Welcome to Delicious or Distressing, where we rate recent food memes, videos, and other entertainment news. Last week we discussed whether the Stanley Quencher craze has reached its hot pink peak.
While his fellow globe-straddling tech titans are building giant rockets and superyachts, Mark Zuckerberg is building something a little more quaint: a herd of cattle. But, of course, they’ll be roaming around on his controversial $100 million Hawaii doomsday compound, and they’ll be fed an appropriately over-the-top diet of beer and macadamia nuts. Compared to other billionaires, it’s maybe not so wild, but one must wonder: Why is his water glass covered like that in his Instagram post?
Also this week: Rich people contribute to global melting by literally melting down glacier ice in their cocktails in the desert because it has less air than normie frozen water. A wedding is the crasher and ruins the days of already beleaguered coffee shop employees. And move over girl dinner, we’re all pizza rat now with the arrival of rat snacking
Read more below on this week’s food news around the internet.
Greenland startup begins shipping glacier ice to cocktail bars in the UAE
If you've ever had the sneaky feeling that the ultra-wealthy are indeed fueling the environmental destruction of our planet with a wanton disregard for the well-being of literally everyone else, well, I have some good news and some bad news for you. The good news: You're right! And it’s nice to be right. The bad news: Those people have moved on to literally drinking glacier ice shipped to the desert from halfway around the world in their cocktails. I know, I agree, it's a little bit too on the nose. A company in Greenland is selling glacier ice from fjords to cocktails bars in Dubai. The glacier ice, according to the Guardian, will replace the standard ice used in Dubai cocktail bars, which is currently made from frozen mineral water (?!). Drinking glacier ice is both a weird flex, and a classic Martha Stewart move, but apparently it's about more than the prestige of drinking frozen fjord water—glacier ice doesn't have any bubbles in it because over millennia, all the air has been pressed out, which means it melts more slowly in your cocktail. Well at least there's a reason they’re shipping ice around the world. 5/5 distressing —Sam Stone staff writer
Mark Zuckerberg Is Raising Cattle and Will Give Them Beer to Drink
Smoked meats aficionado and MMA brawler Mark Zuckerberg announced yet another foray into beef. This time he's raising Wagyu and Angus cattle on his $100 million Hawaiian compound on the island of Kauai. According to his Instagram post, he'll be feeding them macadamia nuts and beer, ostensibly to make the beef taste better. Zuckerberg seems confident that the diet will affect the taste of the beef, but he admits there's no proof that it'll do much of anything. “It’ll take a couple more years to fully explore how this diet affects taste, but at a minimum, macadamia nuts are very high nutrition density with lots of proteins and fats,” he wrote in reply to a comment on his post. Perhaps this is hater behavior, but I personally cannot imagine using an enormous amount of resources to raise cows that will most likely taste like most other cows, but that's just one non-billionaires opinion. I'm giving this a very nutty—see what I did there. 3.2/5 distressing. —S.S.
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Girl Dinner Is Over. Rat Snacking Is (Allegedly) Here
A doughnut stuffed with cheddar cubes. Kraft-singles draped over cinnamon sugar apples. More processed cheese melted on cauliflower and slathered in sriracha. These are a few examples of what some folks online are calling “rat snacks.” The term is currently pretty loosely defined—the New York Post called them “‘unhinged’ combinations of foods [that] make just one small treat”—but the vibe is scrapping a meal together from whatever’s left in your pantry without the tidy composure of 2023’s intensely curated girl dinners.
But looking for examples of rat snacks, I mostly saw creators desperately trying to make rat snacks happen, chasing the next trend while there’s still room to be among the first. The ubiquity of American cheese in these videos also struck me as odd and a bit elitist, although I suppose rats are known for loving dairy. Really, I take offense at the lack of originality; it feels like we’re just going back to “Goblin Mode,” which described a similar shameless self-indulgence, as if it were something new. For a trend posturing as “chaotic” and “unhinged,” the rat snack aesthetic feels too manufactured, too sanitary, too composed to live up to its namesake vermin. 0/5 distressing, wake me up when it’s actually weird. —Alma Avalle, digital operations associate
Coffee Shop Shares Video of 'Pop-Up Wedding'—and Demands a Venue Fee
Last month, I got married in the front yard of a reverend I found on the internet. According to the great state of Utah, this move was legit; I have the certificate in my inbox. The point is that I am all for breaking free of the American wedding industrial complex. But there’s a pretty firm line between bucking tradition and just…being rude. Enter: the Mansion Society coffee shop in Indianapolis.
On New Year's Eve, at least 20 guests, a love-struck couple, and a team of eager photographers orchestrated a surprise ceremony in the bustling local café. As vows were exchanged and eau de coffee filled the air, bewildered staff found themselves moonlighting as impromptu event planners—managing the unexpected nuptials as the flock of attendees commandeered the entrance and parking lot. “We were taking orders, slinging drinks and we couldn’t stop a wedding ceremony mid way,” a co-owner wrote in a social media post documenting the scene. The bride offered a measly $200 “donation” for the commotion, but the shop clapped back with its standard $500 bill for private events. I truly love an “I do” moment, but this shenanigan is giving “do not.” Find a park or something? 5.1/5 distressing. —Ali Francis, staff writer