Best Of MetaFilter

Milk Bag & Fancy Pitcher by avail (cc by-nd)

Milk in bags -- Mefites share and learn. Also ice cream that's not ice cream.

Fair Food by Glory Rumours Photos (cc by-nd)

Come riff with us on knockoff food product names including the thousand names of (non)butter - also, what happens if you buy an 18 pack of Skerple.

Or learn about lesser-known (and possibly fictitious) state fair foods.

Offer your corrections to the list of best diners in each state.

Finally comprehensive takedown of the Doritos Locos Taco.

Afternoon Tea Paskeston Hall, Pembrokeshire by Hippy-dippy

Food and drink from the Mefi larder: Can't find the ingredient you're missing from your native cuisine? Try these immigrant food substitutions. What should we do with our leftovers? The ingenuity of meatloaf. If you don't have leftovers for lunch, enjoy packed lunches from around the world.

How can I feed my picky child? A reassuring answer.

Washing in milk, historic mealtimes, and why food was served cold to the rich, explained in unexpected facts about everyday life in the past.

Let's get serious about tea or go to Kentucky for a tour guide to bourbon country.

029/365+1 by meaganmakes (cc by-nc)

Your fridge is [mostly] empty. You're too lazy to drive to the grocery store, but not too lazy to stay in and cook: Kitchen Pantry Cooking Challenge Ask Me thread is there for you.

(See also: Shopping-averse cook seeks pantry-friendly recipes, and what to eat when you are waiting out the zombie apocalypse)

Cauliflower ear by tutincommon (cc by-nc)

I heard a story on This American Life ... about a sausage maker who inadvertently ruins their product by getting a new building. In the end, it turned out the problem was they had shortened the route of the final delivery of the sausages and removed what was thought to be the unimportant work of a clerk named Irving. I thought it was fascinating and I want to find other stories like that. Where would I look for them?

rileyray3000, ISO real life food mysteries.

But now I have to eat the damn things. I've eaten squid in about every form known to man, but this one is new to me. And I sure as hell am not going to embarrass myself in front of all the locals. Of course I know how to eat this, don't I? But do I just wolf it down? They're only about 3 or 4 inches long. And what's all this other stuff on the plate? I know it's not just for decoration.

charlie don't surf shares a story of how he learned to eat hotaru ika.

Ajinomoto by stu_wp (cc by-nc)

It is impossible to be allergic to either sodium or glutamic acid. Allergies are an autoimmune disorder where white blood cells attack substances that are generally not supposed to be attacked; if this was the case for either sodium or glutamic acid, the effects would be immediately fatal given the omni-presence of sodium and glutamic acid, their essential roles in the human body, and given how glutamic acid is naturally produced by the human body.

MeFite Conspire helps to dispel some misinformation in an MSG thread with SCIENCE.

Fair Food by MEFI's OWN Waldo Jaquith (cc by-sa)

The machine also had a lot of blinking lights and complex looking buttons, which I thought were important features I didn't know how to operate for the first few days, and then learned they were just for appearance and to make the machine look more futuristic or such. I poked fun at their brochure and logo at the time, laid out entirely in comic-sans, a sin for a wanna-be graphic designer like myself. I still remember one of the guys impassioned response, borne of having to defend it multiple times. "Why do people hate comic-sans? It's happy, it's FUN."

Pandalicious's first comment is a memory of working at the Tulsa State Fair back when Nitro Ice Cream was getting started.

Rice Pudding by bgreenlee (cc by)

I ate a lot of rice pudding in WW2. Where did the rice come from?

Cucumbers by karenandbrademerson (cc by)

It's not greed at play here or lack of general desire to grow accessible local, quality, organic food for everyone. It's sheer economics both internally and externally. It's hard to convince someone that it's better to sell a cucumber for 50 cents when there is someone out there that will pay 2 dollars and if they grow polka dot cucumbers in the same space someone will pay 4 dollars for it. For many growers it's choice between having good food on their own tables and someone elses.

MeFite Jalliah on why being a farmer and wanting to provide food for low income folks is challenging.

inside the freezer by serenejournal (cc by)

Help me fill my chest freezer with delicious food for later.