Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

How Lobster Got Fancy

June 7, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
red-jacket-lobster

Ordering lobster in a restaurant, serving lobster at a party, indicating that one’s favorite food is lobster is not at all the same thing as doing all of that with, say, turkey, or even something more exotic like lamb. No, lobster is money. It’s also delicious, of course, but lobster means an abandonment of thrift and signifies the use of coin for the pursuit of pleasure. Here's Greg Elwell in the Oklahoma Gazette: "Lobster is fancy. If you imagine a lobster talking, it probably has a British accent. Draw an animated lobster and I bet you’ll include a top hat, a monocle, and an opera ... Read More

More like this: Business & Economics
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Faith-Based Zucchini

June 6, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
zucchini-flower

I can’t help it: I love science. It’s how I make sense of the universe, how I make decisions when there is so much emotion, so much confusion that surround basic things. Does dairy cause asthma? No, no chance, according to a study by Australia’s Monash Medical School. Does juice contribute to obesity in children? Probably not, according to a study by the University of California-San Francisco. So I let my two small kids have cheese, even when they’re wheezy. And I let them drink juice (but not soda—a study out of Children’s Hospital in Boston (PDF) says that does contribute to ... Read More

More like this: Health
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Distracted Dining Increases Desire for Sugary, Salty Foods

June 4, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
potato-chips

Our eating habits have changed radically in recent decades, in at least two distinct ways. We increasingly multitask as we consume our meals, munching as we work at our desk or watch television. And, to the dismay of nutritionists, our food has higher concentrations of sugar and salt. New research from the Netherlands suggests the two phenomena may be directly related. A study just published in the journal Psychological Science finds people eating or drinking while mentally distracted require greater concentrations of sweetness, sourness, or saltiness to feel satisfied. A slightly sweet ... Read More

More like this: Findings, Health
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Restaurant Talent Migration

May 10, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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In the foodie universe, Pittsburgh was a culinary cul-de-sac. On the other hand, Cleveland has sported a vibrant restaurant scene for quite some time. Regardless, both cities suffered from a Rust Belt reputation. What could be worth eating in a dying backwater? A recent New York Times article to the rescue: Until recently, the American food revolution seemed to bypass this region, leaping from Chicago to Philadelphia without making stops in places like Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, and Pittsburgh. These cities of the Rust Belt, which edges around the Great Lakes from Buffalo to Detroit, are ... Read More

More like this: Burgh Diaspora
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Supermarkets: Enter Hungry, Exit With Chips and Chocolate

May 6, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
shopping-cookies

You know the cliché that it’s unwise to shop for food when you’re hungry? New research suggests it’s absolutely true. Two experiments—one in a lab, another that tracked actual supermarket purchases—provide evidence that famished food shoppers don’t necessarily buy more items, but the ones that end up in their carts are less likely to come from the health-food or produce aisles. “Even short-term food deprivation can lead to a shift in choices, such that people choose less low-calorie, and relatively more high-calorie food options,” write Cornell University food ... Read More

More like this: Findings, Health
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You Gonna Eat That?

April 9, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
cafeteria-trays

When I was a sophomore in college, a near mutiny arose on campus after the administration announced that, forthwith, all plastic trays would be removed from our cafeterias. Not only did the trays encourage students to waste food, Old Chapel argued, but washing them all—in addition to the usual slew of plates, bowls, and flatware—consumed a needless amount of chemical detergent, hot water, and worker wages. (They also had a pesky habit of winding up on the sledding hill in winter.) This being rural Vermont, and with so little else to organize against—the Dow was above 14,000, Occupy Wall ... Read More

More like this: Environment, The 101
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Hey, Come Try This Organic Corn Dog

April 4, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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We're fickle about what we eat. Whether our proscriptions are religious (no alcohol, no pork), dietary (no gluten, no dairy), ideological (no cages, no cruelty), environmental (no pesticides, no GMOs) or simply faddish (no carbs, no sugar), we know just what we want when we walk into Price Chopper. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean we know what we’re eating. New research from Cornell suggests that a “health halo” exists around organic products, including chips, cookies, and yogurt, which leads consumers to consistently underestimate their caloric content and overestimate ... Read More

More like this: Findings, Health
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Guilt Makes the Pie Taste Sweeter

November 20, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
guiltypie

Many of us who generally maintain a healthy diet will fall off the wagon over the upcoming holidays. We’ll be offered a particularly enticing appetizer or dessert and, after some initial hesitation, indulge. While that process inevitably produces internal conflict, it turns out we are rewarded for our discomfort. According to newly published research, the guilt we feel may make that decadent treat taste even more delicious than it otherwise would. When succumbing to temptation, “people who are primed with guilt subsequently experience greater pleasure than people who are not,” ... Read More

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The Great Depression and the Rise of the Refrigerator

October 9, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Refrigerator ads from the April 16, 1933 San Antonio Light (San Antonio, TX)

When I moved to Los Angeles and began my search for an apartment I was a little surprised by the fact that a refrigerator wasn't included with most of the units I toured. In every other city where I've ever lived, the average apartment always included a refrigerator with the cost of rent. I was only looking for a one-bedroom apartment, but I was expecting that this was the norm everywhere for the most basic of apartments. When I asked the manager of the apartment building I wound up renting from why there was no refrigerator, she explained that the property only supplies "the essentials." ... Read More

More like this: Time Machine
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Adding a Crock Pot to the Environmental Arsenal

August 20, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

Today’s Wall Street Journal has another entry in the “if you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em” category of dealing with invasive species. In this case, Arian Campo-Flores writes about Puerto Rico’s attempts to knock down rampant iguana populations by capturing them and selling their meat in other Latin-American locales where iguana is routinely eaten. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyCEexG9xjw (For those of you who missed or weren’t born for Wall of Voodoo’s excellent 15 minutes above, here’s some recipes, one for stew and one for taco filling.) The underlying concept is ... Read More

More like this: Environment, The 101
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