Tag: Food

What’s Your Food Personality?

food (2)They say, “You are what you eat” and that’s true.  For example, college students no longer eat junk food and that’s why, these days, they’re always wearing their grumpy pants.  However, it’s not only what we eat that illustrates our personality but also how we eat it.  Once again, people who walk around all day, drinking brand name coffee out of a paper cup, think they look totally cool.  They totally don’t.  The only thing carrying a paper cup tells the world is you’re so woefully disorganized you can’t find 10 minutes to sit down and have a proper cup of coffee.  You see, the way we treat our food offers intriguing insights into who and what we are.  Let me demonstrate:

Mac ‘N Cheese — People who eat mac n’ cheese with a fork are aggressive wannabe predators, hunting their food with a symbolic spear.  People who eat mac n’ cheese with a spoon are lazy and want the most reward for the least amount of effort.  And people who eat mac n’ cheese with their hands are stoned.

Tacos — Tacos are supposed to have hard shells, so people who eat them that way are uninspired lock-step, rigid rule followers.  They usually end up working for a cult.  Conversely, people who eat soft shell tacos are dumb and indecisive.  They’re not sure whether they want a taco or a burrito and probably don’t know the difference.  They usually end up getting recruited by a cult.

White Chocolate — This isn’t chocolate.  It’s a lie.  And the people who eat it are usually just as big a liar as the food itself.

Pizza — There are people who eat pizza with a knife and fork; they’re called Italians.  Anybody else who tries to pull this pompous crap is a hopeless git who “discovered” Italy on the one trip they took to Europe as an undergrad.  Chances are good these know-it-alls haven’t been more than 5 kilometres away from their homes since.

Ketchup on Eggs — This just disgusting.  People who put ketchup on eggs (especially sunny-side-up eggs) usually have bodies buried in the back garden.

And finally:

Breakfast Cereal — If you eat breakfast cereal in the morning — in a bowl, with milk — you’re either an old man living alone in a hovel or you’re six and your parents are idiots.  Real, well-adjusted  people eat breakfast cereal in the middle of the night while binge watching The Bridge or straight out of the box, with red wine, after their hearts have been broken by one of those lying cheating white chocolate eaters.

Foods That Lie

foodThe holier-than-thou among us — and Internet nerds — like to point out that our food is woefully contaminated by all manner of terrible crap.  Yeah, so what?  We all know that Grape-Nuts cereal doesn’t actually have any grapes in it — or nuts either, for that matter.  (It’s made of wheat and barley.)  And any European will tell you that American cheese might very well be American, but it certainly isn’t cheese.  In fact, it’s so far from cheese that the manufacturers — yes, manufacturers — have to call it a ‘cheese product.”  And that’s the thing.  These days, various government regulations make certain we’re aware of what we’ve about to put in our mouths, so if you don’t want to eat tridisodiumonotoneglycirodium phosphate or whatever? Simple solution:  don’t.  However, there’s still a lot of food out there casually strolling through legal loopholes to masquerade (“scam” is such a hard word) as something it’s not.
(BTW, this isn’t about GMOs.  That’s a whole different kettle of faux fish.)

Orange Juice — “100% pure orange juice” is orange juice.  However, in order for your breakfast beverage to survive the month or so it takes to get to you, the OJ people actually remove the oxygen from it.  This prevents the orange part of the juice from turning green and the juicy part of the orange from getting slimy.  Unfortunately, removing the oxygen also removes the smell and the taste.  Both of these are artificially reintroduced during processing.  This isn’t a nefarious plot to con you out of your orange juice.  Use your head!  It’s just a very long journey from the tree to your table.  If you want pure orange juice, buy oranges and squeeze them yourself.

Tuna — If you’ve been to a sushi restaurant lately and ordered tuna maki, tuna roll or tuna anything else, chances are good you didn’t actually get tuna.  You probably got escolar, a cheap and plentiful fish that’s been “substituted” for tuna (and not just in sushi restaurants) ever since overfishing devastated the wild tuna stocks.  The truth is the only way you can be sure you’re getting real tuna is pay the big money or buy it in a can.
And while we’re on the subject…

Wasabi — The hot green condiment that’s a staple of Japanese cuisine — except mostly it isn’t.  Real wasabi is prohibitively expensive (it only grows in a few places in Japan) so most sushi restaurants use a combination of horseradish, mustard and food colouring.  They call it wasabi because people like me don’t know the difference.

Olive Oil — You get what you pay for.  Real olive oil is mega-expensive. Anything else is a combination of other oils (soy, mostly) that have had olives carefully described to them.

Honey — Not all honey is created equal.  Some honey is created by bees in a hive.  However, other honey is created by folks in a factory who take a small amount of honey (enough to justify the name) and add fructose, sucrose, glucose and any other -ose they happen to have kickin’ around.  Technically, this is still honey, but in actual fact, it’s syrup.  The way to tell the difference?  The busy bee sugar is pure honey and will start to crystallize the minute you open the jar. The other stuff is too lazy to bother.

Blueberries — The only similarity between consumer blueberries (found in cereals, muffins, cakes etc.) and real round blueberries is both of them are blue.

Coffee — Most consumer brands of coffee have a small percentage of foreign bits and bobs hidden away in the grind.  Basically, this is just part of the harvesting, roasting, grinding process.  No big deal — it’s still coffee.  However, some of the cheaper brands actually add things like grain, soy beans and corn to the mix — just enough so they don’t have to claim them as ingredients on the label.  Coffee?  Kinda, but if you’re devoted to real coffee, buy the beans.

What it comes down to is pure food is all about the money.  Either ya pony up the big bucks for the good stuff, or ya shut up and eat your tridisodiumonotoneglycirodium phosphate.

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Technical Difficulties

I seemed to have hit the wrong button and now WordPress won’t let me like, reply or even acknowledge comments.  We’re working on the problem.  I hope we can fix it very soon but until then I want everybody to know I’m not ignoring you.  Cheers WD

Food Porn

food pornI’m becoming addicted to food porn.  In the 21st century, food is the new sex.  But I’m not talkin’ about Kate Upton and whatever she thinks she’s doing with Carl Jr.’s Jalapeno Patty Melt.  (BTW, nobody’s mouth opens that wide.)  No, I’m talking about something far more sensual than retro cleavage smut.

Food and sex have always been exotic playmates, joined at the lips — everything from phallic strawberries dipped in dripping chocolate to the mythological properties of oysters.  However, contemporary gourmets are redefining this sensual relationship.  They’re taking food one step beyond mere foreplay into an erotic world of its own.

Real foodies don’t just cook and eat anymore.  They see preparation and presentation as a slow seduction that begins in the marketplace rather than at the table.

They search for the first blush of ripeness, finding the freshest of willing flesh.  They trace the contours with their fingers, feeling the textures and tensions replying to their touch.  And they smell, filling their nose and mouth with scent, tasting the raw anticipation on their tongue.

They collect their ingredients and caress them with hot and cold and fire and spice until — intimately entangled — they open, melting and melding into each other until, finally, they release themselves in a blossom of flavour that spreads and spreads, all subtle and bold.

They dress this dish like a Degas painting, selecting just the right plate, position, and pose — the symmetry and the light suggesting, offering, allowing the eye the promise of taste.  That’s what they bring to the table.

And if all this isn’t erotic, I don’t know what the hell is.