Several of you might have heard of this excellent philosophical time waster before, but it’s new to me (apparently it was first devised by Wilfrid Sellars):
Identify three foods A, B, and C such that any two of these are complementary (taste good in combination) but the trio does not. So A and B must be complementary, B and C must be complementary, and A and C must be complementary, but A, B, and C must be foul when combined together. (It’s harder than I thought!)
Here are some possible answers. I opt for Coke, Merlot, and Chicken. The pointer is from Ananda Gupta.
Addendum: In the comments, Stephen Dubner nails it.
me,my ex and her father.
I agree. did Tyler just overlook that?
Well, I’ll be a monkey’s unlce. Although, if they tast good together, I doubt that they would ruin chicken.
(A) Cranberry sauce; (B) Turkey; (C) Milk. A+B are great; B+C are fine; A+C are lethal.
peanut butter and bananas= a Graceland delight
peanut butter and Pork= a tasty thai dish (sort of)
pork with banana sauce= actually quite good.
peanut butter, bananas and pork= less than appetizing
DK is right. Dubner’s answer is invalid. And you can talk about Coke and merlot all you want – I’m not buying it.
How about Orange, Cream & Vodka?
Orange & vodka => screwdriver
Orange & Cream => yummy orange-cream thing
Cream & vodka => White Russian
Orange & cream & vodka => yeech
To get an idea of how hard this is, check out the link below and click a bit through the images. They sound weird, but I’ve eaten most of them, and most of them are delicious. And of course this is just one example of the genre…
http://www.cafeatlantico.com/miniBar/images.htm
I had this martini
Orange & cream & vodka
just a week ago. it was delightful.
I’m not sure this can be done.
Yeah, if orange, cream and vodka is actually good and chocolate, mint & cumin might be good (I would believe that someone on Food Network chef could pull it off) then I bet Lamb & PB & J could also be well done by a good chef. It might indeed be impossible.
Drugs and sex and rock n’ roll.
The problem with the Lamb, Peanut Butter, and Jelly answer is that the jelly used in lamb + jelly is not generally the same kind as that used in a PB & J. They are both jellies, but one is generally mint-based, and the other is usually fruit preserves of some kind.
Cilantro and Basil: Thai food
Cilantro and Oregano: Mexican food
Basil and Oregano: Italian food
Cilantro, Basil, and Oregano: Yuck
Not sure if this counts because herbs aren’t eaten alone.
How about
Chile Powder (cayenne if you want to be specific)
Chocolate
Pineapple
Chile+Chocolate – great, spicy Mexican hot chocolate
Chile+Pineapple – good in an Indian fruit salad (chaat style)
Chocolate+Pineapple – decent fondue combination
All three sounds pretty bad, but it might be salvageable.
The best answer to this will probably involve some sort of chemical reaction, I think. (like two slowly reacting nontoxic substances that react very fast with some edible metal catalyst (think gold or silver leaf)).
anonymous – that’s 4 objects, not 3. Do it with just Murphy, Katz and Krueger vs. M+K+K.
Green Jello, Entemanns Chocolate Donuts, Scallops.
???
None of them would mix with any of the others.
Um…
Egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg, bacon and spam; egg, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, bacon, sausage and spam; spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam; spam, spam, spam, egg and spam; spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam, and spam; or lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a mornay sauce garnished with truffle pate, brandy and a fried egg on top and spam.
oh poop. Nitroglycerin is used as a vasodilator and in small quantities is quite edible. And according to wikipedia it is now being used in condoms to stimulate erections. Who woulda thunk it?
I vote for DVH’s response.
Rhubarb, Foie, Strawberry:
Foie and Rhubarb = a common preparation
Foie and Strawberry = Also not uncommon
Strawberry + Rhubarb = very nice / common combo
The three together =
(although http://www.tasteofireland.com/recipes.rvt/46.html … it sounds terrible, altogether too overpowering and sweet).
Does Rhubarb, Foie, and Gelatin count: Foie terine (with gelatin) are very nice, but I would not use rhubarb in that preparation.
Dubner nailed it? Dubner can’t read and his “riff” is foolish. I suspect this is what happens when a nerd becomes fashionable. Please be careful Tyler.
I thought of cheese, PB, and jelly, but my fiancee has eaten all of them at once. “It’s not so bad.”
The problem is not well specified.
We are not given units, quantities, nor an objective definition of “tastes good”.
I can always make something good taste terrible by forcing you to eat too much of it.
The more general choice problem is this.
Let A, B, and C share some properties from the set Pi.
Let certain combinations of Pi, the Rules, imply a that there is a relationship between A and B. For example, Pi(A) & Pj(B) imply R(A,B). They idea here is that certain properties of A and B in combination are responsible for some relation between A and B, such as tastes good, looks as red as, etc.
Constrain the set of Rules so that R is a symmetric, transitive and reflexive.
The general problem then is:
Can you construct the tri-part Relation R’(A,B,C) from the same Rules, such that R’(A,B,C) is distinct from R(A,B) & R(A,C) & R(B,C), ie R’ is a genuine emergent relation.
cabbage mayonnaise ham
I like chocolate, ice cream and strawberries – what’s wrong with that?
Also, was “gauche” a part of the question? Being from the south, I don’t have a prob with that as a social issue but, frankly, I only eat smoked salmon under any circumstances anyway.
And why does biscuit, sausage and strawberry jam sound okay
but
biscuit, sausage gravy and strawberry jam sound rather unpleasant?
BK
candy bar and coke
coke and ice cream
ice cream and candy bar
ice cream, coke, and candy bar = gross
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