Reading Material 12.18.15

This week’s readings:

A scandal in the hipster chocolate world:

Blogger Claims Brooklyn Chocolate Company Mast Brothers Was Founded on Lies, Eater.

A number of articles this year have brought some very negative press for the Mast Brothers, hipster chocolate demigods. The horrifying claim, in the world of gourmet chocolate anyway, is that in their humble Carhartt-clad origins, the brothers melted down ready to eat chocolate, poured it as their own, and repackaged the end result as a ‘bean to bar’ product. There’s a special place in hell for people that lie about chocolate.

Scandal in the seafood department:

Don’t Eat That Shrimp, Washington Post

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to people, yet it does. Ready to eat shrimp, those sold already peeled and deveined, are largely the result of slave labor. While there are no simple solutions, buying whole wild-caught, rather than farmed, shrimp, and taking care of the cleaning yourself, is a small start.

I’m incredibly jealous of anyone receiving this gift:

What’s More Presidential Than a Gift of Big Cheese? The Plate, National Geographic. 

Several U.S. presidents have received rather large wheels of cheese as gifts over the years. And by rather large I mean 1,400 pounds of cheese large. That’s a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches.

In there are worse things you could eat news:

That Christmas when Parisians Ate the Zoo, Messynessy Chic.

A brief account of the Parisian winter of 1870-1871, when the city was under German siege, during the Franco-Prussian War. Cut off from food supplies, and once the cats, dogs, rats and horses were consumed, there was no where to turn for meat supplies except for the zoo.

and:

What Will it Take for Americans to Eat Insects? Eater

Short answer: probably more than a German siege. As a dedicated omnivore, I have consumed and enjoyed bugs. Some crickets taste so much like spicy potato chips that blind-folded, you may not know the difference. But that doesn’t mean I’m eating worm fudge ice cream anytime soon. I do have some limits.

Let’s end on a happy note:

In Praise of Pepín: France’s Second Greatest Gift to America, Huffington Post

Jacques Pepín turns 80 soon, and will soon end his very long television career, one dedicated not to glitz and glamour, but to actually teach cooking in a straightforward manner. 

As he says, Happy Cooking.