The Juicy Bits
Let's play a game. Here's a quick quiz on this month's food news. Answers (and links) below.
Q1: Which cooking oil has the highest smoke point?
Q2: Which ice cream flavor fell from #1 in the US to not even breaking the top 10?
Q3: Does coffee grow in California?
Q4: Does red wine have heart-protective effects?
Q5: Will cell-cultured meat hit grocery stores soon?
Q6: How many Irish and UK restaurants did Michelin award stars to recently?
Q7: How many years old is the Roman egg that scientists recently discovered still has liquid inside?
A1: Algae oil A2: Chocolate chip A3: Yes A4: No A5: No A6: 25 A7: 1700
Thank you for playing. Also, RIP Bob Moore (founder of Bob's Red Mill natural food products) and David Bouley (influential chef of nouvelle cuisine at Montrachet and Bouley), two leading lights of the food world.
Cooking
Algae Yields Highest Smoke Point Cooking Oil
Image Source: Algae Cooking Club
Algae oil has been around a few years, but a new iteration has a super high smoke point of 535ºF. That's higher than previous algae oils (485ºF) and higher than previous chart-topper, refined avocado oil (520ºF). Why do you care? You'll get better searing at high temps before the oil starts to degrade and emit noxious smoke. Does it taste like pond scum? No. Algae oil is practically flavorless and clear in color. It also has a lower carbon footprint than other oils. The only downside is price, similar to fancy olive oil.
Restaurants
The Restaurant Empire Strikes Back
Image Source: New York Times
You have opinions about restaurants? Chefs have opinions about you too. Dozens of restaurant chef-owners (some high-profile) spill the beans with Yelp-style digs and straight talk about entitled customers, high food costs, long hours, and hard labor. Most chefs hate the practice of tipping and think culinary school is a waste of money. Is the customer always right? No. Are restaurants improving their track record on work-life balance, respect in the workplace, and fair pay? Yes.
Beverages
Wine Pros Debate Flaws And Fringe Benefits Of Brettanomyces
Image Source: Morsa Images
Brettanomyces yeast thrives on grapes, oak barrels, walls, and in the air. During the winemaking process, "brett" imparts aromas of sweat, barnyard, bacon, and leather to wine. Some wine professionals call those no-no's. “I think that any recognizable or detectable presence of brett in wine is a flaw,” says Peter Gago, head winemaker at Australia's Penfolds winery. Others disagree. “The chemical composition of dirty socks and sweaty flavors is the same as that found in aged cheese,” says Heather Hyung Chang, a consumer and sensory scientist, and the CEO of Advintage Wine. So is brett a wine flaw or a flavor component? You be the judge.
BBQ Hot Spot
World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest Announces Winners
Image Source: Marianna Massey
The 50th World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest took place last month at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. More than 250 teams from Australia, Brazil, Sweden, Mexico, and the United States competed to make the best smoked brisket, ribs, chicken, and Dutch oven dessert. The Junior Cook-Off also featured 8- to 14-year-olds duking it out to see who could fire up the best steak. After three days of smokin' and grillin', the contest's Grand Champion title went to Taste of South Texas Bar-B-Que Team. Shaylyn Keith nabbed the Junior title. Congrats all!
Supply Chain
Cultured Meat Fails To Scale
Image Source: New York Times
Between 2016 and 2022, investors poured nearly $3 billion into lab-grown meat and seafood companies, including major meatpackers like Tyson, Cargill and JBS. CEOs of cultured meat startups like Josh Tetrick (Eat Just/Good Meat) and Uma Valeti (Upside Foods) breathlessly prophesied a 50% market share within 20 years. While a handful of cultured meat products have been approved for sale in the U.S., Israel, and Singapore, it's become abundantly clear that the cost to produce them at scale is, according to Tetrick himself, insurmountable. Despite government approval and nearly a decade of work, the cultured meat industry has hit a wall.
More Supply Chain News
FDA Investigates Recalled Applesauce For Intentional Lead Contamination
Food Companies Claim Food Prices Are Stabilizing
Cocoa Prices Skyrocket, Prompting Hershey And Mars To Reduce Chocolate In Products
Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Falls Out Of Favor
Shrinkflation Continues Despite Consumer And Retailer Outrage
Agriculture
Southern California Aims To Sextuple Coffee Production
Image Source: Julie Wolfson
Before 2000, little to no coffee was cultivated in California. Now, 14 varieties of coffee are being tended on more than 65 farms from Santa Barbara to north of San Diego. “Over the past almost six years, we put more than 100,000 trees in the ground,” says Jay Ruskey, founder of Frinj Coffee. “We’re suspecting by summer 2024 that we’re going to have six to eight times the coffee that we got in 2023." It's not swill either. Daily Coffee News, a leading coffee industry publication, blind-tasted Ruskey’s California coffee in 2014 and named it 27th in the world.
Health
Red Wine Loses Its Health Halo
Image Source: Aileen Son
Red wine contains a polyphenol, resveratrol, that's good for your heart, right? Wrong. The French Paradox (French people eat food high in saturated fat but have low rates of heart disease) is due to red wine's heart-protective effects, right? Wrong. The red-wine studies of yore have now been thoroughly contradicted. Today's science shows that even one drink per day, of any alcohol, can increase your risk of heart disease. Alcohol (including wine) is also a carcinogen, according to health agencies such as the World Health Organization, and no amount of any alcohol is safe. Damn. What am I going to do with all my expensive bottles of red wine? And bourbon? I think you know the answer.
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Last Bite
Scientists Discover 1700-Year-Old Egg That Still Contains Liquid
Image Source: Edward Biddulph
An ancient Roman wishing well called Berryfields sits about 50 miles northwest of London. Archaeologists have pulled various objects from the muddy pit, including coins, bones, and the world's oldest unintentionally preserved egg. Apparently, Romans tossed eggs into the wishing well to pray for fertility. The eggs went to the right place: Berryfields' clay composition and anaerobic conditions created a protective cocoon that safeguarded this egg for 1700 years. Recent micro CT scans also revealed that the egg, miraculously, is still full of liquid. Scientists plan to carefully extract the liquid to determine the breed of chicken it came from. Roman chefs, meanwhile, are contemplating the egg's resurrection as a frittata.
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