And the Next Great Food Idea Is …

As much as I hate commercial television (primarily for the commercials), I occasionally succumb to the mindlessness and have the set on in the background.  Every time I do, I’m reminded of why I turned the damned thing off in the first place.

Case in point:  Had the tube on yesterday in “background noise” mode, when a commercial jumped out of the clutter, demanding my attention.  The product:  Freschetta PizzaMore, the latest frozen pizza product from the Schwan Food Company (who also make Red Baron, Tony’s, and other brands).  But the pizza wasn’t what caught my attention, it was that it comes pre-sliced.

That’s right:  pre-sliced.

The minute I heard that, the Eggo commercial from 2003 (where they introduced Eggo Maple Syrup) ran through my mind.  Rocket surgery, pure and simple.  Rocket surgery.

What the bloody blue blazes have we come to if we don’t have time to cut up a pizza?  Are we so busy that we can’t take the extra, what, 15 seconds to whack a slice out of a pie?  Or, are we so afraid that we’ve forgotten how to use knives that, to keep ourselves safe, we invent products that remove the need for them?

Wait, hold the phone.  Knife-less food.  Would work well on airplanes.  Ok, so maybe there are places where that would be an idea.  But … still … what gives?

What’s next, you might ask?  What will human ingenuity invent next?  I’ll tell you and (unlike the plethora of “make a million dollars … if you buy my book” hustlers) I’m going to give the idea away.  Right here, right now.  Free.  Take it and become the next great idea.

Here it is:  Pre-chewed food.  Think about it:

• Nothing to cut up.  No knives.
• Reduces (or eliminates) stress on your teeth.  For that matter, you can enjoy it even when you have no teeth, so a consumer could purchase the product for a longer period of their lives (more profits to the business).
• Guaranteed textural consistency.
• A complete meal could be served up out of a yogurt tub.  And, if the tub is “green”, so much the better.

It’s not as revolutionary a concept as you might think.  Native Alaskan tribes will pre-chew whale blubber before feeding it to people too weak to chew their own food.  No worries, thought, the Aleuts don’t hold a patent on the process.

There you go:  Pre-chewed food.  Go forth and gather VC support.

But remember:  You learned about it here.

Grilling Poll

Dom Deluise Passes

When I learned of Dom's passing, my brain immediately flew back to a cooking CD he released. A little digging on YouTube turned up this:

He will be missed.

Happy Tur-drunk-en Day

Wow.  It’s been that long since I posted?  I’ve got to get in the swing of being more consistent.  What a year. 

At any rate, 2 years ago I posted some advice for Thanksgiving cooking for the culinary challenged, it’s only appropriate that we do it again.  This year, here’s another take on the traditional faire (taken from a variety of sources online):

Ingredients:

• 1 Turkey (sized appropriately)
• 1 bottle Scotch whiskey

Instructions:

1. Take a drink of the whiskey
2. Put turkey in the oven
3. Take 2 drinks of whiskey
4. Set the degree at 375 ovens
5. Take 3 more whiskeys of drink
6. Turn the oven on
7. Take 4 whisks of drinky
8. Turk the bastey
9. Whiskey another bottle of get
10. Stick a turkey in the thermometer
11. Glassh yourself a pour of whiskey
12. Bake the whiskey for 4 hours
13. Take the oven out of the turkey
14. Take the oven out of the turkey
15. Floor the turkey up off of the pick
16. Turk the carvey
17. Get yourself another scottle of botch
18. Tet the sable and pour yourself a glass of turkey
19. Bless the saying, pass and eat out

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

"Well, Where's the Pleasure In That?!?"

While shopping at Sam's Club this evening, I came across the following item:

I guess it had to happen.  What started with "sugar free" sweeteners (remember saccharin?), moved on to decaffeinated coffee (remember Sanka?), and then passed through alcohol-free beer and tofurkey while stopping off at sparkling grape juice has now brought us to "wine-free ... err ... wine".  Great, wonderful, fantastic, I can hardly contain my excitement:  we've got the basic components of "synthahol" down ... just backwards (or sideways, or something).

Medical science has started to accept the fact that there are good things to be gained from drinking red wine.  It was only a matter of time before an enterprising businessman turned it into a marketable item (what with all the pomegranate, goji, and acai elixirs now on the market.  I'll buy that ... to a point.

Yet another example of how we allow ourselves to experience things (or parts of things) without having to actually experience the things in reality.  Stupid.  Oh, yeah, it'll probably make money ... but that doesn't make it smart.

Oh, and bonus points to who can tell me where the title quote came from.