The 10 Best Top Ten Food Lists
June 3, 2009 7:29 AM   Subscribe

The 10 Best Top Ten Food Lists: the most erotic food scenes in movies, the creepiest fast food mascots, Tony Bourdain's nastiest snipes at fellow TV chefs, and more. via
posted by CunningLinguist (36 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
2008: Top ten lists of XXXX are neat.
2009: Top ten best top ten XXXX are super neat.
2010: Let's do top ten best top ten lists of best top ten lists of XXXX!
2011: Death of the internet.
posted by ubermuffin at 7:38 AM on June 3, 2009 [5 favorites]


The top ten food hacks includes MeFi's own asavage's 2-minute drink cooling trick.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:43 AM on June 3, 2009


These lists are awesome. Don't listen to the haters.
posted by Afroblanco at 7:46 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


Your favourite top ten list sucks.
posted by Memo at 7:47 AM on June 3, 2009


The Anthony Bourdain list was weak. I know he's got a lot more snark, especially aimed at Bobby "Standing-On-The-Cutting-Board" Flay, and Sandra "Stepford Wife" Lee.

I'd like to see an episode of "Throwdown" with no cooking, just Bourdain and Flay in fisticuffs. I'll bet that as long as Tony goes for Bobby's pretty face (and he will), Flay will go down hard.
posted by SansPoint at 7:47 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


My only child was conceived with 8 1/2 weeks playing in the room.

Just sayin'.
posted by Danf at 7:49 AM on June 3, 2009


From the disgusting candies list:

Okay – it is sweet – I will give them that, but inside each of these tasty candies is a REAL LIFE scorpion. Yup – when you lick through the sugar coating, you get to chow down on scorpion guts.

What? There are candies containing scorpions? Maybe Crunchy Frog and Spring Surprise have a future after all.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:53 AM on June 3, 2009


Danf: "My only child was conceived with 8 1/2 weeks playing in the room."

Is that some YouTube mashup where Marcello Mastroianni feeds a blindfolded Claudia Cardinale a chili pepper?
posted by Joe Beese at 7:54 AM on June 3, 2009 [3 favorites]


a list of good lists is both meta and filtered, yet somehow feels like rest of the web. so i like it, but feel guilty about doing so.
posted by the aloha at 7:58 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


The best Bourdain snark doesn't lend itself to lists - it's more the way he looks at the camera while mentioning say, Emeril.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:59 AM on June 3, 2009


I'm making a list of lists of lists, and this one is definitely going on it.
posted by Spatch at 7:59 AM on June 3, 2009


Whatever. Metalists are so 2007.

<--- not metalist
posted by nosila at 8:02 AM on June 3, 2009


<>

Shouldn't this be "not metalistist"?

posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:08 AM on June 3, 2009


METALIST
posted by Mister_A at 8:16 AM on June 3, 2009


My only child was conceived with 2 1/2 Men playing in the room.
posted by DU at 8:25 AM on June 3, 2009 [5 favorites]


People complain about lists because it's a popular thing to complain about, and it allows them to be negative and snarky without anyone yelling at them about it. Lists are fine, and are a perfectly valid way to present knowledge. I will always encourage people to post good lists, because I will always enjoy them, no matter what anyone else says. I have seen many lists that I would consider to be the best of the web, and would be thrilled to see them displayed prominently on the front page of Metafilter.
posted by Afroblanco at 8:39 AM on June 3, 2009


What annoys me is the snarker who jumped in to insta-derail this is one of those people who never bothers to post him/herself. So I can't go an exact my unholy vengeance by derailing his/her posts.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:43 AM on June 3, 2009


i can start posting if need be. i currently do not do so because i can not live up to my own standards.
posted by the aloha at 8:51 AM on June 3, 2009


Is that some YouTube mashup where Marcello Mastroianni feeds a blindfolded Claudia Cardinale a chili pepper?

No, fed the pepper to the Shetland pony. But you have the rest of the story correct.
posted by Danf at 8:58 AM on June 3, 2009


“The Top 10 Sightings of Religious Figures in Food" doesn't include Cheesus. :P
posted by zarq at 9:19 AM on June 3, 2009


Lists are fine, and are a perfectly valid way to present knowledge.

They're fine as long as you're not obviously padding them to make some magic number. For whatever reason, that seems to happen less these days, and people are happy with the "Top 8" or "9 best" or the like. (though never 4. Top 4. Why no?)
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:20 AM on June 3, 2009


CunningLinguist What annoys me is the snarker who jumped in to insta-derail this is one of those people who never bothers to post him/herself. So I can't go an exact my unholy vengeance by derailing his/her posts.

Yep. Guilty. I don't post. But feel free to attack my personal characteristics: I'm cynical, lazy, and also kind of short.

My main beef with top ten lists is this: they're trivially easy to assemble, often involve little to no critical thinking, analysis, or creative thought, and take the form of links to other people's original content. There's obviously value in collecting, disseminating, and discussing others' content -- it's why we all visit Metafilter in the first place. But the top ten thing is gimmicky and trite. So seeing a list of lists intensified my initial (admittedly knee-jerk) reaction.

Tell you what: I'll make an effort to post something soon so you can exact your unholy vengeance...
posted by ubermuffin at 9:39 AM on June 3, 2009


> 2008: Top ten lists of XXXX are neat.
> 2009: Top ten best top ten XXXX are super neat.
> 2010: Let's do top ten best top ten lists of best top ten lists of XXXX!
> 2011: Death of the internet.

2012: Death of everything.
2013: Top ten lists of failed doomsday predictions are neat.
posted by davelog at 9:49 AM on June 3, 2009


The Top 10 Most Disgusting Candies Ever list kind of fails a bit. Dubbel Zout isn't my thing, but it isn't that bad, either. And he totally missed out on the true Worst Candy Ever. It was a Star Wars Ep 1 tie-in, and it looked like an oversized Pez dispenser with Jar Jar Binks' head on top, but when you pressed the plunger on the bottom, a warty sour candy tongue stuck out. That's right--you were supposed to French-kiss the hideously sour tongue of Jar-Jar. I believe that the person who thought this up was rejected for Sith apprenticeship for being too evil.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:15 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'd never come across that awesome asavage comment before, but now I want to respond to every person seeking advice with, "Whatever you do, do NOT bury the can in sand, pour gasoline on the sand and set the sand on fire. That won't do anything."

Because it's so true... so true in so many circumstances, on so many levels.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:15 AM on June 3, 2009


Bourdain's some kind of gentlemen because that was some very equivocal snark.
posted by wobh at 10:53 AM on June 3, 2009


Ugh, I'm so conflicted about Anthony Bourdain. Actually, conflicted isn't the right word. I agree with heartily with most of his snark about other celeb chefs, but I can't be in the same room as one of his shows. I think I'm allergic to him.

Has he snarked about Nigella Lawson or Alton Brown? I'm curious to see what angle he'd take with them...

(also, I think he could've been more creative in his snark than just a fat joke for Paula Deen.)
posted by LMGM at 11:10 AM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


LMGM: "Has he snarked about Nigella Lawson"

I love Nigella, tearing off hunks of fatty pork. I was at dinner with Nigella and a bunch of guys, and we were all trying to out-macho each other, like ‘I’ve eaten a live cobra heart!’ Nigella has been rubbing her lips and says, ‘When I was in Spain, they aborted a pig for me and roasted the fetus.
posted by Joe Beese at 11:13 AM on June 3, 2009 [2 favorites]


Thank goodness he likes Alton Brown! I wouldn't want to have to pick sides between my two fave TV foodies.


Here's his amusing run down on recent TV chefs.
..."her supporting cast is beginning to look like the Hills Have Eyes--and her food a True Buffet of Horrors..." hee.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:22 AM on June 3, 2009


Who thought selling fresh, healthy sandwiches alongside a mangy deranged rodent was a good idea?

But ...but... THEY LIKE THA MOON!
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 11:25 AM on June 3, 2009


No Costanza eating a pastrami sandwich watching a portable TV during sex?
posted by Smedleyman at 11:32 AM on June 3, 2009


The number one hack is opening a beer bottle with a folded piece of paper? Disappointing. Especially since the video is nearly two minutes long and it takes the guy two not so graceful tries to actually do it.

Now opening fifty bottles in one minute with YOUR TEETH? That's a hack.
posted by Xalf at 12:09 PM on June 3, 2009


But the top ten thing is gimmicky and trite.

For some reason this made me flash to my recent visit to the National Art Gallery, which had several tours of school kids (late junior high, or early high school?) moving through. Those can be fun to latch on to, so we stuck around for a bit of the commentary here and there which was mostly insightful and interesting.

Then I paused to catch another tour leader talk about some Van Gogh, and she began by annoucing that Van Gogh is one of THE WORLD'S TOP TEN ARTISTS!

*shudder*

So yeah. Ok. You win. For some things at least, get your freaking top ten lists away from me.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 1:36 PM on June 3, 2009


Wait... peaches wasn't about peaches?
posted by spec80 at 2:13 PM on June 3, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'll second LMGM on Anthony Bourdain--what a smug hipster putz. Just passing his show with the remote puts me in a foul mood.
posted by belvidere at 3:12 PM on June 3, 2009




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