Links from the world of food:
Recently, I had a post about some recent articles linking picky eating to OCD and even autism, so this Daily Beast article caught my eye: veganism may also be a manifestation of eating disorders. A 2009 study of young adults ages 15-23 showed that those who said they had adopted “vegetarian” diets were also more likely to have engaged in binge/purge behaviors and use of laxatives or other “diet pills” for weight loss. The article also says that adopting a vegan or vegetarian diet is a recommended tactic for hiding an eating disorder promoted on “pro-ana” websites. The article is careful not to say that all vegans have eating disorders, it’s that people with eating disorders often turn to vegetarian or vegan diets as extreme weight loss mechanisms.
On the opposite end of things…this article from Twin Cities.com informs us about a Vietnamese restaurant in St. Paul, MN that has begun offering its diners a pho eating challenge: consume a bowl of pho that contains TEN POUNDS of rice noodles, along with the usual assorted slices of beef within 45 minutes to win a t-shirt proclaiming you to be “The Pho King”. The writer tried the challenge and couldn’t get anywhere close. He got a “Pho King Loser” t-shirt for his trouble. I loves me some pho, but I know I couldn’t slurp down ten pounds of rice noodles even if I had all day. But I would give it a go just for the “Pho King Loser” t-shirt. Sounds to me like the owners of the restaurant are deliberately angling to get “Man Vs. Food” to come pay them a visit.
This post at The Atlantic’s food blog by contributor Sarah Eltman makes me sad. She writes about going back to Barcelona after many years, expecting to enjoy a foodie holiday visiting all the local eateries and sampling authentic dishes made with local ingredients, only to find that the globalization of industrialized food means that the ingredients used in those places now are the same over-processed crap we eat at home. I’ve wanted to go to Barcelona for years, but maybe I’ll just go to Taco Bell instead.
And on a more practical note, this Serious Eats post tells us how to make our own crème fraîche at home. I was a little surprised to realize that I did not already know how to do this, because I’ve long known how to make yogurt and make a substitute for buttermilk, but there you have it. Indeed, all you need to do to make crème fraîche is to add a tablespoon or two of plain yogurt or buttermilk to a pint of heavy cream and let it sit for 12-24 hours, unrefrigerated. Just make sure none of the dairy involved is ultra-pasteurized because that kills the necessary bacteria. It gets harder and harder to find dairy that isn’t ultra-pasteurized these days, but if you’re lucky your grocery store still sells a local dairy’s products that aren’t. Once you get the tang and consistency you want, refrigerate your finished product and it will keep for 7-10 days.
