They’re tasty little mints, too. (Too bad Great Bite’s web site is less persuasive than their tins. What sort of candy company lists “Food Safety and Social Compliance audits by internationally recognised companies” as a callout?)

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

The problem is that this commercial reaches the wrong demographic. This is fast food breakfast. It should look like a Denny’s commercial. Instead, the ad agency is using edgy humor to appeal to young adult males like me. I would rather go hungry than order an egg sandwich from Burger King. The commercial won’t change my mind, but it made me laugh!

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Here’s what we did. I’m going to include Friday and Sunday, just for good measure.

Friday

• Dinner at Franny’s on Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn.

Saturday

• Breakfast at Lindo’s diner on 5th Ave in Brooklyn. Spinach and feta omelet, black coffee.
• Grocery shopping at various markets along 5th Ave: Eagle Provisions, Lopez Bakery, Big Apple produce. Make turkey sandwiches for lunch.
• Ride the subway into Manhattan. Go for a walk through High Line Park. Buy a cold soda and drink it outside on the folding chairs in the little traffic triangle at 14th Street and 9th.
• Walk to the Lomography store on 8th Street and check out the funky cheap plastic cameras.
• Walk through Washington Square Park, which is filled with people dressed like pirates for Talk Like a Pirate Day.
• Beers at the Village Pourhouse on 3rd Ave, where a large group of well-mannered Virginia Tech alumni have crowded in to watch the Tech-Nebraska game on about 30 big TVs. Tech comes from behind and scores a winning touchdown with under 2 minutes on the clock. The place goes crazy.
• Ride the subway back to Brooklyn. Stop for a slice at any random pizzeria.
• Go see a concert at Southpaw on 5th Ave. Tonight: The Brooklyn Country Music Festival.

Sunday

• Bagels at the Bagel Factory on 5th Ave. in Brooklyn.
• Church potluck lunch.
• Unwind from the busy weekend with a long walk through the Green-Wood Cemetery.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

The secret? One of the ingredients on the label was “chicken flavor.” Chicken-flavored chicken! Genius!

If you’ve read Fast Food Nation, you may remember the description of the New Jersey factory where chemists create the artificial flavorings that are added to fast food. It’s why drive-through burgers taste the way they do: artificial beef flavoring. This seems like cheating—like using Auto-Tune to correct bad singing, or Photoshop to fix a bad photograph. But think about it. If you ran McDonald’s, wouldn’t you employ every tool at your disposal to make your hamburgers taste good?

I can’t deny that I enjoy artificially flavored foods. They’re engineered for us to enjoy; I’d have to try to dislike them. And while pouring chemicals into my body seems like an iffy idea, artificial flavors are surely no worse for me than alcohol, and I’m not about to encourage a health crusade against beer.

Something still troubles me, though. It’s not the chemicals. It’s that maybe food tastes the way it does for a reason. If the chicken we eat tastes just like chicken, we’re more likely to eat the right portion of it. If it tastes like super-chicken, we gorge ourselves. We can’t help it. The food plays tricks with our heads.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

I can’t explain why that stoner refrain is so darn catchy, but it cannot be denied. Give a listen to the Das Racist song “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper Remix).” You can play it here (MP3) or here (Pitchfork) or here (YouTube).

I don’t know if this song will be a hit, but it begs the question: Is there really a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell on Jamaica Avenue in Queens? Yes. There is. It’s now been immortalized in song. Here it is on Google Street View:

Update: Here’s a better photo of the actual restaurant, seen July 31, 2010.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Spotted in a window display: Strawberry and peanut butter M&Ms. Yeech! Did somebody actually sign off on this?

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Oh my God, I’m in love with this cereal! But somebody at Kellogg’s should have nixed that long name and come up with something shorter. Suggestion: “Box o’ Cookies.” Seriously, these might as well be Oreos. I can’t believe we feed this stuff to children for breakfast!

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

It’s Mister Softee season, but old-school ice cream trucks risk being driven out of town by a new wave of gourmet food trucks now overrunning New York. Of course there’s the Mud Truck (pictured in a Holga photo from March 2008), actually a fleet of trucks that have been pouring strong black coffee for years. But now there are more. Unlike conventional ice cream trucks, these new gourmet food carts don’t blast computerized music while cruising slowly up your block. They show up somewhere and park for the day. CNet had a story yesterday about food trucks using Twitter to tell people where they are.

In Union Square, a new truck offers pizza, which is incredible given the amount of heat required to make pizza. (The entire back of this truck is an industrial oven. It must weigh ten tons.) A Belgian waffle truck makes regular weekend appearances in Park Slope, and presumably elsewhere. I spotted a gourmet ice cream truck parked at Union and 5th in the Slope last week, painted with pastel colors and descriptive copy about all-natural ingredients. Imagine that: An ice cream truck!

If you were to start a food truck, what would you sell?

Also, where would you use the bathroom and wash your hands?

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

Gray’s Papaya is the most famous of Manhattan’s many hot dog lunch counters. Gray’s has locations all over town, and like its many clones, it sells pretty good dogs and dubious fruit drinks. When I moved to New York, I was immediately amused by Gray’s signage. The owner likes to use current events to promote deals on hot dogs, and back in 2002, big signs in the windows advertised a “Recession Special!” That slogan is copied all over the place, but Gray’s basically owns the idea.

In fact, in the last seven years, I don’t think Gray’s Papaya has ever stopped offering a Recession Special. After all, it takes a year or so to know when a recession has started or ended, but it only takes a minute to sell a hot dog.

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.

But… but… Donuts are bad for children too! There’s no logic— Hey, are those sprinkles?

This post first appeared on the History Eraser Button blog.