3D food printing
How long before Heston Blumenthal starts using one in his restaurants?
Behold the latest marvel of wonder technology: the CocoJet, a 3D printer that can create intricate chocolate structures that will then be crushed in eager mouths. Youtube Video The machine, built by 3D Systems, uses nozzles to pump down dark, milk, and white chocolate onto software-specified designs. The brown stuff comes …
You have been far too kind to Hershey. It isn't disappointing, it is foul. Like eating brown, flavourless toothpaste mixed with powdered cardboard and some disgusting and weird sweetener. How the Mericans can eat it I don't know.
A pint of goat urine would be more pleasant to consume.
A pint of goat urine would be more pleasant to consume.
Bud? Really? You've really got to stop consuming the mass market US food stuffs and stick with the small craft makers products. It doesn't matter if it's chocolate or beer. There is a reason the trots are often referred to as 'the hershey squirts' here in the states.
It didn't seem like Hershey's was bad when I was young (sadly, 40-some years ago), but now it is just candle wax with dirt sprinkled in. In fact, all the bulk candy bars now seem waxy and flavorless. Wasn't sure if it was just my taste buds dieing off or me becoming snobbish, but after reading these comments I'm willing to think it may be a third option, that manufacturers have been slowly removing all traces of actual chocolate from their goo vats.
Hershey's recently complained that chocolate prices may drastically increase because of shortages of cocoa beans. I'm guessing that won't affect them much.
But why wait for a fancy machine to take your precious chocolate* and make it into intricate shapes? Why not just scoff the chocolate instead of putting it into the machine? Chocolate satisfaction in much less time.
* I'm using the word "chocolate" in it's loosest sense here, as we're dealing with Hershey
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Any confectioner - or, come to think of it, housewife back when I were a wee laddie - could make attractive, edible - nay, tasty - shapes using one of those conical squirty things with a nozzle.
On the other hand, if I can get supplies from the chemical factory piped directly to a 3D printer at my home, and then "print" the same pre-packed junk which goes into my supermarket basket every week, I shall buy one.
It wouldn't surprise me if Tyson is working on the same thing with ground chicken.
Over-the-top chocolate crayon provision?
Tastes rather like Hilliers in Aus. Nice packaging but tastes like the "Kandos" stuff available in Sri Lanka 30 years ago. I had to spit it out.
My understanding is that they do something to it to stop it melting in the heat - which is presumably why the Sri Lankan, American and Australian chocolate all taste equally revolting. Even global brands like Cadburys, kit-kat etc are awful in Australia. I never buy any choccies but the imported Lindt now. Everything else is disappointing.
The former British colonies don't have an oligopoly on poor quality chocolate. I've had some pretty poor stuff from Austria, Denmark and Norway too.
Unlike Hershey, Australian chocolate, while not always up to the standards on Western Europe's best, doesn't taste like vomit.
However I also tend to stick to Lindt when it comes to plain dark chocolate.
FWIW, here's what the U.S. gubmint says can go into something labeled "chocolate" -- http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/ComplianceManuals/CompliancePolicyGuidanceManual/ucm074446.htm --
"The label of a nonstandardized food which bears no artificial chocolate flavor or natural flavor derived from a source other than cacao beans may bear the term "chocolate" (in contrast to "chocolate flavor") provided the product meets one of the following conditions [ ... ]."
Good beans, crap beans, the lesser cuts of the beans (after the filet mignon equivalent has gone into a higher-end product under another marque) -- as long as it comes from cacao beans, you're golden.
In Hershey's defense, their "special dark" bars are not bad and are usually the second ones picked out of the bowl whenever someone brings a bag of individual bite-sized candy bars for a meeting (peanut butter cups go first). As uninspiring as Hershey's milk chocolate is, true sadness comes in products that include "made with real chocolate!" on the label; one deduces that if not for this announcement the consumer would not notice.
I recall reading of an IBM "wax spitter" rapid-prototyping system which printed a nice IBM logo in chocolate, over 15 years ago. Of course, I remember capability-based operating systems and usable, context-sensitive help systems for computers back in the 1970s as well. I guess the developers that will bring them to market are still backlogged on the flying cars.