In various embodiments of the present invention, a bakable batter mixed using cold process conditions and provided in a pressurized can, can be used to bake a variety of food products. In various embodiments of the present invention, a bakable batter mixed under inert atmosphere conditions and...
Interesting reading! I wasn't aware you'd include things like details of pathogen-contamination testing in a patent application. (Or compare the results with CO2 vs N2. That's a detail of genuine interest to anyone trying to make a related product outside the scope of the patent, or a similar product after the patent expires.)
> That's a detail of genuine interest to anyone trying to make a related product outside the scope of the patent, or a similar product after the patent expires.
This is the very purpose of patents. To speed up innovation by forcing people to share their research in exchange for a limited monopoly. I find it both hilarious and scary that you find something special in this patent application.
I find it predictable and dull that someone here would half-read what I wrote and display what would, anywhere else, be staggering social incompetence.
Apologies, but the mobile version of the story that is linked to here got me so frustrated I almost threw my mouse across the room. Can't highlight text, can't copy text as a result, and the article itself looks like garbage.
Something is wrong with a society that needs shortcuts to make pancake batter. It takes less than 5 minutes --- and even less time if you take just a few minutes to premix the dry ingredients ahead of time.
I 100% believe this product adds value to people's lives, but I'm also pretty confident that that's because people are terrified to learn how to cook.
I think it's a fantastic case-in-point about how much value people place on convenience over quality.
Also, it is impossible to overstate the importance of not making people think. Making pancake batter requires either remembering the recipe, or (gasp!) looking it up.
With this product, all you have to know is that when you push the nozzle, shitty pancakes come out. Magic!
I'm definitely not terrified to cook, my idea of fun is spending an hour or two in the kitchen making new exciting food. However, I picked up a can of this stuff the other day at the market and have been happy with it.
My mornings are usually rushed, it takes less effort, and makes less of a mess. It's pretty easy to make bad food decisions in our society, and pancakes in a can are one of them, however, every once in a while it's OK. Also, they don't taste amazing, but they taste solidly average, which is fine by me for a quick breakfast.
I don't see why people are getting so worked up about it. If there's anything people should be worked up about it's fast food breakfasts, that stuff makes these pancakes look like gourmet health food.
Time is money. The fact that this man came up with a product that customers want doesn't mean "Something is wrong with a society". I bike to work, if I used your logic I would think: "Something is wrong with a society" because most people drive to work. But I don't think this. I realize context matters and again; time is money.
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It frustrates me when people insult others ideas because the idea is successful but it isn't something they would use. If the earth's population was 1, then it would be okay. Until that day, please have an open mind.
I wouldn't use this, but I also wish others wouldn't either, as it changes the market in which I live by further lowering the quality standards deemed acceptable in the marketplace. It's not about being closed minded.
Its existence also dramatically increases the likelihood that I'll have to eat a pancake from a can at some point in the future.
I would never use this at home, but it has worked great for me while going out camping.
I can toss one of these cans in a lunch cooler, and the next morning breakfast is nice and quick with a skillet. No need to have mixing bowls and whatever else. One can usually lasts me and my wife several trips.
If you read the article, you notice that the inventor claims that it's not something he'd use himself, but as a "low brow" product especially marketed towards children. A little kid would be more entertained by the notion of "spraying" food rather than go through the hassle of measuring ingredients and cleaning up the mixing bowls, etc.
I think a lot of the value has to do with not needing to clean up or store the extra batter if you mix it yourself. You just shoot in whatever you need to use and the rest is in insta-storage. Disposable everythings are sold by the boatload largely because of no-hassle cleanup which falls under convenience.
If you cook electric, start warming the frying pans. I normally fry on 7 (out of 10). Mix the eggs. Add half the milk. Add the flour. Whisk together until smooth. Add the sugar, salt and remainder of the milk. Add the oil. Mix until the batter is smooth.
About now the pans should be warm. Put a tea spoon of butter in each pan, spread it out in the pan. Add about a cup of batter (or so) to each pan. When the batter is congealed on the top of the pancake, use a long thin spatula to turn the pancake over. It should be yellow/golden brown on the fried side. Wait a minute. The pancake is done. Repeat from beginning of paragraph until out of batter.
Serve with sweats or savoury as you prefer. Blueberries, ice cream, sugar and butter, strawberry jam, are my favourite toppings.
All in all you can do this, with a bit of practice, from a standing start in 20 minutes. And the pancakes are superior to anything you will buy in a pack or a box. Promise.
Notes:
1) can easily be scaled to fit, 1 egg = 2 dl milk = 1 dl flour
2) dl = decilitre 1/10 litre (about a small coffee cup)
OMG I love this stuff. My wife brought some home about a month ago and damnit - they taste as good or better than most homemade pancakes. We buy them at Costco - try them if you see them.
Likely not. Just like we don't get/want spray cheese.
All sounds a bit yuck to me.
I get the powder stuff. You can buy it from Tesco. Comes in a bottle, which is about 1/4 full of powder. You can store in the cupboard for ages. When you want pancakes you just open the bottle, fill it up with fresh milk, shake for ages then start cooking. Really tasty as well.
Slightly off topic now, but I really don't understand how a nation like the US eats so much cheese, yet simply cannot make cheese :/ It's horrible depressing tasteless mush.
I wonder if there's a specific reason you can't get real cheese in the US.
the uk seems to be particularly good at cheese (disclaimer - i am an englishman). it is something you don't appreciate til you leave (here in chile the only decent cheese i could find to have with my christmas cake was an argentinian parmesan!).
I wish I could take the guy who came up with the headline to task! We've had a headline homicide...
1) "it is pancakes" isn't a sentence (ambiguous in the extreme).
2) The words "[it is] pancakes" are incompatible because "are" is the plural equivalent of "is".
3) "in a can" is not a sentence (lack of a subject & verb).
4) "it's made" is "it is made" not the "it has made" it should be. (It's as "it has" is not an official contraction due to its obvious ambiguity.)
The unmurdered headline would be,−
It's pancakes in a can, and it has made $15 million.
</grammar-nazi>
To CNN: Remember, it's my language you're abusing. Maybe you should care too? As a "big news agency" you should at least care enough to force your writers to learn basic English grammar!
I like how you call yourself a grammar nazi, cite the old (and wrong) definition of a sentence as something with a subject and verb, but then say that "it is pancakes" is not a sentence. Why not? It's got a subject -- it -- and it's got a verb -- is.
Further, English has subject-verb agreement not subject-object agreement or verb-object agreement, hence "it is pancakes" is completely fine. Sure there maybe be some semantic anomalies, what with the singularity of the subject, the plurality of the object, and the copula which provides some sense of equivalence between them, but that's entirely a semantic issue and not a grammatical one.
Further further, setting off non-sentences by periods is common practice. You may not like it, but everyone else accepts it. You're just an idiot.
Further further further, "it's" is completely acceptable English, and isn't an official contraction only because there ARE no official contractions -- unlike French, with its (wholly impotent) French Academy, there is no authority on English, and thus no such thing as official English. The best we can do (as if we should care) is to reference the great authors of English literature (whoever they may be) and if you go by them, then you're most certainly wrong.
Further further further further, it's not your language, it's everyones, and I think the headline is fine; and they're not abusing it, they're using it in a completely standard fashion.
You're awesome and I'm looking forward to everything else you might write about linguistics on HN, but I'm not going to be the only person on Hacker News to tell you not to call people "idiots" on our comment threads.
That's a reductio ad absurdum, since (begging your pardon) your revised headline sounds bad and lacks punch. Meanwhile the original headline qua headline seems fine. Headlines are their own specialized context with their own rules, somewhat different from the main rules. You might even say they have a domain-specific grammar.
I'm upvoting your comment anyway because the concept of a subgrammar never occurred to me before and it's kind of neat. I'd be surprised if it weren't a well-known phenomenon among linguists though.
It's true that news headlines obey their own little grammatical rules. Language Log (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/) has mentioned this a number of times. Tho noone in the field really cares about it, because its not all the relevant to language on the whole.
To CNN: Remember, it's my language you're abusing.
No, it is not. It's their language too. There is no central authority which hands down the rules of the English language, only common agreement and a shared understanding. If a collection of words and punctuation has clearly expressed an idea, then it has served its purpose.
Rules of grammar are useful, but getting too pedantic and authoritarian about them can do nothing but suck the joy out of your life.
A more appropriate headline might have been "Pancakes in a can have grossed $15million this year".
The headline as it stands is trying to add some extra texture. "It's pancakes." - ie just pancakes, nothing fancy, nothing luxurious (though we have pancakes as a treat) they're just pancakes. I also find this to be a hint to a template of a salesmans patter. "In a can." - this evokes a staccato presentation on a TV shopping channel IMO and emphasises that all they did differently with their basic pancake batter was stick it in a can (even if that's not strictly true). "It's made $15 million." - the short sentence echoes the others and adds a little incredulity.
The words "[it is] pancakes" are incompatible because "are" is the plural equivalent of "is".
Not true. "It is pancakes in a can" is entirely grammatically correct, because "pancakes in a can" is a singular noun -- an idiomatic one, to be sure, but "pancakes in a can" is taken to mean "a can containing pancakes", which is obviously singular.
Refrigerator Stable Baking Batter
In various embodiments of the present invention, a bakable batter mixed using cold process conditions and provided in a pressurized can, can be used to bake a variety of food products. In various embodiments of the present invention, a bakable batter mixed under inert atmosphere conditions and...
http://www.google.com/patents/download/11_760_647_REFRIGERAT...