Slashdot Mirror
Chefs As Chemists
circletimessquare writes "Using ingredients usually relegated to the lower half of the list of ingredients on a Twinkies wrapper, some professional chefs are turning themselves into magicians with food. Ferran Adrià in Spain and Heston Blumenthal in England have been doing this for years, but the New York Times updates us on the ongoing experiments at WD-50 in New York City. Xanthan Gum, agar-agar, and other hydrocolloids are being used to bring strange effects to your food. Think butter that doesn't melt in the oven, foie gras you can tie into knots, and fried mayonnaise."
'nuff said
from http://khymos.org/recipe-collection.php
...fried mayonnaise.
I have a couple friends that went into food chemistry after undergrad. I thought about it but decided to stick with organic chemisty.
Gone!
Heston Blumenthal's Kitchen Chemistry series (which unfortunately didn't make it) was a lot more interesting than this article. You can even find torrents of the pilot episodes. I wish that series had been picked up and continued because there were some very interesting subjects, like the reasons behind certain flavours simply being unable to mix (basil and coffee, for example) as well as an everyman's guide to how the chemistry worked. As innovative as Blumenthal can be, there's no way I'm shelling out £300 for a meal at his restaurant.
and immediately tried to brew basil coffee, right?
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
Molecular gastronomy is partially a scam to sell expensive lab equipment to rich foodies. With that said, I will probably sell out and write articles about the coolest gadgets and techniques. I do like the idea of vacuum pumps as a culinary tool. Sucking and pumping was meant for the kitchen.
I have to say that this is why I like watching Alton Brown's Good Eats. He actually understands the science of cooking, and is able to explain how it works without turning off the average person.
I'm betting "molecular gastronomy" is going to REALLY take off within the next five years or so...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
The guy that deep fried a Snickers bar thinks that fried mayo is a bad idea...
I used to be with IT..now IT seems strange and scary to me.
... that stuff doesn't make twinkies healthy why would I want to eat more of it?
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
didn't I just see this on an Iron Chef episode?!?
http://blogs.foodnetwork.com/food/nic/2007/10/episode_2.html
oh, yes... I did.
Beware of the Leopard.
Hello all,
Currently I'm doing the Chef part of my life at this time. What is being described here is very old stuff http://www.foodarts.com/ and all this stuff is just commonplace technique nowadays. Adria, Achatz, Andres I have met or worked with. It's really not that amazing when you think that we as culinarians are (actually they are), just being creative instead of the things that a lot of people have been eating all along but in a different form. For instance: Grant Achatz (whom i think is Awesome) guinness that's thickened with Gelatin is just "Jello" "tm" but flavored with beer. Ferran Adria is the guy you seek if you want to know/learn stuff He invented this whole thing in first place about 10 or 12 years ago and it took the world by storm. He makes drops of olive encase in suger bags. Hell, there is a gut in chicago that invented a computer printer that makes edible and taste-infused menu's that you eat to before you order your food: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Chicago_chef_invents_edible_menu. Anyway, my whole point is: We as chefs, are very creative, funny and dedicated to bring the food world into the computer world accepept as munchies on a late night!
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
Why should I trust a website run by vegetarians to have completely accurate and unbiased information regarding animal based food production? There probably are some farms that have problems with causing harm to geese while making foie gras, I however only buy from reputable small farms for most of my terrestrial meat products.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
Maybe you should try it and you'll agree that what they do to create such delicious stuff is well worth it.
In fact, I'm going to eat more of it just to spite your tree hugging, faggoty feelings.
They were delicious!
What?
In commercial food production, none of this is new. Here's a first course in food chemistry online. Read Sources of Flavor Volatiles in Food (PowerPoint).
Some of the advanced technology used in food production plants is filtering down to the chef level. The commercial guys have to produce products that are storeable, transportable, and repeatable, so they have a tougher job. If you don't have to do that but have access to commercial technology, a whole range of interesting options open up. One of the newer ideas of interest is cryogenic grinding, where foods are cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures before grinding. This reduces loss of volatile components (which carry most of the flavor) during grinding. Works well for nutmeg, and is being tried for other spices.
Okay, hands up those who read that as WD-40.
Many people would think that feeding corn to a cow in a feedlot is a despicable thing to do to an animal, just to get it grow to a size suitable for slaughter.
Please, if you find the idea abhorrent don't buy it and deprive the producer of your money. But I would suggest that if you eat a hamburger for lunch and wear leather shoes or a belt, you might want to do a hypocrisy check and see what your score is. Koreans consider Kagogi to be a delicacy. You would probably consider it to be a pet. I would guess that if you linked to an article on pig farming and how they treated those animals before they turned into bacon you might not have gotten so much attention to your post.
For the record, I have tried Foi Gras and in my opinion, there is no way in hell I would pay to put that stuff in my mouth again. I might pay a few bucks in order to keep it OUT of my mouth, but I would say that of caviar, sea urchin, and (through a weird combination of falling off of a horse in a corral full of cows), cow shit.
Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
Which is why I like cooking French. Quantities and instructions are very precise because they have to be. If you mess with the formula, the dish won't come out right. An ex-girlfriend fancied herself a cook, and was good with Italian dishes but never got the knack for French cooking because it required the kind of precision of which you speak.
I also found that as soon as I switched to better pans, my own cooking improved as well, because the heat transfer required by the recipe was now finally taking place. Nothing like a big heavy copper (or copper core) pan.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
Ok, it may not kill you right away and it may have calories, but I don't consider that edible.
Sounds worse than McDonald's to me. Yuck.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Eh, no worse than chopping them into serving size pieces.
Life feeds on life. This is necessary.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
That site literally made my eyes hurt.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
just a side thought: i think animal rights activists should be the most pro-genetically modified special interest group in the world. reason being, if you could genetically engineer foie gras in vats, or animal flesh, you would:
1. feed all of the carnivores, more cheaply, and with less environmental impact
2. not harm a single feeling conscious (cue the sad violins) beautiful harmless loving animal. it would be just tissue in vats you were harvesting
of course things like mouthfeel, taste, etc. would need to be technologically refined over time. at first you would be making nothing better than spam. real gastromes would talk about the consistency of the flesh and the subtle flavors based on diet. but you could gradually, over time, approach a meat source that defies the experts to tell the difference from real meat
however, you get the usual luddite reaction from animal rights activists: stop eating meat in the name of cruelty, stop GM food because it's an abomination
yeah, right
animal rights activists are an abomination: eating meat is perfectly natural
animal rights activists should meld their artificial morality (it's certainly impossible in the natural world, outside of civilization) with artifical genetic engineering, and create the nirvana of an animal never harmed
you really think it's harder to do that than convince carnivores to stop eating meat?
path of least resistance friends. animal rights activists: pool your money, and get going with the GM startup
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And no, there aren't any small farms making free range foie gras. There is no way to produce it without the force feeding.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
The technique is generally referred to as "molecular gastronomy", and has produced even weirder things than listed in the main article. For example, Dufresne has used "meat glue" (i.e. transglutaminase, which was, IIRC, designed to produce Chicken McNuggets) to make pasta entirely out of shrimp, and another chef has made flavoured edible menus out of soybean and potato starch with fruit and vegetable inks that come in such varieties as steak and sushi. Here's a page with some interesting links on Chow:
http://www.chow.com/stories/10411
Yeah and I only buy my child pornography from the USA!! Not any thailand or chinese shit!! No kids were harmed for my porn!
you really think it's harder to do that than convince carnivores to stop eating meat?
Humans are omnivores, not carnivores.
On a side note, your little tirade didn't really seem to address the point the GP was making: Do we really need to torture animals before killing & eating them?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
.. strange foods tied together with massive amounts of chemicals to make them taste like real foods.
Isn't that what McDonalds is for?
"just a side thought: i think animal rights activists should be the most pro-genetically modified special interest group in the world. reason being, if you could genetically engineer foie gras in vats, or animal flesh, you would:" - And by that logic those who dislike Bush should actively support his assassination. Not every solution is going to be a good one. "animal rights activists are an abomination: eating meat is perfectly natural" - things change. Paedophilia was perfectly natural a few hundred years ago. Human rights is a concept in its infancy and animal rights can be seen as the obvious next step. You accuse these people of being 'luddites': afraid of technological change.. yet you are the one showing intolerance of changes in morality.
Think butter that doesn't melt in the oven, foie gras you can tie into knots, and fried mayonnaise.
... and I especially don't want to think too much about fried mayonnaise. Cripes, talk about adding insult to injury.
I don't want to think about butter that doesn't melt in the oven, or foie gras in knots
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
is the type 2 diabetes epidemic not enough? heart disease? sometimes i think it just happens to be that anything done to food to make it live forever on a shelf is also going to make it live forever in your body.
i do hope food scientists begin to turn their guns on making food safer. everyone who gets put on a restricted diet becomes unable to eat these creations.
Not that much worse than what non-free range chickens go through. Ever seen what a large scale chicken farm is like?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq77ET5af5U
While I don't really like how animals are treated in large scale farms, I don't think vegetarianism is really the answer. People need a little bit of respect for the things they put in their bodies. Maybe eat a little less meat and buy from local farmers who raise and slaughter their own livestock. It is probably a little bit better for you, and actually has taste (especially chicken).
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
Somebody's gonna find a way to make bombs out of Twinkies, HoHo's, and gasp....Pizza! Then they'll ban them, and we'll be stuck with nutritious food. I hate it when McGuyver's go to the Dark Side.
Table-ized A.I.
I don't know if Chemists in general are good with timing. When I was little my mother would start cooking for the day at 8am,making everything from scratch and magically at lunch and dinner all the correct dishes would be finished simultaneously. Now that is an art.
Nowadays scientists in universities don't have time for science. They must publish, get grants, do marketing, blah, blah. After a few decades of this they probably don't even know the value of pi. So how the hell do we expect them to get home in time to cook anything?
try here for more delicious ideas
do not read this line twice.
looking at the blog referenced, there are possibly more interesting meals (and much better pics)
El Bulli (referenced in the comments above too - lots of crazy looking stuff)
http://chuckeats.com/blog3/2006/06/22/el-bulli-roses-spain-the-mad-scientist/
Keyah Grande (looks stunning)
http://chuckeats.com/blog3/2007/01/19/keyah-grande-pagosa-springs-co-rip/
El Poblet (i'm not sure of the techniques used but it looks wild)
http://chuckeats.com/blog3/2007/10/08/el-poblet-denia-spain-a-midsummer-nights-dream/
You told him.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
For some reason, this is the first thing that popped into my head when I read TFA.
Have gnu, will travel.
If you are in Pittsburgh....
http://www.bigelowgrille.com/alchemy.html
is a lot better, also not cheap.
but the chicken and waffles were unbelievable.
chicken = fried chicken skin, cut in the shape of a chicken
waffles = some sort of butter/syrup jello
gravy = gravy that was made into crunchy/soft foam?
Yes, it makes them taste better.
And you, my friend, quite possibly did not get the subtle joke there. Or maybe you did. But probably not.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
What a despicable thing to do to an animal just to make it tastier to eat.
The photos of tubes being put down the throats of ducks certainly look horrific, but animal rights activists have a tendency to over-dramatize things. From an article in Time magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1669732,00.html
The debate is centered on the practice of gavage, in which corn is force-fed to farm-raised ducks through a funnel down their throats. Some argue that gavage is inhumane, while others counter that the physiology of a duck is not the same as a human. "It seems terrible if you don't know that a duck's esophagus is lined with a very thick cuticle, if you don't realize that baby ducks are fed by their mother pushing her beak down the baby's throat," says Ariane Daguin, owner of D'Artagnan, the largest foie gras purveyor in the U.S. Recent studies by Dr. Daniel Guémené, a leading expert on the physiological effects of gavage, have shown that ducks with young in the wild were under more stress than the ducks being fed through gavage. And both The American Veterinary Medical Association's House of Delegates and the American Association of Avian Pathologists have concluded that foie is not a product of animal cruelty.
Also, here's an abstract of research by Guémené:
http://www.edpsciences.org/articles/animres/pdf/2001/02/faure.pdf
The debate on welfare issues related to the force feeding of ducks and geese involves understanding the reactions of the animals to the force feeding process. Two types of experiment were performed. Ducks and geese were trained to be fed in a pen 8 metres away from their rearing pen and were then force fed in the feeding pen. The hypothesis was that if force feeding caused aversion, the animals would not spontaneously go to the test pen. There were some signs of aversion in ducks, but not full avoidance, and there were no signs of aversion in geese. In another experiment, the flight distances of ducks from the person who performed the force feeding and from an unknown observer were measured. Ducks avoided the unknown person more than the force feeder. Their avoidance of the force feeder decreased during the force feeding period. There was no development of aversion to the force feeder during the force feeding process.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
To reference a popular verse:
And the angel of the Lord came unto me,
snatching me up from my
place of slumber,
and took me on high,
and higher still until we
moved in the spaces betwixt the air itself.
and he bore me unto a
vast farmland of our own midwest,
and as we descended cries of
impending doom rose from the soil.
one thousand, nay, a million
voices full of fear.
and terror possessed me then.
and I begged,
"Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?"
And the angel said unto me,
"These are the cries of the carrots,
the cries of the carrots.
You see, reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day
and to them it is the holocaust."
And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat
like the tears of one millions terrified brothers
and roared,
"Hear me now,
I have seen the light,
they have a consciousness,
they have a life,
they have a soul.
damn you!
let the rabbits wear glasses,
save our brothers...can I get an amen?
can I get a hallelujah? thank you, Jesus.
Ramen
But I'll take your word for it, in which case... *I* didn't get *your* joke. :)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Obligatory: Bob the Angry Flower Vegetarian's Dilemma (summary: GM the animals to have no head)
But I would suggest that if you eat a hamburger for lunch and wear leather shoes or a belt, you might want to do a hypocrisy check and see what your score is.
Sanity check time. Eating a cow isn't the same as force feeding a goose until its liver basically explodes so that it's extra tasty.
I spent a large portion of my childhood on a farm and have been through the whole cycle from feeding the calf to walking the adult cow in to get slaughtered. I have absolutely no problem with eating meat, hunting (provided it's done for food or to rid oneself of threats to land and crops, etc. I don't condone pure trophy hunting), and the like. In fact, I've done/do all of them myself.
That said, I can't condone the torture of an animal just because you think engorging its liver will make it yummy. If you raise something for food, treat it with respect, and when it comes time to kill it, make it a clean kill. Doing otherwise shows a lack of respect for the things which keep you alive and, by extension, a lack of respect for yourself.
(Oh, and I wear leather too. Quite a lot of it - coat, belts, several pairs of gloves, multiple pairs of shoes and boots, etc - and I view that as a positive thing. It means that one more part of the animal that helped feed someone gets used toward a positive end instead of being thrown away).
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
that is, sex with a real child, who is biologically sexually immature. you can bet your archeologist's tenured chair that our ancestors thousands of years ago were bashing the heads of men (and women) who preyed on the prepubescent
meanwhile, teenagers are biologically mature enough for sex. now in modern times, certainly, the issue of TEENAGERS being verboten for sex with adults is a new thing. but that's because we respect the notion of mental immaturity nowadays. so let them experiment amongst themselves, and keep the predatorial adults away from them
seems like progress to me
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I quit reading/watching when they started anthromorphizing.
Probably the best show on the Food Network. Alton Brown's show gives me the impression that Alton's a physics major that happened to get into cooking.
I can't speak to making it swollen and diseased, but there are good reasons to eat a healthy liver.
It's not so much a filter as it is a neutralizer. The liver produces a very wide array of enzymes that break down toxins. It is also involved in maintaining metabolic balance, digestion of protean and storing energy. The latter plus it's high concentration of vitamins makes it far too nutritionally valuable to ignore. It may not be that critical today in the U.S. where everything's super sized and vitamin supplements are easily available, but for most of history, it was quite important.
A bit holier-than-thou, sure, but the grandparent post is insane. Foie gras is comparable to chopping up an animal into serving size pieces - while it's still alive. Any slaughterhouse performing such obviously unnecessary cruelty (instead of the usual instant killing blow) would be shut down immediately.
What an ill-informed statement. Here's a few facts about this so-called "despicable" treatment: 1. Ducks (and geese) are not human. Things that might be uncomfortable to one species are perfectly fine to others. Anthropomorphism is bad, mmm-kay? 2. Ducks (and geese) are designed with a crop, no gag reflex, and an esophagus that is lined with stuff similar to what our fingernails are made of. Why? Because thy are designed to swallow really freaking huge things... like live fish that are flipping around with their tails still protruding from the bird's mouth. Does the bird care? Of course not... it will digest it when it's damn good and ready. 3. Migratory birds are designed to store *tremendous* amounts of fat prior to migration. They do NOT store fat on their hips and thighs (remember the anthropomorphism thing in note #1...). These birds store fat in their liver... it's what they do. It's not "diseased", it's simply stored. Once they stop eating and begin migrating, the fat is used, and the liver goes back to normal. Except, birds on foie gras farms aren't allowed to migrate, for obvious reasons. 4. Commercial chicken farms are far more cruel than foie gras farms, except you don't ever see people picketing restaurants trying to ban the serving of chicken. Odd. 5. There is a direct correlation between the amount of stress on a bird raised for foie gras and the quality of the foie that's produced. The result of this is that modern production methods pretty much dictate that the birds are treated like royalty during their rather brief lives. At Hudson Valley Foie Gras, for instance, once a person has been assigned as the feeder for a group of birds, that person is the *ONLY* person that can touch them... switching the person who is responsible for them just stresses the birds out. Bottom line: when I come back, I hope it's as a foie gras duck, because it pretty much guarantees that I'll live like a rock star, and then die young. Isn't that all anybody really wants? 6. Sheeple that regurgiate PETA bullshit should be thrown off a cliff, because their lack of ability to apply their own critical thinking to a situation is a big part of the reason common sense is being bred out of our gene pool. 7. I just got home from a 6-course foie gras dinner. It was orgasmic. Thanks. Carry on.
Sorry for the lack of formatting on that post... didn't realize I was in HTML mode. Too much wine.
Enzymes, being proteins, aren't normally absorbed by the body. (Which is why insulin, for example, can't be taken in tablet form.) Also, these enzymes aren't supposed to be floating around in the blood (which is where they'd be if they were absorbed) - Liver function tests measure the presence of these enzymes in the blood, since they show that liver cells have been damaged/lysed, releasing their contents.
Vitamin A deficiency is still a big problem in developing countries, though, and liver is definitely the best source of it. Of course, too much of a good thing can also be a problem.
throughout the entire animal kingdom there are animals eating animals, for millions of years
and throughout the animal kingdom, sex with the sexually immature isn't normal, for millions of years
it's moral, and natural, to not have sex with children, and to eat meat
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Did you even read what you linked?
"Due to this force feeding procedure, and the possible health consequences of an enlarged liver, animal rights and welfare organizations and activists regard foie gras production methods as cruel to animals. Foie gras producers maintain that force feeding ducks and geese is not uncomfortable for the animals nor is it hazardous to their health. Scientific evidence regarding the animal welfare aspects of foie gras production is limited and inconclusive."
And
While force feeding is required to meet the French legal definition of "foie gras", producers outside of France do not always force feed birds in order to produce what they consider to be foie gras. Award-winning Spanish producer Patería de Sousa produces foie gras by taking advantage of the natural instinct of geese to fatten their own livers in preparation for migration.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Torture is such a "strong" word. I prefer the term "stress". It works on plants(including the smokable ones), too. It makes them produce more of their vital juices which provide their flavor give them their punch. And you're more likely to get a confession.
What?
for example, it is not ok to eat your fellow humans, because eating the dead flesh of your own species encourages diseases. in fact, there is a prion disease called kuru, similar to mad cow disease, amongst papua new guineans who dug up and ate their dead ritualistically
likewise, fucking children incurs the wrath of parents, for good reason: it is their biological role to shepherd their children to adulthood. their interest in that is making sure the child reaches adulthood before mating. because when you are mature, you can do a better job of picking a genetically healthy mate. the genetically inferior, shoved aside, will seek to prey on those with immature abilities to choose a good mate. such that if you as a parent tolerate sexual trangression against your children, you are imperiling your own genetic lineage to an inferior set of genes: kid fuckers. preying on children is a potent sign of genetic unfitness
in other words, the strongest argument against pedophilia is not only that children are hurt, but that the completely natural and organic rage of parents against pedophiles is something that will not be dispelled and must be respected, simply because there is no placating it
and as for eating meat: go view half an hour of national geographic about what goes on on the plains of the serengeti on any given night, for the last dozen million years. meat gets eaten. sorry about how you feel about that, but that's just the way it is
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here's a quick primer on how birds regurgitate food to feed their young:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/expert/previous/regurgitate.asp
...and fried mayonnaise. If you're ever in San Diego, try the Tlaquepaque at Jimmy Carter's (least Mexican named Mexican restaurant ever).If you can get over the notion that it's basically a hot mayonnaise and jalapeno sauce, it's actually just the right amount of sweet, creamy and spicy that combines brilliantly with the rice.
Molecular Tapas Bar in the Oriental Lounge, Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo.
It rocks.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
AFAIK the bonobos also have sex with immature members of their group (google). Seems to work fine for them. I won't be surprised if dolphins and other animals do that too. It's probably just not suitable to show on the National Geographic channel ;).
Anyway, "natural" is overrated.
Humans should use their big brains and figure out what is good overall and long term. That said the norms of cultures that have survived and _thrived_ for thousands of years should not be discarded overnight without a great deal of evidence. There are many different human cultures, and it is fairly obvious that some are crappier than others.
We need to start using our brains a lot more and not just do stuff because it is technologically possible. Society is not ready for a USD10K "kill everyone" bioweapon kit. And just because someone figures out a way to make a cheap gigawatt "infinitech" powerplant it doesn't mean everyone should have one before we figure a way of preventing/avoiding the entire world from glowing red hot from the excess heat.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
We kill 9 billion chickens in the US every year. 9 BILLION. Our selective breeding is so effective that meat chickens go from birth to slaughter in about 8 weeks.
The meat and poultry industry is a nasty, nasty business. Any illusion that we treat meat animals with any sort of dignity goes out the door when you learn how fiendishly optimized the whole affair is.
It is a peculiar thing that we think it's OK to eat animals. I eat meat because it's acceptable to do so in my culture and because I like the taste. I make no claims of moral righteousness. If you're not willing to face up to what needs to happen to get you your meat, you shouldn't be eating meat. I absolutely respect vegetarians (I know several) and particularly vegans for the choice they have made. It is not my choice, but it is one that I can easily justify.
When you really, really get down to it, there's little more inhumane than the breeding of animals for the sole purpose of their later slaughter. How we treat the animals has ramifications for our safety and health, and it is often the most graphic effect of the system. It does not, however, have much to do with the morality of the situation.
In essence, when we have billions of animals created essentially as expendable meat factories, force feeding a few geese seems like small potatoes.
"force feeding a goose until its liver basically explodes so that it's extra tasty."
:).
You got to stop getting your info solely from the religious materials distributed by PETA et all. For groups like PETA and the ALF, hardly any science or evidence is involved. They're modern day cults with their Jihad.
Easy sell I guess as war seems so popular nowadays. You have war against foie gras, war against eating animals and so on.
Maybe some farms are cruel to their birds, but cruelty is not necessary (and some argue not even beneficial) for the production of good foie gras.
It sure seems like the geese are happily gorging themselves. Pigs!
My family (well ok my dad) used to have a pair of geese and they'll definitely peck you or worse if they weren't happy. Gave them away in the end. Maybe we should have made foie gras from them, but I suppose the convention is to not eat pets
Not that I'm defending Foie Gras (not having ever had it, I don't even know whether or not I would like it), but you need to consider your source. PETA is about as far away from sanity as you can get with regards to "animal rights".
Like Greenpeace, PETA is at the fringe of the movement and by linking there you associate yourself with that fringe. If that's what you want, so be it, but if you intend to convince moderate individuals you would do better by selecting a moderate source. You don't need to be PETA to oppose Foie Gras.
Excellent idea for livening up children's parties, and possibly a standby comfort food for deep sea divers!
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
Very interesting, intellectually, but good food is simple: start with good ingredients, don't overcook, and eat in moderation. The last one is important - if you eat until you are close to vomiting, it doesn't matter whether the meal was of good quality. The old saying 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating' means exactly that.
I ate there earlier this year. One of the best meals I've had, but the menu -- while more creative than almost any other I've seen -- had none of the flashy mad scientist concoctions that are so well publicized. If you are in NY and are a bit of a foodie, it's definitely a worthwhile experience. Better than many well publicized restaurants like Babbo (IMHO).
A friend of mine is an excellent chef (mediterranean/mexican fusion with emphasis on seafood), regularly invited to prepare meals in places like Oslo, Paris, London, Evian (Switzerland), San Francisco, Acapulco, etc. No matter what city it is, he splurges on at least one meal at the most celebrated restaurant (according to the gastronomic insiders) in town, and money is no object on these special occasions.
A couple of years ago, while visiting London, my friend and his wife went to Blumenthal's place, The Fat Duck, specifically for the sampler meal at three hundred pounds per person, for two people. Sixteen tiny courses, fifteen of them with their own specific wine.
Just to give you an idea, the first course was a sphere chilled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen, handled with chemist's pliers. Within a second of being popped in the mouth, the sphere vaporized and expanded. Containing mostly gas, with some green tea, lemon and vodka, this did three things: cleansed the taste buds, stimulated the appetite and gave an immediate buzz.
Supposedly, the fourth or fifth course was the proverbial sledgehammer to the head - a quail jelly on a bed of green pea puree and wheat. That's when the sky cracked open and the meaning of life was telepathically revealed from above. After that it was a two-hour haze of "artistic perfection".
How many of us can say that a certain meal, a sequence of flavor combinations, caused a full-blown epiphany, a mystical experience?
To this day, my friend's eyes glaze and focus off into infinity while remembering "the best meal I've ever had in my life, the best twelve hundred dollars (!!!) I've ever spent". The good wife agrees, even as the Harrod's shopping budget was obliterated by one dinner.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Highly intelligent grapes were crushed while still alive to make that wine. Bastard.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Mmmm... panda-burgers...
I mean... come on people.
Humans have always been eating other animals.
You know... being the top of the food chain has its responsibilities as well.
If we stuck to what fell of the tree... well... lets just say that Marky Mark and Charlton Heston would not call this place their home.
Instead, human ancestors ate meat.
Whenever they could get their greedy little hands on it. And that tasty protein made them stronger, bigger, smarter hunters.
After a while, they became so smart they realised - "Why the fuck should I run after these animals whenever I need food? Lets capture some of them, put them in some kind of a fence and keep them there for later eating."
Tortured? Dude, we used to bash their heads with rocks and sticks.
And we didn't even bother to feed them and take care of them for years before that.
We would just sneak up on them, and then 10-20 of us would start throwing rocks at it.
Many times we would just hurt it a lot, and it would run away to die from the wounds while we went for other, slower pray.
Get the ancestors of today's cows and ask them if they would rather have it the old way, or would they have it like their relatives today?
I already know what they would say.
They would say: MOOOO!!!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
How about breeding animals for the sole purpose of extracting labour from them, then discarding them to die slowly and without dignity when they're no longer capable of performing?
Welcome to the human race.
Assuming the order is greatest quantity first, woukd you expect the actual food to be in the top half?
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
The veg site was just the first one that caught my eye from a Google search.
Don't like the veg site? (I'm not a vegetarian, either) Google for yourself.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
For me, the mroality of eating less (or no meat) has nothing to do with animal rights. It has to do with the production capacity of the planet and the population we expect to support. Producing meat is a very inefficient use of arable land from a total edible calorie standpoint. Meat production should be limited to land that is marginal for producing crops, and limited to species that do well on that land. This alone would alleviate much of the hunger seen worldwide, as well as reduce the carbon footprint (and other pollutants) of food production. Furthermore, it would free up resources to be used for other processes.
Unfortunately, meat just tastes too good. Our bodies crave the protein and the fat. I try to eat it in moderation, and have respect for those who choose to abstain for moral or other reasons.
But, one thought for vegetarians and vegans out there -- if God did not want us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
>It is a peculiar thing that we think it's OK to eat animals.
I have no problem with eating animals. I do have a problem with torturing them in order to make them more yummy.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
if God did not want us to eat people, why did He make them out of meat?
...in which corn is force-fed to farm-raised ducks... If you have to force the animal to engage in the activity, they probably don't want to be doing it.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
LOOK - I am not pro-PETA nor am I a vegetarian. It happened to be the first link on Google about the reality of Foie Gras that I came across.
Don't like the PETA/VEG opinion on it, Google for yourself!!!!
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
It is a peculiar thing that we think it's OK to eat animals.
No, it's not. It's completely and utterly natural. Indeed, given there are some requirements of a healthy diet that are difficult to find in nature other than in meat, it is *not* easting meat that would be classified as "peculiar".
When you really, really get down to it, there's little more inhumane than the breeding of animals for the sole purpose of their later slaughter.
There are many more inhumane things. For example, pretty much any other "use" of animals (clothing, labour, entertainment, comfort, sport) would easily class as more inhumane, because in general it's not providing essential aspects of survival. Not that I personally consider any of these things inherently "inhumane", but on the scale of things humans do to animals[0], eating them is pretty far down the list - not least because it's the same thing other animals do to animals.
[0] Yes, I know, "humans are animals, too".
It was poor of me to pick a vegetarian URL for describing Foie Gras.
I eat meat, and I'm all for the raising and slaughter of animals for eating. Thanks for the excellent post.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
This will come as no surprise to the members of the Institute of Food Technologists. All of the big-scale industrial foods have a TON of science at their core - flavor, color, texture, nutrition, marketability, shelf-life, etc., etc. ad delectum. Spaghetti sauce turned out at 10,000 jars an hour uses all kinds of special processes and ingredients (i.e. chemicals) to achieve the desired outcome. Now, this same science is finding its way into the retail market, for meals prepared at the rate of only 100/hour in a kitchen.
Better living through chemistry. Long live the food technologists!
Disclaimer: I'm a Professional Member of IFT, although I'm not employed or paid by them.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
We FORCE chickens to live in pens. Some chickens are FORCED to live in small cages. We FORCE cows to take hormones and antibiotics so they can produce more milk than is natural without becoming diseased. We FORCE veal calves to live in small cages. We FORCE sheep to be sheared. We FORCE cattle, chicken and other animals into corrals for slaughter. We FORCE electricity through their heads, or FORCE bolts into their heads or force cleavers or saws through their necks to kill them for processing.
See, this is what eating meat is all about: FORCING animals to do certain things so that we can eat their flesh, milk and eggs and use their by-products. Just because people look at gavage and say, "that must really hurt the animal," doesn't make it so. In fact, from all evidence available, it isn't detrimental to the animals' health. It certainly doesn't cause "exploding livers" as one poster put it.
In light of all this, it is absolutely relevant that foie gras animals are treated better than the average chicken raised for meat. We force animals to do a lot of things and from all evidence available, forced slaughter is still the most detrimental to the animal.
This "issue" is simply an attempt by animal rights extremists to open the door to further limits on society's ability to use and eat animals (even keep them as pets). It is a gateway issue for them. Don't be suckered into their little games.
Taft
Many people would think that feeding corn to a cow in a feedlot is a despicable thing to do to an animal, just to get it grow to a size suitable for slaughter.
i'm one of them. cows aren't designed to eat corn. it screws up the pH of their gut, causing all manner of nasty ulcers etc. not to mention it creates a great breeding ground for e coli by making the system more alkaline. not to mention feedlot cows are packed in together and have little room to move, which also raises disease levels.
it's a shitty existence.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
"Force feeding" is a bit of a misnomer. It's more like "assisted feeding".
Here's the thing... after the duck has been feed using gavage, they will typically go around and pick up any pieces of corn that have dropped on the floor and eat that too. The farmers are simply using technology to improve the efficiency of the process... left to their own devices, the ducks would "force feed" themselves without any help from us. Like I said before - quality of the product is inversely proportional to the stress that the animal is under. It is not in the farmer's best interest to stress these ducks out.
If cooking were chemistry, we'd be measuring solids by weight and not volume. Making bread is far more difficult than it needs to be because two people can't measure out the same cup of flour. I'd blame it on bad lab technique, but it's actually faulty recipes that specify solids (powders) in terms of volume. That makes no sense unless you specify the density of the packing as well. It would be much easier and more accurate to just specify a certain number of grams of flour instead.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
You can actually get hold of foie gras that isn't produced by force feeding -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/18/wfoie18.xml
I read somewhere that if you put the goose in a pen next surrounded by food it will eat continuously. The end result is the same as gavage, it just takes longer and needs more space. Foie gras produced this way costs about 50% more but if you can afford foie gras you can probably afford the extra 50%.
In most countries force feeding is illegal, so the only way to produce foie gras is like this. France requires food described as foie gras be produced by force feeding though.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
just says something about the demographics of /.-ers... they tend to eat meat.
Or maybe it's because the vegans are simply ignorant regarding the production of foie gras. I know, what a crazy idea...
Personally, I think it's funny that you assumed there was some moderator bias, as opposed to conceding that the foie-haters might simply be wrong.
Maybe some farms are cruel to their birds, but cruelty is not necessary (and some argue not even beneficial) for the production of good foie gras.
I hate to break it to you, but you're wrong. It's legally defined as "the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened by gavage" (gavage is forced feeding).
Ask any good chef, and chances are you'll get the same answer. If you don't they're either lying to you or themselves. (for reference, I have one or two in my family)
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Actually they can do ethical foie gras. The geese lead a good life are well treated and do not have grain forced down their gullet. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/18/wfoie18.xml
6. Sheeple that regurgiate PETA bullshit should be thrown off a cliff, because their lack of ability to apply their own critical thinking to a situation is a big part of the reason common sense is being bred out of our gene pool.
7. I just got home from a 6-course foie gras dinner. It was orgasmic. Thanks. Carry on.
Rock on brother.
so you wish to take that observation as a justification for brutality?
nothing that victimizes another person is ever 100% tolerated. we're still struggling with that concept, but we're making progress. i don't know how the fact things were once more brutal means that we should accept them, or say that in history there was no search for justice as well
you wish to paint a pciture of a time when all manner of horrible things took place, and no one cared
oh, they cared all right, they were just more outnumbered then
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i submitted this article
and i also wrote the comment above that said animal rights activists should grow beef in vats to fight cruelty to animals
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
(Actual recipe for pie from spell book: Sift one pinch powdered spider nostril, 1 maggot's armpit, 1 smoked tapeworm. Set aside. Blend grumph from a troll's belly button, 2 goat's hoof-jam. Add powdered mixture. Puree until creamy. Add fruit to taste.)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
As an omnivore who cooks for his vegetarian wife, I say "Amen!" to that. I've been barking up that tree for years now.
-l
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might i assume that you missed the episode where they experimented with inflating a chicken? 'in search of perfection' was one of my favorite tv shows for a while - it appealed to my inner gastro-geek.
Not necessarily a true confession. If all you want them to say is "I am a black criminal and I bomb schools" then torture might be your method but if you want information torture just makes the person not trust the interrogator.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
...line.
It seems by your logic, since the animals are being "forced" to do anything at all, then anything at all goes.
It must be nice to rationalize cruelty so easily.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Wow, Mr. internet tough guy. You still fail at reading comprehension.
I didn't write that you have to kill an animal if you want to eat them. I wrote that you need to be psychologically capable. Apparently even the second time around, when I pointed it out, was too much for you to handle -- are you that daft for real, or just being willfully obtuse?
Summary: You have time to troll on slashdot, but no time to bother reading comments. Not only that, but your trolling is weak and amateurish.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Could you please follow up on those flavor equality charts that put mushrooms, oranges and horse dung together ?
The shuddering just won't stop.
there's no way I'm shelling out £300 for a meal at his restaurant.
I have (although I don't think it was quite that much) - myself and a bunch of friends went for the tasting menu at the Fat Duck, which is not so much a meal as a gastronomic rollercoaster. It was extraordinary, although obviously given the cost I wouldn't go there often.
The snail porridge was a lot nicer than it sounds, the bacon and egg ice cream not so much. It took a couple of hours all told to work through the numerous, small courses and accompanying wines. I'd recommend it as an experience.