the food rant thread

[Pingu]

And the French have lardons 

[Jaded]

Just had proper bacon for tea.

We had to get it out of the packet and beat it into submission to get it to lie flat in the frying pan.

No limp Canadian or Mexican bacon here. This was full-bloodied British bacon. The kind that has to be wrestled into the pan, but when cooked it still fights, knowing that two pieces of play dough await it, followed by drowning in brown sauce. Eventually it gives up and says "OK, OK, I give in, I'll add to the collection of cancer-causing incidents you have in your life, and you now may not make it to 97.

[pcolbeck]

And the French have lardons 

Yes but they do have confit du canard so they are forgiven.

[Feanor]

And don't get me going on beef bacon. I'm in Dubai and as such I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel of shitty places, don't make it worse. At least signpost the infidel counter.

Turkey 'Bacon' was the thing in Abu Dhabi when I was last there.
The hotel I was in served this up as the default option.

There was indeed an infidel counter, where a miserable-looking TPN doled up what seemed to be real pig-based protein.

You felt kind of dirty going up there, like you were trying to sneak into a seedy sex shop or something.  I got over that pretty quick, what with my experience of seedy sex shops and all.

The same hotel had a bar in the basement, that was open only to furriner infidels.
The 'religious police' would drop by from time to time to ensure no locals were enjoying the hospitality.

At least I was just there on business.
My, what fun it must be to go on your holliberries to the UAE, where the locals all basically hate you and resent you and your infidel types even being there.

[ian]

Dubai could form the basis of a 'places rant thread.' I've never got my mind around the concept of a 'holiday' there, it's a giant shopping mall in the desert, in the middle of a motherway motorway system that makes Birmingham look nice, all built by slave labour, filled with the bling SUV-clad over-entitled dripping their designer labels everywhere, and you get to flit between hotel bars and restaurants while the locals and the foreign workers get to look on. Oh and it's filled with western workers who are 'all about the money' and will spend all their time telling you that, or would, if you can stand not planting a fork in their forehead.

But yeah, beef bacon. It's weird. I can eat turkey bacon (it used to be a thing over here, I'm sure). I've not been to Dubai for several years and hope to extend that record.

In other matters, where did all the Mexican places come from – I was in Spitalfields Market yesterday and I think it was all burrito and taco places. I've nothing against them, but hold on, healthy? HEALTHY. Get thyself to LA, one of taco vans, and find a taco smothered with cheese and good stuff. It's a calorie avalanche. I blame the those avocados. Ubiquitous green fuckers.

[Cudzoziemiec]

A motherway system? Oh, that could mean so many things! 

[ian]

I think it means the Google Chrome spellcheck is shit since it seems to think motherway is a correct word but spellcheck (ironically) isn't. I've no idea why Chrome doesn't just use the built-in Mac OED dictionary.

[pcolbeck]

I've no idea why Chrome doesn't just use the built-in Mac OED dictionary.

because Chrome is cross platform not just Mac. Not all platforms even have an inbuilt dictionary. Much easier to write one lot of code to use a dictionary plugin rather than a separate code for every platform.

[ian]

I've no idea why Chrome doesn't just use the built-in Mac OED dictionary.

because Chrome is cross platform not just Mac. Not all platforms even have an inbuilt dictionary. Much easier to write one lot of code to use a dictionary plugin rather than a separate code for every platform.

Well, it's a shit dictionary and I'm blaming it for my lexicographical misdoings from this point on.

In other news. Asparagus, you can fuck off too. Makes my wee smell like Beelzebub's used bath water. If that's not bad enough, try visiting a loo in Germany during their annual spargle-bargle.

[Mr Larrington]

And if there's any way to add words to said dictionary on a box of compressed dates^* then the Mega-Global Chocolate Manufactury Corporation of Mountain View, USAnia and the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino, USAnia have conspired to hide it from my ken.

* - slab of fruit (dies)

[madcow]

I was in the Congo the other year (the not-so-democratic one). Um Bongo? They don't fucking drink it in the Congo after all. What next? Kia Ora not too orangey for crows?

Red Rock Cider-it's not red and there's no rocks in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaAdSdZUzgs

[L CC]

Asparagus, you can fuck off too. Makes my wee smell like Beelzebub's used bath water.

Mr Smith wont eat sparragrass for this reason.

I don't get it. My shit smells awful sometimes but I still eat curry. Don't you flush?

[Chris S]

Asparagus, you can fuck off too. Makes my wee smell like Beelzebub's used bath water.

Mr Smith wont eat sparragrass for this reason.

Had some day before yesterday, so there  .

I do eat it - but yes, it does make my wee smell pretty grim. Generally speaking, on a low carb diet, wee should smell sweet like pear-drops, and poo doesn't smell at all.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Asparagus makes everybody's wee smell (well, as long as they have eaten asparagus. Ian eating asparagus wouldn't affect my wee). It's just that not everyone can smell that their wee is affected.

[ian]

I believe there's two genes involved (according to the internet it's not entirely resolved): one to produce the stink and the other to smell the stink. So depending on the vagaries of your DNA you can either both make and smell it, make it and be blissfully unaware of it, not make it but smell the stink of others, or have no idea what we're talking about.

Anyway, to me it's an extremely pungent and profoundly disagreeable thiol odour (Proust, a renowned sniffer of things, including it seems his own chamberpot and possibly those of others – he was non-specific – thinks it's perfume but then he was French). I'm no fan of the smell of poo (I'm not sure if Proust had thoughts on the matter) but it's supposed to smell like that. Urine on the other hand shouldn't smell like used demonic bathwater.

[pcolbeck]

My asparagus rant is simply that everyone banging on about how amazing it is annoys me as I just find the stuff insipid and bland. I must not have the gene that makes it taste brilliant.

[T42]

I knew there was a gene to make your pee stink but not one for flavour.  Thought that was the Brussel sprouts gene.

[tiermat]

I knew there was a gene to make your pee stink but not one for flavour.  Thought that was the Brussel sprouts gene.

I thought the Brussel Sprout gene wasn't concerned with taste, but to do with detecting a poison that isn't within sprouts?

[Kim]

Sprouts are the poison 

[tiermat]

BUUUUUT they contain vitamins an stuff...

Unfortunately one of those said vitamins can cause a problem, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/man-overdoses-on-brussels_n_2347448.html

[Kim]

BUUUUUT they contain vitamins an stuff...

Yes, but they make the taste of meths seem nice.

[rafletcher]

I like sprouts. And asparagus. Though not together.

[ian]

My asparagus rant is simply that everyone banging on about how amazing it is annoys me as I just find the stuff insipid and bland. I must not have the gene that makes it taste brilliant.

This too, I mean I could put up with the demonic stink if they tasted like chocolate-coated, cake-battered manna, but it just tastes of, well, green. Even the white stuff which just compounds things by looking weird, like an alien penis. I will point out that I've never seen an alien penis. I don't for the record know if aliens even have penises and I'm not Googling because it'll just get weird. I'm sure there's an entire genre that I don't want to know about. The dinosaurs were enough.

I can't eat sprouts owing to seismic intestinal events that presage colonic vulcanism. I quite like sprouts, I'm big fan of the brassicas in general. This is mostly because their biochemical pathways fill me with a childlike glee. Fortunately cauliflower, broccoli, kale, and cabbage don't seem to cause the same level of internal tectonism.

[Mr Larrington]

I quite like sprouts, I'm big fan of the brassicas in general. This is mostly because their biochemical pathways fill me with a childlike glee.

That, if I may be so bold, is no criterion by which to judge a foodstuff.

[ian]

Is to! Let it be known that the highlight of my scientific career was my discovery of how vitamin C is made by those happy little plants. The lowlight was getting a note from the editor of Nature saying they were just about to publish someone else's paper on the very same thing. To this very day I dream a bitter dream of L-galactose guanyltransferases.