How does one determine the winner in a battle between doughnuts versus celery? Taste? Texture? Color? No way; those factors are too open ended. Comedy duo Smosh knows there are better ways to test the merits of food. Does it make a good pogo stick? Is it an effective oven mitt? Can it be used to rob a defenseless person? Find out who the champion is in the video, Food Battle 2007.
[Caution: This video may not be safe to watch if you're offended by idiocy. Otherwise, it's kind of awesome.]
Celery. Praised by dieters for its "empty calories" (it takes more energy to break down the plant cells than the body derives from digesting), it is also the base of two of the world’s holy sauté trinities. Mixed with bell peppers and onions for the New Orleans holy trinity and with carrots and onions to make mirepoix (don’t worry, we had to look that up). Inconveniently, it’s always sold in large, imposing bunches. Like cilantro and parsley (the latter of which is a cousin of celery), this staple of the produce aisle always goes forgotten in the fridge, then goes limp, then gets trashed. In fact, it's difficult to remember the last time we actually used an entire bunch of celery before it went bad.
Posted by Alaina Browne, January 12, 2007 at 10:25 AM
Science and food links from around the web!
Were chickpeas responsible for the rise of a human empire? Cultivated chickpeas had more than three times as much tryptophan as their wild cousins. Increased amounts of tryptophan in the diet can improve performance under stress and also promote ovulation, handy advantages when you're taking over the world.
MIT Technology Review's two-parter, "The Alchemist" (part 1, part 2) goes deep with Grant Achatz and Alinea:
The highest and most expensive forms of cooking have always involved the latest kitchen technology. But seldom has technology worked to bring food as far from what was considered normal as it does today. Cooks are straying into the preserves of the laboratory, appropriating equipment, processes, and ingredients that were formerly of interest only to biology researchers and industrial food manufacturers. Among American chefs, it's Achatz who has most successfully walked the balance beam between weird and appealing—probably because of his rigorous apprenticeship with [Thomas] Keller.
