Hoax Museum Blog: Food

Is McDonalds Outsourcing their Drive-Thru Windows? — The rumor I heard was that McDonalds would be outsourcing the job of taking orders at the drive-thru window to some company in North Dakota, because the minimum wage in North Dakota is only $5.15, whereas it's higher in other states, so they figure they can save some money. In other words, you could be going through a drive-thru in San Diego and giving your order to some guy in North Dakota. This struck me as very odd. But it appears that the story is basically true, except that McDonalds denies that its reasons for doing this has anything to do with trying to pay their employees less. They claim that when employees have to take orders over the drive-thru mic and deliver food at the same time, they start making a lot of mistakes. So this is just an effort to make the system more efficient. Maybe. But I've read Fast Food Nation so I know that McDonalds is one of the worst companies in terms of underpaying their employees, and I'm guessing that they are hoping this will reduce labor costs.
Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005.   Comments (81)
Spoon-Shaped Egg — image Since I posted a story last week about an egg with a tail, when I came across this other story about a spoon-shaped egg, I knew I had to post it as well. Both eggs come from China. Could it be something they're feeding the hens over there?

A Chinese hen has produced a spoon-shaped egg. The hen is owned by Huang Yazhou, a railway worker from Huaibei city, Anhui province, reports Chinanews.com. One morning, Huang awoke to hear the hen, which he bought from a market two months ago, making weird noises. When he checked, Huang found the hen had laid a spoon-shaped egg, 8.5 centimeters long and 35 grammes in weight.
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005.   Comments (19)
Tall Tail Egg — image Ananova brings us the 'Tall-Tail' Egg:

An egg in China has been found with a tail. The egg, found by chef Wang of at his restaurant in Anyang city, Henan province, is normal size, but has a tail that is 3 cm long. It is not known why the egg has the tail reports Dahe Daily. Wang says he wants to hatch the egg and see what will come out.

(via Liquito)
Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005.   Comments (28)
Virgin Mary Pretzel — image The latest 'spawn-of-Virgin-Mary-Grilled-Cheese-Sandwich' on eBay is the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus Pretzel. This is a pretzel that may, if you're of the right frame of mind, look kind of like a Picasso-style rendition of the Virgin Mary holding the Baby Jesus. According to the description: "This totally unique and spiritual item was found by a 12 year old girl.  She was eating "Rold Gold" Honey Mustard flavored tiny twist pretzels, when she noticed the Virgin Mother holding Baby Jesus.  We all had a feeling of warmth and spirituality when holding the pretzel." The salty pretzel has been receiving news coverage, and bidding on it has already passed $1,000 with three days to go.
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2005.   Comments (32)
Wine Dimple Theory, Part 2 — image Back in December I posted about a guy who had conducted an experiment to determine if there's a correlation between the price of a bottle of wine and the depth of its dimple. Now the same guy has issued a press release (in order to make his results seem more official, I suppose):

Birmingham, UK (PRWEB) February 28, 2005 -- A British scientist has shown it is possible to value a bottle of wine just by feeling the depth of its dimple. The theory, which until now had been reported to be an urban myth, was proven by making measurements on bottles of wine of different prices. The fact will provide a useful trick for visitors to parties.
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005.   Comments (10)
Bigfoot Barleywine-style Ale — image I didn't realize that Sierra Nevada made a Bigfoot Barleywine-style Ale. I'll have to try to get some and try it. One reviewer on Beer Advocate says this of it: This beer warms the gullet and obliterates the taste buds. I have had some bitter beers in my experience, but this one blows them all away. Sounds like an imposing beer, which I suppose is appropriate for a beer named after Bigfoot. So I'm now aware of Bigfoot Ale, Loch Ness Monster Ale, and Crop Circle Beer. But there's no Chupacabra Beer, as far as I know. Nor Jackalope Beer. This is an obvious oversight on the part of the beer industry.
Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005.   Comments (13)
An Orange Inside Of An Apple — image Dawn in the UK sent me this curious item that appeared in today's edition of the Daily Express. It's about an orange that shopper Patrick Hurt found inside of an apple.

Mr. Hurt, 36, from Kiveton Park, South Yorks, said: "Apart from what was inside the apple looked perfectly normal. I have no idea how the orange got in there and I have never seen anything like it in my life." Greg Tucker, professor of plant biochemistry at Nottingham University, said: "The effect may have arisen through developmental mutation. It's not unheard of for flowers to become misformed. It is caused by mutations in some key genes. It is conceivable that a similar mutation occurred in this fruit."

Now I could understand if the interior of the apple was simply deformed so that it resembled an orange. That might be developmental mutation. But an actual orange spontaneously growing inside of an apple due to a gene mutation doesn't seem believable. Click on the thumbnail for a larger view of the scanned article.
Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005.   Comments (21)
Free Champagne — A new variation of the email tracing hoax has been spotted. Instead of promising that Bill Gates or AOL will send you money if you forward their email, this message promises that you'll get champagne. Here's the email:

Greetings Champagne Lovers!!
Send this message to 10 people, with a copy to [email protected]
Veuve Clicquot France will contact you in order to deliver you a case of
champagne in three weeks. They are doing this in order to enlarge their
database. It does work and you receive six bottles in 15 days. Salut a tous
les amoureux du champagne

Unfortunately Veuve Clicquot has already posted a warning message on their website about the hoax, so there's absolutely no chance that it's real. (via Fermentations)
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005.   Comments (4)
Texas Tortilla and ‘An Amazing Photograph’ — image Here are two more curious auctions on eBay (people keep sending me this stuff... probably because I keep posting about it). The first is a tortilla shaped like the state of Texas (item# 5557639562). The auctioner swears that "I have not cut it, clipped it, chewed it or changed it in any way. What you see is what came out of the bag." And I've got to hand it to him. It really does look like Texas. The current bid is only $1.99.

What you're supposed to see in the other auction, however, isn't anywhere near as obvious, but the current bid on this is $3,100. It's supposed to be a photograph of 'The Face of the Lord' as seen in a cloud (item# 5557053951). The photo was taken 31 years ago. I think I can see some kind of face-like features in the cloud, but as one person has already commented on the auction, 'What if it's the devil?' I wonder if it would fetch even more money if it were a demonic photo.
image
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005.   Comments (22)
Bacon Whores — image Bacon Whores (which is quite safe for work, despite the name) caters to that lucrative niche market of people who enjoy bacon but don't want to cook it themselves. If you're such a person a Bacon Whores employee will come to your house and prepare some bacon for you, for a very reasonable price. You can choose from flavors such as Hickory Smoked, Honey Cured, and Cinnamon Bacon. Their motto is that they provide high quality meat on demand (MOD). The Bacon Whores site is so elaborate that it's almost believable, but after a bit of googling I discovered that it's actually a creation of netboredom.com, which is run by Matthew Vanderzee. It looks like Matthew has been creating hoax websites for the past ten years, at about the rate of one a year. He created Bacon Whores back in 2003. His latest creation is Frootsoup!, which claims to be one of the world's largest produce-based soup restaurant chains.
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005.   Comments (8)
Carrot Fungus: It’ll Either Kill You or Cure Cancer — Andy sent me an email pointing out this curious article about an anti-cancer compound found in carrots. It's probably some kind of typo or poor choice of words, but if you read the first and last sentences together it sure sounds like this carrot cure is going to kill you before it has a chance to kill the cancer:

Eating 400kg of carrot every day can help ward off cancer, scientists say. The recent study carried out by scientists at the University of Newcastle said a compound called Falcarinol found in carrot reduced the risk of cancer developing in rats by a third....
Falcarinol protects carrots from fungal diseases, such as liquorice rot that causes black spots on the roots during storage, but scientist say, a person would have to eat 400kg of carrots at once to ingest a lethal dose.
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005.   Comments (10)
Save Toby — image If we all don't cough up $50,000 by June 30 then Toby, who happens to be 'the cutest little bunny on the planet', is going to die. His owner will kill him and eat him. Does this all sound familiar? Why, yes! It's a shameless rip-off of Save Bernd. Just as European movies are remade by Hollywood for American audiences, it now seems that European hoaxes are being remade for American audiences as well. However, the American version of the rabbit-killing hoax feels compelled to put a little notice at the bottom of the page telling us that it's all a joke. If you can't get savetoby.com to load, try the google cache version of it. The guy's site seems to be having bandwidth issues. (Thanks to Lawrence for the link)
Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005.   Comments (44)
Chickens From the Sky — Residents of Newcastle in New South Wales are experiencing a very unusual problem. Plucked chickens are falling from the sky and crashing onto their houses. Mr. Warrick Slee had one smash through his roof. Mr. Slee observes that "I think you know there's something unusual going on... birds or chickens or whatever it is, they don't just fall from the sky and put holes in people's roofs." Very true. I figure the freefalling chickens could be the work of pranksters with a catapult. Or maybe they're falling from a plane. Or maybe extraterrestrials have given up on sending messages via crop circles and have now moved on to plucked chickens.
Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005.   Comments (14)
The Lincoln Fry — image The Lincoln Fry Blog is supposed to be a journal kept by a couple, Mike and Liz, detailing their experiences after finding a french fry at McDonalds that looks a lot like Abe Lincoln. But none of it is real (not even the comments on the blog). The site is actually part of McDonald's latest ad campaign that was launched during the Superbowl, which focuses on this fictitious Lincoln Fry. The whole thing is supposed to be a parody of the Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich mania. This marks the second time I've posted about an Abraham Lincoln-shaped potato. The first time occurred back in May 2004 when I linked to a Lincoln spud that was part of an advertising campaign for Anchor O'Reillys Potato Chips. Maybe the Lincoln Fry and the Lincoln Potato Chip should get together. That would be interesting.

Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005.   Comments (11)
Bring Me A Beer — image Here's yet another photo from today's email. This one I refuse to believe is real, although I can't see any evidence that it's fake. I've been to those beer festivals in Germany where the waitresses carry around huge numbers of beer mugs steins in each hand, and I never saw one with six large steins in each hand. At least, I can't remember seeing anything like that (the whole beer-festival experience is a bit blurry in my mind). However, I don't know how such a thing could even theoretically be done. How could you position the steins so that you could grip six handles simultaneously? Unless she's supporting some of them against her body. (click the image to enlarge)
Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005.   Comments (49)
Duff Beer Scam — Australian news sources are reporting about a woman who has been ordered to serve 18 months probation for selling cases of Duff Beer on eBay. Duff Beer is, of course, Homer Simpson's favorite beer on the Simpson's. At first I thought she was selling imaginary beer, but apparently Duff Beer really does exist. It was made briefly during the 1990s by an Australian Brewery, until they were sued by the makers of the Simpson's and had to stop. However, the beer the woman was selling was imaginary in the sense that she didn't have any cases of Duff Beer, which is why she's now serving probation. I'll have to add Duff Beer to my list of fictional beers that became real. The list now includes Olde Frothingslosh Pale Stale Ale, and Duff (it's a short list).
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005.   Comments (9)
Army Worm Wine — image I've posted previously about snake wine, which I thought sounded pretty gross, but I could understand how it was made. Snakes are simply added to rice wine. However, Army Worm Wine is another matter altogether. Ray Reigstad says that he makes this concoction directly from army worms (they're those creatures that hang in web-like tents from trees). In other words, he's not just adding them to rice wine. He's somehow fermenting the worms themselves to produce a wine that supposedly tastes like pinot grigio or white bordeaux. Here's how he says that it's done:

As far as the process goes, I simply treated them as a combination of a fruit and a flower, after all, they eat leaves. Other ingredients include sugar, water, champagne yeast (from Canada), yeast nutrient, pectic enzymes, acid blend and campden tablets. This wine was made in Duluth, Minnesota in small batches using highly sterile equipment. It registers approximately 11% alcohol on the vino-meter.

I'm not a wine expert (though I like drinking it), but just because the worms eat leaves doesn't mean they're sugary enough to ferment. Or does it? My gut instinct (for some reason) is to believe that this stuff is real, but I'd like to know more about how it's made.
Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005.   Comments (33)
Man Sells Left Nut on eBay — image A guy from Texas is selling his left nut on eBay so that he can buy a tractor. Ha Ha. It's a peanut. But I think I see the face of Jesus on it.
Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005.   Comments (13)
Jesus on the Half Shell — image Here's another image-of-God-appears-in-food story. The BBC reports that a Swiss bar manager, Matteo Brandi, has found an oyster shell that bears the spitting image of Jesus Christ, though to me it looks more like what I imagine the Sea-God Poseidon should look like. Mr. Brandi said he found the shell when "The oyster stuck to his hand as if God was calling him." He also points out that his oyster shell is unique because, unlike the Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich, it is "the work of nature." That's true. A few hundred years ago Mr. Brandi's shell would have been referred to as a Lusus Naturae. Mr. Brandi doesn't need any encouragement to sell his holy oyster shell online. That's already his plan.
Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005.   Comments (21)
Secret Ingredient Scam — I spent my Sunday night watching FoodTV's new show, Iron Chef America. I've long been a fan of the original Japanese Iron Chef, but I quite liked Food TV's adaptation of it. However, I was upset to read in this NY Times article that the 'secret ingredient' presented to the chefs at the beginning of the competition isn't that secret after all:

Both teams are readier for the challenge than most viewers realize. They have come to Kitchen Stadium knowing that they will be cooking with one of two ingredients, striped bass or buffalo, a choice negotiated in advance with the network.

Hmm. Instead of calling it the 'Secret Ingredient' perhaps they should call it the 'Previously Negotiated and Agreed Upon Ingredient'.
Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005.   Comments (23)
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