Tetherd Cow Ahead

In the United States of America, around 30 kilograms (66lb) of beef is eaten per capita every year.⁽ⁱ⁾ That’s over 9 million metric tons of cow meat.⁽ⁱⁱ⁾

That’s a lot of cows. And a lot of cows take up a lot of space and use up a lot of feed. The Guardian reports this morning that Professor Richard Gradwohl of Washington state has come up with a solution to this problem by spearheading a drive for miniature cattle. Gradwohl’s farm boasts 18 breeds of miniature cows, including ‘microminiature’ varieties that stand just over a meter (one yard) tall. He claims that 10 miniature cows can be raised on the same amount of land as two full size cows, using just one third the feed and producing half the amount of methane. Sheer genius. Not only that, the tinier the cow, the better it tastes, according to the Guardian article.

Of course, here at the Tetherd Cow Ahead laboratories, the boffins were quick to see the potential of this scheme. “Why stop at merely ‘miniature’ cows?” asked the Head Boffin, “Surely if you make the cows even smaller you can make even greater savings and get even tastier beef!”

That’s why he earns the big bucks! To this end, I have set the laboratories to work creating the first nano cows. By my calculations, using the savings in feedstock and land that Gradwhol’s reductions in size have achieved, the shrinking of cows to nanoscale should mean that a million cows could fit on one square centimeter of farmland and would only need a blade of grass per year. On the five acre pasture that Gradwohl uses to raise ten mini cows, TCA Labs can raise trillions of cows, producing a billionth of the methane of conventional cows and yielding enough beef for one thousand billion billion McDonalds’ all-beef patties every month.⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾

I also have the labs investigating what happens when the miniaturization process ‘goes homeopathic’ (as we say in the science business). What this means is that once the cattle are shrunk past a certain size, Gilbert Einstein’s famous equation E=M¾ kicks in and the cows become ethereal. The beef yield simultaneously becomes infinite. Needless to say, the taste of flame-grilled steaks also improves immeasurably via this process.

Here in the Land of Shoo!TAG, I don’t see how I can possibly fail to get some investment interest.
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Footnotes:

1. According to the Guardian article linked here. A search around the web mostly gives numbers higher than that. [↩]
2. Or more than 10 million ‘short’, or US, tons. [↩]
3. Quoted statistics may or may not be entirely accurate – strange things happen at subatomic levels. [↩]

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One of the delights of being a Stranger in a Strange Land is discovering new and wonderful foodstuffs. In one’s own country, one is fairly familiar with the products on the supermarket shelves, but being abroad opens up whole new vistas of comestible possibilities. As I stood dazzled in the breakfast cereal aisle of the local Ralph’s, I wondered how I could ever pick just one from among the thousands of brightly coloured packages.

I thought I was reasonably circumspect in choosing Yogi Cherry and Almond Crunch.

Sounds alright, doesn’t it? All natural, no artificial thingummybobs, none of the dreaded high fructose corn syrup (that American food manufacturers seem to throw into everything with wanton abandon) and 5 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber in every serving (although 3g of fiber – or ‘fibre’ as it is properly spelled – does seem a little on the shy side for something ostensibly made of grains).

So, anyways, I headed off home with my groceries and thought nothing further of it until breakfast the next morning, whereupon I poured myself a bowl of Yogi Cherry and Almond Crunch, splashed on some milk and bluuuuuuuurrrrghhhhhh! Gag. Gasp! How much fucking SUGAR is in this stuff!!! This is the sweetest breakfast cereal I’ve eaten since I was a kid. Sweeter even than Sugar Frosties! Let’s have a look at the ingredients:

Lotsa grains, evaporated cane juice, brown rice, almonds, but no suga….. waidjustafuckinggoddamnminute! Evaporated cane juice? EVAPORATED CANE JUICE!!!???

Yes folks, Yogi knows full well that the ‘s’ word is big minus mark when it comes to selling a ‘healthy’ product and so it doesn’t actually appear anywhere on the packaging. Instead we have evaporated cane juice. I almost find myself admiring their guile. Indeed, when I actually pay attention to the um… ‘creative’ language on the packet, it appears that various sugars make up almost a fifth of the volume of what’s inside the box of Yogi Cherry and Almond Crunch!

A little cereal with your sugar, anyone?

I’m also slightly uneasy about the cherry quotient, which is listed as cherry ‘powder’. Something about being able to turn cherries into a powder reminds me of anthrax. No, I don’t know either.

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Disclaimer: Readers of this post should not infer that just because I chose to buy a cereal with the word ‘yogi’ in the name in any way implies that I am some kind of dippy trippy hippy. I was merely attempting to pick a cereal that had some modicum of healthiness. Plus, I always had a fondness for pic-a-nic baskets.

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Some questions:

1. Coke has an expiry date?

2. Why are they selling it in a pharmacy?

3. Why do you need ‘grip’ on a Coke bottle?

4. Is ‘Just out of date’ any different to ’10 years out of date’ when it comes to Coca Cola?

5. Why don’t pharmacists have any sense of humour?⁽ⁱ⁾

6. Coke has an expiry date?
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Footnotes:

1. I pointed out that I thought it was funny and she looked at me as if I was a lunatic. [↩]

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In keeping with the Tetherd Cow Ahead tradition of keeping regular readers up to date with the latest innovations in cured pig-flesh based comestibles (such as the Pork Martini, Pig Brain Aerosol⁽ⁱ⁾, and Pork Cake), we present to you today for your culinary delectation Torani Bacon Syrup. Yes folks, it’s true. Now you can enjoy your favourite crispy smoked ham flavours in an easy-to-use syrup!

Torani Bacon syrup adds savory bacon flavor to cocktails, lattes, sauces and more.

Lattés? Lattés? Am I the only one who hasn’t been missing a salty pork flavour in my coffee? But the innovations don’t stop there! Torani also suggests you might be tempted by the thought of a Bacon Bloody Mary⁽ⁱⁱ⁾, a Bacon Milkshake or (blasphemy!), a Bacon Manhattan. There’s even a recipe for a (gag) ‘Bacon Alexander’ (at least it doesn’t have cream in it).

Scanning the Torani products page, I see that they really have quite some selection of syrups there. My feeling is, though, that with this latest product they’re attempting to live high on the hog by making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Still, I’m willing to be convinced – a Cow Medallion for the best recipe involving Torani Bacon Syrup. I will consider the word ‘best’ to mean whatever I think it should, in this context. Laughs will rate highly, but astute culinary skill will count too.

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Thanks to Guy for discovering this gem!

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Footnotes:

1. OK, so that’s not something you’re supposed to digest, but who knows what pork fiends will do! [↩]
2. I guess I could see that… [↩]

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The Guardian reports that publisher Penguin Australia has been left with egg on its face after it was revealed that a recipe for Tagliatelle with Sardines and Prosciutto from their book The Pasta Bible, called for the inclusion of ‘salt and freshly ground black people’. 7000 copies of the book have been withdrawn.

Penguin’s head of publishing, Robert Sessions, blamed the gaff on a spellcheck program, and said that proofreaders missed it because they were probably more concerned with checking ingredient quantities.⁽ⁱ⁾ Sessions called the mistake a typo, but I’m thinking that these kinds of episodes, where spellcheck programs offer whole alternative words to the one that is meant, should have a new name. Wordo? Hmm… a bit clunky… Suggestions?

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*Thanks to Violet Towne for spotting it in The Guardian and to my guest sub-editor King Willy for the fabulous headline.

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Footnotes:

1. Rather than the ingredients per se, I guess… [↩]

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Good iMorning iCowpokes!

Well, down here in sunny* iMelbourne we have just survived the insanity that is iGrand iFinal iFootball whereat the official name for the new Vegemite product (formerly known as ‘Name Me’) was kicked off. And as promised, the iCow is bringing the new name to you hot off the iPress.

I know what you’re thinking – that image above is a cheeky Photoshopped pisstake of the actual name which I’m going to reveal to you in due course…

…

…

…

Was that long enough for the cold reality sink in? Yes dear iFriends, the people at iKraft, demonstrating a dorkiness that transcends anything I thought was even possible, have climbed on the iBandwagon and, in some kind of bizarre and incomprehensible grab for what we can only assume to be their concept of coolness, named their product iSnack 2.0. It’s worse than I could possibly have imagined. And I can imagine pretty bad possibilities.

How many kinds of wrong can be encapsulated here? The whole ‘i’ phenomenon has become so hackneyed and feeble that it’s really only Apple that can carry it off in any way, and that’s solely because it’s their heritage. Aside from anything, the ‘i’ was originally intended to designate ‘internet’ and if there’s one thing that Kraft and Vegemite has demonstrated extremely clearly, it’s their complete lack of intertubes acumen. Further to this, as if to underline their credentials as people who have totally missed the boat, they’ve appended the meaningless (but OH so hip…) ’2.0′ to the name – if anything it would be Vegemite 2.0, not iSnack 2.0, which by any proper reckoning has just come out of beta and is in v.1.0.

What were they thinking?

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*That’s sarcasm, in case anyone missed it.

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Oh dear. Ohdearohdearohdearohdearohdear.

Sometimes someone turns on the Stupid tap and the washer just ruptures and Stupid starts gushing out all over the shop AND YOU CAN’T STOP IT. These last few weeks have been like that, what with Melissa Rogers and her daft ShooTag™, the resurgence of Prophet Pete, and now…

The two largest supermarket chains in Britain, Tesco and Marks & Spencer, have started advising their customers to be aware on which days of the week they choose to taste wine because it will effect the taste. This breathtaking piece of utter folly is so risible that I had to check the date of the Guardian article several times as I was reading to keep reminding myself it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke.

This is the skinny (although I do advise you to read the article to get a sense of the full absurdity):

Tesco and its rival Marks & Spencer, which sell about a third of all wine drunk in Britain, now invite critics to taste their ranges only at times when the biodynamic calendar suggests they will show at their best.

The calendar has been published for the last 47 years by a gardening great-grandmother called Maria Thun, who lives in rural Germany. She categorises days as “fruit”, “flower”, “leaf” or “root”, according to the moon and stars. Fruit and flower are normally best for tasting, and leaf and root worst.

To put it succinctly – two major UK retailers are consulting and recommending wine ‘horoscopes’.

Jo Aherne, winemaker for Marks & Spencer manages to make herself look like a complete twat (and the wine tasting fraternity even more filled with blarney than it already is) by claiming:

Before the tasting, I was really unconvinced, but the difference between the days was so obvious I was completely blown away.

Once again we see the that little crack of Subjectivity in the door of Reason being jimmied open by the great big club foot of Pseudoscience. Nowhere are we offered any evidence that these taste tests were blind tests, let alone the double blind trials that a scientific assessment would demand. These people are just espousing an opinion, and, worse, an opinion based on highly subjective appraisals of something that is to most people an arcane field of expertise. This is a situation busting for pseudoscientific exploitation.*

Tesco’s senior product development manager, Pierpaolo Petrassi, says of the tastings:

It may be a little step beyond what consumers can comprehend.

Oh yeah. You’re so right there Pierpaolo old chap. I’m certainly having trouble comprehending it.

Perhaps the most extraordinary part of this Guardian article, though, is slipped in almost unobtrusively:

The Guardian tested the theory this week and tasted the same wines on Tuesday evening, a leaf day, then again on Thursday evening, a fruit day. Five out of seven bottles showed a marked improvement.

[Checks date for third time. Nope, not April 1]

The Guardian, a world class newspaper, known for its usually sober news and feet-on-the-ground reporting is endorsing this piece of flimsy superstitious mumbo jumbo! Jesus H. Christ – where did I put that shifting spanner! The basement is awash and the stuff is leaking into the hallway!

As the article trails off and the loony wagon heads into the sunset, our keen correspondent throws a small bone to the wolves:

In other quarters, doubts remain. Waitrose’s† wine department has investigated the idea and cannot see a correlation. Many scientists have little time for biodynamic wine, pointing out that the movement’s guru, Rudolf Steiner, claimed to have conceived the concept after consulting telepathically with spirits beyond the realm of the material world. Among his other works are claims that the human race is as old as the Earth and descended from creatures with jelly-like bodies, and a belief that men’s passions seep into the Earth’s interior, where they trigger earthquakes and volcanoes.‡

Uh-huh. And so, Mr Booth, Guardian correspondent, you’re lending credibility to this wine horoscope idea exactly why?

So, after digesting all that, consider the following:

•Comprehensive blind taste tests conducted by the American Association of Wine Economists have revealed that, if the variables are hidden from the testers, then for the majority of people there is no correlation between the cost of a wine and its perceived enjoyment. In other words, if they don’t know what it cost, most people can’t tell what kind of ‘quality’ they’re drinking. On the other hand:

•Other blind tests show that the perceived expense of a wine, if known, positively influences perceived enjoyment. And:

•A European Commission study from 2001 determined that in excess of 50% of those interviewed considered astrology a science. A Harris Poll conducted in 2003 found that 30% of Americans thought that the position of the stars and planets affect people’s lives.

From those three pieces of data, I leave it to you to extrapolate what’s going on here. My suggestion to readers from the UK is that you should, forthwith, buy your wine from Waitrose.

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*Much like the field of high-end domestic audio. And unlike wine-tasting, that is a province I know very well. But as I read all the hi-jinks with this wine stuff, that same peculiar odour – a blend of of fish and bullshit – starts to fill the air. You find this problem anywhere that there is a substantial amount of subjectivity and a stratosphere of opinionated ‘experts’.

†Another, obviously smarter, UK chain.

‡Well, that last bit about the Elder Ones is totally true of course.

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2 C. tomato juice
1 C. chopped spinach
½ C. chopped celery
1 small chopped cabbage leaf

Place all ingredients in Vitamizer and Vitamize for 45 seconds. This drink when taken regularly is considered by doctors to be an excellent corrective for the system.

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*From the Semak Vitamizer Recipe Book

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Whilst browsing at a famous Melbourne market a little while back, Violet Towne made the astute purchase of this Semak Vitamizer recipe book from the 1950s. The cover illustration of a young woman pouring milk into a jug full of orange and carrot juice only hints at the wonders inside…

After some technical explanation of how the Vitamizer actually works (‘The four little blades, which resemble a ship’s propellor, are sharpened and set in such a manner that, when they revolve at 18,000 revolutions per minute, they set up a violent flow or current surging through the contents of the container…’) a photographic spread introduces you to the kinds of treats you might be able to conjure up, now that you’ve purchased your Semak Vitamizer.

Truly, with the Semak, the world is your oyster puree!

Well, I know you want to get started, so let’s have a look at some of the ‘lovely Vitamizer dishes illustrated on this page’. The first offering is a serving of something so redolent of ten-day-old wallpaper-paste residue that it had to be garnished with parsley in order to have any chance at all of resembling food:

Yes, I know, a valiant attempt, but still mysteriously unappetizing. Ooh, and what’s this? Some crackers smeared with faeces and topped with leaves:

I know your mouths are watering at the very thought of walking up to the canapé table to be greeted with such a festive presentation! Am I right? Well the delights are only beginning. Next on the menu, that staple of 1950s cuisine, Sewage Loaf…

…again embellished with a jaunty sprig of parsley in order to differentiate it from a hastily made mud brick. Of course, if you’re making things out of poo, there’s no real need to vitamize anything at all – just crumb the turds directly and arrange on lettuce…

… with parsley, it goes without saying. It keeps the breath fresh.

Moving on, a puzzling dish of custard and… er… small squares of toast? Sewage Loaf? Linoleum?

There’s no parsley, so maybe I’m on the wrong track and it’s not food at all. Home-made aquarium sealant, perhaps. Or a science experiment.

And don’t forget – if you run out of ideas on a food photo-shoot (especially if all the food looks like crap), you can always open some tinned spaghetti and pour that into one of the bowls. No-one will notice.

If you make it past this introductory page, some of the non-illustrated recipes that the Semak Vitamizer book goes on to offer (for which, thankfully, you have to summon up appropriate images in your mind’s-eye) include ‘Prune Satin’, ‘Date Milk Shake’ and ‘Tomato Corrective’. There is also ‘Fruit Mould’ and, for the very brave, ‘Mock* Pate de Foie Gras’ (really, don’t ask – suffice to say it includes a sprig of parsley).

And so we close our Semak Vitamizer recipe book for now. Just remember:

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*The ’50s was truly the decade of ‘mock’. When we were kids, my mum used to make us ‘mock fish’. It was actually just potato cakes or latkes. For some reason, for many years until I was set straight, I thought we were eating ‘mop’ fish. I maintain until this day that the things on the plate had more in common with mops than they did with fish.

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