Thursday, May 14, 2009

Red snapper, tilapia, pate, dog food ... can anyone tell the difference?

Posted by Owen Morris on Thu, May 14, 2009 at 11:15 AM

Yesterday's breathless revelation that many restaurants use cheap tilapia in place of expensive red snapper raised a larger point: Would most people know the difference?

Both are white fish, both have a firm texture and, while the flavors may be different (red snapper actually has flavor) underneath a mountain of butter and other spices, it can be difficult to tell one from another. I don't think I could.

The American Association of Wine Economists put a more disgusting premise to test -- could average diners distinguish between liver pate and dog food? Liver pate is considered a great delicacy, costing up to $100 for small amounts. Dog food is dog food. I've seen cans of Old Roy costing as little as 33 cents. The premise of the experiment was simple:

"Considering the similarity of its ingredients, canned dog food could be a suitable and inexpensive substitute for pâté or processed blended meat products such as Spam or liverwurst ... In a double-blind test, subjects were presented with five unlabeled blended meat products, one of which was the prepared dog food. After ranking the samples on the basis of taste, subjects were challenged to identify which of the five was dog food."

The result of the experiment (PDF) was that 83 percent of the subjects couldn't tell. So while the idea of dog food may seem gross, the product itself is "palatable."

Not that I'm about to go testing dog food. No, that's what Stephen Colbert is for:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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I was trying to go visit your server earlier but it just kept refreshing and refreshing. Was your website undergoind maintance or is crappy computer just acting up? Anyways great post as always :)

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Posted by Andrew Pelt on December 12, 2009 at 3:07 PM

I was trying to go visit your server earlier but it just kept refreshing and refreshing. Did you have a server problem or is my crappy internet needs some fixing? Anyways great post as always

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Posted by Hipolito M. Wiseman on December 12, 2009 at 12:20 PM

I have firefox at home pc but right now I'm at work and looking through your website

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Posted by Gregory Despain on December 12, 2009 at 7:37 AM

I am not sure why liver pate will cost hundred bucks, maybe it was foie gras? It really doesn't cost anymore than than liver itself,which is under $3/lb

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Posted by meesha.v on May 14, 2009 at 1:03 PM
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