mustard and roast lamb with crepes and black truffle." Good, solid, peasant food to put them in touch with the pressing issues of the day.

Or not. Here, have a look at the menu:

The feast, according to the UK's Daily Mail, drew its share of ire from critics:

Dominic Nutt, of the charity Save the Children, did not approve.

'It is deeply hypocritical that they should be lavishing course after course on world leaders when there is a food crisis and millions cannot afford a decent meal,' he said.

'If the G8 wants to betray the hopes of a generation of children, it is going the right way about it. The food crisis is an emergency and the G8 must treat it as that.'

In 2005, at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, world leaders promised to increase global aid by £25billion a year by 2010 and raise aid to Africa, the world's poorest continent, by £12.5billion. But the bloc of rich nations is only 14 per cent of the way towards hitting its target.

Of course it's unrealistic to expect world leaders at a high-powered international conference to snack on grilled cheese and baked potatoes, but the already maligned rich-guys' club isn't going to win friends by rubbing the world's face in its sumptuous meal. We're going to see no small amount of schadenfreude when and if the United States has to accept foreign aid from someplace like Venezuela. Oh wait...

G8 Summit [Official Site]
Summit that's hard to swallow - world leaders enjoy 18-course banquet as they discuss how to solve global food crisis [Daily Mail]
CITGO's Low Cost Heating Oil Program [CITGO]

Avoiding any "best thing since..." jokes will be hard on this, the 80th anniversary of the invention of the bread slicer. One of the most significant advances in the development of the sandwich, Otto Rohwedder's historic creation followed on the heels (sorry) of the pop-up toaster, which debuted in 1926.

Rohwedder deserves accolades not just for inventing a really useful thing, but for his apparently tireless pursuit of lunchtime convenience. Even after a fire destroyed his original blueprints, he did not loaf, but persevered and finally came out with an improved model that wrapped what it sliced.

By making possible such sandwiches as the club, the grilled cheese and the tuna melt, Rohwedder definitely sealed his place among the upper crust of American inventors. A toast is definitely in order!

The Best Thing Since, Well, Turns 80 Today [Serious Eats]
Inventor Of The Week: Otto Rohwedder [MIT]
History Of Sandwiches [What's Cooking America]

[Photo: Black forest rye bread via Dan4th/flickr]

A recent court case in England might not debunk every urban legend about Pringles, but it is revealing about the "potato" chip in the iconic can: turns out Pringles don't count as "crisps" in Britain because they are made from less than 50 percent potatoes.

While suspected by most reasonable people to be the case, the ingredient revelation came as evidence in a recent British tax law case in which Pringles owner Proctor and Gamble argued that its product should be exempt from the so-called Value Added Tax normally applied to potato chips (crisps, as they call them there) because, according to the Times Online,

Pringles have a potato content of about 42 per cent. “As a result, this appeal is allowed because regular Pringles are not, on the facts found, ‘made from the potato, or from potato flour, or from potato starch’ within the legal requirement and are exempt from VAT,” [Mr Justice Warren] said.

Fry and Fry Again [About.com]
Pringles are not chips in England [Slashfood]
Crunch decision goes against taxmen as court rules a Pringle is not a crisp [Times Online]
Pringles Potato Crisps [Amazon]

[Photo: Pringles German Sausage flavor. There was doubt these are not an actual potato product? Via Jetalone/flickr]

Tomorrow is the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. The gambling odds are in and Joey Chestnut and Kobayashi will both be there. Local media is all about it.

But we were curious about what other competitive eating contests are out there.

• New York's San Gennaro fair holds an annual cannoli eating contest.

• In Philadelphia, the Wing Bowl is an annual tradition.

• The Illinois State Fair hosts an annual horseshoe sandwich eating contest.

• Fast food chain Krystal hosts an annual hamburger eating contest.

• Rocco's Pizza in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn hosts an annual pizza eating contest. Something tell us New York likes these.

• And appropriately for July 4th, an apple pie eating contest is held each year in Murphysboro, Illinois.

Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest [Wikipedia]

We have just about 24 hours before Takeru Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut compete to put the nation off its food for the rest of its collective birthday in the Nathan's hot dog eating contest. Until then, however, what better way to celebrate our independence and day off from work than with a local favorite hot dog?

Our great nation boasts regional takes on many classic foods, and hot dogs are no exception. From half-smokes in Washington, DC to the weird monster known as the Chicago dog, a foot of pressed meat scraps on a bun doesn't say anything about a person's identity more than in the U.S. With that in mind, have a look at this little collection of photos from MenuPages cities around the country. Then go pick up a frank!

Chicago has one of the most recognizable dogs, if only for its unlikely construction and Technicolor toppings [via Benimoto/flickr]:

More after the jump!

Continue reading "Hot Dogs All Over The Place!" »

We were always taught to be wary of eating foods laced with mayonnaise on hot summer days for fear of eating something contaminated with excessive bacteria. But that fear really only applied to homemade mayonnaise (which, we highly recommend making, by the way — just not for a picnic); the preservatives in commercial mayo keep bacteria at bay. In fact, it seems to retard bacterial growth:

One prominent study published in The Journal of Food Protection found, for example, that in the presence of commercial mayonnaise, the growth of salmonella and staphylococcus bacteria in contaminated chicken and ham salad either slowed or stopped altogether. As the amount of mayonnaise increased, the rate of growth decreased. When temperatures rose to those of a hot summer day, the growth increased, but not as much as in samples that did not contain mayonnaise.

The Claim: Mayonnaise Can Increase Risk of Food Poisoning [New York Times]

Photo: SevenCubed/flickr

So this funny little item came across Chow's Grinder that seemed so off the wall at first, but on a second thought, it seems it not only might work, but sort of already does: Apparently public councils in Britain have hit upon a scheme to reduce sodium intake in the public: cut the number of holes in salt shakers from 17 to five. From the Daily Mail:

Research has suggested that slashing the holes from the traditional 17 to five could cut the amount people sprinkle on their food by more than half.

And so at least six councils have ordered five-hole shakers – at taxpayers’ expense – and begun giving them away to chip shops and takeaways in their areas.

Leading the way has been Gateshead Council, which spent 15 days researching the subject of salty takeaways before declaring the new five-hole cellars the solution.

Officers collected information from businesses, obtained samples of fish and chips, measured salt content and ‘carried out experiments to determine how the problem of excessive salt being dispensed could be overcome by design’.

They decided that the five-hole pots would reduce the amount of salt being used by more than 60 per cent yet give a ‘visually acceptable sprinkling’ that would satisfy the customer.

I'll let these brain dead morons into a secret. If it ain't salty enough, just shake for longer and add more. P.S. Where's the firing squad?

So yes, Lee is technically right, but take it from us, reducing salt speed most definitely does reduce salt amount, especially for those who don't want to spend five minutes in a restaurant flailing a salt shaker around.

As for whether it's any of the British government's business how much salt its citizens are eating, well, we'll leave that to the Brits to decide.

A British A-Salt on Bad Eating Habits [Grinder]
Now health and safety cut number of holes in chip shop salt shakers [Daily Mail]

[Photo: Salt Shaker via L. Marie/flickr

The samples were beyond excellent, but in the end, what we found most notable about the Fancy Food Show was the glimpse it provided into the American pysche. Take the picture above: busts of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain carved by the good folks at Sabra Hummus. Are they not terrifying? After the jump...well, in the words of Liz Phair: "Check out America, you're looking at it babe."

Continue reading "Hummus Rodham Clinton And Other Oddities At The Fancy Food Show" »

This might be as official as it gets: In its report, The State Of American Cuisine, published today, the James Beard Foundation found that Americans see burgers as the most iconic food of this great land. The patties beat out barbecue, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and apple pie, in that order.

Of 298 Americans surveyed by the foundation in 2007, 90.8 believed there is an iconic, national food. Of those, 44.4 percent identified it as burgers. But participants also identified the words "region" or "regional" as most defining American cuisine.

Ironically, burgers are anything but regional, at least within the United States. They are the opposite. They are ubiquitous. Every city or region in the country has a local cuisine, and none of it is burgers. Yet all those cities and regions have a local place that does the "best burger ever," at least according to the locals, and does it differently from everywhere else. A paragraph within the white paper addresses this contradiction:

Even as survey respondents touted the diverse influences of American food, from its native products to its immigrant imports, they chose as typically American dishes those which function as neutral canvas for whatever palette one chooses to personalize it.

The State Of American Cuisine [James Beard Foundation]
James Beard Foundation [Official Site]
The Hamburger is the 'Most American' of Foods [A Hamburger Today]

[Photo: A burger from LA's Pie and Burger via jslander/flickr]

In Jay Rayner's recently published The Man Who Ate The World, the Observer food critic's diary of a tour through the world's most notable (and particularly, most expensive) restaurants, the author recounts an incident where a Japan-based chef was charged with stealing the dishes of a Washington D.C. restaurant. The accusation surfaced on eGullet, which has subsequently chronicled other instances of culinary plagiarism, usually involving molecular gastronomy.

This issue of menu copying came to the fore in late 2006 into mid 2007 (when Marcel of Top Chef may or may not have appropriated a dish from wd-50), inspiring a whole spate of articles exploring the subject. The basic format went like this:

1) Wow, look at these unprecedented accusations of stealing recipes!
2) Used to be, there was a canon of dishes with the air of historical permanence
3) Now, with advent of molecular gastronomy, there's a new emphasis on innovation
4) And originality is now where the money is, for these chefs at least
5) But, uh, how are you going to copyright food, exactly?

The last point is true enough; copyrighting recipes is relatively uncharted territory, especially when one is dealing with dishes that have been adapted and are not direct copies.

None of this ambiguity is stopping chefs from taking action. Homaro Cantu of Moto in Chicago has filed a patent for his edible menus (specifically, the ability to print text and images on an edible structure), and Missy Chase Lapine of sneaky-vegetable-cookbook-for-kids fame is suing Jessica Seinfeld for publishing a cookbook based on the same concept.

Let's consider a case that's much older than molecular gastronomy or even Jessica Seinfeld: Coca-Cola's secret formula. This well-written examination of intellectual property law through the lens of Coca-Cola gives us some insight into how the rest of this food plagiarism stuff will turn out. Coca-Cola has a copyright on the product's aesthetics, a trademark on the name, a patent on the method it uses to make the bottles and whatnot, but the formula itself, the key to the company's success, has no legal protection whatsoever. It's merely a trade secret — this is not a legal term — and the only protection Coca-Cola has against copiers is its ability to...keep the secret. If the company filed a patent on it, they've have to publish the formula and the game would be over.

For most chefs, the money isn't in keeping their recipes secret and their dishes unique: it's in providing high-quality food and service at a good value and maintaining it over time. The molecular gastronomists who invest considerable resources in innovation may be out of luck: anyone can take a picture of a heretofore unique dish at dinner and post it online along with the menu description, and chefs with enough patience and skill can reverse engineer it and serve it for breakfast, or change an ingredient or two and serve it for lunch. Molecular gastronomy dishes may simply be too fluid, malleable and impermanent for the law to touch, but it will probably take a whole bunch of lawsuits to find out for sure.

The Man Who Ate The World [Amazon]
Sincerest Form, Interludes after midnight [eGullet]
Can you copyright a dish? [Guardian]
New Era of the Recipe Burglar [Food&Wine]
Can You Have Your Intellectual Property and Eat It Too? [Wired]
Marcel Vigneron Is Not A Plagiarist [Gurgling Cod]
System and methods for preparing substitute food items [USPTO]
Jerry Seinfeld Lawyer Hits Out At Cook's 'Bogus' Lawsuit [Post-Chronicle]
Understanding Intellectual Property Rights through Coca Cola [Zvulony & Co.]

wd-50 [MenuPages]
wd-50 [Official Site]
Moto [MenuPages]
Moto [Official Site]

[Photo: Moto's edible menu and copyright notice with ramps on the side, via steve renaker/flickr]

Remember that trend, over the last year or so, of restaurants moving away from bottled water because it's bad for the environment with all its packaging, not any better than the tap and sometimes even harmful because it often is subject to more lax regulations? Did you think that was going to stick? Come on, how much money is there in not selling something?

This is more like it, from today's Washington Post:

Desalinated seawater from Hawaii, meanwhile, is being sold as "concentrated water" -- at $33.50 for a two-ounce bottle. Like any concentrated beverage, it is supposed to be diluted before drinking, except that in this case, that means adding water to . . . water.

And from Tennessee, a company named BlingH2O -- whose marketing imagery features a mostly nude model improbably balancing a bottle of water between her heel and her hip -- is retailing its water at $40 for 750 milliliters, with special-edition bottles going for $480 -- more than a million times the price of the liquid that comes from your tap.

What's Colorless and Tasteless and Smells Like... Money? [Washington Post]
The snob appeal of tap water [Slate]
Water Sommeliers [Fine Waters]

[Photo: Tap via id/flickr]

We've all heard Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is a beer drinker. He sure likes his Pabst Blue Ribbon, at least on the campaign trail. But now word comes that he's actually going to have his own brew. From Chow's Grinder:

In Kenya, Barack Obama’s father’s homeland, they’ve been drinking Obama beer for months, and now one American brewery is offering its own Obama-inspired suds. Brooklyn’s Sixpoint Craft Ales is now brewing small batches of Hop Obama ale, to be available in bars and restaurants in New York and Massachusetts.

Wouldn't it be hilarious (and harmonious!) if Hensley picked up Six Point's Obama brew as a product? Somehow, though, it doesn't appear McCain would approve. Aside from his obvious political differences with the brew's namesake, he's apparently not so hot, in general, on the nation's favorite sudsy treat:

It's going to be a long, weird election season. Better lay in a stock of cold ones early, whatever your brand or distributer.

Punchy, Straightforward, Totally Obama [Grinder]
The Audacity of Pabst: Barack Obama, PBR Lover?
Is Barack Obama the Messiah [Official Site]
McCain beer ties might brew conflicts

• These tacos will change your life. [MP: Boston]

• Congratulations are in order for our own Adam Peltz, Chicago Reader's food writer of the year! [MP: Chicago]

• French fries are the best sandwich ingredient ever. [MP: Philadelphia]

• Is there any better use of white beans than cassoulet? No. [MP: San Francisco]

• Steak salad with more of the former than the latter? Sign us up! [MP: South Florida]

Leave it to the Ethicurean to turn one of the world's great comedy props into a serious political issue. Dear me, they increase our carbon footprint! Oh, noes, a banana crisis looms! Okay, they had a little help from the stuffy old New York Times, but still, how can anybody stand reading this about Bananas:

The history of the banana is fascinating, involving technological innovation (it’s not easy to bring bananas from the tropics), oppression (terrible labor conditions), geopolitics (the U.S. sponsored overthrow of the Arbenz government in 1954 at the behest of United Fruit), marketing (bananas were too phallic for polite society in the late 19th century, so attitudes needed to be modified), and more.

Snorezville, right? Yes, yes, there are real issues about bananas and their associated republics and also their environmental impact, but what do we cares? It's all about the comedy, right? So just because it's Friday and we like you, reader, here are some videos that remind us where bananas really fit into the national psyche:

The banana telephone bit ranks right up there with pretending to walk down the stairs behind a counter. It's even got its own song:

More after the jump

Continue reading "Keeping Bananas Funny" »

Former pro wrestler Abdullah the Butcher may just run the coolest restaurant of all time.

It's called Abdullah the Butcher's House of Ribs & Chinese Food. Located in a converted 7-11 on the outskirts of Atlanta, the menu includes everything from rib tip and chicken combo dinners to almond chicken to some killer fish sandwiches. The sides include some great southern greens and, of course, the sweet tea is free-flowing.

The food isn't bad. However, the highlight is the floor show. Unlike some other celebrity restaurant owners, Abdullah (nee Lawrence Shreve) frequently hangs out at his own restaurant. While he's there, the former wrestler lets guests put quarters into his head. You see, Abdullah has deep grooves in his forehead from self-inflicted wounds he gave himself to bleed more in the ring.

Here's what Atlanta alt-weekly Creative Loafing had to say:

The best attraction is Shreve, who is usually present -- and pleasant. He kindly thanks people for coming and eating, hanging out in the dining area smiling and answering questions in his sweet voice.

Abdullah's culinary split personality represented by two registers for orders -- an African-American woman at one, and an Asian woman at the other. If it's busy, line integrity disintegrates and either cashier will take your order. But the duality is strangely disturbing.

Barbecue selections are kept simple: Ribs, rib tips and chicken. The ribs are smoked in a small building next to the main structure. Thankfully, the rib meat is soft, pink and tender. [...] I wasn't at all tempted by the thought of Chinese food at a rib shack. Finally, though, I bit the bullet and ordered a serving of "Abdullah's Favorite" (6.99) from a list that includes standards like kung pao chicken and lo mein. The mix of miniature shrimp, beef strips, green peppers, baby corn, carrots and mushrooms was sauteed in a sweet sauce and served with a side of fried rice. [...] But honestly, it's generic Chinese for the masses -- and like Abdullah himself, it's not half as scary as you might suspect.

Pro wrestling, barbecue and Chinese food? Sign us up.

Abdullah the Butcher's House of Ribs & Chinese Food [WFMU]
Abdullah the Butcher's House of Ribs & Chinese Food [Creative Loafing]

(Photo: Abdullah's House of Ribs via WFMU)

We've got a new record, folks. Chances are, you won't have a hard time reserving a table at the Damascus Gate restaurant in Syria, the newly certified largest restaurant in the world. But God help you if they mix up your order. According to the blog World Amazing Records,

During the busy summer months up to 1,800 staff are employed in the 54,000 sq-m dining area and 2,500 sq-m kitchen. The open air area complete with waterfalls, fountains and replicas of archaeological ruins for the summer, and there are separate themed sections for Chinese and Indian cuisine.

The Damascus Gate, which serves 6,014, replaces Bangkok's Mang Gorn Luang, which only holds 5,000 diners. Talk about your hole in the wall! Check out this BBC video of the new champ.

So yes, it's very big. But is it any good? Well, that was harder to pin down. Two commenters on a Topix post said it was great, and the BBC quoted the manager as saying, "In this part of the world, all people care about is their stomachs, so the food has to be the best." Not exactly a Michelin star, but definitely worth a visit if you happen to be in the neighborhood.

The (Current) Largest Restaurant In The World [Google Sightseeing]
Damascus Gate — The Largest Restaurant In The World [World Amazing Records]
Size is all for Syrian Restaurant [BBC]
Damascus Gate Restaurant [Topix]

[Photo: via World Amazing Records]

• The first Hardee's opened in Greenville, NC near the East Carolina University campus.

• Burgers cost 15 cents at that first Hardee's.

• Hardee lost controlling interest of his company after just one drunken night of cards in the early 1960s. He was playing with his two business partners, and he bet his stock. Hardee obviously wasn't a good card player, because by the end of the night, the other two partners owned 51 percent of the company.

• Hardee's is fourth among the fast-food chains in the US, behind McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's.

• That Thickburger pictured above packs a whopping 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat. Eat enough of those and you likely won't live to see 89.

Founder of Hardee's Dies at 89 [ABC News]
Hardee's [Official Site]

Photo: OPBuzz/flickr

The British airwaves are no stranger to men kissing one another. Anybody ever heard of a little show called Torchwood? It's strange, then, that the Heinz mayo ad in which a British businessman kisses a New York deli clerk raised such a ruckus that Heinz actually pulled it.

The ad features a stereotypical New York tough guy in the role of "mum," making sandwiches as a family leaves the house in the morning. As the husband rushes out, he plants a kiss on the white-hatted face. Pretty tame stuff, compared to Skins' Maxxie or the "switch-flicking" kiss from Mighty Boosh. It created a huge backlash from hysterical homophobes (including Bill O'Reilly) furious that two men would kiss on the public airwaves. Heinz bowed to the pressure and yanked it.

Then, this morning, the European gay newspaper Pink News reported that 1,300 (more by now) people had signed a petition calling for the ad to be reinstated. Meanwhile, other bloggers are taking (somewhat obviously tongue-in-cheek) pot-shots at the portrayal of the New Yorker in the piece. Phew, this is getting exhausting. Does nobody have a life anywhere?

So what's causing all this commotion? See for yourself:

Lame, eh? Still, if you just can't stand to get back to work yet, and you feel strongly about it, you could sign this pro-"advert" petition.

Heinz pulls mayo ad after complaints [AP]
1,300 sign online petition calling for Heinz gay ad to be reinstated [Pink News]
Heinz Cans Gay Mayonaise Commercial [Epi-Log]

The big news out of the Everglades today is that the State of Florida has purchased U.S. Sugar and its 187,000 acres of prime wetlands for $1.7 billion (are the workers seeing any of it? Of course not). This is a good thing for the environment, since the sugar cane fields block waterflow, release pollutants and generally take up space.

U.S. Sugar is the largest sugar producer in the United States, responsible for 9% of the nation's sweet white powder supply. That's a pretty big proportion, and includes beet sugar production as well. Beet sugar makes up 55% of the crop, leaving cane sugar with 45%. So 20% of our cane sugar's about to go away! Isn't this going to foul up prices?

Short answer: no.

The