No the "AND" is not missing - The National Cattlemen's Beef Association is developing a new appetizer and it is available now nationwide. Has anyone seen these or tried them ? (From Today's NY Times)
Cheeseburger and Fries, Wrapped Up in One September 23, 2003 By TANIA RALLI If the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has its way, beef will not be just for dinner anymore. Looking to emulate the success of Chicken McNuggets and fried mozzarella sticks, the group is hoping to inject some red meat into the American snack food diet with cheeseburger fries. The fries, which look like a squat version of standard French fries, are made of a meat-and-cheese compound that tastes - as the name suggests - like a cheeseburger. Breaded, then deep-fried and served with ketchup or barbecue sauce, cheeseburger fries have found their way onto menus in several states including Nebraska, Minnesota and Texas since June. There is also a version being made available to public school cafeterias. “The challenge is getting people to think of other ways to eat beef,” said Betty Hogan, director of new product development for the association. Beef, mostly in the form of hamburger, still dominates the menus of fast-food restaurants and bars across the country. But even the enduring popularity of the hamburger is not enough to counteract the long-term decline in national beef consumption. Twenty years ago Americans ate 77.1 pounds of beef per capita and 51.3 pounds of chicken. In 2001, the figures were 66.2 pounds of beef per capita and 75.6 pounds of chicken. That reversal took place in part because of the popularity of McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, which were introduced in 1983, altering the public’s perception of chicken by turning it into a quick and convenient food. Beef was still largely relegated to the evening meal, and the National Beef Council’s popular slogan - “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner” - seemed out of step when fewer families were sitting down to dinner together. Looking for other avenues into the American diet, the beef industry noticed that restaurants sell over 900 million portions of chicken strips and fried cheese sticks, many of them as appetizers. “You just don’t see beef-based appetizers,” Rob McLaughlin, vice president for product management at the Advance Food Company in Enid, Okla., which is manufacturing cheeseburger fries. The fries themselves are surprisingly light, weighing only about one ounce each. The meat, so that it holds together, is firm like a meatball. And while the taste is not distinctly beef, biting into one does impart the lingering flavoring of processed cheese. Steve Mason, owner of the Brass Rail restaurant in Beatrice, Neb., said he served five fries in a portion and charged $2.95. “They’re very profitable,” he added. Like most bar snacks, cheeseburger fries pack quite a dietary wallop. Each individual fry has about 75 calories and four grams of fat. The fries for schools have less beef per serving but still have about 60 calories and, in fact, more fat - a total of 6 grams - in each fry. And nobody eats just one. Developing a beef-based snack was a process that took about two years. According to Dr. Tony Mata, the technical coordinator of the association’s research and development branch, the final shape of cheeseburger fries was almost an accident. “There’s an interesting twist to how this product came about,” he said. “We were actually working on a cheeseburger by the slice.” The idea had been to manufacture precooked patties that tasted like a cheeseburger by combining ground beef and cheese. “It was supposed to have the same dimension of a regular hamburger patty,” Dr. Mata said. The consumer would simply heat the burger in a pan or microwave, place it in a bun, and dress it like a regular burger. “It looked good on paper,” Dr. Mata said. “Then we tried it at the laboratory, and the initial appeal was horrible.” Dr. Mata and the development group decided to rework the product, changing its shape, adding batter and bread and dropping it into the deep fryer. The new prototype was tested in Evanston, Ill., at the Keg of Evanston, a popular bar near Northwestern University. Satisfied with the response, the association enlisted a food scientist, Steve Moore, who is known in the business for his expertise in developing breaded coatings. In the past Mr. Moore worked on breading projects like onion rings, jalapeño peppers, seafood and even French toast sticks (in effect, adding breading to bread). “I started the project by putting a variety of flavors together with coatings,” Mr. Moore said about the cheeseburger fries. He likened the coating process to walking a tightrope, since the moisture of the meat and cheese must be carefully controlled for the breading to adhere. Otherwise, when the product is deep-fried, the heat of the oil will produce enough steam to blow off the breading. “You always follow wet by dry,” he said. So, before the meat and cheese could be battered and breaded, the shaped mixture had to be coated in a fine flourlike substance called predust to dry the surface of the moist mixture. Picking the right cheese was also an issue. Mr. Moore tested everything from premium sharp cheddar cheese to processed American cheese. “We didn’t want it so cheesy that we overwhelmed the beef flavor,” he said. “When people bite into it, you want them to get the wow effect: ‘Wow, this tastes just like a cheeseburger,’ “ Mr. Moore said. After testing different types of cheeses, Mr. Moore settled on a processed restricted-melt cheese, meaning that it is manufactured to withstand high temperatures. “Some cheeses are so restricted melt that we bit in and it looked like little yellow pieces of plastic,” he said. He created three flavor profiles. The first tasted like plain beef with salt and pepper. Then he made a prototype mimicking the flavor of beef fried on a flat-top grill, as at McDonald’s, and another that suggested a charbroiled flavor, like a Burger King hamburger. Tasters like the charbroiled flavor, but said it did not make sense to have something like that also taste deep-fried. “It’s hard to please everyone,” Mr. Moore said. When Advance Food began producing the cheeseburger fries at the beginning of the year under license from the cattlemen’s association, the company limited distribution to the central states but the product is now available across the country. “We think that we will sell about a million dollars’ worth this year,” Mr. McLaughlin said. All this, of course, pleases the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “We want beef in dessert if we can get it there,” Ms. Hogan said.
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Originally posted by dunkndollaz“The challenge is getting people to think of other ways to eat beef,”
Quick, someone call Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson! Get them on this council!
sorry...
(edited by ThreepMe on 23.9.03 1124) I would like to congatulate Al Snow on his contact with La-Z-Boy. Because we all know Al doesn't sell chairs. - Mick Foley
Silence, Canadian. I'll have none of your sissy cheese and gravy.
On a side note, what do you call these things? "Cheeseburger Fries" doesn't have much of a ring to it. Really lends itself to a plethora of phallic nicknames, too. "Try new Beef Darts!" or perhaps "tube steak with cheese."
And if McDonald's adopts this, it'd just be one more reason for the Hindus in the audience to hate them. As if cooking their fries in beef fat wasn't enough.
Also, at first I thought this was a Jimmy Buffet thread, as I thought the title read "Cheeseburger in Paradise." Maybe they can get him to adapt that song to promote these crazy things.
On the topic of alternative beef, has anybody ever tried the burgerpipe? www.burgerpipe.com It looks gross to me, but those mutants seem to enjoy them. On the beach! Also, I don't know about you guys, but Chicken McNuggets always make me feel like some kind of explosive has gone off in my stomach. I really like the chicken strips that Arby's has, though. As for the article, that last line got me thinking. How COULD they put beef in dessert? Hamburger ice cream? Steak ala mode? Hotdog split(beef hotdog, of course)? Of course, meat pies already exist. I guess it's just a matter of marketing.
That burgerpipe site it really creepy.....but that and cheeseburger fries sound great...My arteries have to much flow for my tastes anyway. Im down with the brown.
"dubya never talks while cheney is drinking water...check that shit out"
Originally posted by Mack SalmonOn the topic of alternative beef, has anybody ever tried the burgerpipe? www.burgerpipe.com
Didn't 7-11 used to have (don't know if they still do) something like a burger shaped like a hot dog? I remember eating one once, not being that impressed, and the 7-11 commercial, with a guy eating one on a bus and telling it, "I love you, even though you look uglier than homemade sin."
The memories of my family outings are still a source of strength to me. I remember we'd all pile into the car - I forget what kind it was - and drive and drive. I'm not sure where we'd go, but I think there were some trees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called "Dad." We'd eat some stuff, or not, and then I think we went home. I guess some things never leave you.
If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did."
Call me naive, but "burgerpipe" looks like a prime business opportunity to make some cash money on the side.
"How did the Cards go 11-5? How did Emmie Smith rush for 1,400 yards? How did Jeff Blake become the No. 3 rated passer in the NFL? You dreamt it, that's how."
Originally posted by Mack SalmonOn the topic of alternative beef, has anybody ever tried the burgerpipe? www.burgerpipe.com
Didn't 7-11 used to have (don't know if they still do) something like a burger shaped like a hot dog? I remember eating one once, not being that impressed, and the 7-11 commercial, with a guy eating one on a bus and telling it, "I love you, even though you look uglier than homemade sin."
They have something similar to this in Central Pennsylvania at the local "Uni-Mart" convienience stores called "The Big Ugly". It is one of the nastiest tasting things you could ever eat. Only the really drunk eat those things.
This should shut down any cable providers who're bitching about ESPN's price-gouging tactics. "Oh, you think we charge too much? That's okay, we'll just pull the ESPNs off the lineup. While we're at it, we'll go ahead and take E!