Follow By Email: We’ve Underestimated Sprinkles

We've Underestimated Sprinkles

By: ANNA HEZEL

As Mahira Rivers pointed out this week in Grub Street, we're living in the golden age of the upsell, when more restaurants than ever before are offering (for a price) to shower your plate of pasta or buttered toast, with caviar, uni, and thinly shaved truffles. No restaurant dish is safe from the treatment—even the baked potato New York magazine columnist Tammie Teclemariam ordered recently was topped with a quenelle of Osetra caviar.

So it's no surprise that sprinkles—the Osetra caviar of the Mister Softee truck—are having a bit of a moment. As Cathy Erway points out, writing for TASTE this week, sprinkles aren't just a decoration. They're the type of affordable luxury that can make or break a baked good. And though sprinkles typically don't have much flavor beyond "sweet," a new wave of sprinkle pioneers are proving that these tiny specks can bring a subtle peanut flavor or a touch of floral scent from some rose petals (a Molly Yeh idea).

Whatever your flavor or color inclination (or preference for natural dyes), there's a sprinkle out there for you. It's worth the upsell.

READ:

Is it really a chocolate chip cookie if there are no chips?
Besha Rodell takes a look at some of the health and beauty claims that have been fueling the highly lucrative manuka honey industry.
Mahira Rivers investigates the peculiar, seemingly sudden rise of restaurants offering to put caviar, uni, and truffles on just about everything.
Jaya Saxena talks to the production designer behind Pixar's Turning Red about some of the challenges that go along with animating food.
What is it about Cuban bread?
Chefs claim that it makes garlic taste bad, and home cooks worry that it's a cheap shortcut. People love to hate the garlic press.
For GQ, Gabriella Paiella went to Las Vegas to meet Nicolas Cage (and his talking bird).
Literary Hub gives a glimpse into the makeover process that went into redesigning Jonathan Franzen's paperbacks.

COOK:

Shrimp and grits doesn't need to be fussy, and it doesn't require a million ingredients.
Pati Jinich has the low-down on making conchas, three ways.
Leeks vinaigrette, reimagined for a sophisticated lunch at home.
Did you know that your Instant Pot is capable of making some pretty awesome passionfruit curd?
You can (and should) make fried chicken at home.

WATCH, STREAM, LISTEN, DONATE:

This week on the TASTE Podcast, we talk to Jenny Rosenstrach, the author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians.
If you caught us talking about Eric Kim's milk bread on the podcast last week, you might want to give the recipe a try this weekend, with some help from this handy video. And read our interview with Eric in this week's Monday Interview.
For the next few weeks, Fan-Fan Doughnuts, in Bed-Stuy is partnering with the sock company Bombas to donate proceeds to Immigrant Families Together.
If you want to make kung pao chicken, you have to learn the art of velveting.
On the latest episode of Setting the Table, a podcast from Whetstone Media, host Deb Freeman talks to some of the farmers leading a resurgence in African-American agriculture.
Can future food and regenerative farming share the same plate? Farm to People is hosting a dinner and conversation with chef Dan Barber on April 6 in NYC. Get your tickets.

FOLLOW THE EDITORS OF TASTE

Follow along with our cooking (and let us know about your cooking) on Instagram. You can follow us at @taste and see what the editors are up to at @ahezel and @mattrodbard.

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