Terrible Analogies

Adam Richman and the crew over at Man v. Food held a live televised event the day before the Super Bowl.  The challenge: To consume a 48oz steak in under 20 minutes.

Now, for those of you familiar with this show, it came as a bit of a shock that this was the challenge. A mere 48 ounce steak? No side dishes or any other gastrointestinal requirements? Heck…even I, with the stomach of a bird and the willpower of a post-op Rosemary Kennedy could scarf down this slab of meat within the given time limit.

This amateurishly staged live “event” was painful to watch.  Fans held up “homemade” signs offering encouragement and proclaiming their unquestionable love for Man v. Food. Television announcers were scattered amongst the crowd giving play-by-play calls on the various shenanigans taking place within the unruly mob. All the while a live camera was keeping a vigilant eye on Adam as he paced a nearby hallway, psyching himself up for this momentous “challenge”.

Finally, the big moment arrived. Adam sat down and the steak was placed in front of his gapping maw. The clock began the countdown. Adam attacked the girth of his meat, manhandling the flaccid flesh, slicing healthy-sized cuts off of this sacrificial muscle and shoving them into his moist, quivering, expectant orifice.

The talking heads began offering ever more increasingly bizarre commentaries such as, “That’s a big bite!”, and, “His table manners are impeccable!”, and even “I envy the cow that gave her life for this!”.

At the 15 minute mark Adam asked for a ruling. The observing judge proclaimed Adam the victor, and Adam raised his arms above his head and let out a squeal of excitement.  The TV announcer stated (in a warbling voice well on the road to tears) that, “This is the triumph of the human spirit!”

If by “triumph” you mean “making a mockery of a once cool idea”, then yes, it was indeed a “triumph”.

Guys dressed up as a slice of pizza and a hotdog? Check! Cheerleaders? Check. Gold draperies nicked from your grandmother's house? Check! Let's get it on!

Come on, Adam. Beat that meat!

No, this not a joke. That's the "steak cam". *rolls eyes*

"They may take our lives, but they'll never take...our steak!!"

And so, I must ask this simple question…has Man v. Food jumped the shark?

Adam Richman is the man who tackled the 12 pound hamburger challenge, downed 180 oysters, grappled with the “biggest burrito in the west” (7 potatos, 1lb of ham, 12 eggs, a whole onion, cheese & chili), and consumed some of the hottest food on the face of the planet. Do you honestly believe that a 48oz steak is going present any sort of challenge to him, or be entertaining for the viewers to watch?

If the folks over at the Travel Channel are reading this, can I offer you a small bit of advice? If you’re going to do this again, get rid of the over-exuberant crowds, the idiotic commentary, and circus-like atmosphere. Take a cue from the television show and sit Adam down in a restaurant with a small group of people and give him a real challenge. I’m not here to watch the hype. I’m here to root for Adam in the hopes he’ll be able to throw down a vanquishing “M”.

And hey, if he loses, then I’m cool with that too. Just let the man to his thing.

Television, food food, Television

To keep with the food theme, I’ve a quick question for you.  Can you identify what this is?:

Ice cream, perhaps?  No.

Yogurt, perchance?  Uh uh.

Bubble gum?  Natch.

This is what’s known in the industry as “mechanically separated chicken”.

Yep, that’s the remains of chicken bones and other rejected parts from the noble yard bird.  But, what exactly is “mechanically separated chicken” anyway?  Whelp, according to the National Food Safety Board, MSC is:

a paste-like poultry product produced by forcing crushed bone and tissue through a sieve or similar device to separate bone from tissue. Mechanically separated poultry has been used in poultry products since 1969 after the National Academy of Sciences found it safe for use. In 1995 the final rule on mechanically separated poultry said it was safe to use without restrictions. However, it must be labeled as “mechanically separated chicken or turkey” in the ingredient statement. The final rule became effective Nov. 1996.

Yummy!  Makes me hungry just reading that.

Oh, and in case you’re curious about what they mean when they say meat by-products, the definition is:

the non rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but is not limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low-temperature fatty tissue and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. It does not include hair, horns, teeth and hooves.

In a nutshell, meat by-products are parts of the animal not fit for human consumption

So, the next time you’re chowing down on a can of Spam, a Slim Jim, or a hearty helping of the potted meat product of your choice, I hope you have a better understanding of how this food is produced.  As for me, I’m going to cook me up a hotdog.  Bon Appétit.

food food

What is the half-life of Velveeta cheese?  I only ask because we’ve had this block of Velveeta for over three months, and it’s show no signs of degradation.  It’s a bit eerie, actually.

Now that I think about it, I realize that more and more of our perishable foodstuffs is increasing its shelf life to unnatural lengths (did you know that ultra-pasteurized milk can stay good for three months?).  Extrapolating this idea, it’s not difficult to imagine that a processed product such as this extruded brick-like mass of “cheese” that I’m about to throw into my scrambled eggs should remain safe to eat for the foreseeable future.  Let’s hear it for science!

food food

While watching an episode of Burn Notice on blu-ray last night a random, obtuse thought popped into my head, and before I could get the brain / mouth filter into gear I spouted the word “Sardines!”

“What was that?” Karin asked with a puzzled look in her eyes.

“Sardines. I’ve never tried sardines.” I couldn’t tell you why that particular thought had suddenly come to mind. Perhaps a long dormant, forgotten brain cell decided to spontaneously fire, projecting the thought of tinned fish into my frontal lobe. Or perhaps there’s a bit of subliminal advertising going on in the episodes of Burn Notice, with the good folks at Fox Television receiving a kickback from the sardine industry with each and every can of sardines sold.

Regardless of the origin, the idea had taken root, and I was bound and determined to try a can of sardines.  From that night forward, I would not feel complete as a human being until I had accomplished this task which was set out before me.

Thus, the great Monday Morning Sardine hunt began.  I jumped into the S2000 and jammed over to my local grocery store, where I found the object of my quest:

Running through the self checkout line, laughing maniacally and crazy-eyed, I swiped my check card and inputed my PIN number like only a man on a quixotic journey such as mine could.  Gripping my newly acquired tin of sardines, my knuckles turning white from my kung-fu grip, my butt hugging close to the ground as I rushed towards the sliding glass doors in hunched, lurching, crab-like motions.  Exiting the store I dove head first into my car (which I left running in the red zone by the front door), gunned the engine, and in a cloud of thick, acrid tire smoke made haste for home base.

Karin, confused by my singularly obsessive desire for canned fish, and having recused herself in the upstairs office to avoid any confrontations, heard me burst though the garage door and shrieked, “I think you need to calm down!!”…or something to that effect.  I couldn’t quite hear her, but that didn’t matter now, for my quest’s journey was about to bear fishy, fishy fruit.

Ahhhh, there it be, laddies.  Canned gold!  

Oddly enough, sardines taste an awful lot like tuna, only a bit more mellow.  The head and tails had been removed, but on my second fish I noticed that the spine was still in place. Oh, lucky day!:

The bones of these fish are so tender you don’t even notice them as you eat.  Very interesting.

And so, satiated for the moment, I made a mental note to pick up a few more cans during our next shopping excursion.  I can’t help shake the feeling that these would taste fantastic in a sandwich…

Personal, food food, Personal

Wandering the aisles of our local union staffed grocery store this past weekend, we noticed that the Mountain Dew 12 pack boxes looked a little strange.  Instead of the normal neon and muted green color scheme they were white with an odd strip of red on the edge.  Peering down at these stacked boxes like someone studying a bit of road kill or examining a newly discovered chip in his windshield, I read the word “Throwback” in tiny letters stamped on the end of the containers.

Wow…instead of high fructose corn syrup, this limited batch of Mountain Dew was made with real sugar.  Recalling how good the sugar-infused Coke tasted during our trip to Maui last year I quickly strong-manned several cases of our accidental discovery into our cart and made a dash for the checkout line.

Let me state again how amazingly good Coke tastes when infused with sugar.  Upon first drink you’re wondering why it tastes so different.  So staggeringly seductive.  It’s only when you read the ingredients printed on the side of the can do you realize that what you thought to be some kind of ancient arcane chemical alchemy was simply…sugar.

If Coke tastes so wonderful when made with sugar, then it goes to reason that Mountain Dew must taste equally, if not more fantastic.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

What I thought was going to be a technicolor explosion of dreamlike sensations turned out to be more like a blind date with a homely girl suffering with an inflamed goiter.

Tasting quite bland, balancing upon the sharp wavering precipice of distasteful, this nearly insipid liquid leaned precariously on just this side of foul.  I didn’t have to choke this liquid down my throat, but as I drank deeply of its blandness I couldn’t help but think of several other refreshing soft drinks that I could be ingesting in its stead.  

This is the sort of drink Santa gives to bad boys and girls.

To put it bluntly, the Throwback Mountain Dew left me quite disappointed.

To save yourself from a bit of a letdown, if you’re ever given a choice between Throwback and regular Mountain Dew, chose the latter.

Commercial Product, food Commercial Product, food