Short Orders for Friday - Weird Sno-Cones, White Chocolate Pringles, and More!

Introducing Short Orders
Not every specimen collected in the fields of the Food Kingdom is going to be worthy of a full and lengthy review, yet these odds and ends still merit a mention.  Occasionally then we will compile these bite-sized commentaries for your perusal.

Coming to a Clearance Shelf Near You: White Chocolate Pringles
The prominent and extremely prescient "Limited Time Only" message on the label tells you they knew they were making a mistake and just couldn't help themselves.  It's not as though chocolate and potatoes are two great tastes that are known to go together and there is the additional question of whether white chocolate even has an identifiable taste.  White chocolate in its premium form is a combination of cocoa butter, milk solids, and usually some kind of vanilla extract, barring the introduction of some custom ingredient, as in peppermint bark.  All of these things do have flavors, it's just that they're subtle and mild, not bold and assertive. So can they do anything to enhance a potato chip?  Well, actually they can.  The secret is to place the curved surface of the chip directly on your tongue before biting down so that the confectioners' sugar and "sweet cream powder" can make a salty-sweet dairy impression before dissolving away and leaving you faced with the reality of the remaining crisp: dried, pressed, formed and fried potato flakes.  These are actually a fairly pleasant snack, but doomed to fail; nobody clamors for the fairly pleasant.

The pleasingly bland taste of whiteness in a can.

A Retreat to the Home Kitchen: Spiced Mediterranean Burgers

A passion for fast food in no way entails a distaste for good home-cooked meals.  Moderation and balance is the key to the good life, and a meal cooked from scratch always delivers to the soul that je ne sais quoi that puts one's mental and physical health back in balance.  The act of chopping, forming, smelling, tasting, and sensually encountering the ingredients is some combination of meditation and thoughtful foreplay prior to the consummation devoutly to be wished.

These spiced Mediterranean lamb burgers were an especially satisfying success.  Adapted from a recipe in Fine Cooking, the one magazine to which I subscribe, I substituted beef for lamb (because I had another half pound from a big bonus buy to use up) and hamburger buns instead of pitas for the same reason.  The sour dollop of Greek yogurt and the garlicky Mediterranean herb paste were the perfect foil for the sweet tomato and the sear-crusted spicy beef patty. Also, you can use the leftover herb paste as a nice mix-in for all sorts of things.  Vegetarians could easily substitute a veggie patty and get excellent results.

Please don't call it food porn.  This is food you have a relationship with, and the ingredients are treated with respect.

Flavor Weirdness on the Washington Mall
Spotted on one of the food trucks that now line the streets surrounding the National Mall in Washington D.C. was this list of Snow Ball flavors, fairly pedestrian with two big exceptions.  One of these flavors is modeled after a disfavored architectural element of passive solar design, and the other would seem to have no natural constituency outside of the lactose intolerant.

The cool taste of glass, steel, and sunlight!  Plus, all the creaminess of frozen custard captured with ice crystals and syrup.

Wendy's New Burger Bun: The Point Is Invisibility

Buns are in flux in fast food today.  McDonald's premium Clubhouse sandwiches feature a so-called "artisan" roll and Wendy's started experimenting with a "brioche" bun a little over a year ago.  Now their new "bakery style" bun is the default bread for all of their burgers and chicken sandwiches.  It's certainly a cosmetic improvement: with its egg-wash shine and random cracks and fissures, it has a non-standardized, uneven look that belies its factory origins.

The new Wendy's bun looks substantial and delicate at the same time, suggesting a toothsome crackle and yeasty, chewy resistance.  Appearances are deceiving.

There are, however, two contradictions at the heart of all this revamping and facelifting of fast-food burger buns.  The first is that it's simply impossible to create shelf-stable bread with the traits of freshly baked bread.  The same thing that gives crusty bread its chewy substantiality also condemns it to go stale in less than a day.  Just as there's no such thing as a good two-day old baguette, there's no way (yet) to create a bun that lasts as long as cottony dinner rolls but tastes like a rustic loaf. The related contradiction is that until this conundrum is solved and we come up with a roll that's delicious on its own, nobody really wants to taste the bun at all.  It's merely a way to get the meat and toppings into your mouth without getting grease on your hands, and a vessel for catching all those juices and drippings.  Wendy's has correctly surmised, then, that we want a bun that looks appealing, but nearly disappears into the background once bitten, and that is what they've achieved.  This bun never gets soggy, and holds its shape with vigor, yet beyond that it barely registers.  With Wendy's fresh, high quality beef and crisp, fresh toppings, that's actually what you want.  This "artisanal" roll is a bait-and-switch, but it's a shrewd one.

In cross-section, the truth of this bun is exposed.  It's merely a vessel for the ample lettuce, red onion, tomato, condiments, and of course the beef. Note how the cottony interior is still remarkably resilient, never collapsing into a sodden mess.

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