Category: Food and Drink

Why is American food getting spicier?

Here is one hypothesis:

…some food scientists and market researchers think there is a more surprising reason for the broad nationwide shift toward bolder flavors: The baby boomers, that huge, youth-chasing, all-important demographic, are getting old. As they age, they are losing their ability to taste – and turning to spicier, higher-flavor foods to overcome their dulled senses.  Chiefly because of degenerating olfactory nerves, most aging people experience a diminished sense of taste, whether they realize it or not. But unlike previous generations, the nation’s 80 million boomers have broad appetites, a full set of teeth, and the spending power to shape the entire food market.

I’d be surprised if that explained more than five percent of what is going on.  Younger people are also preferring spicier food.  Western Europe has an older population, but I don’t see them (UK aside) falling for spicy food at a comparable rate as are Americans.  Nor does Naples, Florida have much spicy food outside of its Haitian community.  Instead America has more immigrants, and more restaurants run by immigrants.  Spicy foods are addictive.  Most importantly, spicy ethnic food is often better than what we had before, which indeed was usually horrible.  Sometimes the best explanation is the simplest one.

I might add that what is eaten is hardly very spicy at all, at least not to my palate.

Thanks to Michael Makowsky, a loyal MR reader, for the pointer.

Facts about milk

1. Global milk prices have doubled over the last two years.

2. In some parts of the United States, milk is more expensive than gasoline.

3. There are reports of cows being stolen from Wisconsin dairy farms.

4. The rising demand for milk is coming mostly from developing nations; the average Chinese consumes six gallons of milk a year, up from two gallons in 2000.  China is now the world’s leading milk importer.

5. Parts of New Zealand are booming.

6. Only 7 percent of all milk commercially produced is traded across national borders.

7. Sufficiently high (market-driven) milk prices may render many milk price supports and subsidies irrelevant.

Here is the article (NYT, permalink may be pending but not yet).

The Revolution is Four Years Old!

Marginal Revolution is four years old today (at 3:07 pm EST precisely)!  It all began with The Lunar Men and since then we posted something new every day for four years.  In total we have had over 6000 posts, about 4.4 posts on average per day and we are closing in on 10 million visits.  If you were to print all of MR for the last four years it would take well over thirty two thousand pages.  I’d like to tell you how many pages exactly but Word can’t count beyond 32,768.

You, our readers, have made Marginal Revolution one of the most widely read blogs in the world. 
Thanks!  We would like to know you better.  So in the comments please feel free to say happy birthday especially if you are a long time reader who has never commented before.  How long have you been reading MR?  What’s your favorite post?   Do you live in some exotic locale?  Viva la revolution!

What is the proper pairing with dark chocolate?

Hypotheses about economic complements may not seem cause for a fight, but I have encountered what I can only call schools of thought:

1. Wine
2. Spirits
3. Strawberries
4. A pinch of red chili powder
5. A quick swig of mineral water immediately afterwards

I advocate #4 and #5 only.  Strawberries are too rich and too strong in flavor, if it be a fruit I nominate a few bites of a pluot or a few grapes for succulence, both in advance of the chocolate only.

You will find meditations on this topic, and others, in Clay Gordon’s inspiring Discover Chocolate: The Ultimate Guide to Buying, Tasting, and Enjoying Fine Chocolate.

Readers, will you either vote or amend this list?

Paying the Tab

The subtitle is The Costs and Benefits of Alcohol Control, and the book (here is its home page) has more on the latter than the former.  The author, economist Philip J. Cook, produces a wide range of reasonable arguments that alcohol is too cheap on the supply side, given its social costs.

The quality of the argumentation is high, but perhaps I have too much of a libertarian closed mind (more or less) on the issue.  I hold the following views:

1. I don’t have an a priori belief in uniform rates of taxation, and if you twist my arm I’ll admit bad things should be taxed at higher rates than good things, at least provided we can avoid slippery slopes of ever-encroaching government paternalism.

2. Penalties for drunk driving should be much stricter.

3. I think the world would be a better place if most people simply stopped drinking, 100 percent plain, outright stopped.  Admittedly drink cross-subsidizes quality food, so if there is any loser it might be me.

4. For reasons of ethics and morality, I don’t think governments should regulate adult substance consumption.

5. I see some role for governments to regulate substance consumption to prevent spillover effects onto minors.

I do understand that #1, #4, and #5 are not fully consistent, but this mix of views still seems right to me.  And unless I see the world coming to an end through booze — and I don’t — I’m still stuck on #4, no matter how good Cook’s evidence and arguments.  Alcohol is but one issue in the age-old battle between liberty and tyranny, a fight which I see as more important in the longer run than sobriety vs. stimulants. 

I do worry about more powerful drugs or neurostimulators.  I am struck at how weak a temptation alcohol is, relative to what the future will bring.  In the meantime, if alcohol restrictions fail on the grounds of liberty, I guess I am back to my closed libertarian mind.

An economist’s palate

The Washington Post covers my economic principles for finding good food.  Excerpt:

I’m sweating and furiously frustrated when I finally arrive, 30 minutes late, at the Hong Kong
Palace, an utterly nondescript Chinese restaurant in a Seven Corners
strip mall. Tyler Cowen is patiently reading when I arrive, unsurprised
that it took me so long to find it. He almost always likes the
hard-to-find joints best. The fact that Hong Kong Palace has an
unlisted phone number is, in Cowen’s eyes, another big plus.

An economist at George Mason University,
Cowen has rather unusual criteria for restaurant selection. He doesn’t
first look at the menu, the ambiance or the reviews.  Being an
economist, he thinks about the rental market, property taxes,
competition and clientele.  "All of us already act like economists," he
said, digging into a plate of Chengdu dumplings in a black vinegar sauce.  "We just have to think about what we already know about the world and apply it to dining."

I liked this article very much.  Elsewhere here is an interview with me in MacLean’s, the Canadian magazine.  What is it they say about them spelling your name right?

Addendum: Arnold Kling reports on my Bloomberg podcast, which I can’t find on the web either; maybe try here.

Bonchon chicken

6653 Little River Turnpike, #H, Annandale, VA, 703-750-1424, www.bonchon.com.  Is it the best fried chicken I’ve had?  I didn’t even mind the forty-minute wait, though now I know to call ahead, as the Koreans do.  Get it with both sauces – soy and garlic, and hot –and be sure to ask for the kimchi.

Here is the NYT on Korean fried chicken.  It’s also healthier than you think: crunchy, spicy, and non-greasy. 

Seth Roberts sentence of the day

Actually, the Shangri-La Diet is engineering, not science.

Natasha is now taking flaxseed oil, and I tell her it will make her smarter.  Someone once asked me, isn’t Seth’s proposal based on a placebo effect?  I wonder — when the individual is genetically special and also the basic unit of analysis — how exactly is a placebo effect defined?  It either works or it doesn’t.

Here is Seth buying Planet Earth, as all wise men should.

Twinkie, Deconstructed

There are entire companies which do nothing but break eggs open for other companies; the largest such egg-breaking company is based in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

That is from Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats, by Steve Ettlinger.  So far this is my pick for the best food book of the year.

I also learned that a twinkie is about half sugar, sulfuric acid is the most produced chemical in the world, sugar is used to clean out cement mixers, phosphate rock and limestone make Twinkies light and airy, Twinkies’ butter flavor is created out of gas, Twinkies contain only one preservative (sorbic acid), and the original 1930 Twinkies were filled with banana flavor, not vanilla.

The bottom line is that I ordered bought two more of the guy’s books.

Russian restaurants around the world

Here is the website, yes there are four in Cambodia and one in Laos.  Even better, here is their list of unusual restaurants, some examples:

Auction-like sale of dishes (Malaga, Spain)
All staff are midgets (Cairo, Egypt)
Three robots greet guests and take orders (Hong Kong)
Restaurant for anorexics (Berlin, Germany, now closed, more information here)

The same link lists the world’s best (supposedly) 24 restaurants.

Here is restaurant trivia in Russian.