i bet i'd like this way too much.
beef. it's what's for dinner. and snacks. and dessert! from the new york times:
Looking to emulate the success of Chicken McNuggets and fried mozzarella sticks, the group is hoping to inject some red meat into the American snack food diet with cheeseburger fries. The fries, which look like a squat version of standard French fries, are made of a meat-and-cheese compound that tastes — as the name suggests — like a cheeseburger.
Breaded, then deep-fried and served with ketchup or barbecue sauce, cheeseburger fries have found their way onto menus in several states including Nebraska, Minnesota and Texas since June. There is also a version being made available to public school cafeterias.
"The challenge is getting people to think of other ways to eat beef," said Betty Hogan, director of new product development for the association.
[...]
The fries themselves are surprisingly light, weighing only about one ounce each. The meat, so that it holds together, is firm like a meatball. And while the taste is not distinctly beef, biting into one does impart the lingering flavoring of processed cheese.
Looking for other avenues into the American diet, the beef industry noticed that restaurants sell over 900 million portions of chicken strips and fried cheese sticks, many of them as appetizers.
"You just don't see beef-based appetizers," Rob McLaughlin, vice president for product management at the Advance Food Company in Enid, Okla., which is manufacturing cheeseburger fries.
[...]
All this, of course, pleases the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "We want beef in dessert if we can get it there," Ms. Hogan said.
Comments
It's like chili-cheese fries, only beefier!
As for dessert, I recall an Iron Chef which had a beef dessert.
*looks it up*
Yeah, it was "Beef dessert with cocoa, caramelized sugar, vanilla and walnuts"
Gimme a plateful, please.
Posted by: Ed | September 24, 2003 09:30 AM
i believe i linked to a description of that very episode in my entry! i personally hanker after the frogfish ovary pudding (as it was described in one subtitled iron chef episode).
Posted by: julie | September 24, 2003 09:43 AM
About an ounce each, 75 calories, six grams of fat for the school version. (That's about 70% of calories from fat). I can usually eat about a pound of something for lunch, so figure about 1200 calories before ketchup, and the fat equivalent of eating an entire stick of butter. Yum.
Posted by: paul | September 24, 2003 11:57 AM
but, paul, what's so funny 'bout grease, love, and understanding?
Posted by: julie | September 24, 2003 02:25 PM
Grease is the word. (Actually, I stumbled across a showing of Grease the other day while doing some TV wiring and watched, fascinated yet horrified, for a good 15 minutes).
Posted by: paul^2 | September 25, 2003 06:40 AM
That is probably the singularly most disgusting food product I've ever had the displeasure to read. And I'm so THRILLED that we'll be feeding this abomination to our children in the guise of healthy school eating.
Posted by: Reader | September 26, 2003 01:13 PM