After a fairly pathetic effort to get into PBT (I'm not totally convinced by a bar one enters through a secret door in a mediumly good hot dog stand, but I didn't get in, so I'll pass on making a judgement), my girlfriend and I ended up at Death + Company on Friday night, an intentionally old style bar that has recently gotten some good press (see here). We decided to start off with a martini, and sat bemused as our bartender flew around, breaking apart blocks of ice with some sort of pick, pouring other kinds of ice in and out of various cups, tasting, and mixing. A few minutes later, we had two pretty startling martinis, my girlfriend's with a little squeeze of orange bitters, and a generous second helping hanging out in an ice bath in front of us. We sipped happily, and devoured a very passable hot crab dip that I ordered to try to make amends for some atrocious fries I bought while we were waiting to try to get into PBT. When the bartender came back to clear things away, I just told him to make me something archaic, since I don't know anything about drinks anyway. He whirled about again and presented something made with rye, some twists, something red, and some other things, which was really wonderful. My girlfriend, for her part, stuck with gin, and asking for something with mint, got a wonderful South Side. (I'm not claiming the link is the recipe they used, but you get the idea).
Above all, Death is a comfortable bar with moderately loud music, and a vibe that's acceptable even for someone who dislikes bars, and trendy places even more. Highly recommended.
5/10/2008
5/09/2008
Gordon Ramsay gets too excited
I see that Gordon Ramsay has proposed banning out of season ingredients in restaurants. I can't take such an effort all too seriously - I'd especially love to be in on the committee that gets to decide which restaurants have to abide by the "law", or when seasons start, or what to do with frozen vegetables, or what people are supposed to eat in places where they only get potatoes - but it sparks the question in my mind as to whether there is any, or whether there should be any, constitutional limit on how much the government can regulate cooking. Isn't cooking an expressive outlet? What if New York city banned cooking with butter in a commercial kitchen? Or banned Romanian food?
A restaurant experiment
For the last couple of weeks, I've been watching a veritable living experiment in my neighborhood. Without naming names, about a month ago, a mediocre Chinese restaurant that had abruptly closed down reappeared as a new sushi/hibachi bar. Rugged Astorians, included ourselves, trooped there for the restaurant's grand opening and in the days immediately afterwards. We thought the place was awful. Our sushi was tasteless. The vegetable tempura was so greasy that it tasted as if they had dipped it back into the frying oil as a sort of dressing after it cooled, and they made two different mistakes in our service, which was remarkable because we only ordered two things.
Everyone else apparently agreed with out assessment. Poor reviews poured into the local Astoria chat rooms, dismissing the place for its wretched service, bad food, high prices, and puzzlingly dark interior. The result is a total massacre. The restaurant is empty. There's now a sign advertising Chinese food again outside. And it's still dark. We estimate the place has another month of life left.
The obvious lesson is that the New York restaurant market is highly efficient. That is to say, it rapidly aggregates knowledge about a restaurant, and brutally punishes underachievement. The more subtle correlary to this all is that I am now more convinced than ever that a large part of the superiority of French bread is an equally efficient market in baguettes in Paris. Just like for our nameless Astorian sushi hut, the typical pattern in Paris is for a boulangerie to open, pioneers to test, and then spread the word, after which the boulangerie either collapses entirely or has lines out the door. Fixing your reputation after that first wave, I suspect, is extremely difficult. Just like in every other industry, these ceaseless churning has, over years, created a tremendous, seemingly inexplicable, bread superiority in Paris over almost anyone. By contrast, very mediocre bakeries survive in New York routinely, and mostly because they are not expelled by the market as they would be in Paris. Hence, the gap in bread between the two cities.
Everyone else apparently agreed with out assessment. Poor reviews poured into the local Astoria chat rooms, dismissing the place for its wretched service, bad food, high prices, and puzzlingly dark interior. The result is a total massacre. The restaurant is empty. There's now a sign advertising Chinese food again outside. And it's still dark. We estimate the place has another month of life left.
The obvious lesson is that the New York restaurant market is highly efficient. That is to say, it rapidly aggregates knowledge about a restaurant, and brutally punishes underachievement. The more subtle correlary to this all is that I am now more convinced than ever that a large part of the superiority of French bread is an equally efficient market in baguettes in Paris. Just like for our nameless Astorian sushi hut, the typical pattern in Paris is for a boulangerie to open, pioneers to test, and then spread the word, after which the boulangerie either collapses entirely or has lines out the door. Fixing your reputation after that first wave, I suspect, is extremely difficult. Just like in every other industry, these ceaseless churning has, over years, created a tremendous, seemingly inexplicable, bread superiority in Paris over almost anyone. By contrast, very mediocre bakeries survive in New York routinely, and mostly because they are not expelled by the market as they would be in Paris. Hence, the gap in bread between the two cities.
5/07/2008
Momofuku Ko Spreadsheet
I don't really know whether to be intensely irritated by Momofuku Ko or intrigued (for those not in the dubious "know", Ko is a 12 seat restaurant serving some sort of uncategorizable cuisine via an impenetrable internet reservation system that has the New York food press in a giant, giant, tizzy), but this spreadsheet comparing the major food critic's descriptions of each of Ko's standard courses is brilliant. (HT: Eater)
And yes, I am trying to get Momofuku reservations, more out of curiosity and a healthy respect for Chang's marketing genius than out of any overwhelming desire to eat shavings of a frozen foie gras torchon, or cereal infused panna cotta. Question: In five years, is Momofuku Ko the subject of slightly embarassed nostalgia? I say yes.
And yes, I am trying to get Momofuku reservations, more out of curiosity and a healthy respect for Chang's marketing genius than out of any overwhelming desire to eat shavings of a frozen foie gras torchon, or cereal infused panna cotta. Question: In five years, is Momofuku Ko the subject of slightly embarassed nostalgia? I say yes.
5/06/2008
I am bad at faces
I was standing next to someone pretty darned famous this morning in an elevator, and literally had no idea, except that I noticed their face was exceptionally symmetrical. It's not that I hadn't heard of the person, or had never seen them on TV, or didn't roughly know what they looked like. My brain just has a terrible time comparing the particular face I'm presented with against its stores of names, and nothing clicked until the frantic chattering when he/she left the elevator.
I beat the same dead horse yet again
I hate to keep hammering away at the same topic, but Ezra Klein recently returned yet again to his theory that expensive meat would make us all healthier (for my previous forays, see here and here ). He continues to be super-duper wrong.
The problem I think, is that he has decided that food is somewhat like petrol. So, if the price of gas (meat) rises, then people will either live closer to their jobs (grains) or will use public transport (fish, fruits, vegetables). What he doesn't seem to understand is that in the food arena, one has the choice to fill one's car with ultra cheap sub premium (doritos) that makes your car go really fast (tasty!) for a short time before breaking down (fat). And if you really push on prices, people are going to start putting coal in their cars (vat grown meat).
UPDATE: What's the real answer to the problem, you might ask? I don't know, but my guess is continue to value growth, make people richer, and then hope that people pick good food as a main aspirational goal, like getting a big television. In the meantime, we need to keep producing food to feed people, while ameliorating, to the extent we can, the worst aspects of industrial production.
The problem I think, is that he has decided that food is somewhat like petrol. So, if the price of gas (meat) rises, then people will either live closer to their jobs (grains) or will use public transport (fish, fruits, vegetables). What he doesn't seem to understand is that in the food arena, one has the choice to fill one's car with ultra cheap sub premium (doritos) that makes your car go really fast (tasty!) for a short time before breaking down (fat). And if you really push on prices, people are going to start putting coal in their cars (vat grown meat).
UPDATE: What's the real answer to the problem, you might ask? I don't know, but my guess is continue to value growth, make people richer, and then hope that people pick good food as a main aspirational goal, like getting a big television. In the meantime, we need to keep producing food to feed people, while ameliorating, to the extent we can, the worst aspects of industrial production.
5/04/2008
Saturday Night
We were both feeling a little protein deficient recently, so I decided to make some steak for dinner. Since we don't eat beef all that often, and steak even more rarely, I thought some good USDA Prime beef (as people repeat endlessly on TV shows, Prime is less than 2% of all beef graded by the USDA - the best beef most supermarkets stock is one grade lower, Choice) would be a tasty move.*
Now, I don't normally like America's Test Kitchen recipes. Their exact proportions, instructions, and hints strike me as just so much paint by the numbers. I like my food to seem like food rather than a chemistry experiment, and I'm willing to give up some exactitude to get there. In any case, it always baffles when they measure out salt or pepper into a recipe by the teaspoon. I understand the importance of measures in baking, and obviously, if you're trying to scale up a 4 person savory recipe to 300 for a military mess or some such, I understand that exact measures might be useful. But cooking for your family? How about you taste the food instead?
But anyway, watching the show last week, they did have an idea which made sense. I've always had trouble cooking steak so that the crust is crunchy and caramelized, and yet the inside is a good medium well. If you go with the high heat method, the outside chars nicely, but the inside is bloody, which I like but others do not. And if you turn down the heat, you get grey crust. Their idea to help this problem is to put the meat into the oven at 225 fahrenheit for 20 minutes. This brings up the internal temperature so that when your char is done, the meat is medium well too. I tried the technique, and as I think anyone would agree, the results were positive.
And yes, that's girlfriend's real camera, not my Iphone. It turns out to make a difference.
* Yes, yes. Prime beef is corn fattened, not grass. Grass is better. But USDA corn fed prime is a different food, and though not as healthy, has its own special flavor profile a lot of people like.
Now, I don't normally like America's Test Kitchen recipes. Their exact proportions, instructions, and hints strike me as just so much paint by the numbers. I like my food to seem like food rather than a chemistry experiment, and I'm willing to give up some exactitude to get there. In any case, it always baffles when they measure out salt or pepper into a recipe by the teaspoon. I understand the importance of measures in baking, and obviously, if you're trying to scale up a 4 person savory recipe to 300 for a military mess or some such, I understand that exact measures might be useful. But cooking for your family? How about you taste the food instead?
But anyway, watching the show last week, they did have an idea which made sense. I've always had trouble cooking steak so that the crust is crunchy and caramelized, and yet the inside is a good medium well. If you go with the high heat method, the outside chars nicely, but the inside is bloody, which I like but others do not. And if you turn down the heat, you get grey crust. Their idea to help this problem is to put the meat into the oven at 225 fahrenheit for 20 minutes. This brings up the internal temperature so that when your char is done, the meat is medium well too. I tried the technique, and as I think anyone would agree, the results were positive.
And yes, that's girlfriend's real camera, not my Iphone. It turns out to make a difference.
* Yes, yes. Prime beef is corn fattened, not grass. Grass is better. But USDA corn fed prime is a different food, and though not as healthy, has its own special flavor profile a lot of people like.
5/02/2008
Another Simple Way with Goat Cheese
I've been on something of a goat cheese kick recently, and last night the urge struck again. This time, a full garlicky goat cheese wrapped in a horn of puff pastry with sauteed vine tomatoes. Mmm.
Brown busted
Non-Food!
Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, has been given a big thumping in the local elections held yesterday. I don't care much, except to say that "I told you so". Writing three years ago, I noted, given the likelihood that Brown would succeed the then reviled Tony Blair, that laborites who thought that Brown was some sort of electoral panacea were likely to be disappointed. As I argued, not only was Brown unlikely to be the true labor leftist a certain type of activist was pining for, but he was probably a pretty inferior politican too:
The problem, of course, is that the moment Blair leaves, the tories will revive. The labour left's assumption, that there's something about tory policies that the country has foresaken forever, is flatly wrong - they've thought this before, and they got themselves Thatcher. Rather, the problem is the now reviled Mr. Blair - he's got the tories so totally flummoxed that they've resorted to the hoary chestnut of immigration, along with bizarre posters that say things like "Are you thinking what we're thinking?". With Blair sitting solidly on the precise center of British politics, I doubt very much that the Tories would ever win.
But Brown cannot equal Blair's achievement. If he does live up to the advertising, and goes left, then the tories will simply re-take the center. No one in Britain wants a return to the 70s, when what is now a vibrant economic power asked for help from the IMF. And if a man known as the Iron Chancellor does what seems more likely,and tries to remain where Blair has been successful, I think it very unlikely that he will be as good as Blair. Does anyone believe Gore had even a twentieth of the political skills of his master? If he did, he would have been president, and not Bill.
In the interim, Brown has become Prime Minister, got himself into a variety of preposterous muddles (including the latest, which involves pushing five million people currently paying a 10% tax rate into the 20% bracket) and has not assuaged any of the leftists' complaints. Whoops.
* Now, to go find all those examples where my predictions were really really wrong, to balance this out.
Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, has been given a big thumping in the local elections held yesterday. I don't care much, except to say that "I told you so". Writing three years ago, I noted, given the likelihood that Brown would succeed the then reviled Tony Blair, that laborites who thought that Brown was some sort of electoral panacea were likely to be disappointed. As I argued, not only was Brown unlikely to be the true labor leftist a certain type of activist was pining for, but he was probably a pretty inferior politican too:
The problem, of course, is that the moment Blair leaves, the tories will revive. The labour left's assumption, that there's something about tory policies that the country has foresaken forever, is flatly wrong - they've thought this before, and they got themselves Thatcher. Rather, the problem is the now reviled Mr. Blair - he's got the tories so totally flummoxed that they've resorted to the hoary chestnut of immigration, along with bizarre posters that say things like "Are you thinking what we're thinking?". With Blair sitting solidly on the precise center of British politics, I doubt very much that the Tories would ever win.
But Brown cannot equal Blair's achievement. If he does live up to the advertising, and goes left, then the tories will simply re-take the center. No one in Britain wants a return to the 70s, when what is now a vibrant economic power asked for help from the IMF. And if a man known as the Iron Chancellor does what seems more likely,and tries to remain where Blair has been successful, I think it very unlikely that he will be as good as Blair. Does anyone believe Gore had even a twentieth of the political skills of his master? If he did, he would have been president, and not Bill.
In the interim, Brown has become Prime Minister, got himself into a variety of preposterous muddles (including the latest, which involves pushing five million people currently paying a 10% tax rate into the 20% bracket) and has not assuaged any of the leftists' complaints. Whoops.
* Now, to go find all those examples where my predictions were really really wrong, to balance this out.
5/01/2008
Baba
So, this is yet another example of when a better camera would have been helpful. Alas. The other night, I got a hankering for Baba au rhum, after seeing Lidia Bastianich's aged mother devour one happily on Lidia's Italy, a somewhat underrated program usually seen on public television. I didn't have rum, though, or limoncello (as Lidia recommends), so I just used some wonderful scotch whiskey I had cadging around. The recipe is basically a simplified, yeasty brioche, to my untrained eye - buttery, eggy, and most importantly, spongy, in order to soak in the spiked sugar syrup the breads are immersed into at the end. The babas themselves emerged perfectly out of the oven, rising above the ramekins I had put them in to give me the classic bulbed shape. I could feel the perfect texture inside. And they greedily slurped up vast amounts of syrup, growing almost once over again.
But questions abound - would it be better if they had slow risen, like I do with bread, overnight in the fridge? Should both syrup and baba be cool before baptising the babas, or just the syrup, or just the baba (I did hot syrup and cool baba, to good effect)? Should it taste of liquor or sugar?
But questions abound - would it be better if they had slow risen, like I do with bread, overnight in the fridge? Should both syrup and baba be cool before baptising the babas, or just the syrup, or just the baba (I did hot syrup and cool baba, to good effect)? Should it taste of liquor or sugar?
4/30/2008
Dissonance
A few days ago, I heard someone near my office building say to her friends, in an exasperated tone, "I don't understand how people can pour carbs into their body. It's so unhealthy."
Fine, I thought, as I walked off to Bella Napoli on 49th street* to pour carbs into my body. A little preachy, but her prerogative.
Coming back after having gobbled two slices of pizza, I found the same woman outside. Smoking. As in cigarettes.
* Bella Napoli is the most acceptable pizza I know of in the area between 8th Avenue and 6th Avenue, 55th to 45th streets, which is about reasonable walking range during a light to medium work day. The superior Naples 45 takeaway is too far. Sullivan Street Bakery is on 10th Avenue and 48th, within walking distance, but also not hot (it is served at room temperature), and in any case sometime one wants margherita, which SSB does not serve. Two Boots, which recently (and inexplicably) won a poll at Midtown lunch, is also slightly outside my radius, and also awful. The fairly good pizza trucks on Park Avenue are also slightly outside range. The 99 cent pizza is unacceptable, as is Amish Market, as are all the "Ray's" and "Ray's" derivatives.
Fine, I thought, as I walked off to Bella Napoli on 49th street* to pour carbs into my body. A little preachy, but her prerogative.
Coming back after having gobbled two slices of pizza, I found the same woman outside. Smoking. As in cigarettes.
* Bella Napoli is the most acceptable pizza I know of in the area between 8th Avenue and 6th Avenue, 55th to 45th streets, which is about reasonable walking range during a light to medium work day. The superior Naples 45 takeaway is too far. Sullivan Street Bakery is on 10th Avenue and 48th, within walking distance, but also not hot (it is served at room temperature), and in any case sometime one wants margherita, which SSB does not serve. Two Boots, which recently (and inexplicably) won a poll at Midtown lunch, is also slightly outside my radius, and also awful. The fairly good pizza trucks on Park Avenue are also slightly outside range. The 99 cent pizza is unacceptable, as is Amish Market, as are all the "Ray's" and "Ray's" derivatives.
Pizza nut
My former classmate, Amber, points to this extraordinary site, detailing one man's obsession with achieving the perfect home pizza. I had seen it previously linked on Stuart Buck's website, but I can't find my post about it, and the author's efforts are so startling that it's worth another look. And no, New York pizza isn't good because of the water, just like French bread isn't good because of the water.
UPDATE: I found my old post!
UPDATE: I found my old post!
The Burger King Kobe Burger
Via Loccusolus, I see that Burger King is going to serve up an 85 pound ($170) Kobe beef hamburger. It's obviously a marketing ploy, like the various $1000 sushi rolls and $500 pizzas floating around, but what struck me was the price. 85 pounds? How does ground kobe with foie gras add up to that much? Even at Craftsteak, true Japanese Wagyu steak costs only $30 an ounce ($120). One has got to figure that Craftsteak has just the tiniest bit higher overhead than Burger King. Fine, so this is all nit-picking of a project designed to make a splash, but I'd still like it to make sense.
By the way, to be au courant with the current trend in New York, my back of the envelope calculation is that even if the Wagyu was a relatively lean 50% fat (some Wagyu is much more), the resulting quarter pounder would have 56 grams of fat, excluding the foie gras, sauce, bread, etc. How's that for healthy?
By the way, to be au courant with the current trend in New York, my back of the envelope calculation is that even if the Wagyu was a relatively lean 50% fat (some Wagyu is much more), the resulting quarter pounder would have 56 grams of fat, excluding the foie gras, sauce, bread, etc. How's that for healthy?
4/29/2008
So, what think you now?
Ezra Klein has a post today being sad about the effect of the rising cost of food on people's diets (from a story in the New York Times). That's all well and good and all, but perhaps Ezra might reconsider his post about how great it would be if food was more expensive, from a month ago (and which I made fun of back then)? Or did he just mean it would be nice if food was more expensive and humane, and yet through some kind of magic, people would be unaffected?
4/28/2008
Leftover Rosa del Rosa and Scrambled Eggs
I had about a glass of Rosa del Rosa leftover from Saturday night, and I was alone for Sunday lunch, so I decided to have a sort of light brunch. What better than scrambled eggs (in the French soft curdy style, rather than the chewy mess it often is over here). I tried Gordon Ramsay's technique (linked by E. Klein), but found it no better than my usual (in short, he starts both the butter and eggs cold, whereas I usually melt the butter before adding the eggs. Eh.) With a couple of smoked salmon trimmings from my local supermarket (the ends of large planks of smoked salmon are often sold for two or three dollars by the supermarket in little plastic tubs - they are a great value for scrambled eggs, pastas, smoked salmon sandwiches, creme fraiche pizzas, etc, etc) and some toast, I settled down in front of my computer for some writing.
4/27/2008
Wine Note: Properieta Sperino, Rosa del Rosa
I'm no Professor Bainbridge when it comes to wine, but I enjoy buying and drinking the stuff, especially from the wonderful Moore Brothers. I was introduced to Moore Brothers when I was living in Delaware (one of them was sommelier at Philadelphia's well known Le Bec Fin) and was delighted when they opened their New York location. It is a pleasure to drink wine chosen by people who know what it is supposed to taste like. I have never had a bad bottle from them.
In any case, yesterday we had a terrific rose from Italy, Proprieta Sperino, Rosa del Rosa. The wine has a immensely powerful aroma, which my girlfriend thought was apple and I couldn't identify. Flopping around the internet, I found a tasting note by someone else that gave me a clue as to what I was smelling - which is to say, extremely pungent raspberries. In any case, I agree with the commentator at The Tasting Note. "This is a ****ing good rose."
(Dinner, incidentally, was chicken breast taken off the bone and sauteed skin side down on my gas griddle for fantastically crispy skin [fried chicken without the guilt, I said] with a simple red potato salad [boiled potatoes, spring onions, dijon vinaigrette but made by replacing half the red wine vinegar with lemon]).
In any case, yesterday we had a terrific rose from Italy, Proprieta Sperino, Rosa del Rosa. The wine has a immensely powerful aroma, which my girlfriend thought was apple and I couldn't identify. Flopping around the internet, I found a tasting note by someone else that gave me a clue as to what I was smelling - which is to say, extremely pungent raspberries. In any case, I agree with the commentator at The Tasting Note. "This is a ****ing good rose."
(Dinner, incidentally, was chicken breast taken off the bone and sauteed skin side down on my gas griddle for fantastically crispy skin [fried chicken without the guilt, I said] with a simple red potato salad [boiled potatoes, spring onions, dijon vinaigrette but made by replacing half the red wine vinegar with lemon]).
4/25/2008
Twilight Picnic
We had a delightful twilight picnic in Astoria Park last night, overlooking Manhattan. Dinner was good turkey sandwiches, rubbed generously with kalamata olive paste, and thick slabs of Greek pastry from the usually excellent Artopolis bakery. Also, one of the park's indigent inhabitants came and yelled at us about "the blood of science and god" for five minutes, but that didn't spoil the mood.
4/24/2008
Torture
Warning - Non-food content!
Professor Sandy Levinson at Balkin has a post today concerning the moral gravity of torture compared to, say, carpet bombing. It resembles, in a way, a colloquy I had with Prof. Levinson when I was his student during his visit to HLS. Briefly, I tried to push him to provide a clear answer to why torture was worse than any of the other barbarities that accompany war. The only answer that has even remotely satisfied me is that torture involves the infliction of pain on someone entirely in your grasp. It is, in that sense, especially barbaric, an indicative manifestation of a basic incivility. But I do not see how dropping an atomic weapon on millions of civilians who do not know it is coming is any worse.
I suspect that Prof. Levinson's answer to the conundrum is rather different than mine, in that he would likely say that both the bombing (as well as a host of lesser civilian oriented attacks) and torture are equally indefensible, constitute war crimes, etc. During my talk with Prof. Levinson, and on my old blog, I've gone on the record saying that I am willing to defend our obliteration of Germany during WWII, as well as Hiroshima/Nagasaki, while I am not willing to permit torture (in which I include waterboarding). But my distinction is not based on morals - the man or woman who orders either, I think, bears an equal and possibly indelible, moral weight - but on practicality. Torture doesn't work, it can be used on our men and women, and it looks horrible in a conflict where we are fighting an ideological war as much as anything else. But is the distinction really one of gravity, as people seem to think? I'm not sure.
Professor Sandy Levinson at Balkin has a post today concerning the moral gravity of torture compared to, say, carpet bombing. It resembles, in a way, a colloquy I had with Prof. Levinson when I was his student during his visit to HLS. Briefly, I tried to push him to provide a clear answer to why torture was worse than any of the other barbarities that accompany war. The only answer that has even remotely satisfied me is that torture involves the infliction of pain on someone entirely in your grasp. It is, in that sense, especially barbaric, an indicative manifestation of a basic incivility. But I do not see how dropping an atomic weapon on millions of civilians who do not know it is coming is any worse.
I suspect that Prof. Levinson's answer to the conundrum is rather different than mine, in that he would likely say that both the bombing (as well as a host of lesser civilian oriented attacks) and torture are equally indefensible, constitute war crimes, etc. During my talk with Prof. Levinson, and on my old blog, I've gone on the record saying that I am willing to defend our obliteration of Germany during WWII, as well as Hiroshima/Nagasaki, while I am not willing to permit torture (in which I include waterboarding). But my distinction is not based on morals - the man or woman who orders either, I think, bears an equal and possibly indelible, moral weight - but on practicality. Torture doesn't work, it can be used on our men and women, and it looks horrible in a conflict where we are fighting an ideological war as much as anything else. But is the distinction really one of gravity, as people seem to think? I'm not sure.
4/23/2008
The Chart Explained
Pinkberry, the luxury frozen yogurt brand sweeping the nation, has recently been exposed as, well, not especially natural (as it had been advertised). I'm not surprised, because I tried it about a year ago and wasn't impressed,suggesting that I would have been equally happy with a McDonald's soft serve ice cream cone. Now that the Pinkberry ingredients have been revealed, probably courtesy of the law suit contesting their claim to be natural that was recently settled, we can see exactly how Pinkberry yogurt compares with its much cheaper, down market competitor. Below, you'll see a chart comparing all the ingredients of each dessert, drawn from their respective web pages.
My methodology is pretty simple. I found the ingredient lists of both frozen treats, and attempted to categorize each ingredient by way of google. For those ingredients that differ, I have provided a link to what I found. My conclusions are below, and I present them with the obvious caveat that since I'm not any kind of food scientist, I may well have something wrong. If so, tell me, but even if some additive is a emulsifier and not an acidifier, I think the point is basically made. At about four times the cost, Pinkberry has more ingredients, more additives, and more food coloring than Mcdonald's. Advantage Golden Arches.
1. As you can see, 10 of the ingredients (the Red) are basically the same. Yes, Pinkberry has yogurt and Mcdonald's has cream, but effectively, there is no difference or superiority here.
2. Both are full of additive emulsifiers (What I've coded as Green)
3. Pinkberry includes starch. That is to say, a pure filler.
4. Pinkberry includes three different kinds of acidifiers (Purple). I couldn't find any in Mcdonald's, but this may have something to do with the need for Pinkberry to be tart.
5. Pinkberry is colored with Yellow 5 Lake. That is to say, tartrazine, an often controversial coloring required to be reported on a label by the FDA because it causes reactions in some people. Pinkberry's color is as natural as Mountain Dew.
My methodology is pretty simple. I found the ingredient lists of both frozen treats, and attempted to categorize each ingredient by way of google. For those ingredients that differ, I have provided a link to what I found. My conclusions are below, and I present them with the obvious caveat that since I'm not any kind of food scientist, I may well have something wrong. If so, tell me, but even if some additive is a emulsifier and not an acidifier, I think the point is basically made. At about four times the cost, Pinkberry has more ingredients, more additives, and more food coloring than Mcdonald's. Advantage Golden Arches.
1. As you can see, 10 of the ingredients (the Red) are basically the same. Yes, Pinkberry has yogurt and Mcdonald's has cream, but effectively, there is no difference or superiority here.
2. Both are full of additive emulsifiers (What I've coded as Green)
3. Pinkberry includes starch. That is to say, a pure filler.
4. Pinkberry includes three different kinds of acidifiers (Purple). I couldn't find any in Mcdonald's, but this may have something to do with the need for Pinkberry to be tart.
5. Pinkberry is colored with Yellow 5 Lake. That is to say, tartrazine, an often controversial coloring required to be reported on a label by the FDA because it causes reactions in some people. Pinkberry's color is as natural as Mountain Dew.
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