chris eats

In a television interview in 2002, Larry King asked Julia Child which foods she hated. She responded: “Cilantro and arugula I don’t like at all. They’re both green herbs, they have kind of a dead taste to me.”

“So you would never order it?” Mr. King asked.

“Never,” she responded. “I would pick it out if I saw it and throw it on the floor.”

In order to meet the demands of health-conscious consumers, manufacturers of soy-based fake meat like to make their products have as little fat as possible. The cheapest way to do this is by submerging soybeans in a bath of hexane to separate the oil from the protein. Says Cornucopia Institute senior researcher Charlotte Vallaeys, “If a non-organic product contains a soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, or texturized vegetable protein, you can be pretty sure it was made using soy beans that were made with hexane.”

If you’ve heard about hexane before, it was likely in the context of gasoline—the air pollutant is also a byproduct of gas refining. But in 2007, grain processors were responsible for two-thirds of our national hexane emissions. Hexane is hazardous in the factory, too: Workers who have been exposed to it have developed both skin and nervous system disorders. Troubling, then, that the FDA does not monitor or regulate hexane residue in foods. More worrisome still: According to the report, “Nearly every major ingredient in conventional soy-based infant formula is hexane extracted.”

The “Double Down,” however, arrives at a new low: a greasy entree dish of chicken with bacon and cheese on it, slathered in sauce, that the company asks customers to eat with their hands. The chicken is watery within its soft casing of “crust,” the cheese familiar to anyone who has eaten food prepared by the United States government, the bacon chemical in its smokiness, the mayonnaise sauce tangy, salty, and sweet, all at once.

At the KFC on Broadway and 33rd Street on Monday morning, dour, slow-moving workers were selling the sandwich beneath fluorescent lights for $5.49. There was no sign for that option on the placard above the cash registers, however. The only “Double Down” on the menu was part of a combination deal selling for $7.99: the sandwich, a small order of fries, and a medium cup of iced Pepsi. At 11:45 a.m., there was a line of 7 people. All in it ordered the combination special.

Though iceberg is somewhat less assertive — to be generous, its flavor is subtly bitter — it has more crunch than almost anything. And when you top it with a super-sharp blue cheese dressing or a classic Russian, it is utterly transformed.

There’s a reason clichés like Caesar salad and iceberg with blue cheese dressing have become hyper-common: they’re just good. The combination of cold crunchiness, mild bitterness and salty dressings is everlastingly refreshing and satisfying.