Food Artists Cont...

          James Parker is an amazing food artist who makes his creation out of fruits and vegetables. He’s been on food network a couple of times and has won a gold medal for winning a Fantasy Fruit Sculpture challenge. The art of carving fruit and vegetables is popular in Asia to garnish food and is an ancient art. To see some of his breath-taking work click here: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/12/15/food-artists-and-sculptors/

            Mike McCarey is the next artist. He makes edible sculptures of just about anything! These cakes can range from something as simple as a pair of shoes to something so intricate like the Eiffel Tower. He can even make gigantic dinosaurs or Big Bird from Sesame Street!

 

            Robin Antar is an award-winning sculptor who uses stone as her medium. She uses to stone and makes it look like food products. She’s made York peppermint patties, soft drinks, and in 2008 was working on a sculpture of a Heinz ketchup bottle for the Heinz headquarters.

            Song Dong is an artist who made a “Biscuit City” at a department store in London. The city is a traditional Asian City and was made with tea, caramel, fruit shortcake, and about 72,000 biscuits. Dong says he designed some of the building but the rest was just made up as they were going along.

 

 

            Ray Duey is the next amazing food artist. He uses fruits like melons, apples, and others to make beautiful table arrangements. He uses tiny, sharp tools to carve detailed designs and shapes into the fruit. He was also on Food Network Challenges for his creative ability to carve fruit. You can visit this website to see his beautiful creations: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/12/15/food-artists-and-sculptors/

            Tamás Balla is an artist who animates food to tell strange stories. He gives the food toes, arms, faces… whatever is needed to aid in telling the story behind his artwork. He’s carved bread into feet, oranges into people, and apples into faces. His art is fascinating and very fun at the same time! Click the link above to view his artwork.

            Prudence Emma Staite is a contemporary artist who works mostly with chocolate. She wants people to view her art with all of their senses. She has made entire rooms, games like checkers and jenga, and pictures all out of chocolate. She has even made jewelry out of chocolate! If you ask me, this lady is crazy for chocolate! To see her creations you can click this link: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/12/15/food-artists-and-sculptors/

 

Food Artists

              Jason Mercier is a mosaic artist who makes portraits out of unexpected things, such as food. Some of the portraits he’s done are of Rachel Ray, and Jerry Seinfeld. He used potato chips, beans, candy, cookies, hamburger buns, and a bunch of other stuff to make these portraits.  To see the pictures go here: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/12/15/food-artists-and-sculptors/

                The next artist is a French Sculptor named Christel Assante. Christel takes egg shells and delicately sculpts pictures into them. It takes her about 3 to 4 days to finish an egg project and she mainly uses quail or goose eggs. When she’s done she puts a bulb into the egg through a hole in the bottom, to illuminate the sculpture.

               Jim Victor is a creative artist who likes to use butter as a medium. He sculpts life-size cows, children, and horses out of huge mounds of butter in refrigerators. He also makes sculptures out of cheese, vegetables, bronze, and wood.

                Carl Warner is an artist who uses food to make sceneries and landscapes. Before he actually makes the scenes he sketches out his ideas. When he makes the real scenery he uses super glue and pins to hold his creation together. In these sceneries he might use broccoli for the trees, cabbage for the sea, or bread for a mountain. This guy has an amazing imagination! To see his creations go here: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/12/15/food-artists-and-sculptors/

                Going back to Renaissance time, Giuseppe Arcimboldo may have been the first artist who used food as inspiration. He didn’t actually use the food itself; instead he just painted mosaics that looked like they were made of food. His food portraits have inspired other food artists as well.

                There’s a bakery called Zhanna in Russia that makes cakes that look like inedible objects. You would never guess that it’s cake. They’ve made cakes that look like treasure chests, sewing machines, and cans of pop that look extremely realistic!

           Dieter Roth is an artist who experimented with many different objects including food. This took place while he worked as a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1965. He would make his art out of food and wait for it to mold and decay to see how it would look. You can view his creations by clicking here: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/12/15/food-artists-and-sculptors/

source: http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/12/15/food-artists-and-sculptors/

Cupcake Shops

             Cupcakes seem to be a really popular treat these days. I can think of three really, cute cupcakes shops that are around where I live, and they’re all fairly new. If you’re looking for a cool atmosphere and big cupcakes with a lot of frosting I recommend going to Newbo City Market, downtown Cedar Rapids. They have an adorable cupcake shop called, “That One Cupcake Place”. There are all kinds of flavors. They have monster cookie, cookies and cream, key lime pie (which is to die for), and dozens more. Newbo is such a fun place to go. They have food venders that serve brick-oven pizza, homemade ice cream, pasta, and even one just for crazy-flavored peanut butter.

 

           Another great cupcake shop to go to is called the “Wright Touch”. They have cupcakes and cake balls. They even do “holiday-themed” cupcakes which are adorable. I especially love the cupcakes from here because they fill the middle with frosting instead of just putting it on top. The cupcakes aren’t dry either. I find that at most cupcake places the frosting is awesome but the cake is plain and gross but, not here. Their cake is just as good as the frosting.

            My twin sister and I just had our birthday and we were surprised by our friends, who took us to Iowa City for dinner. When we were there we ate at a cute little restaurant called One Twenty Six. I got the rosemary garlic chicken which was seasoned perfectly and came with really good spinach. We actually weren’t originally going to eat there but, when we got to the restaurant we made reservations for, it was empty (on a Friday night) and looked dirty. So we walked around until we found a cute place to eat, which happened to be One Twenty Six.

            After dinner we walked a couple blocks to a cupcake place called “Molly’s Cupcakes”. It’s a really cute, artsy, DIY-decorated place. They have a cupcake bar with swings that are hooked to the ceiling and ground for people to sit in; and they have these tall tables that are made out of school desks all along one of the walls. The cupcakes are displayed along part of the bar and in front of another wall. There are tons of different flavors and they’re all delicious and homemade. I had a cookies and cream one, and it was filled with Oreo fluff and topped with butter cream frosting and Oreo crumbles. The cupcakes are good and even if they weren’t, the fun atmosphere at “Molly’s Cupcakes” would’ve made up for it!

           

Chocolate

Back when it was discovered I’m sure nobody thought that chocolate would become such a popular, world- famous treat. It’s almost weird to think about where it comes from and how it’s made. I know when I’m eating a piece of chocolate I don’t think about that it came from a bean. 

The history of chocolate traces back to Mexico. It was known that the Aztecs made a drink that was from the beans of the cocoa tree. In 1528, the Spaniards conquered the Aztecs and took this chocolate drink with them. In 1615 a chocolate drink was brought to the royal wedding in France, and chocolate was welcomed into England in 1662.

In 1847 the first “eating of chocolate” was introduced by Fry and Sons in England but, it had a bitter taste and didn’t appeal to people. So in 1874 a Swiss chocolatier named Daniel Peterson played with different mixtures to try and balance out the perfect taste and texture. Once he found the milk was a great ingredient to use, he spread chocolate’s popularity.

Chocolate comes from cocoa beans which are usually grown on plantations. A mature cocoa tree is expected to produce 5 pounds of chocolate per year, and these trees are usually planted in the shade of other trees. They take 5 to 8 years to mature and after harvesting these beans they are split open and removed from the coverings, and then covered with burlap until they turn brown. Then they are sundried which usually takes 3 days.

After that the beans are weighed and roasted. The shells are removed and chocolate “nibs” are what is left. The “nibs” are smashed and become a chocolate “mass”. The crushed “nibs” then become the base raw material for all chocolate products. Personally my favorite chocolate is milk chocolate. I think it tastes the best and it’s probably the most common kind.

 Something I’ve never understood about chocolate is why white chocolate is even called chocolate at all. It doesn’t contain any actual chocolate at all, and it doesn’t have the yummy taste of chocolate either. The only time I like white chocolate is when it’s covering homemade Oreo balls but, otherwise I don’t like it.

 

Source: http://csis.pace.edu/~varden/is660R/project3/history.html

 

 

Top 10 Foods/Drinks Comsumed By Americans

The #1 on this list of food is the hamburger. Honestly, I’m not surprised at all because out of all the beef commercially served hamburgers make up 71% of it.  Altogether, Americans eat 13 billion hamburgers a year, which is enough to circle the earth 13 times!

Number 2 happens to be hotdogs. Hotdogs are part of the 4^th of July tradition, and the average American is said to consume 50 hot dogs a year!

French fries are the 3^rd most popular food in America. I mean, what’s a burger without some fries? They make up one-fourth of all potatoes sold in the US, and Americans eat 2 million tons of fries per year (probably because of the fast food industry).

Number 4 is surprisingly Oreos! Who would’ve thought?! About 7.5 billion Oreos are consumed each year, and they’re so popular that they are part of other favorite foods such as milkshakes and ice cream. In America it is the top selling packaged cookie.

Pizza is number 5 on the list. Funny ‘cause pizza didn’t even originate in America! About 3 million pizzas are sold every year and 94% of Americans eat it regularly. We’ve even made October national pizza month which is funny because I had pizza for dinner!

Pop makes number six on the list. On average Americans consume 1 glass of pop per day. This isn’t so good since sugary drinks like pop lead to obesity, and there are 22 teaspoons of sugar in a pop.

Number seven on the list is chicken tenders or chicken nuggets. Chicken tenders are served at a lot of American restaurants including many fast food places.  

Ice cream makes it as number 8! Americans have dedicated July as national ice cream and we are top ice cream consumers worldwide because we eat about 48 pints of ice cream per person per year!  In 2013 it was recorded that the top 15 ice cream flavors start with vanilla then chocolate, butter pecan, strawberry, Neapolitan, chocolate chip, french vanilla, cookies and cream, vanilla fudge ripple, praline pecan, cherry, chocolate almond, coffee, rocky road, and last but not least chocolate marshmallow.

Doughnuts make it on the list as number nine. 344,700 doughnuts are produced each week in the US. There are more than 10 million made every year and the US Doughnut industry is worth about 3.6 billion dollars. Also, in America the first Friday of June is celebrated as National Doughnut Day.    

Number ten on this list is potato chips. People in America eat about 1.2 billion pounds of potato chips per year and the most popular flavors are onion, sour cream, and barbecue.

source:
http://visual.ly/top-10-americas-favorite-foods
 

Key Lime Pie

In my opinion, dessert is the best part of the meal. Often times I find myself thinking about dessert instead of my main course…. all thanks to my sweet tooth.  One dessert I love is key lime pie, and the best place to get it is where the limes come from, the Florida Keys.

            When I was in fourth grade my family and I went on a Disney Cruise. One of the places our boat stopped at was Key West. We got to tour the island, go to a pirate museum, and eat their famous Key lime pie of course!

            They have lots of Key lime flavored foods including key lime floats. The key lime floats were basically root beer floats but instead of root beer it was a yummy key lime drink with ice cream. And as for the key lime pie, it was out of this world. Since the limes that they use are grown right on the island, the pie tasted so good! And of course, the best way to eat it is with lots of fluffy meringue on top!

            The history of this famous key lime pie dates back to the end of the 18^th century.  It’s said that Florida’s first millionaire, William Curry had a cook called, “Aunt Sally” who made the first key lime pie. It’s a commonly told story but no one knows for sure if it’s completely accurate.

The three main ingredients in “Aunt Sally’s” recipe include lime juice, egg whites, and sweetened condensed milk. These ingredients together do not need to be cooked and they’re the reason for the pie’s texture and color. The limes, eggs, and condensed milk were readily available at the time, and are the reason key lime pie came to be. The canned milk did not need to be refrigerated, the limes were everywhere on the island, and lots of people got their eggs from chickens instead of a store, like most of us do now.

One other key lime pie theory is that it was originated by Sponge fishermen. These men would stay at sea for long periods of time and only had a small variety of food available to them on their boats. These ingredients just happened to be sweetened, condensed milk, limes, and eggs. Aunt Sally is actually connected to the Sponge fishermen. Some people believe that she got her recipe from these fishermen, and decided to try it out on William Curry. Mr. Curry obviously loved this dessert; otherwise it wouldn’t be an American favorite.  

source: http://www.key-largo-sunsets.com/history-of-key-lime-pie.html

Restaurant Technology

I’ve noticed in the past year that so many restaurants are getting the latest and most updated technology. One restaurant I love to go to is Panera Bread. When I was there I saw that they have a new system for ordering food. You just have to text them your order and you can go pick up your meal. Starbucks does this too. You just text them your order and it is there when you get there! This is great for the restaurants because it prevents long lines and promotes business.

                Another place that has a similar way of ordering is Noodles and Co. My family went on vacation this past summer and we had four little kids with us; two crazy little girls and two baby boys. It was hard for our whole family to go out to a sit-down restaurant and eat so we ordered in. All we had to do was get on the iPad and go to the website, order our food, and go pick it up. It was much easier than herding all the kids into the car and going out.

                These advances in technology are giving restaurants business they might otherwise not have. If a person can order on their phone, don’t you think they would rather do that than wait in line for ten minutes? I know I would!

                Even sit-down restaurants are starting to add iPads to the table. People can order from them and play games on them! I think this is probably good and productive for businesses, but is it good for the people using the iPads?  What happened to face to face communication, and families actually talking at the dinner table? I already see enough families go out to eat, and instead of talking they all stare absently at their phones like their devices are more important than the people sitting across from them. So it makes me wonder, is all this technology beneficial or is the good old fashioned way (that’s worked this whole time) good enough?

It's What's on the Inside That Counts

             I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrases, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts” and
“Don’t judge a book by its cover”. We always say these when referring to people and relationships but, these phrases can be applied to food as well.

It sound fun funny but, it’s true! What’s on the inside really does count. For instance, nobody likes being disappointed when they bite into what they think is a cream filled doughnut, and end up with a mouth full of cherry jelly. That’s a bad surprise but, there are good surprises too; like finding cookie dough in the middle of your chocolate cupcake! That’s always a treat (pun intended).

You can’t judge a book by its cover either…… or in this case you can’t judge a meal by its appearance/presentation. One of my mom’s friends was over and she was telling me about the time she had the best clam chowder of her life. Her and her husband went to this restaurant and ordered this clam chowder. She said it looked gray but it was amazing. She even said that the same clam chowder was served at presidential dinners! So obviously this soup was too good for people to care about the looks of it.

The same thing goes for this one deceiving piece of cheesecake I had. My mom had a party and invited a bunch of her friends over. One of the ladies brought this amazing looking cheesecake. She had obviously gotten it from the store but, it looked so good. There were chocolate pieces, cherry pieces, turtle pieces…… you get the point. So I tried a piece and it didn’t taste good at all! It didn’t even taste like cheesecake! I kept eating it, thinking it would get better but, all I managed to do was consume 400(or more) unworthy calories. So just remember, don’t judge until you try.

 

 

 

 

Diet vs. Regular

With so many people aiming to be healthier, they are going to the store and buying diet soda or diet juice. Do these diet sodas and juices really have more health benefits than regular soda and juices?

People choose to drink “diet”-labeled drinks for many different reasons. It might be because they want to be healthier, they like the taste better, or that’s all they had in the fridge. The question that is always being asked is, “is it really healthier?” I’ve heard many people including, my mom say that if you have to choose between diet soda and regular soda that you should choose regular soda. Even though it would mean choosing the one with a lot more sugar, it’s better for our bodies than the artificial sweeteners are. One reason is because our bodies know what to do with sugar. They just store it as fat; but our bodies don’t know what to do with artificial sweeteners since they’re made from chemicals.

                One artificial sweetener that had a bad rap is aspartame, and there’s a good reason for it too! According to Dr. Mercola, aspartame is an artificial sweetener made of aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol. The controversy over whether or not aspartame is safe is huge because, if people found out what aspartame does to people it could hurt the sales of the major food and drink industries. Aspartame actually is bad for our bodies. Even though it won’t make us fat like sugar does, it has a lot more side effects than sugar. It is linked to symptoms such as migraines, nausea, dizziness, seizures, anxiety attacks, hearing loss, and lots more. They even found that aspartame can trigger or worsen brain tumors, diabetes, mental retardation, Alzheimer’s and more.  To see the whole article of what Dr. Mercola has to say about aspartame you can go here:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/06/aspartame-most-dangerous-substance-added-to-food.aspx

                Because of its name people tend to not feel bad about drinking diet soda. They might even drink more because they think they aren’t adding to their daily calories. This is a way diet soda can trick the consumer. Diet soda is even addictive. Not only is the aspartame in diet soda addictive, so is the caffeine. I’m sure you’ve heard of, or at least know of someone who is addicted to caffeine. I used to have a history to teacher who was constantly drinking diet pepsi. I don’t know if she was addicted to the caffeine or the aspartame but, either way she had to be addicted to something in it! 

With all this sneaky, artificial sugar stuff it’s hard to know if what you’re eating (in this case drinking) is safe or not. One thing my family does is buy soda called Sevia. The sevia soda comes in lots of different flavors like the popular flavor cola, as well as lemon-lime, and cherry. You can find it at most health markets, and I think a lot of grocery stores are starting to carry it. Sevia is a soda sweetened by the stevia plant. We actually used to have our own stevia plant, and we would just pick the leaves off of it and eat them because they tasted like sugar. Stevia is a great alternative to sugar or aspartame, and knowing that I’m not drinking a bunch of chemicals makes my pop taste even better!

Sources:

-http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/01/diet.soda.health/

-http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/06/aspartame-most-dangerous-substance-added-to-food.aspx

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Oktoberfest

The history of Oktoberfest started all the way back in 1810 on October 12. Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese of Saxony and all the citizens were invited to the royal event. Today the Oktoberfest is the largest festival in the whole world. Each year 6 million people from all over come together to celebrate this special time. Oktoberfest takes place in Munich Germany and this year it started on September 20^th and ends October 5^th. Of course since it’s the biggest festival in the world and it is in Germany, what’s Oktoberfest without beer and pretzels?!

In 2007 almost 7 million liters of beer were served within the sixteen days of Oktoberfest! The most common beer consumed today is called pale lager. Pale lager was originally developed in the 19^th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took the brewing technique to Germany. Other brewers began using this technique which caused it to spread. The pale colored beer then became the most common type of beer.

Pretzels originated in Europe and have become a widely consumed product. In Germany, you’re guaranteed to find yourself a pretzel (Brezel in German); especially during Oktoberfest. Most pretzels come in the form of a knot and are seasoned with salt but pretzels can be topped with a vast amount of topping. You can put glazes, sugars, seeds, or nuts on your pretzel.

In Munich during the Oktoberfest hundreds of people go to the, “Zur Bratwurst”. This two-story house is a restaurant that specializes in sausage. The way they prepare their sausages at this German restaurant is fried…called, “Rostbratwürstl”. They also have other specialties including bratwurst made from roast pork and oxen.

Oktoberfest is a way for people all over the world to celebrate Germany’s history and is a great start to the new season.

Sources:

-http://www.muenchen.de/int/en/events/oktoberfest/history.html

-wikipedia.com

- http://www.oktoberfest.de/en/article/Beer+Tents/Small+tents/Zur+Bratwurst/374/

 

Uncommon Delicacies Cont...

          Surstromming is probably the smelliest meal out there but, if you don’t mind the fishy, pungent odor you might be a fan. This Swedish dish is canned Baltic herring fermented in brine. The smell is so horrible that some people have to go outside and submerge it in water just to open it! If you ever consider trying this fishy meal, the Swedish Institute recommends eating it with potatoes and onions on bread.  

            Another crazy delicacy is the puffer fish. This delicacy is very common in Japan, and may be one of the riskiest meals to eat. A single little puffer fish has enough poison to kill 30 people! The intestines, liver, and ovaries of these blowfish contain a poison called tetrodotoxin. According to Time Magazine, this poison is so lethal that a dose smaller than a pinhead can kill a person. Serious Eats says, the lips and tongue go numb and then the person goes into seizures and coma. So why in the world are thousands of these fish eaten in Japan every year?! Probably for the thrill of it; if you’re a thrill seeker you might want to put this on your bucker list!

            Century eggs are an Asian delicacy. They aren’t actually a century old but, they do take time and care to make. These black eggs start off as normal white eggs, and are preserved in mixture of ash, salt, lime, clay, and rice hulls (the hard protecting coverings of grains of rice). They are left in this mixture for weeks or months. The egg white turns into a jelly-like black substance and the yoke turns green. Once the egg is taken out the mixture it smells like ammonia but, it’s still edible. After eating a green century egg Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham doesn’t seem so far from reality.

            This last uncommon delicacy is a shocker. It is called Balut. Balut is made from a boiled, developing duck egg and is eaten right out of the shell. Inside the shell is a full duck; the beak, the eyes, the wings, and even sometimes feathers. This Filipino street food is as common and cheap as hotdogs are to us. If you’re into eating baby ducks there is a Filipino restaurant in New York that serves Balut. Who knows, maybe someday it will become as common as hotdogs are in New York.

 

 

Sources: wikipedia (for definition), http://www.weather.com/travel/10-bizarre-delicacies-world-photos-20130821?pageno=4

Uncommon Delicacies

               Living in America, the food that we eat here is completely normal to us but, it may not be to others. The same thing goes for other countries such as China and France. We all are accustomed to our own tastes of food, which makes some other country’s food seem bizarre and even uncommon.  

                The first uncommon delicacy I’ll be talking about is bird’s nest soup. Bet you haven’t heard of this one before! It is a Chinese delicacy that is made from swallows’ nests. You might think, “Ew! They’re eating twigs” but no, it’s more bizarre than that! The swallow nests aren’t made from twigs, they’re made from swallow spit. The bird saliva is cleaned and cooked in broth to be served.  That’s an uncommon delicacy I’m not willing to try!

                This next delicacy called casu marzu is actually banned from the United States! It’s a type of Sardinian cheese that is filled with maggots! According to Smithsonian magazine, the fly larvae are supposed to be eaten alive. And according to Serious Eats, it has a taste similar to gorgonzola cheese with hints of black pepper. So if you’re ever in Sardinia and have adventurous taste buds, this is the dish for you!

                Anyone want some wiggling octopus legs? This famous Korean dish is called Sannakji and consists of baby octopus tentacles and sesame oil. People who have eaten it say that the suction cups can get stuck to your teeth tongue and throat so, if you ever want to try this, chew carefully! This dish is now also served at restaurants in New York, and reviewers say, “Tastes of the clean open sea.”

                This delicacy is far from edible in my opinion but, if you’ve ever eaten bugs (and liked it) I guess this is the dish for you…………fried tarantulas. This “meal” originated in Cambodia and according to CNN is now served fried with sugar, garlic, and salt. The legs have long white muscles in them, and people are surprised at how chewy they are. I definitely admire the brave souls who have tried these crunchy spiders!

                Escamoles………… this dish found in Mexico is basically, “ant caviar”. According to LA Weekly, these ant larvae are served sautéed with butter, cilantro, and onions. These little critter eggs are actually quite nutritious for our bodies but, I don’t really think I could get past the fact that they’re baby ants. If you see a bowl of escamoles you might mistake it for risotto so take caution! Before you ask your friend for a bite, make sure you know what they’re eating!

                Rocky Mountain oysters….. these “oysters” aren’t even real oysters. They’re bull calf testicles and they’re pretty common in the American West. The testicles are breaded and fried before serving. Even if all fried food is “good” I’m not willing to try these. If you’re an adventurer and want to try some testicles there’s a Rocky Mountain Oyster Festival and BBQ in Aspen, where you can get your fried delicacies!

Source: http://www.weather.com/travel/10-bizarre-delicacies-world-photos-20130821?pageno=7