snackdown! - 2.19.10

it's official, world. it's been a world-class week ever since they lit up the doobie-inspired olympic flame in vancouver last friday. personally, i haven't watched a single minute of the games but from what i hear, we've already had triumph & heartbreak & even death. throughout it all, we've had copious mcdonald's commercials advertising their "sweet chili sauce," the very same duck saucesque sauce eaten by olympians in the olympic village! the same sauce eaten by all those world-class athletes who've decided to wait until the week of competition to say "fuck all" to the strict diets they've been adhering to during their years of training & start wolfing down athlete-sized portions of chicken mcnuggets. maybe the curlers are able to get away with eating mcdonalds, but i'm even skeptical of that. regardless...world-class week.

• last friday, as part of little debbie's 50th anniversary celebration event, airtran unveiled the "little debbie 1," a boeing 717 jet with little debbie's smiling face plastered onto the side of it. in addition to introducing the plane, airtran & little debbie be cross-promotin', giving away fifty vacation packages to lucky customers. at the event, they also announced the winner of their little debbie look-a-like contest, tennessee seven-year old rhea lynne connor. i don't know. she sorta looks like little debbie. since she won, her face is going to be featured on boxes of little debbie for a limited time. too bad she doesn't get it on the side of a plane. (seattle post-intelligencer)


• in the category of "that's bloody disgusting," starting today chessington world of adventures, a u.k. theme park, will be giving away free sample bags of edible insects to guests. theme park general manager david smith has given the insect treats a test & gives them the thumbs up, but he's general manager of a theme park with an area called "beanoland," so you sort of have to take his opinion with a grain of salt. if it turns out that people actually enjoy the bags of edible insects, they plan to start selling them in "wild asia," the new asian-themed area of the park. what can we learn from this? asian people are synonymous with eating bugs. (the telegraph)


• are you obsessively following the olympics? does anyone even do that anymore? if you are olympic-obsessed, you're probably the type of person who would get a kick out of making your very own olympic-themed snacks. luckily, the philly inquirer has offered up a recipe for nanaimo bars, a british columbia coffee shop staple. the treats, which are named for a town on vancouver island, are made up of three layers, "a chocolate-graham cracker base embedded with coconut and nuts; a buttercream middle enriched with vanilla custard; and a smooth dark chocolate top." if you're fancy, you can even top them with icing in the shape of the olympic rings. they're apparently pretty fattening, but what do you care? it's not like you're competing in the olympics or anything. (philadelphia inquirer)


• i don't know what's up with nicolas sarkozy's conservative-republican party, but they seem to have issues with the french muslim population. first they go & ban burqas & headscarves & now that quickburger (a local chain) has started serving burgers made with beef slaughtered according to sharia law, they've got their panties in a bunch again. apparently they're extremely concerned that the existence of sharia meat will lead to cultural isolation. um, yeah. the best way to promote cultural harmony is to take issue with a certain section of the population's religious-based dietary habits. that makes perfect sense. keep up the good work, france! (ynetnews)


• cnn, the cable news channel known for seamlessly blending disaster stories, celebrity breakdowns & political scandal into award-winning news programs, has jumped on the snack bandwagon with their "snack nation" column, a part of their tokyo-based "cnn go" coverage. the column, which provides coverage of different japanese snacks, has in the past taken a look at items such as "chocolate sparkling soda" & "pepsi azuki" (a red bean-based beverage). this week, they reviewed kirin's "espresso tea," a black tea product. according to the review, it actually tastes more like a cafe au lait than espresso, but what did you expect? after all, it's a tea leaf-based canned beverage. from what i can tell, there's not a lick of "espresso" in it...crazy japanese. (cnn go)

nosh nook #146 - monday, october 5, 2009

mcdonald's restaurants to open at the louvre (link)
10.04.09 - the telegraph - by henry samuel

the french hate a lot of things. they obviously hate americans, but they also hate head scarves, uncultured cultures & deodorant. even though they hate americans, with the exception of one dude, they pretty much all love mcdonald's. in fact, they love mcdonald's so much that they're the country with the second most mcdonald's in it, behind the united states. i'm going to assume it has a lot to do with the french fries. you know what they call french fries over in france? "frites." i know! you know what they call a big mac over there? oh, never mind. anyway, mcdonald's is celebrating its 30th anniversary in france & they're doing so in grand style.

to celebrate, they're opening up their "1,142nd gallic outlet" & their artsiest location yet "a few yards from the entrance to the country's mecca of high art and the worlds most visited museum," the louvre. according to the telegraph, museum staff are sort of peeved about having such a symbol of evil global consumerism in such close proximity to the mona lisa. one art historian said, "this is the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odours in the context of a museum." unpleasant? personally, i think there might be something artistic in seeing the venus de milo whilst the smell of sizzling meat & frites wafts past your nose.

the mcdonald's is going to be part of a food court featuring world cuisine (mcdonald's = america) & in the next three years, a new ticket booth will be erected right nearby. the same peeved art historian noted that "the first thing visitors will likely see when they arrive are big golden arches." what's wrong with that? i believe andy warhol said it best when he said "the most beautiful thing in tokyo is mcdonald's. the most beautiful thing in stockholm is mcdonald's. the most beautiful thing in florence is mcdonald's. peking and moscow don't have anything beautiful yet." c'mon, france! don't you want something beautiful right at the entrance to the louvre? andy would've wanted it that way.