Inside the Tour de France’s Fast and Furious Feed Zone
Image Source: Universal/Getty Images
The 109th Tour de France just ended, and you might wonder how bike racers eat while pedaling furiously up and down mountains. Fueling while racing is a balancing act, and feeding a cyclist mid-race involves a careful handoff in a long-handled cloth satchel called a musette. During World War I, French soldiers carried similar satchels, suggesting a possible origin of the cycling musette. Back then, sandwiches, cake, and flasks of port wine or other alcohol were common in cyclists musettes. Today, cyclists feast on a variety of foods according to their particular dietary needs and nutritional preferences. Yet, the simple, century-old cloth musette is still the preferred food delivery system.
VIDEO: Cheese Rolling Returns To British Sporting Calendar
Image Source: Reuters/Steven Paston
After a two-year hiatus, a bizarre British sporting tradition has triumphantly returned. Cheese rolling is a literal race to the bottom, as a large wheel of Double Gloucester is released from a hilltop, followed by ill-equipped competitors in hot pursuit down the treacherous incline. The 2022 competition featured a fair amount of mud, resulting in several injuries. Yet one look at the besmirched and smiling winners' faces reveals the joy of beholding the prized Double Gloucester - even if it means losing a tooth. Such is the power of cheese.
Engineering Students Invent Edible Burrito Tape
Image Source: Johns Hopkins University
Things fall apart. Especially burritos. But it doesn't have to be that way, according to a team of engineering students at Johns Hopkins University. The budding inventors created an edible tape that keeps wrapped food wrapped. The tape is clear but is dyed blue in the photo here to show its use. Before long, you may be unwrapping a Taco Bell Burrito Supreme and find it held together by edible tape. Maybe it will even be Flamin' Hot flavored.
Do Mushrooms Communicate? British Scientist Says Yes
Image Source: Minden Pictures/Alamy
Mushrooms are connected underground by a network of hyphae called mycelium. Research has already revealed that fungi emit electrical impulses through this "mycelial network," similar to how humans transmit information through nerve cells. The firing rate of the electrical impulses also increases and decreases in patterns similar to human language, according to new research by Andrew Adamatzky at the University of the West of England. Adamatzky theorizes that fungi "communicate" information about food or injury with other fungi, plants, and trees connected to the mycelial network. But it's just a theory. The patterns of electrical impulses could be random. Food for thought!
In a Starving World, Is Eating Well Unethical?
Image Source: Anthony Cotsifas
It's an interesting question. One might ask, "Is eating well ever an ethical choice?" After all, gluttony is considered a sin, even in a world overflowing with edibles. Flipping the question, we might ask if eating "well" requires any indulgence at all. To some, eating "well" means making healthy, sustainable choices and avoiding gluttony. For those folks, eating well may very well be the most ethical of food decisions. However, when faced with others going hungry, there is but one simple choice. To share.
Did Eating Meat Really Make Us Human?
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Two million years ago, Homo erectus emerged with a larger brain, smaller gut, and longer limbs than our ancestors. According to conventional wisdom, these evolutionary changes were made possible by eating meat. Not so fast, says new research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In this controversial report, scientists reveal evidence that Neanderthals consumed hefty portions of starchy carbohydrates as they expanded across eastern Africa and into Europe, casting doubt on the theory that meat-eating is what made us human.
VIDEO: Here's How Saffron Is Harvested - And Why It's So Expensive
Image Source: Eater
Saffron is the world's most expensive spice, ranging from $500 to $5,000 an ounce. Each saffron thread is the stigma of a particular crocus flower, and each flower contains only three stigmas. It takes about 15,000 stigmas to equal just 1 ounce of saffron, and the stigmas are so delicate they must be collected by hand. Watch how Gulzar Ahmad Kuchay and his family harvest high-quality saffron in Kashmir, India, demonstrating the harvest, sorting, drying, aroma, and color that make saffron so valuable worldwide.
How To Eat And Drink Your Christmas Tree
Image Source: Aaron Joel Santos
Christmas is over. Time to kick your Christmas tree to the curb. Or is it? Could you squeeze another ounce of value out of it? Perhaps you could break off a branch, simmer it in sugar water and make spruce syrup for cocktails. Or you could cure gravlax or make pickles with a few fir fronds instead of using dill or another herb. You could even flavor a braise or stew with the aromatic evergreens. That fresh woodsy scent has all sorts of culinary applications. Like most of the wonderful things about Christmas, you just need to use your imagination.
The Edible Book: Ben Denzer’s 20 Slices of American Cheese
Image Source: Courtesy of New York University
Is it a book? Is it an art object? Does it need to be refrigerated? These are among the questions asked of 20 Slices of American Cheese created by book designer Ben Denzer. The unnaturally yellow cloth-bound book/art object is currently on display in New York University's virtual exhibition, The Interactive Book. Denzer also created a bound mortadella collection called 20 Slices of Meat, begging the question, what is a food book?
Eavesdropping On The Tangled Relationships Of Anthony Bourdain’s Final Year
Image Source: Ottavia Busia-Bourdain
As Anthony Bourdain's longtime writing collaborator, Laurie Woolever heard all sides of his story from friends, family, colleagues and the chef himself. In this excerpt from Woolever's Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, she lets them all answer the biggest questions about the obsessive chef's fateful final year in their own words.