And tbh, I wish I’d been there to try the food myself, because my actual first reaction here is, “Well, this sure is not a popular treat in supermarkets, so my guess is that some of my legion of admiring followers are so dead set on proving me wrong that they proclaimed the superior taste to them of something that sure has not been a wider commercial success, and/or didn’t like ice cream much in the first place.”
Fun Baader-Meinhof effect I experienced: the very evening of the day in which I read this article, while chatting with my father-in-law, he mentioned (without me prompting) eating and enjoying a sandwich with lard, honey and chestnuts while vacationing in the Alps. Not quite the same but close enough, for more accessible ingredients. And the mountain setting makes a lot of sense because:
all the ingredients would be local and traditional
the cold means people burn more energy and thus favours the development of more energy-dense foods
Huh… This reminds me of a conversation I had ~11 years ago with a Polish guy recounting his visit to Chechnya and Chechnyan hospitality, including them giving him bread with sour cream and sugar.
There is some bear fat left should you happen to be at Lighthaven before Thanksgiving, or you can buy some on your own from Borderline Tree Works—the smallest size is $8 plus shipping. I would also really love to see your opinion—oh glorious leader ;)
The people who liked the bear fat snack the most really seemed earnest, including going back for more and raving about how good it was (particularly Natalia). Gwern compared it to pemmican in that it grows on you as you eat more, and did start eating it with a spoon.
In case it helps, here are the full results of the survey:
The main reasons I would still doubt the broader applicability of these results are:
The people who took the survey are all people who decided they wanted to try this AND stuck around long enough after tasting it to fill out the survey, so it’s a super biased sample. Even then, 3 preferred ice cream and only 2 preferred bear fat, with 1 tie
People may have enjoyed the bear fat snack for its novelty, and might not choose it over ice cream if it were commonplace
I was asking people to compare the actual taste of bear fat to their memory of how ice cream tastes, and maybe ice cream (or food generally) tastes better in the moment
The bear fat snack was set up as a fancy treat with Maldon salt flakes and local raw honey, and the survey takers may have been comparing it to run-of-the-mill ice cream instead of the best or fanciest ice cream
To that last point: I had a mass produced ice cream sandwich about an hour later and it was maybe worse than the bear fat snack, but hand made ice cream from my local scoop shop tastes much better to me.
It’s not really a fair question because we all have different things to do with our lives than launch snack lines or restaurant carts, but still: If people have discovered such an amazing delicious novel taste, both new and better than ice cream for 1⁄3 of those who try it, where are the people betting that it would be an amazing commercial success if only somebody produced more of it and advertised it more broadly?
Bears are wild animals. I think it would take way too much effort to get a large enough consistent supply of autumn bear fat even for a food truck, especially given that people probably wouldn’t pay for one cracker’s worth at a time.
Fine then, let’s use beef tallow. We could sell jars of beef tallow mixed with honey and salt as some kind of paleo peanut butter alternative and branch out from there. I think plenty of people would enjoy it, though I think it would be hard to convince the kind of people who love beef tallow to buy it in a jar from us rather than make it themselves.
The base rate of packaged food startups failing within the first year is 90%.[1] If I had to bet based on taste alone, I would expect a honeyed tallow startup to have a better shot than average, but my guess is that marketing would have to be heroic.
Turns out that bears are a lot harder to farm and they likely cannot be domesticated at all, I think that explains away any mystery about this specific snack
It really does seem harder to mass produce! I don’t think it’s an easy to factory farm bears as cows, considering that you have to feed them meat, so you’ll at best get an ordinary/mild commercial success? So the upside to me seems like something within the realm of what is occasionally not already exploited.
An interesting comparison would be to see if other substitute animal fats taste as good?
Also I think rationalists might be selected for having weirder tastes?
Well, I don’t think bear fat with honey and salt specifically would do well, due largely to supply problems. Lard is fairly neutral, but you might get good results with tallow, schmaltz, or duck fat. Another factor is that I’d expect it’d be something that’d get unpalatable if you ate a lot of it, because it’s so fatty and the flavors are so strong, but if you only ate a little with crackers it tastes really good.
And tbh, I wish I’d been there to try the food myself, because my actual first reaction here is, “Well, this sure is not a popular treat in supermarkets, so my guess is that some of my legion of admiring followers are so dead set on proving me wrong that they proclaimed the superior taste to them of something that sure has not been a wider commercial success, and/or didn’t like ice cream much in the first place.”
Fun Baader-Meinhof effect I experienced: the very evening of the day in which I read this article, while chatting with my father-in-law, he mentioned (without me prompting) eating and enjoying a sandwich with lard, honey and chestnuts while vacationing in the Alps. Not quite the same but close enough, for more accessible ingredients. And the mountain setting makes a lot of sense because:
all the ingredients would be local and traditional
the cold means people burn more energy and thus favours the development of more energy-dense foods
Huh… This reminds me of a conversation I had ~11 years ago with a Polish guy recounting his visit to Chechnya and Chechnyan hospitality, including them giving him bread with sour cream and sugar.
There is some bear fat left should you happen to be at Lighthaven before Thanksgiving, or you can buy some on your own from Borderline Tree Works—the smallest size is $8 plus shipping. I would also really love to see your opinion—oh glorious leader ;)
The people who liked the bear fat snack the most really seemed earnest, including going back for more and raving about how good it was (particularly Natalia). Gwern compared it to pemmican in that it grows on you as you eat more, and did start eating it with a spoon.
In case it helps, here are the full results of the survey:
Natalia: Bear fat snack 10, Ice cream 10, comment: “yum”
Anonymous: Bear fat snack 9, Ice cream 10
Skyler: Bear fat snack 10, Ice cream 7, comment: “The salt was the best component”
Anonymous: Bear fat snack 7, Ice cream 9
Jenn: Bear fat snack 8, Ice cream 6
Eneasz: Bear fat snack 7, Ice cream 9, comment: “i love unique experiences, thank you!”
The main reasons I would still doubt the broader applicability of these results are:
The people who took the survey are all people who decided they wanted to try this AND stuck around long enough after tasting it to fill out the survey, so it’s a super biased sample. Even then, 3 preferred ice cream and only 2 preferred bear fat, with 1 tie
People may have enjoyed the bear fat snack for its novelty, and might not choose it over ice cream if it were commonplace
I was asking people to compare the actual taste of bear fat to their memory of how ice cream tastes, and maybe ice cream (or food generally) tastes better in the moment
The bear fat snack was set up as a fancy treat with Maldon salt flakes and local raw honey, and the survey takers may have been comparing it to run-of-the-mill ice cream instead of the best or fanciest ice cream
To that last point: I had a mass produced ice cream sandwich about an hour later and it was maybe worse than the bear fat snack, but hand made ice cream from my local scoop shop tastes much better to me.
It’s not really a fair question because we all have different things to do with our lives than launch snack lines or restaurant carts, but still: If people have discovered such an amazing delicious novel taste, both new and better than ice cream for 1⁄3 of those who try it, where are the people betting that it would be an amazing commercial success if only somebody produced more of it and advertised it more broadly?
Bears are wild animals. I think it would take way too much effort to get a large enough consistent supply of autumn bear fat even for a food truck, especially given that people probably wouldn’t pay for one cracker’s worth at a time.
Fine then, let’s use beef tallow. We could sell jars of beef tallow mixed with honey and salt as some kind of paleo peanut butter alternative and branch out from there. I think plenty of people would enjoy it, though I think it would be hard to convince the kind of people who love beef tallow to buy it in a jar from us rather than make it themselves.
The base rate of packaged food startups failing within the first year is 90%.[1] If I had to bet based on taste alone, I would expect a honeyed tallow startup to have a better shot than average, but my guess is that marketing would have to be heroic.
https://www.ksre.k-state.edu/kvafl/resources/development.html
mmm beef tallow is pretty in these days? I also think there’s got to be some mileage from optimization to find the bliss point.
Turns out that bears are a lot harder to farm and they likely cannot be domesticated at all, I think that explains away any mystery about this specific snack
It really does seem harder to mass produce! I don’t think it’s an easy to factory farm bears as cows, considering that you have to feed them meat, so you’ll at best get an ordinary/mild commercial success? So the upside to me seems like something within the realm of what is occasionally not already exploited.
An interesting comparison would be to see if other substitute animal fats taste as good?
Also I think rationalists might be selected for having weirder tastes?
I feel as though the existence of “Mucky fat” is a relevant datapoint here
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/feb/22/mucky-fat-butties-sense-place
Though it perhaps says something that this seems to have gotten less popular as food has gotten cheaper
Well, I don’t think bear fat with honey and salt specifically would do well, due largely to supply problems. Lard is fairly neutral, but you might get good results with tallow, schmaltz, or duck fat. Another factor is that I’d expect it’d be something that’d get unpalatable if you ate a lot of it, because it’s so fatty and the flavors are so strong, but if you only ate a little with crackers it tastes really good.