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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / Food-Engineering Pr0n

Food-Engineering Pr0n

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This has been making the rounds, and I wanted to share it with you all. It’s so incredibly satisfying to watch:

In the immortal words of Liz Lemon, I want to go to there. Can you imagine how good that smells?

It reminded me of the last time I saw a video like this. I was wondering about the little grill marks on the bottom of Pocky* sticks, so I looked up how they’re made. The answer turned out to be, you guessed it, incredibly satisfying:

I mean, what’s not to like? I sort of assume everybody loves videos like this. A lot of people, certainly. I guess what I’m trying to say is–please share some of your favorite food engineering videos!

And, bonus Samwise (click to embiggen):

Food-Engineering Pr0n

Open thread, on the off-chance you have something to say that isn’t about food.

*Technically I was eating Pretz, which uses the same stick, but figured I’d stick with a product people had actually heard of.

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  9. 9.

    Anonymous At Work

    I think O Fortuna from Carmen needs to play over the hot pot broth video more.  Jesus, that’s a lot.  Especially Chinese beer.  If you’ve had one sip, you’ve had a lifetime’s worth.

  10. 10.

    Ohio Mom

    @Major Major Major Major: Don’t sweat it, we’re capable of following along more than one thread at a time.

    Back to the subject at hand, so Hot Pot is beef tallow soup. Lots of flavorings yes, but basically cow fat soup.

  12. 12.

    bluefoot

    Way back when I was a youth, these types of videos were part of the reason I liked Sesame Street.

    That hot pot broth looks delicious. I haven’t had hot pot since before the pandemic, and now I want some.

    I used to be friends with a couple of automation engineers. The amount of work that goes into those custom robots/machines is ridiculous. A very exacting profession.

  13. 13.

    sab

    @NotMax: Don’t marry a cat person. He started with one and twenty years later we have six, and cat trees and litterboxes everywhere in a not very big house.

  17. 17.

    M31

    I love to go on youtube sprees where you start searching for “Japanese Street Food” or “Singapore food hawker” or the like, then keep clicking on suggested videos until you find ones that have are not in English at all, that’s the good stuff

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0WxmqGH2nw

    yeah it’s not a machine but the guy makes 64 of the damn things in 15 mins

    and now I’m hungry

  18. 18.

    Betsy

    Beef suet repressing hellish torture of sentient beings. The fucking Chinese and their animal torture factories. Sorry, but it’s one of the world’s worst cultures for animal abuse.

    Most of China doesn’t even have any songbirds left. They shot them all.

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    Not engineering so much as it is construction: a casserole a la Rus.

    The cook may call it what he does, however it’s but very distantly related to any traditional Orloff preparation.

    (Veal being so dear, it would work just as well with slices of pork loin, methinks.)

  21. 21.

    Fair Economist

    @guachi: My husband is a BIG fan of “How It’s Made”, which sometimes has food production. It is pretty cool, although they seem to have become more ad-ish over time: less time talking about details and more time saying slightly different versions of “automated inspection ensures the highest quality”. C’mon, I want to know *how* they do the inspection, at least!

  22. 22.

    Scout211

    @Betsy:

    Most of China doesn’t even have any songbirds left. They shot them all.

    Is that true? I did not know that.

    We have ( what seems like) a million every day on our property.  Maybe I could ship some over there? Could they use a few hundred?
    Well, probably not a good idea if they are just going to shoot them.  ?

  23. 23.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Anonymous At Work: I’m going to be the pedant and say that O Fortuna is not from Carmen but rather from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. And is not what’s playing in the soup video.

  24. 24.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Scout211: Mao declared war on sparrows because he thought they ate all the seeds. Didn’t end too well. Look up the Four Pests Campaign.

    That said, there are of course many cultures that cook with animal fat, and any operation at scale will involved a lot of it.

  25. 25.

    Fair Economist

    @Betsy:

    Most of China doesn’t even have any songbirds left. They shot them all.

    Well, they *did*, but that was a long time ago. I suspect the shortage of songbirds now has more to do with their awful air. Midcentury American cities lost most of their birds but they’ve returned now that we’ve cleaned up the air.

  27. 27.

    O. Felix Culpa

    I love the heroic soundtrack to the soup video. And, oy!, the number of ingredients that go into its–that is, the soup’s–making.

  29. 29.

    JeanneT

    This reminds me of when I was a little kid, eating breakfast and watching early morning showings of Industry on Parade. And going on school field trips to factories in west Michigan to see how white bread and cereal was made (nowhere near as spicy as this hot pot product, for sure).

  30. 30.

    Ken

    I have a book, Chinese Gastronomy, that says that in China there used to be restaurants where the stock pot had been simmering for decades, with every bit of bone, meat scraps, and vegetable trimmings dumped in the pot.  I think it said that many of these were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

  32. 32.

    Emma

    @Ken: I’m sure you can still find them around, if only because there’ve been a few decades to get a master stock going again ;) I’m fairly certain that there are still restaurants and Hong Kong and Taiwan that have really old ones.

  35. 35.

    CaseyL

    @guachi: ​
    My neighbors watch TV. A lot of TV. So they watch shows I’d previously never knew existed. One of them might have been “How It’s Made,” I don’t remember if it was that specific program, but it was indeed showing how various items were made. Really interesting, and maybe it wasn’t the same show because I don’t remember it being very product-promotional.

    One episode I particularly remember was about the manufacture of footballs. There is a lot of handwork, an astonishing amount of handwork. Sewing the laces is done by hand – well, semi by hand.  The worker (IIRC) holds the football in the lacing machine, which is a kind of piston-y looking thing; she feeds it in, holds it in place, etc.

    They showed a woman doing the sewing. Her fingers were nearly covered in bandages. The narrator went on and on about how important it was to be precise and careful lest the football be spoiled, oh look at the wonderful careful precise work, isn’t the football lovely – not a single word about the obvious injuries – and I kept yelling at the TV, “What about her hands?? What’s the injury rate, how does that even happen??” I was flabbergasted, to tell the truth.

  36. 36.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Fair Economist:

    Well, they *did*, but that was a long time ago. I suspect the shortage of songbirds now has more to do with their awful air. Midcentury American cities lost most of their birds but they’ve returned now that we’ve cleaned up the air.

    The effects of the Maoist Anti-Sparrow Campaign lasted into 80s & 90s, though the actual fervor peaked during the Great Leap Forward in the late 50s. Growing up during the 80s, across 3 cities in China, I do not recall seeing many birds around. I definitely noticed the striking difference between Beijing/Nanjing versus NYC, during my visits in the 90s & early 00s. However, as city folks stopped shooting/capturing birds & other wildlife, and as urban pollutions improved over the past decade, I also have noticed the conspicuous return of avian life of all kinds. Even small mammals (such as weasels & wild boars) have returned, at least to the forested parks and suburban areas of the cities.

    Large mammals are still very rare sights even in rural China, even in protected areas, however. Rural China is still much more densely populated than rural North America, & the large mammals have long learned to fear humans. Wild monkeys on mountains are the only exception, they have gotten used to being fed by tourists. They will snatch your camera and jewelry of you piss them off.

  37. 37.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Ken:

    @Emma:

    I have a book, Chinese Gastronomy, that says that in China there used to be restaurants where the stock pot had been simmering for decades, with every bit of bone, meat scraps, and vegetable trimmings dumped in the pot.  I think it said that many of these were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

    As Emma alluded to, many of the old eateries have thrived again (they were never closed, but were nationalized post-Revolution), & they have had 4 decades to rebuild the stocks. However, I think the stories of “century old” stock pots were always apocryphal. With all of the civil wars, revolutions & foreign invasions (& the resultant mass dislocations) that China had seen from the Opium War on, I doubt any establishment survived the entire time without ever having to start afresh. It’s a great sales pitch, though, at least to Chinese patrons.

  38. 38.

    Robert Sneddon

    @O. Felix Culpa: ​
     

    I love the heroic soundtrack to the soup video.

    It’s called “Victory” from the concept album “Two Steps From Hell”. There’s a lot of amateur Youtube videos that use soundtracks from the album as background music to edits of various video game cutscenes.

  39. 39.

    Duckpocalypse

    @Anonymous At Work: ​
     

    Actually, I didn’t mind it, though I’m Canadian and I found it very much ‘Love In A Canoe’ quality. Flavours weren’t bad though. Baiju, now that stuff hurts, and not in a good way.

  40. 40.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Duckpocalypse:

    The diluted p*ss that is mass market Chinese beer is even more bland than Budweiser, but there is actually a burgeoning scene of microbrew craft beer in China that has really blossomed over the past 5 – 6 years. The offerings are actually pretty good, some with decidedly eastern takes!

    I never acquired the taste for baijiu myself. Unlike beer, wine, Chinese rice wine, whiskey or cognac, baijiu is just not something I enjoy savoring. However, it is perfect for livening up a Chinese banquet!

  41. 41.

    Duckpocalypse

    @YY_Sima Qian: ​
     

    This is true. I found a few that I wouldn’t mind having again if I could find them, but I doubt they’re up for export. I bought a bottle of Baijiu for when I came back earlier this year, and it’s *still* sitting there. I encourage people to have a shot of it just to see how long it’ll take before it’s finally empty.

  42. 42.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Duckpocalypse: It is really about acquiring the taste. I know plenty of Chinese who just cannot get over the bitterness of a hoppy IPA, or the peatiness of an Islay scotch. I once bought a bottle of 30 yrs old Highland Park for Chinese New Year’s Eve banquet of my extended family. One of my uncles, who is a heavy baijiu drinker, was curious & took one sip, & just made the most horrid face. He could not believe why would anyone find it enjoyable.

    Of course, there is a great variety to baijiu, & its connoisseurs (even the few foreign ones) swear to subtle complexity of bouquet, once you get over the hump of throat burning spiciness & strong smell of alcohol. So I am told.

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