The molecular cuisine has some good things about it, but I–I count my cooking by the looks of satisfaction on the faces of the people who have eaten my food. I don’t want them to be impressed; I want them to be pleased.
You knew it had to be bad, but this bad? Bittman on McOats:
A more accurate description than “100 percent natural whole-grain oats,” “plump raisins,” “sweet cranberries” and “crisp fresh apples” would be “oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.”
[…]
Incredibly, the McDonald’s [oatmeal] contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald’s cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin. (Even without the brown sugar it has more calories than a McDonald’s hamburger.)
Read the whole thing; Bittman really hits it out of the park on the perception of simplicity, speed, and “cheap” calories. I particularly enjoy knowing that cream “contains seven ingredients, [only] two of them actual dairy.”
We don’t tell you we’ve used 1½ pounds of cream and butter with 1¾ pounds of potatoes. You don’t need to know.
Indeed we do not. Even less so the reveal in the next sentence that Robuchon rose to prominence on the back of an even higher butter/starch ratio. Whoa.
Lemkin 