This week’s food for thought

Procrastinating from work, I found myself looking at my Instagram stream, and I was quite surprised how many photos of food I had in my history. I’ve got to admit, not everything looked amazing, be it the colour reproduction of my phone (curry is not the most pleasant-looking dish ever), or just the lack of lighting in a restaurant.

A few issues ago we reported that some Michelin-star chefs hated food porn that much that they banned cameras in their restaurants. In South Africa though, they take a much different policy. A restaurant in Cape Town has introduced a new “DinnerCam”, which can only be described as a portable photo studio, but for food. It was actually used as a marketing tool for a local telecom’s new unlimited WiFi plan, you can use it if you are signed up to the plan. And if you post the photo with the hashtag, it will get printed for you to take away!

Personally I think it is pretty neat, someone just needs to mass produce these and make a fortune!

Some things are just

not meant to be…

I went to visit the family over the bank holiday weekend and my auntie got me a pack of chocolate wasabi peas. It is part of the Marks & Spencers Summer of Flavour range, other things include fruit jellies, caramel sweets and even ‘Mad Frogs’, but nothing as adventurous as the peas. My first impression was “meh... that sounds weird”, and my feelings sustained when I was biting through my first one.

For those of you who don’t know much about wasabi (do you even exist?), it is essentially the Japanese version of mustard. You might have had some when you last had sashimi or sushi. I am a big fan of wasabi, especially the kick it provides you with which goes straight up your nose. I am also a big fan of chocolate, especially how it just melts in your mouth and the “gooey” sensation. And who would hate peas? Nutritious, cheap and tastes amazing! Putting all three together though, not so much. I’m surprised to find that this idea even made it on kickstarter in 2012 and $5000 was actually raised with 47 people backing the project!

When I shared the peas amongst my friends, there were mixed reviews. Some did like the sensation of spicy chocolate – I suppose it’s just a preference thing. Lately I’m really into salted caramel – something which again, sounds so wrong, but I actually like it! Although perhaps we can also take a philosophical view on this, don’t feel beaten if exams or projects aren’t going too well, don’t give up and keep going!

Some things are just not meant to be but keep trying – I still have high hopes for the future range of weird M&S snacks! Or I can put it in the words of Nev, the CEO of the BBC Three show ‘The Call Centre’, “Some will, some won’t, so what? Next.”