Tetherd Cow Ahead

I will be serving the following appealing snacks at the Shriek of the Mutilated film evening as a treat for all my friends:

These are much more peculiar tasting than the inferior “PRAWN” BRAND PARROT CRACKERS, which tend to suffer badly if they become gamp or limp. I know you will all appreciate my indulgence in the extra expense.

It has been noted that to make The Reverend a very happy man, all one has to do is sit him down with a good cup of hot tea and a slice of fruitcake. Of course, as Christmas approaches, the opportunities to offer fruitcake (in the form of Christmas cake) proliferate and the Reverend is continually on the lookout for the very best offerings.

It probably doesn’t need to be said that the highest calibre Christmas cake is always homemade. This does not mean that just because Christmas cake is homemade it is necessarily exceptional of course.

What is true is that I have yet to taste a commercially manufactured cake that is anything other than merely mediocre. Unfortunately, and in spite of numerous examples to the contrary, I continue to be ever-hopeful.

Consider the label on this nicely presented tinned Christmas cake I bought yesterday. Pay particular attention to that phrase: Authentic homemade recipe. Now it’s quite plain what the Woolworth’s people intend to convey with this, but seriously, it’s just one GREAT BIG LIE!

First of all, before we go into the semantics, who are they kidding with the basic pitch here? There were, by my rough count, around three hundred cakes in the stack that this one came from, and I think we can assume that this wasn’t the only Woolworths’ supermarket to feature this product. So at around 800 Australian Woolworth’s stores x 300 cakes, we’re looking at display stock of 240,000 Christmas cakes.

Whose home did they make these in?!! Donald Trump’s?!!

The idea that this cake was homemade, then, is plainly preposterous. So there must be some trickery in that phrase authentic homemade recipe. You can see where I’m going here, I know. Yes, when the lawyers go before the judge in the Tetherd Cow vs Woolworth’s Christmas Cake Action of ’08 they are going to say this:

But Your Honour, it is an authentic homemade recipe. Old Mrs Woolworth did really scribble down this recipe at home. Sure, we make the cakes themselves in a fifty floor stainless-steel factory full of conveyor belts and robots and digital cherry glazers, but the recipe was authentically made at home. That’s all we claim on our product.

The defense rests.

And the cake? Well, it wasn’t bad. Desperately in need of a good dosing of brandy, and a little wimpy as far as Christmas cakes go, but passable. Not even close though, not even remotely, to the delights I used to sample every year as the judge for Kate & Annie’s annual Christmas bakeoff.

After all, homemade is where the heart is.

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Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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This special treat from another of the books that surfaced as I was packing in preparation for moving house. It’s from ‘Cakes Men Like‘, by Benjamin Darling – a special paean to the lost art of Extreme Baking.

Tetherd Cow Ahead Serving Suggestion: a small slice accompanied by a chilled pork martini.

Mmmm.

So I’m watching this science show on the tv and the presenter starts talking about another thing that science has found that we shouldn’t be eating because it will, like, kill you! The chemical in question, so the pretty tv-journo-scientist tells me, is called acrylamide, and is bad, bad, bad!

“So what?” I hear you say, “I don’t hold with those kinds of food additives anyways! I’ll just avoid anything that they add it to!”

Brace yourselves Acowlytes. The news is not good. One of the most common places that these nosy scientists have found acrylamide is in fried or roasted potatoes. You know that crunchy, golden crusty coating on the potato? The best bit? That’s where you get yer mother-lode of acrylamide.

Oh noes! ROAST POTATOES! Someone has found that ROAST POTATOES are bad for you! That surely must be a Sign of the End Times!

This is what it says about acrylamide at Wikipedia:

There is evidence that exposure to large doses can cause damage to the male reproductive glands. Direct exposure to pure acrylamide by inhalation, skin absorption, or eye contact irritates the exposed mucous membranes, e.g. the nose, and can also cause sweating, urinary incontinence, nausea, myalgia, speech disorders, numbness, paresthesia, and weakened legs and hands. In addition, the acrylamide monomer is a potent neurotoxin. Ingested acrylamide is metabolised to a chemically reactive epoxide, glycidamide

Let me translate: Don’t eat roast potatoes. Don’t touch roast potatoes. And never, never, never inhale roast potatoes or cram them in your eyes or up your nose.

Look at those symptoms: Urinary incontinence! Paresthesia! Myalgia. Damage to the male reproductive glands! And it’s a neurotoxin for chrissakes! It will further come as no surprise that acrylamide is linked to cancer as well. If you are a consumer of certain brands of potato chips* that use olestra, you can for good measure add anal leakage to this catalogue of woes.

The bit about speech disorders is true for sure – even reading about all this has rendered me speechless!

Fortunately, there is a crispy golden salty light at the end of the horrible scientific chemical tunnel; other scientists (the kind who I’d much rather hang out with) at J.R. Simplot Co. of Idaho, have developed a genetically modified potato with an altered gene structure that will ‘rebuff’ acrylamide and make a safe-to-eat roast potato or French fry.

Tetherd Cow Ahead’s financial tip for this week is to put your money into J. R. Simplot Co. If there’s ever anything that’s going to turn around the negative public view of genetic modification it’s the salvation of the fried potato. It may be the only hope we have.

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*Olean is a company that manufactures Olestra. If you followed the link, you will have seen the somewhat disconcerting counter on their site that ticks out ‘The Number of Servings of Oleanâ„¢ Consumed’ (it’s currently at about 5 billion). Now reflect on that counter as a measure of the flow of anal leakage…

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Does anyone else find it kinda unsettling to see signs with animals advertising the delights of consumption of their own flesh?

Consider this example. Why is the word ‘meet’ in quotation marks? What does the cow mean by this?

I know that there are those of you out there who read my post on how to make a classic Manhattan and thought ‘It’ll be a slow day in Valhalla before you catch me drinking one of those pussy ‘what-a-swell-party-this-is’ beverages!’

Well have no fear! Should you find yourself on my doorstep worried that your manly image might become tarnished by my wussy left-wing nostalgic I-wish-I-was-at-a-party-with-Cole-Porter hospitality, we have another option.

Yes, a short stroll up the street to the Gourmet Viking ((Yes, I know. ‘Gourmet’ and ‘Viking’ – not really two concepts that sit together easily. Like ‘Designer’ and ‘Viking’ or ‘Elegant’ and ‘Viking’ or ‘Hello Kitty’ and ‘Viking’. Even if the Viking culture was, in fact, very sophisticated. They’ve got a lot of raping and pillaging to live down.)) and you can be chugging a very reasonably priced glass of gløgg and chowing down on frikadeller and Hakkebof. If someone calls you a nancy-boy here, just hack off his hjamstallr with your vikingesverd!

Ah, I can almost hear the shouts of ‘That’s more like it!’

I have it on good authority that a few pints of the local gløgg and you’ll be performing naked acrobatic viking dances and playing knatteleik till dawn.

Mein skol, dein skol, alle vakkera flikka skol!