What's the world's best cheese? A gruyere from Switzerland, selected from a record-breaking number of entries from 26 countries in the 2020 World Championship Cheese Contest in Wisconsin. Read the rest
• Coronavirus fears can't stop the fromage
In Wisconsin today, the world's largest technical cheese, butter and yogurt competition kicked off with a record 3,667 entries from 26 nations. Read the rest
Behold the chipsteak, here presented in an extremist British incarnation but also popular in the United States until about that time. Perhaps it's time for a chipsteak renaissance? Meet Major Stuart Benest (1915-2002), proprietor of the Benest supermarket in Millbrook, Jersey. in the late 1970s, who offers a very convincing argument. He's a Monty Python character brought to life and quite wonderful.
From 1977, here's a very special Benest's of Millbrook advert.
What makes it special and different to the rest? Well, the owner of arguably the most famous Channel Island voice ever, makes an in-vision appearance.
So spend the next minute in the company of Major Benest and his dulcet tones, as he gleefully showcases the type of grub you could have enjoyed on a Channel Island table in 1977. All made under relentless supervision...
If you enjoyed this ad, you're in luck: there's an entire mini-documentary about the supermarket and its incredible booming-voiced advertisements. Read the rest
12,000 years of civilisation and humanity has only just invented the spaghetti bolognese scissorspic.twitter.com/QNQsswQ944
— James Felton (@JimMFelton) February 21, 2020
While the fellow above has impressive technique, we must recognize the great Buster Keaton who blazed the trail for all of us 100 years ago. From The Cook (1918):
Police on the Big Island of Hawaii are looking for fruit bandits who made off with about $1,000 in exotic fruit, including 18 or so durian -- the spiky fruit with a mega stinky smell and a taste some people crave. Read the rest
This video shows the preparation of kkwabaegi (twisted donuts) at a small bakery in Korea. There are things both similar and different to the experiences of bakers here in the west (let alone large-scale production). It's one of those "relaxing" or "satisfying" videos too, at least for the viewer, until one imagines doing it forty hours or more a week. Did you know we used to call donuts "oily cakes" until the marketers came along? Read the rest
I grew up in Virginia, and we used Old Bay Seasoning like folks around the country use salt and pepper. We really did put it on and in everything -- definitely stuff like crab cakes, fried fish, chicken, steaks, and of course, boiled crab ("crab bawl!"). Read the rest
If you dined at Gibson's Gourmet Burgers and Ribs every Saturday night, it would take four years (minus one weekend) to try every milkshake flavor on the menu. So it's for obvious reasons that this burger and milkshake joint in Cape Town, South Africa, that offers 207 different milkshakes, earned the Guinness World Record for "Most Varieties of Milkshakes Commercially Available." Read the rest
Reporter Natalie Allison, who covers state politics for The Tennessean in Nashville, tweeted a photo Monday (the photo was shot by photojournalist George Walker IV) of TN state Rep. Kent Calfee drinking from a Hershey’s chocolate syrup bottle. Read the rest
Restaurant chain Chipotle was fined $1.3m by the state of Massachussets for 13,253 child labor law violations at 50 sites. Time reports that minors working past midnight, for more than 48 hours a week, and without work papers were among the problems found by investigators.
Read the restThe settlement total is closer to $2 million, including penalties for earned sick time violations in which managers granted employees paid time off only for certain illnesses. The violations also include failure to keep accurate records and pay timely wages. Lastly, the company was ordered a voluntary $500,000 payout to a state youth worker fund dedicated to education, enforcement and training.
? Yes, that's a 100-meter record-setting Margherita Pizza. A pizza with a purpose. Read the rest
Last year, McMansion Hell (previously) inaugurated its annual gingerbread McMansion competition, inviting America's bakers to challenge themselves to build the largest, most ostentatious, most ill-conceived McMansion in gingerbread form. Read the rest
North Ronaldsay, a remote island in the Orkney archipelago off Scotland's northern shore, long ago built a flint wall to keep sheep close to the shore and away from the cows' grazing land. Since then, the sheep have adapted so well to beach life they only eat seaweed, and scientists have found they belch less methane as a result.
In a year, a cow produces about the same greenhouse effect as a car that burns 1,000 litres of petrol, so it's fairly evident how beneficial it would be to reduce livestock's carbon hoof-print simply by altering their diet. Experiments have shown that carbon dioxide as well as methane emissions are lowered when seaweed is introduced into feed. And if he succeeds in creating a nutritious seaweed blend that's palatable to ordinary livestock there would be other environmental benefits too, including being able to source more animal feed locally and sustainably.
The seaweed business was once big on North Ronaldsay and elsewhere in Scotland, so its use as food could be a commercial boon to islanders. Read the rest
A doctor in Britain leveled a complaint against food company Müller over its latest product, yoghurt flavored to taste like gin cocktails and containing a small amount of alcohol.
The yoghurts, which were launched last year, contain 0.5% gin.
A spokesperson for the yoghurt maker said the product was fat-free, high in protein and contained no added sugar.
Dr Wells, who practises in North Yorkshire, said: "Given the problems we have with alcohol as a society - which is very visible in our GP practices and A&E departments - the creation of alcohol inspired yoghurts seems unnecessary and counterproductive to public health.
Brexit Gin Yogurt is my new punk band name. Read the rest
The University of North Florida is the latest customer of the Pizza ATM, an automated vending machine. The machine costs around $60,000. From the Florida Times-Union:
Read the restBrook Adams, senior executive chef for UNF’s Dining Services, said they make the pizza dough and shred the cheese from scratch daily in the campus kitchen.
“It’s all fresh toppings. Everything is absolutely fresh. There is no frozen pizza or anything going into the machine, Adams said.
After assembling the uncooked pizzas, they are placed into boxes with a bar code identifying the toppings and loaded into refrigerated storage shelves in the back of the vending machine.
Students use a touch-screen to select the pizza they want, pay for it and the machine then grabs the pizza from the refrigerated storage area and puts it into one of the machine’s two infrared ovens, Adams said.
“It cooks in about 3 minutes 45 seconds and dispenses it out to the student,” said Adams, noting the pizzas cost about $8.50 to $9 each, depending on the toppings.
Many pizza places offer special "deals" if you order two medium pies. You might think that two mediums deliver more cheesy goodness than one large pie, but usually you'd be mistaken. From Primer, a mathematical comparison of two 12" pizzas and one 18" pizza:
Area of two 12” pizzas:
12/2 = 6 6×6=36 36xπ = 113.1 in² x 2 = 226.2 in²
Area of one 18” pizza:
18/2=9 9×9=81 81xπ = 254.5 in²
And as we know, more pizza is always better.
(via Cliff Pickover) Read the rest
