THE BEST Food

In many parts of the world, using salt and pepper to season foods is as ubiquitous as the duo of ketchup and mustard. But how did this pairing of two very different seasonings rise to such popularity? BBC Ideas series Edible Histories provides a brief backgrounder on the flavorful combo.

Mechanical engineer Kuroki Yuto and his collaborators came up with a novel use for a 3D printer mechanism – using the 3-axis machine to manipulate and assemble parts. In this video, they show how the system can be used to put together a sandwich. They used the same technique to assemble a toy car and to fold a shirt.

We love the bright colors and heady aroma of Fruity Pebbles. In this classic episode of Unwrapped, they take us inside Post’s factory that churns out more than 55 million boxes of the cereal a year. The process includes dying long-grain rice, smushing the grains into flat pieces, then coating them with sugar and flavoring.

Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun. That’s what we thought went into a Big Mac. But the actual ingredient list is much longer and loaded with chemicals. Food Insider tried to replicate the US version of McDonald’s popular double burger using all 54 of its ingredients.

Microwave delicious, buttery popcorn without any of the nasty artificial ingredients. Simply place popcorn kernels into a microwave-safe bowl, put this vented popper lid on top, add butter to the perforated trays, then nuke away! Made from BPA-free silicone. (Bowl not included)

Did you know that the same person gave us Cool Whip, Pop Rocks, Tang, and Jell-O? Food scientist William A. Mitchell worked at General Foods for more than 30 years, leaving a legacy of iconic manufactured food products that are still enjoyed by junk food connoisseurs today. Great Big Story tells his tale.

There’s something immensely satisfying about this video of the SANOVO OptiBreaker, a specialized assembly line machine which ingests over 200,000 eggs hourly, gently cracks each one, then separates the whites from the yolks. It also can wash itself automatically.

Combining and balancing flavors in an unexpected yet delicious way, these milk chocolate bars have been infused with sriracha hot sauce and a dash of pink Himalayan salt, resulting in a perfect mix of sweet and spicy. The 2.5 oz. bars are sold in a three-pack.

What you’re looking at here might look like some delicious sushi, but you definitely don’t want to bite down on it unless you’re ready to chip a tooth. Japanese artist ha_ma_73 makes incredibly accurate sushi replicas by carving and polishing stones. What’s even more amazing is that those are natural stone colors, not paint.

Skip the ordinary marshmallows, and head straight for Smashmallows. These sweet treats satisfy your cravings with flavors like strawberries and cream, cookie dough, cinnamon churro, mint chocolate chip, and toasted vanilla. They’re made with organic cane sugar, and under 100 calories for four puffs. Can’t decide? Try the variety pack.

Pastry artist Natalie Sideserf is known for her amazingly detailed and realistic cake designs. Natalie traveled back to the Cretaceous era to give us this incredible work of edible art, a T-Rex that looks good enough to eat and is sure not to bite back. Would you start with the head or the tail?

Here in America, we love to serve sweet things for breakfast. NY’s Mt. Kisco Diner doubled down on the sugar buzz with this colorful cheesecake loaded with Fruity Pebbles cereal. It serves 10 to 12, or more like six carb fiends. Like most of the goodies on Goldbelly, it’s not cheap, but we want to try and make our own at least.

When we were kids, our parents told us not to play with our food. But this waffle iron encourages just that behavior, cranking out stackable waffle pieces that interlock like LEGO bricks. It makes 1×1, 1×2, and 1×4 blocks. In addition, they’re offering plates that serve as a base for stacking, with spots for butter and syrup.

Make Valentine’s Day extra special this year with this deluxe candy box. Award-winning chocolatier Cacao & Cardamom fills their substantial 1-pound candy box with 26 pieces of their colorful and exotic chocolate treats. They also make a smaller 13-piece version.

This video from National Geographic dates back to 2012, but we figured Funyuns are timeless so what the heck. The clip takes us inside one of Frito-Lay’s factories, where the crunchy fake onion rings are cranked out by the millions every day. In case you were wondering, they’re made from puffed cornmeal, much like Corn Pops.

Fans of Futurama surely recall the billboard for Bachelor Chow that appears in the opening credits. The dehydrated food chunks turned up in a few episodes too. Binging with Babish decided it was finally time to make a far more edible version of the human equivalent of dog food.

If you really wanted to turn a Subway sandwich into a smoothie, you just need a blender and a little bit of water. But the Hydraulic Press Channel marches to the beat of a different drummer and prefers to mush up their footlongs with a 150-ton press and their Smoothie Maker 1,000,000, which might need a little work.

While we’re more than happy to go with the Martha Stewart’s perfect bacon cooking method, there are lots of other ways to prepare delectably smoky, sliced pork belly. Bon Appétit’s Amiel Stanek offers up 50 different methods for cooking the artery-clogging treat, some more successful than others.

Even if you have a serious sweet tooth, you can’t really subsist on sugar. What If explores what might happen to your body and mind if you tried to survive for a month, dining entirely on sugar. While sugar provides energy, the lack of protein and other nutritional essentials would almost certainly do you in.

What’s better than a delicious cupcake? A machine that can crank out cupcakes for you on-demand, that’s what. Skeyntific shows off a robotic factory line he built that first pours dough for each cupcake, moves it into a modified microwave for cooking, then applies toppings using motorized caulking guns.

Grab a boost of caffeine any time with Pocket Latte’s ready-to-eat coffee snacks. Each square of their caffeinated chocolate has roughly the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. They come in cream and sugar, dark roast, hazelnut, and lavender-vanilla flavors. Sold in packs of 12 or 24. You can grab individual bars at Vat19.

From James Beard award-winning chef Stephanie Izard’s bakery Sugargoat comes a delicious treat for lovers of sweet breakfasts. This very special dessert features layers of sourdough pancake cake with maple syrup-infused buttercream and a crumbled oat streusel on top. Serves one or more people depending on your mood.

Aidy Bryant created this trainwreck of a salad in a ridiculous SNL sketch earlier in 2020. Now Binging with Babish is here to close out the year with his interpretation of this mayo-, raisin-, and root-beer-filled nightmare meal. Can he remake it into something that’s actually edible?

Brooklyn’s Bushwick Kitchen makes four unique kinds of honey to complement sweet or savory dishes or to bring oomph to a blank canvas like toasted bread. Flavors include spicy habanero honey, a zingy Meyer lemon honey, a balanced sea salt honey, and original wildflower honey. They also sell a three-jar gift pack.

This unique waffle maker is ideal for kids and adults who love their wheels. Instead of cranking out ordinary waffle-shaped waffles, it makes seven edible cars, trucks, and buses. We can’t quite figure out their makes and models, but they’re all just as delicious as they crash into your mouth.

After wowing us with numerous gourmet snack foods, pastry chef Claire Saffitz has struck out on her own, with a video series to accompany her new cookbook, which features a mix of both sweet and savory recipes for home bakers. First up, soft and crispy foccacia. (Thanks Rob!)