Marginal Revolution

Markets in everything: Cupzzas, a pizza baked in cupcake form

"We just really wanted to shatter the cupcake-pizza dichotomy. It's just existed for too long."

I am a monist myself.  Here is much more information.  It is also an example of Thomas Schelling's idea of research by accident:

"[A] lot of our ideas come from just not having the proper materials," Wilder said. "Like the pupzzas came from not being able to find the large tins."

Markets in everything

Restaurants for dogs with Hall of Fame baseball players as waiters edition.

I thank John de Palma for the pointer (and the name of the edition).

Mexican alchemy?

A method of producing synthetic diamonds using tequila - Mexico's favourite alcoholic drink - has been discovered, scientists there say.

Not from The Onion.  I thank Michael Makowsky for the pointer.

The tonic, again

Best to clear your mind and emotions of group loyalties and resentments and ask, if this belief gave me no pleasure of rebelling against some folks or identifying with others, if it was just me alone choosing, would my best evidence suggest that this belief is true?  All else is the road to rationality ruin.

I don't have to tell you who that is.

Tyler Cowen on ethnic dining

Currently, what are you favorite places to eat in the D.C. metro area?

I love Thai X-ing (DC), Meaza (Baileys Crossroad), Nava Thai (Wheaton), Hong Kong Palace (Falls Church), China Star (Fairfax), Bombay Indian (Silver Spring) and Angeethi (Herndon), plus just about everything Vietnamese in Eden Center (Falls Church). The 9th Street Ethiopian row is very good as well, and also Zenenbech, up on Florida/U/5th or so. Those places are very good and I can eat at them more or less without limit. There aren't many places around as good as those.

Here is much more.

Matt Yglesias, drunk

The plan is bad. But bad policies get enacted all the time. But we’re at a point now where congress is, allegedly, in the hands of progressive leadership. Simply put, if congressional Democrats manage to acquiesce in a plan that spends $700 billion on a bailout while doing nothing for average working people and giving the taxpayer virtually no upside in a way that guarantees that even electoral victory would give an Obama administration no resources with which to implement a progressive domestic agenda in 2009 then everyone’s going to have to give serious consideration to becoming a pretty hard-core libertarian.

It’d be one thing for a bunch of conservative politicians to ram a terrible policy through. Then we could say “well, if some progressives win the next election things will be different.” But if this comes through an allegedly progressive congress then the whole enterprise starts looking pretty hollow.

Here is the link.  Personally, I don't get drunk, but there are a number of enterprises -- not just Matt's -- which are looking pretty hollow these days.  And I don't just mean banks.  You can blame lots of the crisis on government -- more than most people think -- but at the end of the day it is hard to escape the conclusion that markets simply have performed horribly in a number of important regards.

As one of Matt's commentators indicates, it is time for both candidates to show up in Washington and start...um...acting like Senators.

Addendum: Via Greg Mankiw, here is a chilling analysis of the bail-out.  Get this line:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Second addendum: Also via Matt, here is a round-up of critical commentary on the Paulson plan.  Count me in too, among those screaming "no!"  Yet it seems it's going to happen.

The Glass-Steagall Act: A History of Thought

Me in 1985: The Glass-Steagall Act should be repealed.

Me in 1989: I'm not so sure about repealing the Glass-Steagall Act.  Repeal would, in effect, extend the protection of deposit insurance to investment banks and other risky entities.  Moral hazard is a real problem.

Me in 1996: It doesn't seem to matter that much that they haven't repealed Glass-Steagall.  The Fed is relaxing restrictions on banks in any case.

Me in 1999: What?  Did they repeal Glass-Steagall?  I wasn't paying attention.

Me in September 13, 2008: Whew!  I'm sure glad they repealed the Glass-Steagall Act.  My 1989 worries were not crazy but I did not see that counterparty risk would spread the safety net to risky entities in any case, with or without explicit merger.

Me next week: How are we going to stop all these consolidated financial entities from taking advantage of deposit insurance and other public sector guarantees?

Wal-Mart and obesity

Here's Charles Courtemanche and Art Carden:

We estimate the impacts of Wal-Mart and warehouse club retailers on height-adjusted body weight and overweight and obesity status, finding robust evidence that non-grocery selling Wal-Marts reduce weight while grocery-selling Wal-Marts and warehouse clubs either reduce weight or have no effect. The effects appear strongest for women, minorities, urban residents, and the poor. We then examine the effects of these retailers on exercise, food and alcohol consumption, smoking, and eating out at restaurants in order to explain the results for weight. Most notably, the evidence suggests that all three types of stores increase consumption of fruits and vegetables while reducing consumption of foods high in fat. This is consistent with the thesis that Wal-Mart increases real incomes through its policy of "Every Day Low Prices," making healthy food more affordable, as opposed to the thesis that cheap food prices make us eat more.

Of course, not everyone likes Wal-Mart.

Markets in everything, China edition

Stir Fried Wikipedia.

Or so the translation goes.  Here is the explanation (with photos):

It's not entirely clear how this error came about but it seems likely that someone did a search for the Chinese word for a type of edible fungus and its translation into English. The most relevant and accurate page very well might have been an article on the fungus on Wikipedia. Unfamiliar with Wikipedia, the user then confused the name of the article with the name of the website. There have been several distinct citings of "wikipedia" on Chinese menus.

That's from the Revealing Errors blog and I thank Kat for the pointer.  The blog is very good; here is an interesting post on "the Cupertino effect."

Eating local

Will Wilkinson serves up his wisdom:

How far your food travels matters a lot less than what kind of food it is, or how it was produced. According to a recent study out of Carnegie Mellon University, the distance traveled by the average American's dinner rose about 25 percent from 1997 to 2004, due to increasing global trade. But carbon emissions from food transport saw only a 5 percent bump, thanks to the efficiencies of vast cargo container ships.  [TC: do note that precedes the rapid run-up of oil prices.]

A tomato raised in a heated greenhouse next door can be more carbon-intensive than one shipped halfway across the globe. And cows spew a lot more greenhouse gas than hens, or kumquats, so eating just a bit less beef can do more carbon-wise than going completely local. It's complicated.

Addressing the cool folks, Will adds:

Should we minimize our “music miles” and boycott bands on tour? Thankfully, our next-door neighbors have a band, Dead Larry. We don’t have to go anywhere to hear them.

Here is the full CMU study cited by Will on food miles.  In my view we do have duties to behave more responsibly at the dinner table but the simple admonition "eat less meat" will do.  Maybe you don't like tofu but sardines are delicious, or use Goya small red beans with shredded Mexican cheese (even the Kraft package is decent) and ground chile on a corn tortilla.  Don't forget the lime on top.

Lowering the drinking age

Here is another reader request:

There's been recent talk about what would happen if the legal drinking age were lowered to 18. Would there be a net increase or decrease in risky binge drinking, accidents, etc?

New Zealand lowered its drinking age to 18 in 1999 and bad consequences followed, including a higher rate of drinking-related car crashes.  Illegality, even when it can be circumvented, really does raise the price of an activity in many instances. 

Nonetheless I still think that 20-year-olds -- legal adults in just about every other way -- have the right to drink alcohol.  Sometimes I call myself a "two-thirds utilitarian."  I am a pluralist who thinks that utility is often but not always the primary consideration behind policy choice.

There's always another paternalist intervention to save children's lives but no one is for all of them.  We could ban swimming pools and buckets for instance.  We could ban high school football.  We could raise the drinking age to 25.  How about a drinking age of 50?  How about a driving age of 21?

I see at least two major analytical questions.  First, how much normative force should "extra death" have in a policy argument?  Second, what is special about the number 18?  Consistent with the latter question, I think that 15-year-olds should be able to drink in a restaurant when clear parental permission is present.

Rules for eating in Chilean restaurants

1. Order the avocado ("palta," not "aguacate") whenever you can.

2. Order crab, in any manifestation possible, whenever you can.  There is nothing you should prefer over the crab.

3. Scallops are next in the hierarchy.  The sea urchin is quite good if you like it.

4. The fish is of excellent quality but the preparations are usually boring.  The greater the number of sauces you are offered, the less likely you should take any of them.

5. Fear not the mayonnaise.  It is good.  Really.

6. Parmesan cheese on either clams or scallops is excellent.

7. If you can, try a ham and cheese sandwich, roast beef, figs, mashed potatoes, vanilla ice cream, honey, butter, and the juices.

8. Provided you obey these rules, do not be put off by simple-sounding menus.

9. The overall quality of the food is very high, but the very best restaurants are not much better than the good restaurants.  This is often the case in areas with excellent natural ingredients, as human labor becomes a less important input.

10. A subtle blending of Chilean and Peruvian food is occurring in Santiago; the Peruvian restaurants by the way are first-rate.

The drink-ice cube ratio

Sorry Europeans, but some drinks taste better with ice cubes.  The key is to get the ratio right.  As a first approximation, there are two main problems.  First, the ratio of drink to ice cubes may be too high.  In that case you start off by doing some drinking merely as an act of investment in the future quality of the drink.  (Ideally I would prefer to pour some drink on the floor, though I am too civilized for that.  Alternatively, this can be reason to dine with a companion, who will sop up your excess.)  Another reason the ratio becomes too high is if the waiter comes by and pours excess drink into your glass, so that he may take away your can or bottle "too soon" for his own not quite legitimate purposes.  This can be avoided by placing your bottle or can in an inconvenient, hard to reach place.

Country restaurants in Thailand sidestep these problems by sending around a staff member to replenish drinks with fresh ice cubes and restore the proper ratio; trust is essential.

Second, the ratio of ice cubes to drink may be too high.  If you order two drinks you rarely find (for whatever reason) that both have too many ice cubes.  You can put excess ice cubes from your water glass in your Coke but not vice versa.  If you order both mineral and plain water two-way transfers are usually possible and thus the tastes of your two drinks end up insufficiently diversified.

Why is lobster getting cheaper?

David Gross writes:

At root, the global forces that are driving up the price of food don't significantly affect the vacation lobster business in Maine. Commercial and consumer demand doesn't vary much for off-the-boat lobster. Sure, many lobsters are sold to processing plants. But unlike other seafood products—think of canned tuna, or clam sauce, or frozen fish fillets—lobster is not produced or marketed on a mass global scale, which also means there are no speculators trying to make a killing on lobster futures. The fact that people are eating more and better in China and India isn't much boosting the demand for lobsters from Maine. Even in the United States, lobster remains to a large degree a regional product.

Consistent with Gross's hypothesis, lobster is phenomenally expensive in Chile right now, in either absolute terms or especially in relative terms (compare for instance to Chilean sea bass, which is half the U.S. price or less but Chilean lobster is at least twice the U.S. prices from a sample of n = 2; Chilean sea urchin is cheap too and delicious).   

But why is lobster cheaper?  Gross samples prices in Maine and higher gas prices may mean lower demand from tourists.  But I am a little confused by Gross's additional explanation:

Distributors seeking to maintain their margins are cramming down the fishermen. And with limited local outlets (even swelled by summer visitors, the population of coastal Maine is relatively small), lobstermen can't hold out for higher prices.

Imagine a multi-product firm which applies mark-ups on different commodities.  (If everything is perfectly competitive there won't be cross-product effects.)  If the marginal cost of buying salmon goes up, can the mark-up on lobster then go down?  Is it that the retailer, now faced with higher salmon costs, "threatens bankruptcy" to get a better result from the bargaining game with the lobster supplier?

Tipping is hard

And should I also say that writing software is sometimes easy?  Stephen Dubner lists some of the new iPhone applications:

iTip, from palaware
iTip, from Uncouth Software
BigTipper, from PureBlend Software
TipCalc, from BAMsoft
Tiptap, from Made with Bananas
Tipulator, from tap tap tap
Tip Calc, from Charles Ying
Tip, from Carlos Perez
CheckPlease, from Catamount Software
Tips, from Kudit.com
mTip, from Pascal Mermoz
TipBuddy, from Justin Jeffress
Gratuity, from TapeShow
QuickTip, from Spare Change Software
Tippety Split, from Manta Ray Software

The best sentence I read this morning

The yogurt-based, covered-pot-baked Kazakh bread smells exactly like good dinner rolls from a Midwestern supper club, but the moist, absorbent texture seems closer to an underwater sea sponge.

The whole review is excellent; it covers a new Chinese regional cookbook Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China.

Freedom Fries Under Attack

The Los Angeles council has just passed on ordinance banning new fast food restaurants in a poor section of South/Central LA.  William Saletan calls it Food Apartheid and writes:

We're not talking anymore about preaching diet and exercise, disclosing calorie counts, or restricting sodas in schools. We're talking about banning the sale of food to adults....It's true that food options in low-income neighborhoods are, on average, worse than the options in wealthier neighborhoods. But restricting options in low-income neighborhoods is a disturbingly paternalistic way of solving the problem.

Milton Friedman once said:

I don't think the state has any more right to tell me what what to put in my mouth than it has to tell me what can come out of my mouth.

Friedman was talking about drug prohibition but today the target could just as easily be food prohibition.

Hat tip on the Friedman quote to Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek.

Calorie counts on the menu

Yes I saw the counts today on the breakfast menu in New York City.  Being a silly man, who is easily prone to violating the independence of irrelevant alternatives, I immediately searched for the item with the highest calorie count (it involved butter and lobster, for breakfast).  I thought "no way will I get that" and ordered a bagel with lox and cream cheese.  Yes, I know about anchoring and behavioral economics.  Is not one equilibrium that every restaurant puts an especially high calorie item on its menu, so that people feel virtuous in ordering something else?

Beer prices vs. wine prices

Josh writes to me:

This might not be normal, but last night I started wondering why beer prices are not listed on menus, while wine prices are.  My next thought was "Tyler Cowen would know the exact answer to that".  I know you are busy and it is a rather trivial question, but I was wondering if you could explain the differences in wine and beer that lead restaurants to include the price of one and not the price of the other on their menus.

Only sentence two is foolish but at least on this I am meta-rational and I appeal to you for help.  One possibility is that wine prices don't have such a tight upper bound so you had better get the customer's buy-in for a relatively expensive bottle.  Or if fine bottles are being sold relatively cheaply that is worth screaming about but how much can you discount a quality beer?

China Fact of the Day

China is the world's largest importer of chicken feet and the United States is the world's largest exporter.  Tyson Foods alone send some 2.8 billion chicken feet to China every year.  The chicken feet are sold at Chinese Wal-Marts (among other places) which in China are upscale and appreciated for their high quality American goods.

Food bleg

Is there anywhere good to eat right off the road between Phoenix and Sedona?  I won't be there long, it really must be along the way.  And it must be tasty.

How are wines arranged in the store?

The wine aisle in your grocery store is probably organized this way. Yes, I know there is a California section and an Import section and even a jug/box wine spot, but look within each wine display and you’ll see the clear price stratification effect. The wines you have come to buy are probably on the shelf just below your natural eye level, so that you cannot help but see those special occasion wines just above them (and the higher priced wines above them on the top shelf). Cheaper wines are down below, near the floor, so that you have to stoop down to choose them.

The physical act of taking the wine from the shelf mirrors the psychological choice you make — reach up for better (more expensive) wines, stoop down for the cheaper products. The principle will be the same in upscale supermarkets and discount stores but the choices (what price wine will be at the bottom, middle and top) will differ as you might expect.

Here is the full post, which includes a photo.

How much do biofuels drive up food prices?

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Here is the story, the report is not yet available, at least not to me.  Seventy-five percent seems like a high estimate to me, especially since many foods are more expensive but they are not all used for biofuels.  Still, the government's estimate of three percent is surely way too low.  Biofuels are maybe a good test case for various estimates of government quality: will the bad biofuels still be subsidized five years from now?

The eleven best foods you aren't eating

This has already achieved widespread circulation through the NYT, but if you don't already know, its presented expected value is high.  A good way to eat pumpkin seeds is to fry them with chopped tomatillos and chopped white onions and a few chiles, then Cuisinart the whole thing into a sauce and use it with the meat or vegetable of your choice.  Tuna works well too, noting that a rural Mexican might add pumpkin or squash.  You can serve it with either rice or tortillas.

Ching Ching Desserts

If you are ever in Hong Kong try the cream of almond and black sesame soup at Ching Ching Desserts on Electric Street just around the corner from the Tin Hau metro.  It's like drinking marzipan - with a little garnish and served in style this dessert soup could find its way onto the menu of any five star restaurant in the world but you can get a bowl in Hong Kong for less than three bucks. 

Markets in everything, Ukrainian restaurant edition

Perhaps taking a page from the Pringles inventor who was recently buried in a can of said dehydrated chips, a Ukrainian restaurant is shaped like a coffin on the outside, and boasts a coffin theme inside.

Here is a photo and further explanation.  Many or perhaps all of the entries have themes of death.  Perhaps they should do an economic impact study:

The undertakers hope that their restaurant will be confirmed as the world’s biggest coffin, attracting tourists to a region best known for its mineral-rich bathing waters.

Here are even more photos of interest.

How much has globalization helped U.S. wine drinkers?

More than I had thought:

For instance, the real price (in 1988 prices) for the basket of the entire Top 100 list [for the U.S.] was $4,313 in 1988; $3,132 in 1993; $2,533 in 1999; and $2,421 in 2004. That is nearly a 44% decrease in prices from 1988 to 2004. At the same time, there was no significant change in the quality of the wines on the Top 100 list.

Here is much more information, from Karl Storchmann.

Bottomfeeder

The author is Taras Grescoe and the subtitle is "How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood," buy it here.  Yes this is one of the best non-fiction books this year so far and yes I say that after having read (and mostly liked) the last five books on the exact same topic.  I hope it does well because this book is an object lesson in how to best your competitors and we'll see whether or not that matters.

Did you know that the average cell membrane of an American is now only 20 percent omega-3-based fats?  In Japan it is 40 percent.

Or did you know that American sushi restaurants promising you "red snapper" are usually serving tilapia or perhaps sea bream.

The book has a superb explanation of how "frozen at sea" fish are now better, safer and tastier than "fresh fish," including for sushi.

English fish and chips was originated by Jewish merchants in Soho, drawing upon the same Portuguese traditions that led to tempura in Japan.

The Japanese are experimenting with acupuncture to keep fish alive and "relaxed" on their way from the ocean to being eaten.

Two of the practical takeaways from the book are a) if only for selfish reasons, do not eat most Asian-farmed shrimp, and b) eat more sardines.  They are, by the way, very good with butter on sourdough bread.

This is one of the best single topic food books of the last five years.  It is historical, practical, ethical, and philosophical, all at once.

Krugman gets a Rotten Tomato

Paul Krugman is attacking Milton Friedman (again) for rotten tomatoes.  Here's Krugman in 2007:

These are anxious days at the lunch table. For all you know, there may be E. coli on your spinach, salmonella in your peanut butter and melamine in your pet’s food and, because it was in the feed, in your chicken sandwich.

Who’s responsible for the new fear of eating? Some blame globalization; some blame food-producing corporations; some blame the Bush administration. But I blame Milton Friedman.

...Without question, America’s food safety system has degenerated over the past six years.

and here he is today repeating himself:

Lately, however, there always seems to be at least one food-safety crisis in the headlines — tainted spinach, poisonous peanut butter and, currently, the attack of the killer tomatoes.

How did America find itself back in The Jungle?

I was curious so I collected data from the Center for Disease Control on Foodborne Disease Outbreaks from 1998-2006.   The data only go back to 1998 because in that year the CDC changed its surveillance system creating a discontinuity but note that we are covering a chunk of the Clinton years and are well within the time frame over which Krugman says the safety system has degenerated.  Here's the result:

What we see is a lot of variability from year to year but a net downward trend.  You can also look at cases per year which are more variable but also show a net downward trend.  No evidence whatsoever that we are back "in The Jungle."

The carbon footprint of food

Ezra reports:

...two Carnegie Mellon researchers recently broke down the carbon footprint of foods, and their findings were a bit surprising. 83 percent of emissions came from the growth and production of the food itself. Only 11 percent came from transportation, and even then, only 4 percent came from the transportation between grower and seller (which is the part that eating local helps cut).

In other words, when it comes to food the greenest things you can do, if that is your standard, is to eat less meat and have fewer kids.

Does fast food really make us fat?

Matsa and Anderson next looked at data on individual eating habits from a survey conducted between 1994 and 1996. When eating out, people reported consuming about 35 percent more calories on average than when they ate at home. But importantly, respondents reduced their caloric intake at home on days they ate out (that's not to say that people were watching their weight, since respondents who reported consuming more at home also tended to eat more when going out). Overall, eating out increased daily caloric intake by only 24 calories.

The researchers also find that greater access to fast food restaurants, as created by new highway construction, doesn't much matter for weight.  Here is more, including a link to the original paper.

The best beef in the world?

There is a new winner and yes it is Kobe Beef in Kobe, Japan.  It lives up to the hype, if you are in Kobe just try any of the better beef establishments in town.  My personal list now reads as follows (in order, of course):

1. Kobe Beef, Kobe, Japan.

2. Dry-aged beef in Hermosillo, Mexico.

3. Southern Brazil, near Curitiba.

4. Lockhart, Texas, most of all the brisket at Schmitty's.

Maybe Argentina is next in line and it might place higher if I had consumed countryside barbecue there.

And yes, Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman are right: you should eat less beef.  But Kobe is not the place to abstain.  The reality is that eating beef in Kobe will make it very hard for you to eat beef almost anywhere else again.

Horsemeat sushi

It's very tasty, definitely gamy, extremely tender, and delicious but only in small quantities.  Eat it first in your sushi order, not last.  Here is more information.

Addendum: Do visit the comment left at 8:19 p.m.

Markets in everything

French fry tempura; that's in case they didn't fry them right the first time around.  You might find it in the food basement of a Takeshimaya department store.

The "sushi pizza" (melted cheese on your sushi) is also delicious and it is served in very good restaurants.

Did I mention that Japan has arguably the world's best baked desserts?

The globalization of barbecue?

Here is a neat but somewhat foggy blog post on barbecue:

The word out of the 2008 World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, the world's largest pork BBQ contest held last weekend in Memphis, is that the globalization of barbecue is in the "embryonic" stages.

Why is this foggy?  Well, barbecue went global some time ago, whether it be Maori "Hangi," indigenous Mexican cooking under the ground,  or North African nomads roasting a lamb.  Slow cooking at low heat is the formula in each case and usually smoke plays a role too.  The author notes that soon the Chinese will be in on it but has he ever had traditional Chinese short ribs?  By the way, the best barbecue town in America -- Lockhart, Texas -- draws heavily on German techniques for smoking its meats.

The pointer is from Henry Farrell.

The history of Chinese food in Japan

The popularization of other Chinese dishes in Japan dates further back than that of gyoza, however.  The influx of Westerners into Yokohama, Nagasaki and Kobe during the 1860s set the stage for the diffusion of Chinese cuisine in modern Japan.  Although the Chinese had no legal right to remain in Japan before the first Sino-Japanese treaty was concluded in 1871, they were brought in under the legal protection of Western powers.  Western merchants relied heavily on their Chinese staff -- servants, clerks and middle-men -- to run the households and enterprises that they relocated from the China coast.  During the 1870s and 80s independent Chinese merchants began to settle in Japan as well, so that the Chinese soon constituted the majority of the foreign population residing in the ports.

That is from Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity, by Katazyna J. Cwiertka.  One thing I learned from this book was how much Japanese wartime experience created the notion of a national cuisine in Japan.  Before the war, for instance, soy sauce and rice were not common foods in many parts of rural Japan.

Tuna fish query

Shaun, a loyal MR reader, asks:

I have something that is bugging me: I have noticed that the small tuna fish cans are cheaper, by the ounce, than the larger ones. This holds true with every brand and supermarket. This seems very counterintuitive to me; nearly every other food product gets cheaper as the quantity increases. I wondered if you could tell me what's going on here.

Could it be storage and spoilage costs, thereby making this the corollary of the vending machine question?  Or is it price discrimination against families and in favor of single people?  Or do single people never finish the can and thus they need a lower price as compensation, noting that you still have to cite storage costs to prevent arbitrage?  Those are my quick reactions, can you do better?

Had I mentioned...?

That Tokyo is the best food city in the world?  That's by an order of magnitude; Paris and others aren't close.  At this point my best guess is that Osaka is number two. 

I thank Yan Li for the pointer to the link, which is interesting on another topic as well.  We visited a quite amazing toilet shop here, which was impressive most of all for its seriousness, not just for its product.  It was I believe on the 26th floor (L-Building, Shinjuku), so there is no walk-in trade for them.  They play stormy Beethoven and offer talking toilets, toilets that perform lab tests on your ****, and toilets that can be programmed to do things I hadn't even thought of before.

Good sense on food prices

It seems to me odd to fault the World Bank for advice some 15 years ago to eliminate import protection--so that domestic prices could come down at the time--while at the same time complaining about high prices now, even with the benefit of hindsight.  If developing countries had all kept their import protection, the global supply of food would have been lower today, not higher. (That is because import protection would have led global production to be reallocated from efficient exporters to inefficient importers.) If you are for self-sufficiency, you must be willing to live with high prices.   

No, that's not me, that's from Dani Rodrik.

Claims about food prices

My story is about a world where...GDP growth yields fewer poor people who respond to higher wheat prices by purchasing less meat or wheat, i.e. we have less of a shock absorber. That generates a reduced elasticity of demand of wheat. So prices have to rise by more in order to clear a supply-demand imbalance than was required in the past when there were more poor people who would adjust.

Here is much more, interesting throughout.

A Public Choice theory of Chinese food

Seth Roberts, citing Jennifer 8 Lee, writes:

Why did Chinese immigrants to America start so many restaurants? Because Chinese cuisine is glorious, right? Well, no. Chinese immigrants started a lot of laundries, too, and there is nothing wonderful about Chinese ways of washing clothes. As Jennifer Lee explains in this excellent talk, the first Chinese immigrants were laborers. They were taking jobs away from American men, and this caused problems. Restaurants and laundries were much safer immigrant jobs because cooking and cleaning were women’s work.

By the way, here is some work on immigrant complementarity with native labor.  George Borjas rebuts.

A trip to El Bulli

Air Genius Gary Leff crossed the Atlantic for one purpose alone and now the voyage is blogged, gripping throughout.  My favorite passage is this:

Two women walked in ahead of us, they had been meandering around the grounds and then presented themselves (in sweatshirts and tennis shoes) and asked to be seated for dinner… without reservations. They were turned away in an exceptionally polite way.

The countercyclical asset

Sorry, but the problem has become worse and I have to blog this again:

In Haiti, where three-quarters of the population earns less than $2 a day and one in five children is chronically malnourished, the one business booming amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil and sugar, typically consumed only by the most destitute.

“It’s salty and it has butter and you don’t know you’re eating dirt,” said Olwich Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating them more often in recent months. “It makes your stomach quiet down.”

Kirkland Homogenized Milk

Did you ever buy a carton of milk and find that, upon pouring the milk into your cereal bowl, it spills out onto the table?  At the same time the milk runs down the side of the carton and appears to drip out of the bottom.  Is this spillage a temporary aberration in the steadiness of the wrist?  (But it spilt for Natasha as well.)  Is it a design flaw in just a few of the cartons?  If so, exactly what went wrong on the assembly line?  Or does the product work this way on purpose?  Does there exist an angle at which the milk can be poured without spillage?

Does this mean we won't all evolve into uploads?

Sangam

That's the new Indian food place in the Food Court, at the Johnson Center at George Mason University.  It's excellent, at least so far, thereby making it the first good food at GMU, ever.  I'd put it in the top quarter of local Indian restaurants, though I expect time and the crowds to take its toll.  The vegetarian sampler is the best dish and they serve Halal food as well.  The samosas look overfried.  The analytical question is why this took so long to happen, or alternatively why it has happened at all.  I have read there is also a wave of innovation in hospital food as well.

Todd Kendall wishes to know

...why is it that in every Mexican (or at least, every Tex-Mex) restaurant, there are always 10-20 "combination plates" that each match three seemingly random food items?  Trying to buy the items a la carte involves a substantially higher total price than buying the combo plate.

We all know that bundling can be an effective form of price discrimination but I wonder if that is the case here.  Most of these dishes are just different forms of slop.  Can it really be that someone loves the quesadillas but not the burritos, or vice versa, and that restaurants can capture more consumer surplus by forcing the two to be consumed together?  I am skeptical.  More likely behavioral economics is at work.  Most buyers don't even know the differences between all these fine Mexican culinary art forms, especially as practiced in the United States.  But if they're getting three different kinds of dishes, well, surely they can assume they will be getting something they want.  Slop or no slop.  There is diversification and a feeling that the restaurant's best dish will not be left unsampled.

One implicit prediction is that the very best Mexican restaurants in America will not resort to this kind of subterfuge and indeed they don't.

Do you have any alternative hypotheses?

Scream it from the Rooftops

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, by Fuchsia Dunlop, due out in mid-April.

She is one of the writers I revere most.  And yes, I know she is usually a cookbook writer, but I do mean her writing, not just her recipes.  The more general point is you should expect to see many of the best writers, today, in new media and genres, not in the old.  I saw notice of this, by the way, in the vastly superior to almost anything else London Review of Books.

Pollo Campero

The company, part of the Corporación Multi Inversiones, a diversified privately owned group with interests including finance, real estate, construction and agriculture, does not post earnings. But, according to reliable sources, total income last year was between $380m and $400m (£199m) (€254m). That is about 1.2 per cent of Guatemala’s gross domestic product [emphasis added].

...the best example of how it has adapted its image is China, where the company used its heritage to appeal to the local crowd – even though Guatemala is not usually associated with things most foreigners identify as Latin American, such as soccer and Salsa.

“Chinese people are obsessed with Latin pop culture but they don’t really distinguish between countries,” says Mr Weaver. “So we tried to associate ourselves with figures such as Ricky Martin as well as with Latin American and Spanish football,” he says.

So far, thanks also in part to a new “extra crisp” line of chicken, sales are reportedly strong. Juan José Gutiérrez, Pollo Campero’s chief executive, recently told La Opinión, the US Spanish language daily newspaper, that: “The Latin concept is well received and they loved our chicken.”

Here is more.  It is very good chicken, I like the branch in Falls Church, on Colombia Pike.  I might add that there is a notable trend of successful Latino multinationals.  If Pollo Campero shows nothing else, it is too early to pronounce the Latino market-oriented reforms to be failures.

China fact of the day

There are some forty thousand Chinese restaurants in the United States -- more than the number of McDonald's, Burger Kings, and KFCs combined.

That is from the often quite interesting The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, by Jennifer 8. Lee (yes, readers, her middle initial is the number "8").  Of course arguably most of these restaurants do not count as Chinese food at all.

At the end of the book the author undertakes a global pilgrimage to discover the very best Chinese restaurant outside of China.  The winner?: Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine, just outside of Vancouver.  The number two choice came -- justly -- in Mumbai (Nelson Wang's China Garden).  I've never been to Richmond but I believe all of my top picks would come in India.  Hunan, in London, deserves consideration as well.  The author is correct that Chinese chefs, for whatever reason, do not flourish in France.  Recommended.   

Forward markets in everything, restaurant edition

Jason Kottke relates:

The Riverdale Garden Restaurant in the Bronx is trying out a novel way of staying in business: they're asking for their regulars to pledge $5000 in exchange for a year of free dinners.

The problem of course is obvious.  First, you probably won't get your money back.  Second, if everyone paid up, the restaurant has a weaker incentive to serve good food.  And which customers do you think will receive the best treatment?  The ones who put up nothing per each meal?

Markets in everything

Cheeseburger in a can.  On the brighter side, it sure beats dirt cookies.

Should we abolish trays?

Behavioral economics in action, or call it voluntary paternalism:

Students ran a test last semester showing that on two days when trays weren’t offered, food and beverage waste dropped between 30 and 50 percent, according to Kathy Woughter, vice president for student affairs at Alfred. That amounts to about 1,000 pounds of solid waste and 112 gallons of liquid waste saved on a weekly basis, according to the college.

And why?:

Think back to your undergraduate days eating in the dorm dining hall. When you moved through the buffet line, did you ever get a little too ambitious with portions just because you had extra room on that plastic tray?

If I ran a cafeteria I would consider abolishing utensils, thereby encouraging South Indian and Ethiopian food, but I don't expect that would be popular with all patrons.

Haiti food fact of the day

At the market in the La Saline slum, two cups of rice now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say.

Here is more information.  Here is one review:

A reporter sampling a [mud] cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.

Thanks to William Griffiths for the pointer.

Mark Bittman on the economics of meat

In this excellent piece, I was most struck by the following passage:

But pigs and chickens, which convert grain to meat far more efficiently than beef, are increasingly the meats of choice for producers, accounting for 70 percent of total meat production, with industrialized systems producing half that pork and three-quarters of the chicken.

Let's say you want to protect the environment, and you are going to eat some meat, should you eat cows or pigs?  Pigs.  Let's say you care about animal cruelty.  Pigs are smarter and more social than cows.  A pig (or chicken) also seems to yield less meat per unit of animal suffering.  That would imply it is better for animal welfare to eat cows rather than pigs.  The conflict between environmental goals and animal welfare goals is one of the most significant underreported stories in this area.

Banana, by Dan Koeppel

You will never, ever find a seed in a supermarket banana.  That is because the fruit is grown, basically, by cloning...Every banana we eat is a genetic twin of every other.

It turns out, by the way, that the world's supply of Cavendish bananas -- the ones we eat -- is endangered by disease (more here) and many experts believe the entire strain will vanish.  Most other banana strains are much harder to cultivate and transport on a large scale, so enjoy your bananas while you can.  The previous and supposedly tastier major strain of banana -- Gros Michel -- is already gone and had disappeared by the 1950s, again due to disease.  Today, European opposition to GMO is one factor discouraging progress in developing a substitute and more robust banana crop.

I liked this bit:

"Uganda doesn't endure famine, and to a great extent that is because of bananas," said Joseph Mukibi...

And finally:

Most horrifying of all to Americans, the Indian banana is used as a substitute for tomatoes in ketchup.

I've grown tired of single topic foodstuff books, as they are now an overmined and overrated genre.  But Dan Koeppel's Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World is one of the best of its kind.  It is a seamless integration of politics, economics, history, biology, and foodie wisdom.  Here is one review of the book.  Here is Dan's one-post banana blog.

Objective vs. subjective globalization

Most of all, the growth of markets has made food in India more Indian. The major regional cuisines are now available in many different parts of India, not just in their original regions. The most important globalization, if we can call it that, has occurred within India itself and it has spread Indian diversity around the country. But that development feels like it should have been the case all along, even though it wasn’t, and so it is discounted in importance. The fast food outlets are simply more noticeable and thus create many objections. A more dispassionate view would realize that the growth of food markets, viewed as a whole, has disseminated and supported India’s many cultures.

Here is more, by me, in the Indian newspaper Mint.  Here is the conclusion:

The good news is this: cultural globalization will, with time, become less of a polarizing issue in India and in other developing countries. The first Martian to arrive is the biggest news story, but at some point change becomes commonplace and ceases to attract much notice. At the subjective level, people eventually realize that globalization has preserved or enhanced many parts of India’s heritage. The bad news, however, is closely connected to the good. While cultural evolution in India is hardly over, it is possible that the exciting and heady feelings of change have already peaked.

Wining about Neuroeconomics

Neuroeconomics has promise but many of the early results leave me cold.  A forthcoming paper in PNAS, Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness (subs. required), has all the usual cute pictures of brain scans (see here, if you care) which are used to make the following conclusion. 

Our results show that increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of flavor pleasantness as well as blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex [mOFC], an area that is widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks.

In short, a $90 bottle of wine tastes better than a $10 bottle of wine even when it is the same wine.  But why not just ask people which wine they like best, as many previous studies have done?  How exactly does a picture of the wine-addled brain add to our knowledge?  Are we really so concerned that people would lie about their experiences that we need to put them into a 3 million dollar fMRI scanner to read their brains?   (I wonder if this paper was NSF funded.)

Moreover, the lessons that people are drawing from this study are absurd.  One common response, for example, is "It's a marketing expert's dream; if you want people to like your product more, charge a higher price."  Uh huh.  And what happens when every winery raises its price, will we all purchase more wine?

Living in a market economy the association in the brain between price and quality is constantly reinforced so it's not surprising that sometimes the brain can "jump the gun" in expectation.  But don't imagine that the association can be easily exploited for long.  Why do you think these sorts of studies always use wine?  Could it possibly be because most people can't tell the difference between a cabernet and a merlot let alone between higher and lower quality wine?   But try telling people that a $5,000 car is $45,000 and let's see if the medial orbitofrontal cortex lights up with experienced pleasantness.

Thanks to Ted Frank for the pointer.

Costco chic

I finally crawled out from under the rock I was hiding and visited my first Costco last week, albeit in Veracruz, Mexico.  Their business model seems to focus on stocking only profitable items that can be bought and stored in bulk.  They do not relish the idea of the loss leader or the cross subsidy, but instead they evaluate items in stand-alone terms and look for high turnover.  Inventory costs are low because what they have is right there in the store on pallets.  They don't seem to stock much in the way of competing brands and you see "Kirkland" -- their house label -- frequently; presumably buying from a single vendor lowers their costs further.  As for the store I visited, two thirds of the stuff was hard to find and half of it was hard to reach.  There was a surfeit of cranberry juice, which is otherwise uncommon in Mexico.  There was lots of U.S. Grade A beef and canned goods.  No one asked me to become a member.  It would be a good place to stock up for a party but I can't imagine shopping there regularly: too many of my favorite items are missing and they don't have the hardcore best of Mexican foodstuffs, which are found in the traditional markets.  Since they have over thirty stores in Mexico perhaps the formula is working.

Here is an NYT article about the U.S. phenomenon of Costco chic.

A very well-read waiter

Yes sir, I know what is best, and I will bring it to you.

That was what I heard in The Source, the new Wolfgang Puck restaurant, which is now one of the two best fine dining establishments in an otherwise food-starved Washington D.C.

A Gut Feeling

The title, Campylobacter jejuni infection increases anxiety-like behavior in the holeboard: Possible anatomical substrates for viscerosensory modulation of exploratory behavior, is unpromising but the paper is fascinating.  The authors show that infection with certain bacteria can cause more anxious or cautious like behavior in mice, perhaps causing the infected agent to avoid predators.

The presence of certain bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract influences behavior and brain function. For example, challenge with live Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni), a common food-born pathogen, reduces exploration of open arms of the plus maze, consistent with anxiety-like behavior, and activates brain regions associated with autonomic function, likely via a vagal pathway.

Could bacteria also influence our emotional state?  If verified in humans this could offer insights into conditions like Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome and perhaps into fears such as agoraphobia.  Long time readers will know that this study is not alone in suggesting that parasites can influence our emotions.  Ever wonder why you like cats?

Hat tip to Monique van Hoek and Faculty of 1000.

Garifuna fish soup

Base: one to two cups coconut milk, four cups chicken stock, a tablespoon of achiote [Annatto] paste, the seed is available in Latino markets.

Take some robust fish pieces, cod or monkfish will do, and roll them in beaten eggs, along with minced garlic, freshly minced ginger, coriander, cumin, chili powder, and Mexican oregano, maybe a bit of salt and pepper too.  Fry the fish in vegetable oil until cooked, making sure the oil is properly hot.  Put the resulting fish chunks into the soup.

Or something like that.  Serve with a baguette.  Very yummy.

In case you hadn't noticed

In its first Asian guide, announced on Monday, Michelin has awarded more of its famed stars to Tokyo restaurants than any other city, with a total of 191 stars compared with 64 for Paris and 42 in New York.

This is not seigniorage, we are told:

Anyone who complains about this has never travelled to Tokyo, because if they do, they can see for themselves the fantastic quality of restaurants here,” added Mr Naret.

Why are there no grocery stores in poor neighborhoods?

Well, there are some, you will find Ralph's all over Los Angeles.  But why aren't there more?  (This query is posed here, here, and here, among other places.)  Factor #1 in my view is lack of cars.  Living in an inner city has its downsides, to say the least, but at least you don't have to buy a car.  Yet the modern grocery store is designed for car transport, both how you get there and how you get the groceries away and of course the radius of advertising.  With fewer cars per capita the tendency is for smaller, more local stores, which is precisely what we see in poor neighborhoods.  Not surprisingly poor people are most likely to have cars in LA, and thus most likely to have grocery stores there as well.  For that matter real grocery stores are not all that common in wealthy but relatively carless parts of major cities, such as Manhattan.

Crime is surely a factor as well, what do you all think and what other natural experiments come to mind?

Who waits longest for coffee?

Tim Harford reports:

Caitlin Knowles Myers...with her students as research assistants, staked out eight coffee shops in the Boston area and watched how long it took men and women to be served. Her conclusion: men get their coffee 20 seconds earlier than women. (There is also evidence that black people wait longer than white people, the young wait longer than the old, and the ugly wait longer than the beautiful. But these effects are statistically not as persuasive.)

This does not seem to reduce to greater complexity of drink for the female customers, read these clarifying remarks from the researcher.  One question I have is when the order counts as having started; in my family I am sure that the women spend more time ordering.  The simplest explanation, however, is that the staff feel more implicit psychological pressure to meet the needs of the male customers.  I've also found that indecisive behavior at the counter leads to slower service, I have one particular (male) friend in mind.  I am myself virtually always a decisive orderer.

Along not totally unrelated lines, here are new but not surprising results on which waitresses receive the biggest tips.

Every meal counts

ETHNIC DINING TALK: Tuesday, October 30, Tyler Cowen, author of "Discover Your Inner Economist," discusses "Every Meal Counts: How to Get the Best Food Possible in Washington, D.C." and signs his book. Books will be for sale. Free entry. 6:30 p.m. Cleveland Park Branch Library, 3310 Connecticut Ave. NW. 202-282-3072.

Of course you are encouraged to come...

This is so, so wrong

When she said yes, he asked the more important question, would she attend a performance of the Black Watch, an international bagpipe and drum group, the next weekend at UT Tyler's Cowen Center.

Here is the full but totally non-interesting story. 

On a less incorrect but still odd note, someone just built a column around this point:

There are some restaurant dishes that I order because they sound better than everything else on the menu, and there are some I order because they sound worse.  My reasoning goes like this: If a chef dares to offer something as unappealing as, say, a raw kale salad, chances are it’s fantastic.

My Secret Fear

My secret fear is that one day I will find myself working in Starbucks; the cashier will call out orders - double latte frappuccino, no whip, extra hot, tall; iced caramel macchiato grande; pumpkin spice crème with soy... I will become confused and disoriented, was that extra whip or no whip?  Tall or grande?  Soy or no soy?  What am I doing?  People will shuffle their feet impatiently, check their watch and stare at me with disdain as I struggle to keep up.  I will start to sweat - now people are frowning.  Aaarrgghh - take me back to my quiet office!

I try to remember my secret fear when the conversation at lunch turns to IQ and yes I tipped extra today.

What's your secret fear?

Why is American food getting spicier?

Here is one hypothesis:

...some food scientists and market researchers think there is a more surprising reason for the broad nationwide shift toward bolder flavors: The baby boomers, that huge, youth-chasing, all-important demographic, are getting old. As they age, they are losing their ability to taste - and turning to spicier, higher-flavor foods to overcome their dulled senses.  Chiefly because of degenerating olfactory nerves, most aging people experience a diminished sense of taste, whether they realize it or not. But unlike previous generations, the nation's 80 million boomers have broad appetites, a full set of teeth, and the spending power to shape the entire food market.

I'd be surprised if that explained more than five percent of what is going on.  Younger people are also preferring spicier food.  Western Europe has an older population, but I don't see them (UK aside) falling for spicy food at a comparable rate as are Americans.  Nor does Naples, Florida have much spicy food outside of its Haitian community.  Instead America has more immigrants, and more restaurants run by immigrants.  Spicy foods are addictive.  Most importantly, spicy ethnic food is often better than what we had before, which indeed was usually horrible.  Sometimes the best explanation is the simplest one.

I might add that what is eaten is hardly very spicy at all, at least not to my palate.

Thanks to Michael Makowsky, a loyal MR reader, for the pointer.

Facts about milk

1. Global milk prices have doubled over the last two years.

2. In some parts of the United States, milk is more expensive than gasoline.

3. There are reports of cows being stolen from Wisconsin dairy farms.

4. The rising demand for milk is coming mostly from developing nations; the average Chinese consumes six gallons of milk a year, up from two gallons in 2000.  China is now the world's leading milk importer.

5. Parts of New Zealand are booming.

6. Only 7 percent of all milk commercially produced is traded across national borders.

7. Sufficiently high (market-driven) milk prices may render many milk price supports and subsidies irrelevant.

Here is the article (NYT, permalink may be pending but not yet).

I guess it must be healthy then

Dunkin' Donuts Going Free of Trans Fat

Overcoming Bias

After attending dogfights it's rumored that on some nights Michael Vick would continue his bloody activities by dining on cow's flesh.  No word yet on whether prosecutors will be seeking additional prison time.

The Revolution is Four Years Old!

Marginal Revolution is four years old today (at 3:07 pm EST precisely)!  It all began with The Lunar Men and since then we posted something new every day for four years.  In total we have had over 6000 posts, about 4.4 posts on average per day and we are closing in on 10 million visits.  If you were to print all of MR for the last four years it would take well over thirty two thousand pages.  I'd like to tell you how many pages exactly but Word can't count beyond 32,768.

You, our readers, have made Marginal Revolution one of the most widely read blogs in the world.  Thanks!  We would like to know you better.  So in the comments please feel free to say happy birthday especially if you are a long time reader who has never commented before.  How long have you been reading MR?  What's your favorite post?   Do you live in some exotic locale?  Viva la revolution!

What is the proper pairing with dark chocolate?

Hypotheses about economic complements may not seem cause for a fight, but I have encountered what I can only call schools of thought:

1. Wine
2. Spirits
3. Strawberries
4. A pinch of red chili powder
5. A quick swig of mineral water immediately afterwards

I advocate #4 and #5 only.  Strawberries are too rich and too strong in flavor, if it be a fruit I nominate a few bites of a pluot or a few grapes for succulence, both in advance of the chocolate only.

You will find meditations on this topic, and others, in Clay Gordon's inspiring Discover Chocolate: The Ultimate Guide to Buying, Tasting, and Enjoying Fine Chocolate.

Readers, will you either vote or amend this list?