Posts Tagged ‘Food’
“Tell it like it is”*…
Most fast food chains court children. Mr. Delicious targeted depressed adults. Jake Rossen reports…
It’s not often that a mascot for a fast-food franchise will detail the discomfort prompted by hemorrhoid surgery in a national television advertisement. But Mr. Delicious rarely played by the rules.
Mr. Delicious was the cartoon spokesman for Rax, a chain of roast beef eateries that grew popular in the 1980s. But by 1992, sales were dwindling—so the company recruited “Mr. D” to liven up their brand identity. Middle-aged and burdened by a difficult marriage, the character was an anti-Ronald McDonald.
“Mr. Delicious just had some rather delicate surgery,” he announced in one spot for value meals priced in round numbers. “If there’s no change, he doesn’t have to squirm so much to put it back in his pocket, does he? He just grabs his combo and drives ever so slowly over the speed bump.”
In other spots, Mr. Delicious would refer to his aversion to children, a midlife crisis involving inappropriately aged women, and heading to Rax to nurse a hangover.
Rax thought the irreverent Mr. Delicious was a solution to their ailing sales numbers. They were greatly mistaken…
Read on for the instructive– and very amusing– tale, along with more arresting examples of the spots (including an account of his trip to Bora Bora with two female “friends”): “The Tortured Soul of Mr. Delicious, Fast Food’s Most Bizarre Mascot,” from @mental_floss.
And watch the promotional video that introduced Mr. Delicious:
More on Mr. D at “Mr. Delicious: The Fast Food Mascot Who Had A Mid-Life Crisis” (source of the image at the top).
* R&B singer Roy Milton in 1954 (canonizing a phrase in use since the 1940s in Black speech)
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As we brood over branding, we might that it was on this date in 1879 that saccharin (AKA saccharine, benzosulfimide, or E954), an nutrition-free artificial sweetener, was discovered by Constantine Fahlberg and Ira Remsen at Johns Hopkins University. 500 times sweeter than sucrose, it can have a bitter or metallic aftertaste, especially at high concentrations.
Commercialized from soon after its discovery, saccharin took off during the sugar shortages of World War I. It was (and to some extent still is) used as a stand-alone sugar substitute (e.g., “Sweet’n Low), to sweeten products like drinks, candies, baked goods, tobacco products, excipients, and for masking the bitter taste of some medicines.
The FDA required warning labels from 1977 to 2000 on products using saccharin because it was a suspected carcinogen. After additional research, the FDA repealed the warning labels and declared saccharin safe for consumption.
“As a work of art, I know few things more pleasing to the eye, or more capable of affording scope and gratification to a taste for the beautiful, than a well-situated, well cultivated farm”*…
That sentiment dates for the middle of the 19th century. The business of feeding humans (and our livestock) has changed a good bit since. George Steinmetz has traveled the globe documenting current practices. While (on the evidence of his remarkable photos) the process is still beautiful, it does raise some important questions…
Since the domestication of plants began some 11,000 years ago, humans have converted 40% of the earth’s surface into farmland. With the global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by the year 2050, combined with the rising standard of living in rapidly developing nations, it is estimated that we will have to increase the global food supply by 60%. The Feed the Planet project is an examination of how the world can meet the rapidly expanding challenge of feeding humanity without putting more natural lands under the plow. Most of us only come into contact with raw food in the supermarket, and are unaware of the methods used to raise it. In many cases, the food industry goes to significant lengths to prevent us from seeing how our food is produced. Access to this information is central to the personal decisions we make about what we eat, which cumulatively have huge environmental impact. This project seeks to show how our food is produced, so that we can make more informed decisions…
Many more striking photos, and their illuminating stories, at: “Feed the Planet.”
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As we study sustenance, we might recall that it was on this date in 1825 that Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett of New York City were granted the first U.S. patent for food storage in tin cans. Canning had been practiced at an “industrial” scale in the U.S. since 1812 (when Kensett established the first U.S. canning facility for oysters, meats, fruits and vegetables in New York); Daggett and Kensett had been canning seafood since 1819.
“Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit”*…
Then remarkable Umberto Eco on his candidate for the most important innovation of the last millennium. After considering the stern mounted rudder, the horse shoe, the yoke, the improved plough, crop rotation, gunpowder, and other candidates, he nominates a humble but central development…
… But what I really want to talk about is beans, and not just beans but also peas and lentils. All these fruits of the earth are rich in vegetable proteins, as anyone who goes on a low-meat diet knows, for the nutritionist will be sure to insist that a nice dish of lentils or split peas has the nutritional value of a thick, juicy steak. Now the poor, in those remote Middle Ages, did not eat meat, unless they managed to raise a few chickens or engaged in poaching (the game of the forest was the property of the lords). And as I mentioned earlier, this poor diet begat a population that was ill nourished, thin, sickly, short and incapable of tending the fields. So when, in the 10th century, the cultivation of legumes began to spread, it had a profound effect on Europe. Working people were able to eat more protein; as a result, they became more robust, lived longer, created more children and repopulated a continent.
We believe that the inventions and the discoveries that have changed our lives depend on complex machines. But the fact is, we are still here — I mean we Europeans, but also those descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Spanish conquistadors — because of beans. Without beans, the European population would not have doubled within a few centuries, today we would not number in the hundreds of millions and some of us, including even readers of this article, would not exist. Some philosophers say that this would be better, but I am not sure everyone agrees.
And what about the non-Europeans? I am unfamiliar with the history of beans on other continents, but surely even without European beans, the history of those continents would have been different, just as the commercial history of Europe would have been different without Chinese silk and Indian spices.
Above all, it seems to me that this story of beans is of some significance for us today. In the first place, it tells us that ecological problems must be taken seriously. Secondly, we have all known for a long time that if the West ate unmilled brown rice, husks and all (delicious, by the way), we would consume less food, and better food.
But who thinks of such things? Everyone will say that the greatest invention of the millennium is television or the microchip. But it would be a good thing if we learned to learn something from the Dark Ages too…
What innovation was most instrumental in creating the modern world? “Best Invention: How the Bean Saved Civilization” (gift link) from the April 18, 1999 edition of @nytimes.com.
(Image above: source)
* children’s playground saying
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As we lionize legumes, we might note that today is National Buffet Day, a celebration of an occasion to heap one’s plate with beans (or whatever).
“In my experience, clever food is not appreciated at Christmas. It makes the little ones cry and the old ones nervous.”*…
With this post– and with all best wishes for the Holidays!– (Roughly) Daily heads into its annual seasonal hiatus. Regular service will resume in the new year.
Tis the season when thoughts turn to festive feasts… featuring, for many, turkey; but for others, a range of alternate “mains.” Adam Shprintzen shares the history– and his personal experience– of a real outlier– but one that played an important role in the development of American food culture…
… Meat substitutes marked a turn for the vegetarian movement at the start of the 20th century, one that led to a depoliticization for a whole generation of vegetarians. Protose—the name mashes together the word protein and the suffix -ose, or full of—was the most popular and enduring meat substitute crafted in the experimental kitchen at the Battle Creek Sanitarium (or San), the Michigan health resort operated by John Harvey Kellogg from 1876 to 1943. Promoted as a versatile meat alternative, Protose could be eaten as an entrée like a beef steak, on a sandwich for a light lunch, or as a roast to be carved ceremonially. The product was served to San visitors, marketed via mail order, and available at local grocers. The marketing of fake meats in early-20th-century America represented a transformation from vegetarianism’s radical, 19th-century political past into a community of individualistic consumers looking to produce healthy, economically productive bodies and minds…
… Research based on product descriptions led me to an approximation of the product: wheat gluten, cereal, and peanut butter. I used a wooden mixing spoon to work the ingredients together, which increased in resistance as the peanut butter activated the gluten proteins. The ingredients combined into a meatish paste with the consistency of raw, ground beef.
To turn the basic recipe into a real meal, I followed a 1913 recipe for Protose cutlets from Lenna Frances Cooper, the San’s head dietician. The recipe called for Protose to be mixed with corn flakes, milk, eggs, and salt. The mixture was slow-roasted in an oven and filled our apartment with a smell that can best be described as vaguely chicken-adjacent. The result was texturally satisfying, though admittedly a little bland….
… The experience [helped] me understand why this was a culinary step forward for vegetarians, both fulfilling a desire to have more food choices and to present vegetarianism as socially acceptable by emulating meat. Smelling, tasting, and touching this fake meat helped me appreciate the sensory power of food as a historical force. And as a vegetarian of 16 years, the process also helped me appreciate and understand that my own food choices were and are very much shaped by the fake meats of the past…
The emergence of fake meat: “Protose Cutlets,” from @veghistory.bsky.social and @historians.org.
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As we size up surrogates, we might consider an alternative to eggnog: today is National Sangria Day. The name derives from the Spanish word for bloodletting and refers to the red wine that was used as a base for the wine, fruit, and fruit juice punch.
While it’s typically associated with summer, one notes that Sangria’s red color makes it a perfect celebratory libation for the Holidays.
“The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese”*…
… not so, Americans, who have been, as Millie Giles reports, speaking loudly with their wallets…
Topping off a pizza. Eyeballing a slice for cracker-stacking. Perfecting your own combination for a grilled sandwich. Many of us have spent time ruminating on one of life’s great questions: what’s the right amount of cheese?
The answer turns out to be exactly the same reply you’d give to a Parmesan-doling server: just a little more…
A great report from Bloomberg’s Ilena Peng last week outlined how America’s dairy processors are planning to build new facilities across the US to meet surging demand, which is a headline that could have been from just about any decade in the last 50 years. Indeed, data from the US Department of Agriculture shows that American consumption of cheese amounted to a record-breaking ~42 pounds per year for the average person in 2022, the latest figure available — more than double the amount reported in 1975.
Interestingly, cheese is something of an exception in the world of dairy. As America has sprinkled, grated, and sliced its way through more and more cheese, there’s also been a concurrent 47% decline in fluid milk consumption observed over the same period. In the 20th century, drinking milk was a mainstay of daily life, with its nutritional completeness cementing its place in the American ideal of “growing big and strong” (as well as giving us arguably the best ad campaign of the ‘90s).
Today, a considerable number of people have ditched dairy in favor of plant-based milks like almond, soy, and oat for ethical and dietary reasons (parallel with a counterculture of anti-milk drinking, which some people think is simply “gross”). The boom in alt-milks created a lucrative landscape for fledgling brands like Oatly, which at one point was worth an eye-watering $13 billion (although it is now worth just a tiny fraction of that, some $530 million).
Meanwhile, non-dairy cheeses haven’t taken off in quite the same way. Iterations have struggled to recreate the flavor and texture, with some people, frankly, scarred by sampling a few of these pseudo-cheese attempts, as even VeganCheese.co itself admits.
The discrepancy between these dairy dupes might boil down to one of the unique selling points of regular dairy cheese. As outlined by Bloomberg, the process of making a complex, artisan-derived product from a few simple ingredients, which is hard to do at home, carries weight with an increasingly organic-oriented public.
As well as this, the high protein content of dairy cheese is resonating with a growing number of “gains-conscious” consumers. For example, typically divisive but protein-dense cottage cheese has recently blown up on social media. The longer list of generally viral TikTok recipes also has a very high hit rate for having cheese as a main ingredient.
As Americans dine out more, they may also err on the side of their favorite foods — many of which involve at least some degree of cheese (think: pizza, burgers, pasta)…
Americans eat mozzarella more than any other cheese, with the average citizen getting through 12.55 pounds in 2022, per the USDA.
Consumption of the semi-soft Italian cheese has been sharply on the rise since it knocked cheddar off the top spot back in 2010; though, cheddar has hardly fallen out of favor, with the average person eating over 11 pounds of it each year. Interestingly, processed cheese (think: melty slices) has been mounting a comeback since 2020, after consumption dropped at the turn of the millennium.
What do crude oil and cheese have in common? Not a lot, except that America can’t seem to function without either… and, in recent years, they’ve both become an important American export.
Indeed, while most of America’s favorite cheeses originally derive from elsewhere in the world, the US still makes much of its own supply, accounting for some 29% of the world’s cheese production, second only to the European Union, per the USDA. And, in recent years, it’s started selling more of it abroad.
The US has been a net exporter of cheese since 2010, sending over 450,000 metric tons at its 2022 peak to large international markets like Mexico, where America accounts for 87% of all imported cheese… sales of American cheese abroad are only expected to grow, with the USDA forecasting cheese exports to rise 17% from 2023-24…
… While authentic varieties from places like France and Italy must still be shipped into the country, the US has gone all-in on its own overseas sales. Part of this can be chalked up to the continued drive in global demand for cheese, but the US also has a history of having too much of it lying around.
In 1981, when faced with a milk surplus, the federal government under Ronald Reagan began storing the product as cheese in huge quantities. In fact, the ~560 million pounds of cheese mostly kept in subterranean facilities was at one point costing the government ~$1 million a day in storage and interest costs, according to the Washington Post.
While many countries follow the same food stockpiling rulebook to stabilize prices, a recent surge in milk production, alongside the decline in milk consumption, has meant that America’s cheese pile hasn’t gone anywhere. New, tariff-subsidized deals and a greater national appetite for the yellow stuff have helped… but not by enough. As of August 2024, the total cheese cold in storage holdings in the US was reported to be ~1.4 billion pounds…
More on “Making America Grate Again”: “America is eating, and exporting, more cheese than ever before,” from @chartrdaily.
* G. K. Chesterton
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As we stuff the crust, we might note that today is National Farmers Day in the U.S.
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