Scientists Made a Meatball From Mammoth DNA and I Want It

Welcome to Delicious or Distressing, where we rate recent food memes, videos, and other decidedly unserious news. Last week we discussed Stanley Tucci’s pasta-for-breakfast thirst trap. 

While marveling at the wonders of the Ice Age, as we’re all wont to do, have you ever thought to yourself: I wonder what a woolly mammoth would taste like in meatball form? If you answered yes, I have amazing news for you. I’d be lying if I said I fully (or actually even partly) understood the genomic technology that brought this gargantuan meatball to fruition, but thanks to an Australian start-up, it exists. The Meatball and its very theatrical unveiling are meant to prove the viability and merits of lab-grown meat—seemingly more for show than for stuffing in a sub with marinara. 

Florence Pugh, a.k.a. Miss Flo, has a cooking show in the works, born out of her early pandemic-era Instagram steams. If her Vogue mukbang from 2020 is any nod to what’ll be featured in her new act, I will be watching, because that is a piece of cinema that I think about with regularity. This week Kourtney Kardashian documented a luxe array of foods, including but not limited to strawberries and cake, spread across her bathroom. People are calling it nasty, but we’re calling it aspirational. A man also cut celery by smacking a stalk of it against an upside-down knife. It’s a technique I won’t be trying, but I respect it regardless. Here’s what else is grabbing eyeballs online this week.

A start-up created a meatball made from woolly mammoth DNA

Australian scientists have created a giant meatball (delicious), but it’s made of woolly mammoth (distressing). It’s giving Jurassic Park. It’s giving sci-fi. It’s giving, “Why?” And also, “For what reason?” I’m not going to try to understand the mind of Australian scientists (something I’m notoriously bad at), but I do have questions. Is the meatball seasoned at all? How much salt is included? Is it possible to get it with a generous sprinkle of Parmesan cheese? It seems Australian scientists are afraid to actually take a bite of this giant woolly mammoth meatball because, they say, it’s a thousands-years-old protein to which our body may react badly. Reading between the lines, I’d say that Australian scientists are letting fear rule their lives, and they’re afraid to let go and live a little for once! Australian scientists, I am speaking directly to you right now: I will eat your giant wooly mammoth meatball. I will eat it joyfully and in one sitting, not only to satisfy my own curiosity (and meatball craving) but to teach you, Australian scientists, a gorgeous lesson about being present, living in the moment, and experiencing things in your one wild and precious life or whatever. I’m rating this one a prehistoric 3.9/5 distressing. —Sam Stone, staff writer

Florence Pugh announces a Cooking With Flo show is in works

From the actor who brought you Midsommar and Don’t Worry Darling, coming soon to a screen near you: Cooking With Flo, a cooking show hosted by Florence Pugh. The actor hosted a version of the show on Instagram in the early pandemic and confirmed this week that a continuation is “in the works.” Her previous recipes have included homemade marmalade, ratatouille, pasta from scratch, and tzatziki dip, which all sound lovely and nonthreatening. Flo, I really think you can spice things up in the new show. This all sounds delicious, but what about a Midsommar Bearducken? It’s like a turducken, but you stuff a chicken inside a duck inside a bear. Or Amy’s Clam Chowder? Like the Little Women character, it’s rich and a little salty. The possibilities are endless. Call me if you’d like more where these came from! 4.1/5 delicious. —Karen Yuan, culture editor

A man slices a stalk of celery with an upside down knife

My favorite pastime is saying outrageous shit to my loved ones. For example: Whenever I talk to my beef-farming parents, I enjoy reminding them, “Cow farts are slowly gassing the planet,” mostly for the reaction. “Al-eeee-sooooon,” my dad will sigh. I’m not sure what this penchant for instigation says about me except that I obviously respect this wild TikTok video of an aproned human treating a celery stick like a log at the lumberyard. The faux chef turns his knife upside down, raises the vegetable like an ax, and slams it into the blade over and over—proud as punch of his misshapen hunks. “Culinary school is really more about learning techniques than learning recipes,” he says, eyes glimmering trollishly, clearly not a culinary school student. Natch, everyone in the comments is all, “My old culinary professors would have a stroke,” etc. If we cannot chuckle about innocent celery skits anymore, this is not the world wide web I want to live in. I am assigning a 3.7/5 delicious for these intrepid knife skills. —Ali Francis, staff writer

Kourtney Kardashian posts a photo of 12 plates of food on her bathroom floor

Something I ponder not infrequently: commenters who get angry about cooks on YouTube, Reels, TikTok, etc., who have pets, and pet their pets, and then continue to cook. Come on. Is this the world we want to live in? A world where we can’t take a break from the tomato sauce to tell a cat it looks lovely today and rub its soft ear? Every time I touch the ear I have to wash my hands? No. Such is how I feel about the commenters who are beside themselves about Kourtney Kardashian’s most recent daring sponcon: plates of food sprawled across “her bathroom,” including, apparently most upsettingly, a burger on a closed toilet. Like you’ve never? There are plenty of places I would not want to eat (New Jersey Transit, for instance). But absolutely have I eaten in my bathroom while taking a bath. Potato chips, gougères, olives, ice pops, whatever I want! It’s me time. Survivor demands a snack. And my bathroom is so small, often the only surface to put something is the floor or, yes, the toilet. So be it. For Kourtney’s brave relatability, I dub it 4.2/5 delicious. —Emma Laperruque, senior cooking editor