Hello Lovely
Slurrp Fam,
It’s
Wednesday, the Fourth Day of this 23rd
Year of the Third Millennium, and
there’s lots to report on from the food
world. Without much ado, let’s dive
right in:
AT
HOME
ChatGPT
has spoken… and it’s pronounced the
vada pav as Mumbai’s best street
food.
Sorry pav
bhaji lovers, but a Higher Power than us
mere mortals has decided on which dish
deserves the title of “Mumbai’s Best
Street Food”... and it’s a decisive
victory for the vada pav. The vada pav’s
triumph came about courtesy a Satya
Nadella session at Microsoft’s recent
leadership summit in Mumbai. According
to MoneyControl, Nadella asked
ChatGPT to rank Mumbai’s best-known
street foods, and the AI-driven chat
robot chose vada pav, followed by pav
bhaji, bhel puri, dahi puri, chaat, pani
puri and Mumbai sandwich. Then, ChatGPT
went on to list where the best vada pav
could be found in the city, and
proceeded to write a play where the vada
pav argued its case against all of the
other raggedy pretenders to the “Best
Street Food” crown, at which point, we
think the chatbot was just showing off.
Hey ChatGPT, here's something your data
set didn't tell you: Nobody likes a
show-off!
Zomato’s
2022 recap hits where it hurts
most…
And that is,
right at our guilty, overspending, lazy,
unhealthy and gluttonous cores. If
Swiggy’s 2022 report included relatively
tame insights like chips being the most
ordered snack on the app (duh!),
Zomato’s is full of juicy and
voyeuristic tidbits: like, a Pune man
spending Rs 28 lakh in food delivery
over 2022 on the app, as reported by
Business Today. Or a Delhi man
having the dubious distinction of
placing over 3,000 food orders in 2022,
which works out to around nine meal
deliveries a day. Hey, Delhi Man and
Pune Man could be feeding a lot of
mouths; unlike Zomato, Slurrp is a safe
space: no judgments here.
You’d
better leave
the jalebis, tandoori chicken
and nimbu paani at
home when
planning a trip to the
multiplex.
And if you’re
wondering why we’re dishing out such
unasked-for advice, then we’ll quickly
say this in our defense: tis the law!
The Supreme Court of India has ruled
that cinema owners are perfectly within
their rights to ban moviegoers from
bringing in outside food and water.
However, the onus is on theatre
management to provide clean drinking
water to the audience, and parents are
permitted to carry a “reasonable” amount
of food for their children. (A
burning question raging in our
bhukkad selves: Who defines
“reasonable amount of food”
anyway?) The question of
whether or not customers should be
allowed to carry their own food and
drinks into theatres has long been a
bone of contention between cinema owners
and audiences. The problem is especially
acute at multiplexes where steep ticket
prices are accompanied by equally steep
rates for snacks and beverages at
in-house concession stands. That popcorn
ain't cheap! A family outing can make a
sizable dent in the monthly budget
accounting for these costs, which
consumers have sought to defray by
seeking to carry their own food and
drink.
Visiting
NRIs will be offered free food in
Indore during Pravasi Bharatiya
Divas celebrations.
Woohoo,
we guess? As part of the PBD events, the
street food of Indore will be showcased
to visitors, and certain iconic
delicacies will be made available free
of cost from January 7, report the good
folks over at Free Press
Journal. Street food hubs
Chappan, Sarafa, Meghdoot Gardens and
Kalani Nagar are among the participating
venues, and a range of food options,
including matar-kachori, garadu and
doodh-jalebi have been incorporated into
the PBD celebrations. We’re not NRIs, so
we’ll just say “Enjoy your free
matar-kachoris, homies”.
AROUND
THE WORLD
Finally,
some good news for Keto — it’s no
longer The Absolute
Worst
The
much-reviled fad has finally (!) been
bumped up from its perennial spot as
“worst diet ever” among a coterie of
like-minded peers. The panel of health
and nutrition experts over at the US
News & World Report, who release annual
rankings on matters of health and
nutrition, have officially given Keto’s
long-standing label to the raw-food
diet. To add insult to this fresh injury
(we suspect RFD hasn’t had time to
develop quite the thick skin Keto’s had
to), the experts went so far as to call
it “worst overall eating plan for 2023”
from among 24 diets that were all
desperately vying to avoid the title,
reports Business Insider.
Sheesh, these experts really don’t
believe in sugarcoating the truth, do
they? Although, for a diet that preaches
“only foods that haven't been cooked,
such as fruits and veggies, sprouted
grains and beans, and sometimes animal
products like raw fish or unprocessed
dairy”, perhaps the unequivocal censure
is merely its just desserts.
Frozen
food has been named Japan’s “Dish of
the Year” for 2022.
The title
comes from the Gurunavi Research
Institute’s annual survey, which asks
people to pick the food trend they think
best encapsulated the year. Previous
“dishes of the year” have included
“Chinese cooking” and “plant-based
meats”. Japan saw a 20 percent rise in
sales of frozen foods from 2019 to 2021,
according to the Ministry for Internal
Affairs. The COVID-19 pandemic is
believed to have been the major
contributing factor in the shift towards
frozen foods, as apart from grocery
stores, even fine-dining restaurants
have invested in flash freezing their
dishes for easy takeaway and delivery,
says CNN.
France
has enforced a ban on single-use
tableware in
eateries.
Any
establishment that can seat over 20
diners — be it fast-food chains like
McDonalds, Starbucks etc, or workplace
canteens, cafeterias et al — must
provide washable cutlery, plates and
cups/glasses, reports the
Guardian. Single-use tableware,
such as paper cups, burger/sandwich/wrap
cartons, paper plates and wrappers, have
been banned from January 1, 2023.
Environmentalists have hailed the
decision as a paradigm shift. However,
the new law only applies to on-site
service, i.e. diners who are eating at
the establishment itself. Single-use
packaging can still be used for
takeaways. France’s fast food
restaurants generate an estimated
180,000 tonnes of waste every year, a
number the new law hopes to
exponentially curb.
Samsung’s
AI oven is the future of
food.
CNET
reports that Samsung's recently
unveiled bespoke AI wall oven can warm
you “if/when your food will burn” and
“also includes a camera for
livestreaming”. The oven’s AI Pro
Cooking algorithm informs you of the
appropriate time, temperature and mode
for between 80-100 dishes, and sends you
notifications as the cooking is in
progress. A camera inside the oven
allows you to monitor the process
without having to make frequent trips to
the kitchen — or even, if you so choose,
stream the video feed to your social
media handles (or to your inquisitive
mom). Don’t discard your stupid
camera-less oven in a hurry though:
Samsung’s invention isn’t coming to
India anytime soon; it is currently
available only in Europe, with North
America next on the launchpad.
Okay, that’s
it for today, we gotta go now! Need
to check if Sharma Uncle’s nephew is
still in Germany.
***
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