Sad news for vegetarians 😢
About special taxes on food, 3-D printed food, loudest shrimp in the ocean and high-ly rated recipes.
Good morning. Did you know that every iPhone in every promotional photo shows a screen time of 9:41. Random coincidence? Obviously not. But why 9:41? The use of that exact time is an homage to Steve Jobs' announcement of the first iPhone at that time in 2007.
That being said, we have some news to share. In an effort to keep Simmer more entertaining without resorting to knock-knock jokes, we will be sending out a new edition every two weeks for the next few months. But don't worry, we promise to cram in even more news, recipes, and quirky facts to keep you entertained!
PS: The Simmer logo will soon have 6:04 on it — the time when our first edition was sent out.
In the food world
🤑 Tax-free
Along with being the most linguistically diverse city in the world, New York is also known for its bagel tax — the ultimate schmear campaign! If you buy a whole, unsliced bagel, it's tax-free. But slice it and add cream cheese at a deli, bam! You're hit with the "bagel tax". However, H&H Bagels and Philly have found a way around it with their "Tax-Free Bagel" — they stuff the cream cheese inside the bagel, bypassing the slicing and smearing process, and avoiding the additional tax.
#️⃣ Hershey vs hashish
Americans are happily swapping their chocolate and beer for weed and gummies, with legal cannabis sales hitting an estimated $30 billion in 2022. Gummies are the most popular edible, generating around $100 million in monthly sales. Although legal sales are still outweighed by the illicit market, it's clear that Americans love a good buzz and are willing to fork over big bucks for it.
🧃Green Pepsi
PepsiCo is taking the 'green' plunge with its new compostable packaging learning center. It's a one-stop-shop for testing new materials and solutions that won't take eons to develop. And since they're doing the testing themselves, they don't have to wait for third-party labs that are slower than a snail with a hangover. But there's still work to be done before PepsiCo's dream of a compostable world becomes a reality.
Jump to recipe → Print
Still struggling to make weeknight meals less boring? Well, get ready to add a whole new dimension (literally) to your dining experience with 3D-printed food. Be it a pizza shaped like a unicorn or the Mona Lisa made with mashed potato, the possibilities are endless!
How does it work?
Food 3D printing is similar to regular 3D printing but with food. The ingredients are put into a syringe-like container that shoots out edible shapes and designs, one layer at a time.
The printer is equipped with diode lasers to show what Gordon Ramsay would look like in an Iron Man costume. These lasers emit a precise amount of heat to custom-cook the food while it’s being printed.
Foods that can be converted into a paste-like consistency, such as puréed vegetables, doughs, cheeses, jellies, frostings, and chocolate, are commonly used for 3D printing.
Benefits
Personalizing meals: Meals can be micromanaged down to the last calorie, vitamin, and nutrient. Perfect for hospitals, health freaks, and that controlling ex.
Unconventional food consumption: By processing plants and protein-rich bugs into a semi-liquid goo, unconventional foods could look more gourmet.
Easy reproducibility: Replicating recipes would involve just emailing the file 🤯.
Drawbacks
Slowwww: 3D printing of food is still pretty time-consuming. Thanksgiving dinners could potentially turn into Christmas dinners.
Expensive: The equipment, consumables along with the necessary training, limits its use to only high-end fine dining restaurants.
Future
3D printing in food is still learning how to crawl into the culinary world. However, it is expected to see more adoption in plant-based meat companies, where food texture is important. It is also being explored as a food source aboard spaceships.
Not so airtight
Tupperware — the company that has been making a mini fridge inside of your fridge for 77 years couldn't have imagined a day when they would be struggling to stay afloat. However, that day may be on the horizon as the company hired advisors to help find a way to stay in business, causing its stock to nose-dive by almost 50%.
The life of the party
Founded in 1947, Tupperware wasn't an immediate hit, but thanks to home parties that allowed women to sell the containers to their friends and family, the product took off.
Through these groundbreaking ragers and the ability to keep food fresh by storing it in a tightly sealed container, Tupperware became like a VIP section, reserved only for the most important foods in our lives.
Steady decline
However, as the company became old enough to file for Medicare, it struggled to connect with a younger demographic. It’s been forced to move from traditional party sales to online retailers and brick-and-mortar stores. They even partnered with Target last October but the sales increase hasn’t matched expectations.
What next?
While the company had a brief surge in sales during the pandemic, Tupperware’s financial situation is far from airtight. They're scrambling to raise cash from investors, considering layoffs, and exploring selling off some of their real estate. But, they’re still in danger of going from Tupper-where to Tupper-nowhere.
Quiz
Ever been blindsided when the price of a snack doubles or triples based on where you buy it? The United States tax code is one thing, but every state has its own tax rules as well. And many are stuffed with absurd taxes. Here are some examples. All true, except one. Let’s see if you can spot it.
Indiana levies candy tax on marshmallows but not on marshmallow cream.
New Yorkers are subject to the additional 8 cents “bagel cutting tax”.
Detroit has an extra 4.2% tax on hot hot dogs vs the cold ones.
Colorado taxes all “nonessential packaging” such as straws, lids and stir sticks an extra 2.9%.
*Answer at the bottom
Did you know?
The word "avocado" comes from the Aztec word "ahuacatl," which means testicle. Do whatever you please with that information.
Pistol shrimp, a delicacy in Southeast Asia, truly packs a punch. It can create a sonic boom as loud as 218 decibels. That's louder than a jet engine taking off, or your neighbor's teenage garage band and is powerful enough to mess with submarine sonar systems.
Portugal cooked up the world's biggest omelet in 2012 which weighed over 6 tons using a whopping 145,000 eggs… down payment for a house these days!
Kitchen tips
Give your fridge and freezer a filing system by labeling and dating your food. This tracks food better and prevents waste without having to play Russian roulette with your stomach. Painter’s tape makes for a simple and inexpensive label.
No buttermilk, no sweat! You can whip up a simple substitute by mixing regular milk with an acidic ingredient like lemon juice or vinegar.
Slicing an onion lengthwise i.e. root to tail, exposes less open fiber ends, reducing the area for onion “juice” to escape while cooking, resulting in a crunchier output. Whereas, crosswise slices result in a jammy texture.
420 cooking 101
Cannabutter: Cannabutter can transform brownie batter, cookie dough, or just about any recipe into a batch of homemade edibles.
Infused olive oil: Perfect for anyone who wants to learn how to make a dairy-free, plant-based cannabis oil for various recipes.
Tincture: Homemade cannabis tincture (aka Green Dragon) using a simple cold alcohol extraction method.
Also Simmering
Taco Bell innovation playbook: What makes Taco Bell the most innovative food chain.
Sad news for vegetarians: A TikTok content creator who prides himself on knowing "fast food secrets" reveals the secret to the world’s greatest fries.
Stimulant + relaxant = run!: Here’s why Starbucks latest creation, Oleato is giving some people diarrhea.
Deals on munchies: Database of enhanced appetite deals. Save it for next year?
Cottage cheese ice cream: Cottage cheese is the new cauliflower.
While this simmers…
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Answer
No extra tax on hot hot dogs vs cold ones in Detroit as far as we know.
Interesting! I just wrote a piece for the BBC about 3D food printing.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/3d_printed_food