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We’ve had fun with facetious Amazon customer reviews for a number of odd products, like the TSA Security Checkpoint toy, the Three Wolf Moon Shirt, and the Table That Attaches to Your Steering Wheel (which has the world’s greatest customer images). But the granddaddy of all customer-reviewed Amazon products is Tuscan Whole Milk, which we featured back in 2006.
One should not be intimidated by Tuscan Whole Milk. Nor should one prejudge, despite the fact that Tuscan is non-vintage and comes in such large containers. Do not be fooled: this is not a jug milk. I always find it important to taste milk using high-quality stemware — this is milk deserving of something better than a Flintstones plastic tumbler. One should pour just a small dollop and swirl it in the glass — note the coating and look for clots or discoloration. And the color — it should be opaque, and very, very white. Now, immerse your nose in the glass and take a whiff. Tuscan transports you instantly to scenic hill towns in central Italy (is that Montepulciano I detect?) — there is the loamy clay, the green grass of summer days, the towering cypress.
Of course, the attraction was the novelty of a mail-order vendor selling fresh milk -which they don’t do anymore, but the product is available from “other sellers”, starting at $48.09. And now there are 1,240 reviews! Don’t miss the eight-stanza poem one reviewer left, along with five stars. Link -Thanks, Joe Kooman!
Topless Robot uses the terms nerd and geek interchangeably in this list of foods that easily allow someone to stay at their work desk all day and night without having to cook or wash dishes.
Now, this is not to suggest that we nerds don’t enjoy a night at a gourmet restaurant or a nice home-cooked meal as much as the next person. But so much time, money, and effort goes toward nerdy fandoms and hobbies that we’ve become notorious for our reliance on cheap, quick, easily prepared, and convenient meals. Essentially, anything that takes us away from our computers, TVs, novels, comics, and games for the least amount of time — and leaves us with the most money in our pockets to fuel our obsessions is highly regarded.
Note that although this list contains one Japanese product, it is aimed toward the US audience. I know a lot of geeks who would argue all day that the ultimate nerd food is poutine. Link -via mental_floss
Flavor Savers Mustache Clips – $7.95
Because nobody likes cold lips and stale chips, be sure to keep all your potato chips fresh (and very hip) with the Flavor Savers Mustache Clips from the NeatoShop.
This clever mustache-inspired item is our 2,000th item on the NeatoShop. It’s hard to believe that we opened our online shop two years ago with just a handful of T-shirts!
Link | See also: Moustache Mints and other mustache-related items
You knew some presidents were hams (cough*Clinton*cough) and some no doubt ate ham, but I bet you’ve never seen a gallery of all the president holding hams! Click on a president (or a ham) and you’ll be taken to a larger picture and interesting trivia about that president. Link -via J-Walk Blog
In Tokyo, a giant bluefin tuna sold at auction for a record 32.49 million yen—nearly $396,000. The price for the 754-pound tuna beat the previous record set in 2001 when a 445-pound fish sold for 20.2 million yen. What do you do with a fish that sold for $526 per pound? Make sushi.
The massive tuna was bought and shared by the same duo that won the bidding for last year’s top fish: the owners of Kyubey, an upscale sushi restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district, and Itamae Sushi, a casual, Hong Kong-based chain.
Reporters thronged Hong Kong entrepreneur Ricky Cheng after his big win, which reflects the growing popularity of sushi around the world, particularly in Asia.
[. . .]
Japan is the world’s biggest consumer of seafood, with Japanese eating 80 percent of the Atlantic and Pacific bluefins caught. The two tuna species are the most sought-after by sushi lovers.
Fatty bluefin — called “o-toro” here — can sell for 2,000 yen ($24) per piece at high-end Tokyo sushi restaurants.
Tomoko A. Hosaka of the Associated Press has more: Link (Photo: AFP/Jiji Press)
You soon may able to help the environment by eating more bacon. On a low-key, bio-secure farm in Canada, scientists are breeding pigs that could be among the first genetically modified farm animal to be approved for human consumption. Each of these Enviropigs look and act like ordinary pigs but contain genes from mice and E.coli bacteria.
Those genes make a small but important difference to the way these pigs process their food.
Ordinarily, pigs cannot easily digest chemicals called phosphates. That means that the stuff that comes out of the back end can be toxic and damaging to the environment. The phosphates are easily washed into waterways, where they can produce a hugely fertile environment for plants. But the plants grow so rapidly that they choke the stream or river and cause huge damage to the ecosystem.
The genetic modification enables these pigs to digest phosphates, which means they are less polluting and cheaper to feed.
Jeremy Cooke of BBC News has more: Link |Photo by Flickr user thornypup used under Creative Commons license
Photo: Lynda Balslev for NPR
What image comes to mind when you hear the words "open-face sandwich"? A pile of slobbery slices of greasy meat like the ones you find at diners all across the United States?
Well, leave it to the Danes to elevate open-face sandwich to a yummy artform. Lynda Balslev explains the history of Smorrebrod, as well as a few recipes (at the end):
Smorrebrod, which translates as "butter bread," includes countless open-face sandwich combinations, from minimal to lavish. How they are assembled varies with the occasion. However, they share a specific preparation method and order in which they are eaten. They also share ingredients that reflect straightforward Scandinavian sensibilities, using simple, honest, local food attractively presented with little waste. This is as close to ceremony as you will find in the easygoing Danish culture.
The origin of the open-face sandwich is the European Middle Ages, when thick slices of stale bread, or trenchers, served as plates. The trenchers absorbed the juice and flavor of the toppings and then were discarded. Over time, the bread was incorporated into the meal because the food-soaked "plate" was often the tastiest component.
This makes me hungry for lunch! BRB! Link – via Fark
You may have heard of locavores — people who prefer to eat food grown or raised locally — or freegans — people who dine on wasted food. Now there’s a new food movement that advocates curbing the growth of invasive species by eating them. Invasivors prey upon species that are taking over the established habitats of other animals. Jackson Landers is an adherent of this movement:
As the Locavore Hunter, based in Virginia, he teaches urbanites how to hunt and butcher deer. He has branched out from the locavore life to invasives, and lionfish are one target. But as he has pushed the envelope of the invasivore approach, he has hunted and eaten feral pigs, two species of iguana, armadillos, starlings, pigeons and resident Canada geese. He says that all of these activities will be chronicled in a book, “Eating Aliens,” and perhaps a television show as well.
Mr. Landers, who grew up in a vegetarian household, taught himself to hunt. He believes that eating invasives can have a real effect. “When human beings decide that something tastes good, we can take them down pretty quickly,” he said. Our taste for passenger pigeon wiped that species out, he said. What if we developed a similar taste for starlings?
Link via Glenn Reynolds | Jackson Landers’ Blog | Photo by Flickr user jon hanson used under Creative Commons license
In a land of high-tech toilet and strange robots, a regular ol’ vending machine just won’t do. So behold, the vending machine in subway stations in Tokyo that uses 47-inch touchscreen panel to sell you drinks:
A 47-inch touchscreen panel dominates the front of this beast,
which shows two tall eyes when in sleep mode and switches to the storefront mode, which displays available drinks (and hides ones that are sold out, so that no ugly red “Sold out” buttons appear). Payment can be made in the traditional hard money method, as well as with a Suica or a FeliCa on a cell phone.What makes this vending machine even more interesting is that there is a camera above the screen that determines the age and gender of a person standing in front of it, which the machine uses to “subtly” offer demographically-targeted drink selections, as well as collect marketing data based on customer’s actual choices – no identifiable images or information are stored.
Akihabara News has the story (and video clip): Link – via Core77
Previously on Neatorama: Strange and Wonderful Vending Machines
For a limited time, Burger King restaurants in Britain are offering Whoppers that come with Brussels sprouts. They vegetables are ground into a paste, mixed with Emmentaler cheese, and formed into a patty.
Link via Geekosystem | Photo: Burger King
A French-led research team has sequenced the DNA of Theobroma cacao, a tree used in making chocolate. Specifically, they ascertained the genetic code of one type that is used to make gourmet chocolate. This development may allow scientists to genetically engineer these chocolate-producing trees to resist diseases and parasites, thus increasing the availability of top quality chocolate:
Currently, most cacao farmers earn about $2 per day, but producers of fine cacao earn more. Increasing the productivity and ease of growing cacao can help to develop a sustainable cacao economy. The trees are now also seen as an environmentally beneficial crop because they grow best under forest shade, allowing for land rehabilitation and enriched biodiversity.
The team’s work identified a variety of gene families that may have future impact on improving cacao trees and fruit either by enhancing their attributes or providing protection from fungal diseases and insects that effect cacao trees.
Link via Fast Company | Photo via Flickr user Peter Pearson used under Creative Commons license
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Research by the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian natural history museum shows us that Neanderthals were not all that different from modern humans in their eating habits. They ate grains and vegetables as well as meat, and they cooked their dinners, too!
Researchers found grains from numerous plants, including a type of wild grass, as well as traces of roots and tubers, trapped in plaque buildup on fossilized Neanderthal teeth unearthed in northern Europe and Iraq.
Many of the particles “had undergone physical changes that matched experimentally-cooked starch grains, suggesting that Neanderthals controlled fire much like early modern humans,” PNAS said in a statement.
Stone artifacts have not provided evidence that Neanderthals used tools to grind plants, suggesting they did not practice agriculture, but the new research indicates they cooked and prepared plants for eating, it said.
Link -via J-Walk Blog
This life size 1948 Ford Woodie replica was made by pastry Chef Brian Sundeen and his team of The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel. It is 8 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 5 1/2 feet tall and is made from 150 pounds of gingerbread and 300 pounds of royal icing. It looks like one sweet ride.
Link – Via Edible Crafts
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Robb Posch undertook an experiment in which he ate nothing but candy for a week. Oh, the things we do in the name of science! …or blogging, as the case may be.
Since I am apparently going to eat peanut butter candy every day, I went with Reese’s Peanut Butter Bells. Then after snacking on Nestle Crunch Bells, Gobstopper Snowballs, Christmas SweeTarts, and gummy reindeer, by night time it was becoming somewhat clear: candy isn’t very filling.
It’s filling enough to ruin your appetite for a meal, but it doesn’t work that well as a meal replacement. I’m thinking the key is just to eat more of it. So I ate a giant plastic candy cane filled with Reese’s Pieces. It was only about two hours later that I realized I had already eaten Reese’s Pieces for breakfast. Maybe the candy was starting to affect my brain.
And that was only day three! By day seven Posch was afraid his brain was starving. But he still likes candy -about half as much as he did before the experiment. You can read each day’s entry at Zug. Link -via J-Walk Blog
A company called Bottoms Up Beer designed a beer dispenser that fills up cups from the bottom. Presumably the dispenser opens and then closes a perforated hole in the bottom of the cup. Or it’s magic.
via reddit | Company Website (warning: self-starting sound)
Master Sergeant Mark Morgan of the U.S. Army Rangers is, according to the World Association of Chefs, among the three best pastry chefs in the world. He won this affirmation in Luxembourg at a competition held every four years:
“I’m not as good as I used to be – it’s been 10 years,” the Bronze Star recipient said, referring to the past decade that he served in the 75th Ranger Regiment. He deployed twice to Iraq and four times to Afghanistan in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom.[...]
His peanut butter ganache earned him third place among 55 pastry chefs. Morgan also prepared four desserts, which together, were called “Pumpkin and Spice”. They included a spiced pumpkin custard; walnut cake inside a coconut blossom; red currant compote; and a cinnamon beignet on poached pumpkin petals, a trio of cranberry, and honey, yogurt and pumpkin sorbet with a pumpkin-thyme essence.
Link via Marginal Revolution | Photo: American Culinary Federation
Melodie and her friend, Brenton, designed this gorgeous piece of edible architecture using Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater as a model. It took over 12 hours to design and 40 hours to build and decorate and used 12 square feet of gingerbread dough to make the walls, floors and roof. This iconic home has never looked sweeter.
Link – Via If It’s Hip, It’s Here
The following is an article from the History’s Lists book from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.
Some familiar candy brands have been in production for more than a century, while some others reach back even further. How did these sweet treats get their start? We’ve got their sugar-coated beginnings right here.
1. NECCO WAFERS
The oldest mass-produced candy brand in the United States, NECCO wafers got their start in 1847 when Oliver Chase, a candy-making English immigrant, went into business selling the wafers with his brother Silas. (Chase also invented the machine the wafers were stamped out on.) Their company became the basis for the New England Confectionery Company, which rebranded the candy as NECCO Wafers around 1910 or 1912.
2. SQUIRREL NUT CHEWS
Adults today might be more familiar with Squirrel Nut Zippers as an eclectic rock band active in the 1990s, but the candies the band took their name from reach back a full century earlier to 1890, when the first of the excessively chewy taffy candies known as Squirrel Nut Chews rolled off the line of the Austin T. Merrill Company in Massachusetts. The “zippers” candy arrived in the 1920s. Since 2004, the candies have been made by NECCO.
3. HERSHEY’S CHOCOLATE BAR
The quintessential American chocolate bar got its start in 1900 when Milton Hershey perfected a formula to mass-produce milk chocolate, which until that time had been a confection limited primarily to the upper classes. The bar’s widespread success helped Hershey to found what is now the Milton Hershey School, in 1909, which provides education for disadvantaged children.
4. TOBLERONE
The famously triang
ular bar of Swiss chocolate with nougat, almonds, and honey got its shape and name (a combination of the last name of inventor Theodor Tobler and torrone, the Italian word for “nougat”) in 1908. Given the image of the Matterhorn on its wrapper, you may be forgiven for thinking the triangular shape is a tribute to the Alps, but the company website maintains the shape was actually inspired by “a red and cream-frilled line of dancers at the Folies Bergeres in Paris, forming a shapely pyramid at the end of a show.”
5. GOOGOO CLUSTERS
A regional favorite from Nashville, Tennessee, where it was invented in 1912, this circular candy bar’s claim to fame is that it was the first “combination” candy bar -that is, the first made with more than one type of candy (in this case, marshmallow, caramel, and roasted peanuts), all covered in milk chocolate. In the 1930s, the Standard Candy Company advertised the GooGoo Cluster as “a nourishing lunch for a nickel!” -a claim they’d be unlikely to get away with today.
6. MARY JANE
These pocket-sized taffies made from molasses and peanut butter were named for the aunt of Charles N. Miller, who invented the candy in 1914 and inherited the candy company his father had founded in a house originally belonging to Paul Revere. Mary Janes eventually became so popular that the Miller Company stopped making other candies to focus on that brand alone. At the moment, however, the candy is being made by NECCO.
7. CLARK BAR
The crispy, peanuty chocolate bar was the signature bar of the D.L. Clark candy company, named for Irish immigrant David Clark, and founded in what is now the north side of Pittsburgh in the early 1900s. The Clark Bar came into existence in time to become a favorite for U.S. soldiers fighting World War I, and its popularity carried over after the boys came home. Like so many early candy favorites, this one is also currently produced by NECCO.
8. BABY RUTH
A popular misco
nception about this chocolate-covered bar of caramel and peanuts, created in 1920, is that it was named for baseball player Babe Ruth. While disputed, it has never been proven false. But Baby Ruth candy maker Curtiss Candy Company sued another candy maker who put out a “Babe Ruth Home Run Bar”, on grounds that the candy names were too similar. The official line from Curtiss Candy, echoed to this day from contemporary producer Nestle, is that the bar is named after Ruth Cleveland, daughter of U.S. president Grover Cleveland. Some sources allege that Curtiss Company made up the Ruth Cleveland story in order to win the lawsuit and that it was actually named for the baseball player. Skeptics note that “Baby Ruth” died in 1904 -16 years before the creation of the candy bar.
9. MOUNDS
The Mounds Bar was created in 1920 by the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Company and was originally a single bar of chocolate-covered coconut instead of the current two smaller bars. Although the Peter Paul Company would later produce a number of coconut-based treats (including Almond Joy), during World War II the company faced severe coconut shortages. Rather than ration its top product, the company temporarily discontinued several other candy brands to ensure that Mounds would stay in production.
10. MILKY WAY
Mars Inc., one of the largest privately-held companies in America, got its start with this candy bar in 1923, when the candy maker Forrest Mars developed the candy to approximate the taste of a malted milk drink in chocolate bar form. In 1926, the bar was offered in chocolate and vanilla flavors, with the vanilla version becoming the Forever Yours bar for over fifty years before becoming the Milky Way Dark bar (now the Milky Way Midnight).
BEST-SELLING CANDY BY COUNTRY
1. United States: M&Ms
2. Australia and the United Kingdom: Cadbury Dairy Milk Bar
3. Germany: Milka milk chocolate bar
4. Brazil: Trident chewing gum
5. Japan: Meiji chocolate bar
6. France: Hollywood chewing gum
7. Russia: Orbit chewing gum
8. Mexico: Trident chewing gum
9. Thailand: Hall’s cough drops
___________________
The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader History’s Lists.
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader is having their annual Holiday Sale, in which you can save 30% on your purchase! Get free shipping on orders of $35 or more by using the code HOL10SHIP. And check out the BRI’s newest volume, Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader.
Illustrator Christoph Neimann made a holiday post out of what appears to be cookie dough! There’s plenty of whimsy, sprinkles, and visual puns in the many panels at his New York Times blog. Link -via reddit
Noted founding father Benjamin Franklin published a list of different ways we refer to someone as drunk in the Pennsylvania Gazette on January 6, 1737. Franklin said he collected these phrases at -what else- a tavern. Here are just a few:
Got the Indian Vapours,
Topsy Turvey,
As Drunk as David’s Sow,
He’s got his Top Gallant Sails out,
Seen the yellow Star,
As Stiff as a Ring-bolt,
The King is his Cousin,
Got Kib’d Heels,
As Dizzy as a Goose,
Had a Kick in the Guts,
Spoke with his Friend,
Cherubimical,
He’s kiss’d black Betty,
He’s had a Thump over the Head with Sampson’s Jawbone
Of course, that’s far from 200. See the rest at mental_floss. Link
Food and beverage websites argue about the best beers in the world, and we sometimes see a brew hailed as the most expensive in the world. Have you ever wondered which is the cheapest beer in the world?
Bia Hoi, most commonly found in Hanoi, is the most budget-friendly brew on the planet. Commonly described as having the appearance and flavor of Bud Light (go figure), Bia Hoi can be found for 3,000 VND per 12 oz. glass, which is the equivalent of about 16 US cents.
Gullible tourists and Vietnamese hobos seeking the beverage, need look no further than the ‘Bai Hoi’ or ‘Fresh Beer’ signs scattered throughout the city. Fresh beer is actually Bai Hoi’s English translation, and it is indeed brewed fresh daily — presumably in someone’s bathtub.
There’s no definitive word yet on whether it is worth the price. Link -via the Presurfer
Update 12/18/10 by Alex: Roger Wade wrote the original blog post on Bia Hanoi being the world’s cheapest beer. Thanks Roger!
A Danish urban myth alleges that it is possible to get drunk by submerging one’s feet in alcohol. Three physicians at Hillerød Hospital in Denmark tested this hypothesis on themselves in their office.
The primary end point was the concentration of plasma ethanol… measured every 30 minutes for three hours while feet were submerged in a washing-up bowl containing the contents of three 700 mL bottles of vodka. The secondary outcome was self assessment of intoxication related symptoms (self confidence, urge to speak, and number of spontaneous hugs), scored on a scale of 0 to 10.
They concluded that their feet were impermeable to alcohol.
Link.
Addendum: A hat tip to Gauldar for finding a use for the leftover vodka: Sourtoe Cocktails.
Great Scot International, a US importer of Scottish goods, plans to introduce Americans to haggis-flavored potato chips. Haggis, as you may recall, consists of sheep organs ground up and boiled inside a sheep’s stomach. This delicacy is available in the UK in potato chip form:
Great Scot International announced this week it would have Mackie’s Haggis and Cracked Black Pepper chips on display at its booth at the annual Fancy Food Show in New York next month.
“We know that flavors with a Scottish twist are popular because Haggis and Cracked Black Pepper is our best-selling flavor,” Kirstin Mackie, managing director of Mackie’s, said in a written statement.
Link via Glenn Reynolds | Photo by Flickr user tjmwatson used under Creative Commons license
You can probably guess that fruitcake will be on a list of not-so-welcome traditional Christmas foods. This list also covers figgy pudding, green bean casserole, and lutefisk.
To make lutefisk you catch a cod, take out the bones, skin it, salt it, and hang it out to dry for several weeks until it hardens and smells like a dumpster. Then, bring it inside and soak it in lye for several days. (Yes, lye) Lye will turn cod into a gelatinous blob that slithers down your throat.
Have you ever eaten lutefisk? Does anyone like it? Link -via Breakfast Links
You’d think soup would completely dry up after a couple of thousand years, but a pot of still-liquid soup was found by a team of archaeologists in China. It was sealed inside a bronze cooking pot at a dig near Xian.
The soup and bones were discovered in a small, sealed bronze vessel in a tomb being excavated to make way for the extension of the airport in Xian, home to the country’s famed ancient terracotta warriors, the report said.
The liquid and bones in the vessel had turned green due to the oxidation of the bronze, it said. Scientists were expected to conduct further tests to confirm the liquid was indeed soup and to identify the ingredients.
Another liquid discovery at the same site is believed to be wine. Link -via Fortean Times
(Image credit: Xinhua)
Paris is offering free sparkling water to promote tap water and to dissuade its residents from overuse of plastic bottles. The fountain in the Jardin de Reuilly is connected to the public water system and uses six taps to provide both sparkling and flat water.
“We chill the water between 6 and 8 degrees Celsius,” said Philippe Burguière, the spokesman for Eau de Paris, “and then we inject carbon dioxide into regular tap water to make the bubbles thin and tasty.”
At about 128 litres (about 34 gallons) per person each year the French consume one of the highest per capita amounts of bottled water in the world. In northern Italy 215 similar fountains have been installed and have proven to be very popular.
Mmmm. Who else loves the original i?
The design of this Charmander cake is simple, but effective. When lit and seen from above, it looks like the Pokémon is actually breathing fire.
Link via Geekologie | Photos: My Food Looks Funny
Scrambling an egg inside its shell is nothing new, but Windell at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories wanted to go the extra step of making a complete omelette without fully opening an egg. Here’s how he planned to do it:
1. Puncture the egg with a small hole (1-5 mm)
2. Scramble the egg inside the shell, through that hole
3. Plug the hole (maybe with egg) so that the egg won’t leak
4. Boil the egg for a few minutes to cook the outside part alone
5. Use a syringe to extract the (still-liquid) center
6. Fill the center with some appropriate filling
7. Plug the hole again, so that the egg won’t leak
8. Return the egg to boil, to cook the raw part that is contacting our filling
9. Retrieve the egg and serve it
That turned out to be much easier said than done, and Windell had to ultimately resort to cooking the eggs in vacuum-sealed bags. At the end of the post, he proposed a number of advanced recipes, such as inverse Scotch eggs — that’s sausage injected into an egg.
The salak fruit, native to Indonesia, has an outer skin resembling that of a snake. The pulp inside divides into three edible lobes. Agriculture Guide has pictures of this fruit and fourteen other odd-looking fruits and vegetables.
Link via The Presurfer | Photo by Flickr user Jayson Emery used under Creative Commons license
