Craig Benzine explains how decaffeinated coffee is made. The answer is, of course, chemicals. The bigger question in my mind is why would anyone make decaf coffee. That's akin to non-alcoholic beer, which seems to defeat the purpose.
This is the premiere episode of mental_floss video’s new show The Big Question. Each Monday, we'll hear the answer to one burning question from readers.
People are mighty passionate about their breakfast cereal, and whether they eat it for breakfast, a late night snack or all day, every day like an adult-sized kid every cereal eater has their favorite brands.
The only problem with being so enamored with cereal is the fact that your favorite brand might disappear from the market one day, leaving your bowl empty and alone and your spoon without a purpose in life.
(Image Via Flickr)
This cereal changeup was especially hard on 80s kids, who were spoiled by the amazing selection of cartoon and celebrity endorsed cereals we thought we couldn't live without...until they were pulled from the shelves:
(Image Via ModernCollecting)
Take a trip down memory lane with these 15 Cereal Brands We Want Back, they'll make you hungry for a bowl of fun shaped crunchy corn and oat, and you'll see how boring most cereals have become by comparison.
Grilling meat is one of the great joys of summer. But it's also hot. So very hot. Sometimes, you just don't want the temperature to be a single degree higher.
This grill by Sandra Denneler can help. Her fruit bowl is made of a hollowed-out watermelon with wood skewers serving as a grill. The legs are three celery stalks which are soaked in cold water overnight to stiffen them. Blackberries stand in for the charcoal briquettes--except in Hank Hill's version, of course.
-via Craft
Image Via
There is no better time to be alive as a foodie than right now. Never before in history has it been so okay to be one of the people who really, truly, enjoys the essence of food. This has much to do with the fact that the interweb is full of foodies, and makes it easier for us to find each other. That rambling intro out of the way, I recently stumbled upon a site that is pretty much confectionary heaven. First heard about the site on SuperPunch, and since then, I have been on it every day.
Basically, you know all those food blogs that make dinner look extra delicious and make it sound exciting by mixing up ingredients and layers of flavor? Well, this site is like that, but with dessert. All I should have to say is creme brulee filled strawberries and you should already be drooling on your keyboard.
Trust me, go check out this site right now. Just make sure you have a bib on.
(Photo: Richard Heyes)
Don't throw away that squirrel head! You're not limited to just flank steak and thigh meat when you have a squirrel. You can also eat the brains. And if you don't know how, don't worry. Larry Woody of the Lebanon Democrat, a newspaper in Tennessee, can show you how. He writes:
When you dress your squirrel, simply skin the head and leave it attached to the body. When you cook the squirrel -- fired, or stewed in dumplings -- include the head.
Once it's cooked, use a knife handle to crack open the skull, like cracking a walnut, and scoop out the brains. Squirrels don't have a large brain -- I'd compare it to the average politician's -- but what little there is, is delicious.
If you've never tried squirrel brains, it's comparable to hog brains.
Yummy! I've never had squirrel brains, but I'd love to try them.
-via Dave Barry
Becky McKay went totally meta with this dish. She started with Little Debbie brand oatmeal creme pies, which are thin, sweet cakes between sugary creme. You can eat an entire box of them in one sitting. Or I can. But Becky resisted temptation and instead used them to make a creme pie creme pie.
For this beauty, she combined 6 Little Debbie pies, 4, tablespoons of butter, 8 ounces of Cool Whip, and 12 ounces of canned vanilla frosting. Delicious!
My suggestion: Becky should next use this entire pie as the filling for a giant Swiss Roll
P.S. Be sure to check out our interview with Becky.
Sushi restauranteur and chef Naomichi Yasuda, who founded Sushi Yasuda in midtown Manhattan before returning to Tokyo to open another restaurant, is a big name in sushi. Here he explains his version of the proper way to eat sushi. Although some of his suggestions might seem to have little impact, the delicate flavors of sushi can be easily altered with the strong tastes of soy, wasabi and ginger. And I thought the only rule about how to eat sushi was "often." What do you think? Via Viral Viral Videos.
Facebook user Kathy Knaus, who — from the information I can glean from her profile — I assume resides in Vienna, Austria, posted this picture to her Facebook photo album entitled "cakes." Knauss commented that every item in the album is one of her culinary creations. One commenter complimented Knauss, telling her how special her children must feel to have a mom capable of such cake coups. Knauss jokingly responded, "Or they will just remember having a mom who liked playing with icing and ... frequently up to her elbows in cake batter." Her time spent "playing" certainly amounts to greatness. This cake is a work of art! Check out Knauss' Facebook album here. Via i09.
(Photo: As Eaten on TV)
The Canadian hamburger chain Tim Hortons is breaking into the state fair food business with this outlandish dish: the Buffalo Crunch Doughnut. It's a series of interlocking doughnuts dipped in buffalo sauce, then sprinkled with tortilla chip crumbs. The hole the center serves as a bowl for more buffalo sauce, in which you can then dip more totilla chips. You can choose either the hot or the mild flavors, the latter of which includes ranch dressing.
(Ranch dressing on a doughnut? Yuck!)
Tim Hortons is currently selling this delight at the New York State Fair, which ends on September 1. It costs $2 and your soul.
When it comes to peeling pineapples, I didn't think there were too many methods. This video showed me I was wrong. At first, it seems like this guy's pineapple peeling method is actually somewhat time consuming, but then you realize he does it all within a minute, and it hits you how impressive it is. Plus, he is not just peeling it. He is peeling, bagging, and serving to go.
Pretty sure one of my fingers would be in that bag with the pineapple slices if I tried this.
Huge props to this guy, though. Pineapple is delicious, and handing someone a bag of fresh pineapple is like handing someone a pitcher filled with the delicious nectar of life.
Also, pineapples must kind of secretly fear this guy. He is their Jack the Ripper.
(Wimp)
Do not. We repeat. Do not be intimidated by the meats. pic.twitter.com/FLbkvx4p0j
— Arby's (@Arbys) August 26, 2014Arby’s made a poster to show all the different kinds of meats they use on their various sandwiches. The idea was to counter the perception that they only serve roast beef. The poster, shown here, inspired customers to ask if they could have “that” sandwich.
The answer is now yes; yes, you can have a $10 pile of meat between two buns, but you’ll have to know to ask for it as it won’t be on the menu.
That mound includes: 2 chicken tenders; 1.5 oz. of roast turkey; 1.5 oz. of ham; 1 slice of Swiss cheese; 1.5 oz. of corned beef; 1.5 oz. brisket; 1.5 oz. of Angus steak; 1 slice of cheddar cheese; 1.5 oz. roast beef and 3 half-strips of bacon.
So @Arbys has a sandwich called #MeatMountain. Includes every type of meat on menu. #ChallengeAccepted? pic.twitter.com/yoapsbvLjH
— Otto Rogers (@smashmode) August 26, 2014That’s a lot of meat on one sandwich. You might want to ask for a fork, too. -via Metafilter
Some chefs will tell you that their food’s visual appeal is just as important as its flavor, which usually means it’s not going to taste very good, but the meals in this series of photos by TQ Lee are not only great looking- they're inedible!
The delicious looking dishes in TQ's photo series "Inedible" are made out of fun stuff like phone cords, teddy bear fleece, and LEGO bricks, but they look so good you'd never know
TQ masterfully combines colors and textures so each "dish" closely resembles the real meal he's referencing, but his dishes have more visual appeal than real food, and far more exotic flavors.
-Via Laughing Squid
Do you like a nice, hot piece of corn on the cob with butter and salt, particularly during the summertime? Chef John at Food Wishes demonstrates a way to cook and shuck a piece of corn so that it's silk-free, all in under five minutes. Via 22 Words.
The following article is republished from Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader.
(Image credit: Steve Hopson)
According to one legend, the fruit that Eve found irresistible in the Garden of Eden was not an apple, but a banana. Is it true? Who knows? But for thousands of years, the banana has been a source of pleasure …and sometimes trouble.
HOW THEY SPREAD
* Bananas are believed to have originated in the rain forests of Southeast Asia, where a variety of species still grow.
* Arab traders brought the banana to the Middle East and Africa in the seventh century. But these weren’t the large fruit we know today -they were just a few inches in length. In fact, some historians believe “banana” comes from banan, the Arabic words meaning “finger.”
* By the late 1400s, bananas were a staple food along the western coast of Africa where Portuguese sailors collected plants and brought them to the Canary Islands, between Africa and Spain.
* In 1516 Tomás de Berlanga, a Spanish priest, brought banana stalks to the New World, to the island of Hispañiola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). And he took plants with him to the mainland when he was made bishop of Panama in 1534.
* Another priest, Vasco de Quiroga, brought banana plants from Hispañiola to Mexico in the mid-16th century. From there, bananas spread and flourished through the Caribbean basin, leading many to believe -erroneously- that they were native to the region.
COMING TO AMERICA
Damn!! New at Lambeau Field at Packers game. The HORSE COLLAR! pic.twitter.com/96OcTcCYJT
— Bill Michaels (@Bill_Michaels) August 21, 2014It's called the Horse Collar because it's shaped like the harness and because you'll need a stout draft horse to drag you home after you eat one. As you might expect, Green Bay Packers fans invented it. You can count on Cheeseheads to develop the heartiest, greasiest, most dangerous game foods on Earth.
Heath Barbato, the executive chef at the Packers' Lambeau Field, says that it's a roll with a 22-inch kielbasa, beer cheese, and fried sauerkraut.
-via I Own the World
