The World Wide Web offers up a bevy of information, including everything one could ever want to know about food. In this technical age, you can learn about the origin of Flutie Flakes while shopping for any food item you could dream of. The Daily Cardinal food staff wants you to make the best use of the Web with the assistance of these five helpful Web sites.
Every UW-Madison student is haunted by at least one question in the course of his or her college career, such as: \Why am I here?,"" ""What will I do with my life?"" and ""When was minced beef invented?"" While one might never answer the first two questions, those concerned with the history of cow products and other foods can turn to the Food Timeline to ease their worried minds.
The Food Timeline is an entire Web site documenting the origins of various food items. Beginning with the origin of salt and ending with the 1998 inventions of Flutie Flakes and grape tomatoes, the Food Timeline provides Web surfers with links to either the site's own research or the home pages of food companies such as Hershey's and Pez Candy, Inc.
This site offers not only the history of many well-known brands, but also gives the background of more unusual foods such as U.S. Senate Bean Soup and medieval European dishes. The Timeline also provides the original recipes for certain dishes, including rice pudding and raspberry jelly.
The Food Timeline is the Web site to hit the next time you need a history lesson on Marshmallow Fluff, sushi or conversation hearts.
Need a small array of online food dealers? Imagine nine pages of food dealers rated for you in four categories: safety, performance, usability and overall. All of this information can be found at the Safe Shopping Network.
Click each bar graph and the stores are listed according to their rating in a category of your choice. The businesses can also be sorted alphabetically, making the search for a certain company easier.
Should one spot a company of interest, yet another link is listed which offers Web surfers more information on the company, including a written rating.
In addition to a descriptive review, there is the factual information on the business itself, such as the year of establishment, approximate number of employees, telephone number and location.
After reviewing companies' offerings and their information, the Safe Shopping Network supplies links to all the companies' homepages, allowing Web surfers to complete their research and feel sure of the safety of their food products.
""The urban work-day economy would be unthinkable without coffee.""'Irene Fizer.
What would classes be like without that first dose of caffeine? Check up on the definitions of ""caffeine"" and ""coffee break"" at the resources section of the Send Coffee Web site.
Not only does this Web site offer factual information on the common caffeine addiction; it also offers solutions. On this site, one can buy gifts of coffee for friends and family and purchase them through a secure Web ordering page. There is also a trademark ""Send Coffee"" mug for sale.
Besides products, there are featured games, including ""Ask Bob,"" a Send Coffee version of the magic eight-ball. Need more? Send a free coffee e-greeting. Who would not want to receive a photo or animation of a fresh cup of coffee?
The site also offers literature to Web surfers. Listed are quotations and book reviews, including purchasing information for the featured novels. If the coffee maker breaks, don't worry. There is information about the purchase of coffee accessories as well.
This site is all-around promotional for the American coffee addiction. Join the crowd and surf the Web the next time you're dreaming of a fresh cup of coffee.
On Daniel Hong's Web site, columnists discuss the events of Sept. 11, President George Bush, Hong Kong and the recipe for French-fried skunk. Tucked between political opinions and fashion updates, Hong's Weird Food Extravaganza link leads hungry surfers to his list of recipes on the I'm Better with Food Web site.
Hong's slight obsession with weird foods seems to have come from his first taste of frog egg soup, and his experience with unusual foods has expanded to include such dishes as Owl Soup, Beer-roasted Cat, and Squid-ink Pan Pizza.
Hong offers a large selection of recipes ranging from appetizers to desserts and includes drinks, so that one can potentially throw a dinner party for his or her worst enemy with the help of the I'm Better with Food site. A sample menu could begin with an appetizer of Jellied Moose Nose, go on to Duck Blood Soup, enjoy an entr??e of Baked Cod Tongues and finish with Chocolate Worm Cream. A Spam shake or a Green Ant Cordial will quench dinner guests' thirst.
On the more sane side of Hong's page, he offers tips on specific table manners in different cultures. For example, the Japanese believe that by slurping one's food, one is implying that the food tastes good, while Egyptians find diners eating with their left hand to be rude.
Hong's Weird Food Extravaganza is a great site to visit to cure those cravings for roadkill or for some material for an original practical joke.
Everyone has sat down at a formal dinner and looked down to see a mind-boggling assortment of forks, knives and spoons framing the plate. In the frenzy of deciding which utensil to begin with, one may wonder where all these metal instruments came from. Wonder no more.
The History of Utensils Web site eases anyone's worries over the origin of the salad fork. Maintained by the California Academy of Science Anthropology Department, this site offers an extensive history on knives, chopsticks, forks and spoons.
While the History of Utensils' text is academically written, surfers can find gems of information. For example, chopsticks first originated 5,000 years ago, when people broke twigs off branches to use as eating utensils. The most intersting section on the site is Portable Cutlery. Brief histories on cutlery ranging from Ancient Roman pocket knives to a modern Korean travel cutlery set make one wonder why the average person does not keep a fork and knife in his or her back pocket, aside from the annoyance.
Highlighted by clear, colorful photographs of several ancient to modern utensils, the History of Utensils is candy for both the eye and mid, making it a definite hot spot in the world of food Web sites. So log on and dig in, thy weary Web traveler.
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'Jessica Jones
