Thursday, April 15, 2021

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Eater - All

Internet Goes in on White-Owned Company That Claimed to Invent Whipped Coffee

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 02:17 PM PDT

A glass of dalgona coffee on a cool metal table, against a black backdrop.
Jennifer Gauld / Shutterstock

Whipped Drinks' founder Katie Angel was quickly reminded that dalgona coffee has been around for awhile now

A new company is hoping to get in on one of the pandemic's earliest and buzziest trends, by selling a kit to help people make their own frothy-sweet dalgona coffee. Remember that pillowy cloud of a drink? The one that was all over every social media platform in early pandemic days?

But Katie Angel, founder of Whipped Drinks, has landed herself in some very hot, frothy water, after claiming that she invented a drink almost identical to dalgona coffee. Of course, as Twitter users were quick to point out, Angel did not invent whipped coffee. The viral drink, made by whipping instant coffee, water, and sugar into a frantic foam, was made popular by the South Korean actor Jung Il-Woo, when he appeared on a television show, and was presented with the drink by Leong Kam Hon, a cafe owner in Macau. That was more than a year before Whipped Drinks claimed to invent this "whipped coffee creation."

A since-changed 'about' section on Whipped Drinks' website claimed that Angel "improvised with premium instant coffee in her home kitchen to make a whipped coffee creation… After months of delicious trial and error, she finally came up with the recipe for Whipped Drinks." The recipe in question is — you guessed it — pretty much the same as every other dalgona coffee recipe, with the addition of cocoa and sea salt. Some cocoa and a little extra salt does sound like a tasty addition, but it definitely isn't enough to turn Whipped Drinks' product into anything other than dalgona coffee with a flavor twist.

The coffee kit that Whipped Drinks is selling is a head-scratcher for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the price. The kit costs $49, which will get you a "high-speed frother," a jug, "whip sticks" (read: instant coffee), and a recipe book. Good, responsibly-sourced coffee is expensive, and small business owners should be able to charge enough to support themselves and their workers. That said, this feels like quite a lot of money to spend on something we were all making a year ago, with the cheapest, most readily available pantry staples we had on hand. In many ways, that accessibility was the most soothing part of whipping up dalgona coffee during the most frightening months of the pandemic: We didn't need expensive whisks or specialty coffee or a "gilded frothing jug" to do so. It was a small pleasure pretty much anyone could take part in, a global experience that demanded little more than sugar, cheap instant coffee, and a few extra minutes to post your creation to Instagram or TikTok.

But it's not the price which upset the internet, so much as the fact that a white business owner claimed ownership of a drink which she very clearly lifted from a South Korean actor, who in turn popularized — with proper credit — the recipe of a man in Macau. It's a form of theft and cultural erasure which has, time and time again, allowed white businesses to profit off of the labor and creativity of people of color, without those same people benefiting in the slightest. "White people have a history of claiming they 'discovered' recipes, warm water, and a continent someone else was already living in," wrote one Twitter user. Another user pointed out that, really, there is nothing new about frothy coffee, saying that they've been "making 'Dalgona' Coffee with [their] grandma for last 20 years." Others on Twitter commented that not only was the product not original, but before dalgona coffee went viral, whipped coffee drinks already had a long history in many parts of the world. "[W]hipped coffee has been a staple in desi countries for at least 40 plus years!" reads part of one Tweet. In an article published by Vice last year, the writer Bettina Makalintal explores the origins of the foamy coffee drink, writing that "the history and significance of whipped instant coffee goes way farther back than just a pandemic-inspired social media trend." Though it seems the dalgona coffee most Americans are familiar with was created by the cafe owner Leong Kam Hon in Macau, similarly beaten and frothy coffee drinks are present across the globe.

Since the initial pushback, the website of Whipped Drinks has been updated to acknowledge that Angel did not create the drink, but instead "fell in love with the viral whipped coffee trend, also known as dalgona coffee, that originated in South Korea." The updated origin story is notably lacking the details of Angel's long and arduous recipe development process, which is for the best, considering the drink has only three main ingredients and, well, already existed. In their most recent Instagram post, where comments are turned off, Whipped Drinks apologized, saying that the criticism and backlash "made us aware of the fact that we did not highlight the origins of the dalgona/whipped coffee trend and for that we apologize." The company now says that a percentage of proceeds from every sale will go to the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.

French Wine Makers Liken Widespread Vine Damage to ‘the Loss of a Family Member’

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 01:08 PM PDT

Rows of frozen grape vines in western France
Photo by SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS/AFP via Getty Images

A frost across France's wine regions has devastated the industry, which was already hit hard by COVID-19 and tariffs imposed by the Trump administration

The French wine aisle may look sparse in the years to come, as France's wine growing regions has been hit with the worst frost in decades. An estimated 80 percent of French vineyards have been affected, with some losing nearly half of their crop. "I heard someone say it was like the loss of a family member," said Eric Pastorino, the president of the Côtes de Provence appellation. "It may seem puerile, but that is close to what I feel. Perhaps only winegrowers can understand this sentiment, but we have found ourselves out in the vines in the morning with tears in our eyes."

It's been a bad few years for the French wine industry: First, former president Donald Trump imposed tariffs on French wine imports in order to recoup money lost, according to the World Trade Organization, by subsidizing the European aerospace company Airbus. The 25 percent tariff was a blow to winemakers, distributors, and retailers who all had to figure out how to absorb the cost. And while the pandemic led people to drink more, it also shuttered restaurants and bars around the world, leaving vineyards with fewer stable clients. According to CNN, exports of French wine and spirits fell almost 14% in 2020.

President Joe Biden's administration and the European Union agreed to suspend the tariffs last month to improve trade relations, and many — especially grape growers and vintners — hoped this would bring positive trends. But the frost was particularly devastating this year, coming after unseasonably warm temperatures that caused the plants to grow and fruit faster. Winemakers filled vineyards with small fires on cold nights to try to keep the frost from settling in, but the method often failed. French president Emmanuel Macron tweeted to farmers earlier in the week, writing, "To you, the farmers throughout France who have fought relentlessly, night after night, to protect the fruits of your labor, I want to tell you that you have our full support in this fight. Hold on tight! We are by your side and will remain so." Farmers are receiving aid from the government, though it may not be able to cover all the losses.

The frost has affected other crops too, like beets and almonds, and is just the latest example of how climate change continues to upend the food supply. As it's likely that French wines will be scarce, at least we can make up for it with...White Claw Surge.

Nevada Will Reopen at 100 Percent Capacity on June 1

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 09:33 AM PDT

Clark County takes over COVID-19 mitigation mandates on May 1, allowing buffets, nightclubs, strip clubs, and more to reopen at 50 percent capacity

https://vegas.eater.com/2021/4/14/22383143/nevada-reopen-100-percent-capacity-june-1-coronavirus-pandemic-buffets-nightclubs-strip-clubs

Google Assistant Can Now Help Order Takeout from Restaurants Online

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 09:30 AM PDT

Chick-fil-A Is Finally Coming to New Orleans, but Residents Are Very Much Loyal to Popeyes

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 09:14 AM PDT

Cult North London Sandwich Shop Ends Up on a $350 Comme des Garçons T-Shirt

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 09:08 AM PDT

A nice link up for energetic sandwich maestro Max Halley but probably a stretch for even the most ardent restaurant hype beast

https://london.eater.com/22381623/maxs-sandwich-shop-t-shirt-junywa-wanatabe-comme-des-garcons-st-john

The Pandemic Pushed D.C.’s King of Power Dining to Get Into the Fast-Casual Game

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 07:51 AM PDT

Ashok Bajaj plans to open an offshoot of Indian street food spot Bindaas that will sell bowls and rolls to go

https://dc.eater.com/2021/4/14/22381689/bindaas-bowls-rolls-fast-casual-coming-soon-foggy-bottom-ashok-bajaj

How Expert Butchers Make an Elk Burger 

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 07:30 AM PDT

The Meathook owners Ben Turley and Brent Young turn the lean meat into a "steak-y" burger 

The Meathook butchers Ben Turley and Brent Young have a ton of experience making — and eating — burgers. So when it comes to tackling a burger with big game, such as elk, they're definitely the ones to turn to.

The two start by breaking down a cut of elk chuck from Fossil Farms, a big game and exotic meat farm based in New Jersey, into large chunks. They make sure to save the fat on the side for the burger grind. They add the fat and the chuck pieces into the grinder, only passing it through once to get a large, loose grind. "If we're making a big patty, we're talking six to eight ounces, which means it's going to be a larger grind in order for it to be steak-y," says Young.

Now it's time to make the patties. The two demonstrate how to make a loosely packed patty. "We want that steaky bite, we want that steaky texture," says Turley. "That's why we're going to keep it really loose." While the burgers are being set aside to chill, they get their toppings ready. They slice some soft cow's milk cheese from Meadow Creak Dairy Farm, make their own horseradish mayo, slice some onions and pickles, and grill the buns.

When it comes time to grill the burgers, Young pours some rendered elk fat into the pan. He generously salts the patties, and places them in the pan to cook. "Because we're working with elk today, we want to make sure that we're not cooking all the way to medium or medium well. We want to keep it on the rare side," explains Young.

Once the burgers are done, the two begin to build their burgers and add their desired toppings. The burger turns out to be about 11 ounces, to the duo's delight. "We started by saying it was big game burger day, and we were not joking," says Turley. "Every aspect of this works well together," says Young. "Big game burgers, big game flavors, this whole thing is crazy and super delicious."

Eater Is Now on TikTok – Follow Us!

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 07:27 AM PDT

Sweet potato
James Park

Eater is now on TikTok — follow now to keep up with the latest.

https://www.tiktok.com/@eater

The Restaurant Industry Is Structured on Racism. This Nonprofit Wants to Rebuild It.

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 06:30 AM PDT

Illustration by Carlos Luciano

The Restaurant Workers Community Fund gained prominence for providing financial relief to service workers during COVID-19. Now it wants to create a racially just system.

Since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurant workers have been deemed essential — perhaps not officially by local authorities, but certainly by consumers, who continued to want the convenience of meals prepared and brought to them by someone else. Without substantial support from the government, the chefs, waiters, dishwashers, bartenders, and grocery store clerks that make up the food industry were pushed to work in hazardous conditions. Choices for many were limited: keep working, get paid, and risk getting sick or stay home, lose income, and possibly be fired.

With support sparse as it was, one organization swooped in to fill the gaps: The Restaurant Workers Community Foundation, a nonprofit created by industry veterans. The foundation, which first took shape in 2018, created a coronavirus relief fund, whose money was distributed directly in the form of zero-interest loans to restaurant workers, other nonprofits helping restaurant workers in crisis, and restaurants. Soon, the foundation's logo — two hands holding up a tray with a pineapple on it — was all over social media, something of a rallying symbol for people frustrated by the government's inaction. The RWCF saw an outpouring of support, and by the end of 2020, the organization's coronavirus relief fund had brought in close to $7 million.

This relief fund has been crucial for the restaurant industry and its most vulnerable workers, but the foundation has a vision that predates and goes far beyond this most immediate of crises. So in 2020, building on its momentum from the successful coronavirus relief fund, the RWCF launched the Racial Justice Fund, aimed at helping to create a more just and equitable restaurant industry, one that will live on after the pandemic has ended. Because the fund is so new, its steering committee is still in the process of deciding how it will take shape, and where money will be directed. Here, Steve Ali, project coordinator for the Racial Justice Fund, and Vice-Chair of RWCF's Fundraising and Development Committee, and John deBary, RWCF co-founder, join me to talk about the direction of the new fund, and their work to create a brighter and more equal restaurant industry.

I would love it if you would start by talking about the Racial Justice Fund, and its purpose.

John deBary: It goes back to the RWCF's founding mission, and the need to advance structural changes in the restaurant industry. One of our program areas is racial justice, and everything kind of intersects: how much people get paid, gender and race, mental health and ability, all these things are intertwined. So racial justice has been baked into our mandate from the beginning. We had been raising small amounts of money up until the pandemic, and sort of building steam and trying to raise enough money to be able to do something. With COVID, we created a fund that was very specific and gave donors a very clear sense of where their money was going. The COVID fund did really well for a lot of reasons. Some of the feedback that we got from donors was that they loved that the fund was really transparent in what was happening with the money. We had almost-daily updates on where the money was going, and how much we raised and what we were doing with it. It wasn't this sort of mysterious cloud that people were just throwing money at. So that was a good clue for us that maybe this is a good model for us to replicate, to give donors channels, and for them to be able to select what they were interested in supporting.

The events of last summer made racial justice a huge priority for a lot of people. So we began to formulate an idea for a fund whose structure was similar to that of the COVID fund. But rather than the COVID fund, where it's very easy to say, 'Okay, well, these people need direct financial assistance, and this loan program needs to happen,' it's different when you're talking about race, and as a mostly white-lead organization, it felt a little weird to be like, 'Okay, well, let's decide who gets to get money for racial justice work.'

We really wanted to create a decision making model steered by people who were connected closely to the communities and to the causes that they were fighting on behalf of. And one of the key points of the fund was that we were going to trust people to distribute the money and create a steering committee of advocates, people in the industry who have been working on this for years. We wanted to launch in the beginning of 2021, so that it got on the right people's funding schedules — a lot of the institutional donors map out their grant-making for the year relatively early.

With the timing, it felt important as a dovetail to the COVID fund's momentum to say, 'Okay, now we have your attention. Here are the structural issues that have been plaguing the industry for centuries. This is how we're going to start to address them.'

As you were thinking about creating this fund, in what ways were you seeing people of color working in the restaurant industry be affected by the pandemic?

Steve Ali: I think the most disparity is apparent when you're talking about undocumented workers. The former president's administration did not include undocumented workers in relief plans, and a lot of states followed suit. So undocumented workers of color were in a situation where they would have to continue working if they wanted to continue living. But if they continued working, they may not stay alive much longer.

Farrah Skeiky
Steve Ali, project coordinator for the Racial Justice Fund, and Vice-Chair of RWCF's Fundraising and Development Committee

The great irony of this is that when people have to keep working, the more they're interacting with other people, the more likely it is that they're going to spread the disease. By leaving off undocumented workers from relief, making it difficult for them to access without putting themselves and their families in danger of deportation, imprisonment, or something worse, it actually held back our pandemic response. We have a lot of situations, whether it's with the pandemic or before that, where workers of color are getting the worst possible deal.

Also as a worker of color, I look at this situation and I wonder, where is my future? How can I expect to live a happy life working in this industry, if from the beginning it has been based on the exploitation of my body, my labor, my passion? The issues that Black people face — and the issues other people of color face, the issues indigenous people face — come into the workplace with them: your fear about how somebody is going to treat you, your insecurity in your financial situation, and health situation, those things affect the way that you contribute at work. And those things have all been worsened by the pandemic.

A recent study showed that that by job sector, cooks have faced the highest risk of death due to COVID-19. That overlaps with so many other risk factors, again disproportionately affecting people of color...

SA: In a literal sense, comorbidities are important to think about. And it's also helpful to use that as a model to think about the wider problem. I do want to emphasize that the preexisting condition here is not being Black, is not being a person of color. It's fantastic to have melanin; the preexisting condition is racism, and the effects of racism and the history of it, and how deeply it's ingrained in our systems. If the racist elements of the hospitality industry had been spoken to a long time ago, we may be seeing less mortality. If these things had been dealt with before, things would be better now. I will not thank COVID for anything, but it's certainly revealed a lot about how things have been functioning before.

Where does the Racial Justice Fund come into play?

SA: The goal of the fund is to collaborate with people who have been working on alleviating these issues for a long time, especially people of color, especially femmes of color, and queer people of color, who have been very sensitive to these things directly impacting them. The goal is to work with them to extend the work they've been doing. But more importantly, it's also to come up with new things we could be doing, and funding, in the industry to change the way it works fundamentally.

Naima Green
John deBary, RWCF co-founder

JdB: Most foundations are made up of rich people or companies, who have money to start off with and are just giving it away. But a community foundation raises money from the community that they're hoping to serve, and usually focuses on geographic areas, different identities like women and LGBTQ people, different religions. And for us, we're applying this model to a labor population, and as far as we know, we're the only ones that have done this so far. A lot of people on our board are deeply steeped in nonprofits and philanthropy and grant-making. And then there's the other half of the organization, made up of restaurant people for whom maybe this is the first exposure to the inner workings of a nonprofit or to a grant making organization.

With the racial justice fund, it's really about having the people on the steering committee come at this from a really fresh perspective, and with really deep connections, so that we can strategically deploy the money and not just compare this fund to the COVID fund. Because COVID is in some ways a kind of straightforward problem. It took our board 20 minutes of deliberating to figure out where to direct money. But with racial justice, it's completely different. It's still the same mechanism. We're still helping move money from people who have enough of it to give away, to the people who make the most impactful change on the ground.

We have a yearly grant-making cycle, and this is just the beginning of it. It's not like we're just starting to give money away on day one. This is a multi-year effort, hopefully.

It's early in the process and this fund is still very new, but do you have a sense for where a majority of resources might go when you start to distribute them?

SA: Each member of the steering committee is coming into this with our own ideas of what the restaurant industry could become. And we have certain benchmarks for a racially just industry. Things like making sure people are getting compensated fairly, and aren't exclusively reliant on good tips to have a sustainable livelihood, making sure there's a path to restorative justice in the event that harm is done. But the truth of the matter is that as steering members, we're all coming from different generations, backgrounds, corners of the industry, and amounts of awareness of things like the literature around social justice work. So we all have different senses of what it takes to reach racial justice; the work of our steering committee is going to be to reconcile that. We're looking to create a movement toward a better world, where BIPOC can live and thrive in this industry, without having to sacrifice themselves, or be ground under the gears of the industry just to make the rest of it function.

That's the best I can do right now in terms of saying what the fund will become. Even within our community, we are not monolithic. We're not all Black, we're not all one race — I'm a Nigerian immigrant, my understanding of racial justice issues is going to be different from a Black person born in the United States, from a Black person who grew up and on the West Coast. Our goal is to try to represent as many perspectives as possible, and come up with plans that move the industry in a positive direction for as many people as possible.

When you think about this fund, what are you working towards? What, to your mind, does the racially just restaurant industry of the future look like?

JdB: Economic justice and racial justice are linked. It's a symptom and a cause, where people aren't paid enough because of racism. But then it's a feedback loop, where the inequalities get further compounded by these systems. This is why the Racial Justice Fund is structured the way it is: If we wanted to just give out money, we wouldn't have gone through this process of creating all these structures for decision making. The traditional philanthropic model creates a band-aid... not necessarily using the money to heal anybody, or to really solve any problems or understand them deeply. There's a subtle, nuanced line between a band-aid solution, and structural change.

The COVID relief effort that we undertook was a band-aid and would not have been necessary, if we had a functioning tax system, and an equitable society. At the same time, it created an opportunity for us to be able to address the structural issues that are going on in the restaurant industry that led to COVID being so bad for workers in the first place. You don't really see how something works until it breaks. And the restaurant industry was broken last year. COVID just magnified everything, and made everything so much more drastic, and so much more unequal.

In terms of what equality looks like for the restaurant industry, I think it's people being paid equally, and not having those racial and gender disparities that are so obvious and significant right now. But I think that there's also a world beyond that. There's room for a lot of creativity in terms of other structures that can exist, ways of creating an economy that exists outside capitalism, which is inextricably linked to white supremacy. And creating space for those ideas, and trusting other people to come up with those ideas.

SA: I joined the RWCF after I stopped working in restaurants because of the pandemic, with a realization that after times of crisis, there becomes an opportunity to rebuild. I wanted to get involved with somebody, somewhere, who I felt was also interested in rebuilding and looking toward the future. I envision a racially just industry to be one in which we can thrive, even if the people who are in the insular top levels aren't paying attention, and aren't deigning to help us. There's an idea that that comes up in a lot of Black Marxist social justice circles about dual power, the idea that we need to have institutions that exist parallel to the ones that already exist, to ensure that our people are taken care of. Because left to its own devices, the system that exists isn't going to be what we need it to be. I think a racially just industry is one where people are getting paid, getting health care, people are getting the resources they need.
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