My superpower is I can walk into any fast food restaurant blindfolded and identify it by smell. McDonald’s smells like French fries’ fry oil. Wendy’s smells of bread and sweetness, of the color yellow, if that’s possible. Subway smells strongly of Subway loaves. But of all the fast food chains, the interior of a…
As Heinz and ketchup goes, so goes Hidden Valley and ranch. Brand affinity affects taste perceptions, and as we found out in our blind taste test of ketchup, the most popular brand don’t always score the highest points when you can’t see the label.
It was true before Harold & Kumar, but the 2004 surprise-hit film confirmed what many of us know: White Castle is glorious food while you’re high. When one becomes numb and giggly, one does not seek subtle notes or layers of complexity. White Castle’s stoner appeal is that it’s one-note—a primary color, a C-major…
The Brits have a far more sophisticated potato chip culture than us Yanks. This is not some big revelation. One rationale is that the English are far more open to meats and seafood flavors in non-meat and seafood forms. Take snacks. Beef steak is the most American of proteins, and yet there’s virtually no…
The grocery store seasonal aisle is a refreshing bastion of predictability: Valentines’ Day chocolate, Halloween chocolate, and Christmas chocolate come to mind. In some parts of the country (I live in the northern Chicago suburbs for example), a portion of the seasonal aisle is reserved for other less…
Taco Bell is selling a Slurpee-like frozen drink that tastes like red Skittles. If that first sentence did not evoke childhood memories, no need to read on. You likely won’t ever try this. But if it did, a few sips of this limited-time beverage may conjure up further nostalgia—the flavors of a Halloween candy bucket,…
I’m reading this fascinating book right now by Jonathan Kauffman, called Hippie Food: How Back-To-The-Landers, Longhairs, And Revolutionaries Changed The Way We Eat. He points to those hippie types’ affection for yogurt, which eventually crawled its way into the dairy aisle as a food staple for the rest of us.
Let’s spend a few minutes on the crucial topic of sauce. My biggest question is: Do we treat sauce as a vehicle, an embellishment, or the end goal? Is sauce optional or essential? As with all things food, these are subjective and personal questions dependent on circumstance. For example: If you’re eating chips and…
For a snack combination to succeed, the whole must be greater than the sum of the parts. Take Chex Mix, my favorite of all snack mixes: It is vastly more appealing than eating just Chex, or just pretzels, or just rye chips. (If you just eat those little breadstick bits, I have no words for you.)
I’d never heard of Raising Cane’s until I visited my girlfriend out in Las Vegas, where she lived at the time. She seemed baffled that I’d never even heard of the place, since I’m such an insufferable food nerd. But back in 2016, there weren’t any remotely near Chicago where I live. So we went, gloriously hungover,…
When Dairy Queen introduced the Blizzard in 1985, it was a big step forward in ice cream shop innovation. Before, you had hand-dipped cones and soft serve, sundaes and splits. If your shop knew what it was doing, you might be able to swing a chocolate- or sprinkle-covered cone, and there was always the milkshake.…
We ginger ale/beer nerds are lucky to live in such a gilded age, with so many artisans brewing fantastic product (and none, for my money, as good as these folks). Sadly this means Canada Dry, likely our introduction to ginger ale many moons ago, has been relegated to the orthodox, the humdrum, the single cheese-less…
It’s a wonder to me that more fast-food restaurants don’t serve poutine. The vast majority already have fries, and a few others—Culver’s, A&W—also serve cheese curds. (Dairy Queen, notably, serves regular and pulled-pork poutine.) The others are just a quick gravy-ladle away from one of the most indulgent and…
I had a conversation with my colleague Kate recently, who graciously allowed this old fart to peek into the mysterious world of the twentysomething-female psyche. She told me about a recent phenomenon on social media among her peers:
I’m not thinking about nutrition when I’m eating Ben & Jerry’s. I’m eating Ben & Jerry’s because my dog ran away, or my date sucked, or because it’s Tuesday. So while some might be interested in the ice cream maker’s new Moo-phoria line of “light ice cream,” I have turned my attention instead to the trio of recent…
Just last month, Coca-Cola announced it was unveiling new recipes of its Diet Coke line, and half the Diet Cokeheads I knew grabbed for their chests and exclaimed, “It’s the big one, I’m comin’ to join ya honey!” Fortunately, their beloved Diet Coke wasn’t being tinkered with; Coca-Cola was adding four fruit flavors…
The closest I ever came to being a racist was over orange chicken. My Hong Kong immigrant parents never expressed their views aloud, but their attitude towards Chinese-American food was clear: These dishes were traitorous. They weren’t true Chinese. No card-carrying Cantonese would even sniff at crab rangoon or chop…
As someone who cooks daily and relishes laboring in the kitchen, this recent deluge of ready-made skillet, slow-cooker, and oven sauces on supermarket shelves feel a bit like cheating. But then again, convenience is a big draw—many of these sauces promise dinner in under 20 minutes. And who among us haven’t dumped a…
Loyalties to fast food French fries run deep. But for all the love they garner, few fast food chains have made attempts to innovate. There’s Wendy’s, which in 2010 switched to a fry made from skin-on Russet potatoes and added sea salt. But that’s about it. Burger King’s chicken fries isn’t even a fry. It seems as if…
As a non-fan of baby-back ribs or unlimited breadsticks, I tend to avoid the giant sit-down restaurant chains. I am fortunate enough to live in a major metropolitan area, so why would I go to Olive Garden when there are so many superior Italian restaurants around? But I have one glaring exception, a lifelong devotion…
