March 2, 2004
I Don't Believe We've Been Properly Introduced
How about playing a little guessing game?
The first reader to correctly uncover the identity of this UFO (Unidentified Food Object), as well as the reader who comes up with the most unlikely or the funniest suggestion, will each get the wallpaper of their choice, signed to their name with a little note.
Not to mention the fame, and my respect and consideration for at least a couple of days. How's that for a tempting prize?
UPDATE : WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT!
Well, dear readers, the UFO was in fact, <drumroll>... plaited mozzarella! Or more accurately a tresse de mozzarella, kindly given to me by a French producer at the Salon du Fromage - the tale of which will follow later today.
Hence, I am happy to announce that the winner of the first prize is Meg, who was the first to correctly identify it. Bravo Meg!
The winner of the second prize was pretty hard to determine, as you all came up with excellent, surprising and funny suggestions. But I have to hand it to Linus, who made me laugh out loud (At the office. Ahem.) with his "Michael Jackson. Yep. White, lumpy and sticky-looking. It's Michael Jackson." Congratulations, Linus!
Both winners can email me to say which wallpaper they would like, and what name(s) they would like it signed to...
And finally, a word of thanks to all of you for your participation, it's been fun!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go comfort my plaited mozzarella, who's going through a bit of an identity crisis, unsure whether she's garlic, challah, yogurt brain, a mushroom, a turtle, a breast implant, popcorn, a litchee or other tropical fruit, the globe of an eye, a bag of risen dough, a Ferran Adrià creation (she would like that), knotted intestine (not so much), asparagus, cauliflower, a set of three buttocks, an albino chipmunk, a turkey, a new kind of edible plastic, a mutant squash, or none of the above...
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Comments (35)
Permalink | Posted by clotilde in Thoughts
Plaited mozzarella! Perhaps....
Whatever it is, it looks fairly ooky at this distance.
Posted by Meg on March 2, 2004 12:50 PMWell for a first comment this isn't quite the best place but the picture just smells of garlic too me. Even though it probably isn't.
Anyhow I've been enjoying reading C&Z for some time now. If I ever manage another trip to Paris, I will need to do a lot of reading on your blog before I go.
Posted by Yashima on March 2, 2004 1:16 PMUnbaked Challah bread? Braided mozzarella? A model of the brain made out of yogurt?
Posted by Frankenstein on March 2, 2004 1:25 PMthat's a treccia, as meg correctly said a plaited mozzarella. But then, I come from Naples, I used to eat this stuff on a weekly basis :-)))
Posted by Alberto on March 2, 2004 1:32 PMMushrooms. Some sort of fungus, at least. Icky.
Posted by josie on March 2, 2004 1:44 PMDefinitely a challah. It's gorgeous looking!
Posted by rappy on March 2, 2004 2:13 PMC'est une tortue suédoise ça explique pourquoi elle est toute blanche et pas du tout bronzée!
ca se dit comment en briton ?
Posted by Nassim on March 2, 2004 2:29 PM-> an untanned Swedish turtle.
Breast Implants?
Posted by Deb on March 2, 2004 2:45 PMClose-up of a popcorn?
Posted by Teresa on March 2, 2004 5:11 PMAt least, it made me post something and congratulate you, Clotilde, for your superblog. I love everything, and my daily peek is one of the most relaxing moments of my day. I wish you all the best and I am looking forward for the answer to this quiz!
"Whenever you eliminate the inedible, whatever remains, however unpalatable, must be food."
Posted by jcwinnie on March 2, 2004 5:47 PMIt looks like a challah to me too, so Paul F. beat me to it (all the challah voters are from New York, aren't we? Rappy?). So I guess I'll have to go for the unlikely, right?
Hmmm.
Too small to be a weapon of mass destruction. Although there's probably flour involved, I doubt I can get away with calling it "The Passion of Grist."
Prairie oysters are too upsetting to think about in concrete terms, and although it looks like a bunch of little albino Audreys taking a nap - "La Petite Boutique des Horreur" reference, and I hope I got that right (French is not really a language of mine) - I think I'm going to have to go with ...
Michael Jackson. Yep. White, lumpy and sticky-looking. It's Michael Jackson.
Posted by Linus on March 2, 2004 5:58 PMOh if 'twas only true that I was from NY, but alas, Toronto.
Posted by rappy on March 2, 2004 6:02 PMpulled mozzarella!
Posted by Enoch Choi on March 2, 2004 6:11 PMune pâte à brioche tressée et levée.
Posted by sylvie on March 2, 2004 6:12 PMou des litchees au sirop
ou des yeux auxquels on a enlevé l'iris et la pupille...
I'm thinking I'm already wrong, but I'll go with a plastic piping bag left on a counter with dough in it that rose too much when the chef in question had to answer a phone call from Ed McMahon, letting them know that there was no point in participating in the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes this year because the fix was in and the prize was going to a couple in Schenectady who bought 427 subscriptions to Cook's Illustrated.
That, or the mozarella thing.
Posted by barrett on March 2, 2004 8:09 PMA photo of one of Ferran Adrià's failed first attempts at producing his now-famous,
Posted by Robert Crouse on March 2, 2004 8:14 PM"Warm Air of Buffalo".
almost definately the same fresh mozarella olivioni balls that i'm snacking on right now.
Posted by click on March 2, 2004 8:27 PMThis is like Chinese water torture. Clotilde is keeping us in suspense so that we begin to second guess ourselves... Maybe it is cheese?
Posted by rappy on March 2, 2004 9:01 PMStrange tropical fruit, peeled...
Posted by Lilia on March 2, 2004 9:33 PMPulled Mozzerella cheese weave. Isn't it a little pale in color for challah?
Posted by Matt Kantor on March 2, 2004 9:58 PMThe tip of asparagus -- close up, photographed in black and white. Or not...
Posted by Donna in Harrisburg on March 2, 2004 10:59 PMMozzarella --just found this blog and love it!!!!! Merci!
Posted by rose on March 2, 2004 11:06 PMMy initial thought was either challah or plaited mozzarella, but it looks too perfect somehow. It could also be one of those fancy pain de campagne that is braided.
It looks kind of slimy like peeled lychee nuts, too.
Or maybe knotted intestines...
So clearly it is none of these and instead is the first edible plastic designed to make you full with no calories and is meant to taste like white chocolate. In thirty years it will be discovered that it gives 100% of those who eat it colon cancer.
Posted by Owen on March 2, 2004 11:12 PMcauliflower magnified 1 million times.
Posted by Lacy on March 2, 2004 11:26 PMA man with three buttocks? (can't resist a Monty Python joke)
An albino chipmunk holding his breath?
Posted by Mike on March 2, 2004 11:56 PMI'd like to give another New York nod to challah (Holla!). But, I think it's more plausible it is a braided brioche.
Posted by Josh on March 3, 2004 1:39 AMim going for a chicken/cornishgame hen/turkey wrapped round with string, uncooked....or mozzarella, because im really not good with peer pressure ...
Posted by eliza darling on March 3, 2004 1:46 AMI also thought challah (which is the first thing I think of when I think braided breads, and I've never even been to New York) but the striations combined with the little knobby bumps really remind me of squash rinds. Has your campanier been involved in a superpower-inducing radiation leak? This is actually three mutant albino winter squash, intertwined at a young age, each one with a slightly different mind control ability. Don't eat it!!!
Posted by yami on March 3, 2004 4:04 AMFresh mozz, without a doubt. Oh, to have shared my day with you all. I was at this little place in South Philly, right at 13th and passyunk - the man there makes his own mozz - I almost cried for joy when I walked in and smelled his homemade cheeses. Heaven!
Posted by lil on March 3, 2004 6:02 AMHmmm, I intially thought some plaited (braided?) form of tropical fruit like a lychee, rambutan or longan?
Posted by Niki on March 3, 2004 9:18 AMCertainly on a different track from mozzarella and challah here! Is challah a type of bread? I think it's pretty unknown in Melbourne Aust!
tropical fruit? i've lived 19 years in a tropical country & have never seen any lychee, rambutan or longan in *that* shape, & would certainly be most suspicious of it if i had, lol. i'm going for cheese as well, i see some sort of rubber band like thingy in the picture so this can't be a *natural* growth ;)
although, somehow, weird alien mushrooms were the first thing to spring to mind.
Posted by serena on March 3, 2004 10:53 AMNiki, challah is a yummy, egg-y type of bread. It's beautiful, as it's not only braided, but also generally brushed with egg, so it looks shellacked. I've had it plain, with raisins (delicious), and recently with sesame seeds. It's hard not to eat more than one should, due to braid-ripping, but if one manages to eat it slowly, decorously, then there should be enough to make french toast with the following morning.
Posted by lil on March 3, 2004 6:39 PMClose up of Michelin Man's toes?
Posted by Thomas Meglioranza on March 4, 2004 12:36 AMAbsolutely a mozzarella.
Posted by Ialma on March 12, 2004 5:39 PMThe treccia, though is not the best way to experience mozzarella.
As someone born and raised in a small town which lives of mozzarella (in south Italy) making I can tell you that there is NOTHING AT ALL compared to eating a fresh made-five-minutes-before.
You must try it to understand it.
Great site, by the way
well may be its a drumroll i guess .coz i've just had it for lunch a couple of days before..
Posted by freddy on February 13, 2006 9:06 PMPrivacy. The email addresses you enter will not be used for any other purpose than the sending of this message.