some links... from Florida! (I'll be back on Monday)

[alexr_rwx]

- Alert Reader My Mom dramamamalama points out: there's a How Stuff Works about Rice Krispies and they're saying that it's individual puffed rice kernels. Do we believe How Stuff Works, or ... ?

- GNU Hurd: mostly developed by a Gregorian friar. Interesting! He seems like a pretty nice guy. It probably takes some faith to be the HURD dude.

- For drum 'n' bugle corps (as distinct from marching bands), they use special gigantic bugles instead of the sousaphone. It's apparently historically a different activity, the drum 'n' bugle corps -- more military than collegiate. But neither of these things are the same as military pop. (thanks for the heads up, Laura laurapatt!)

Comments

[eponis.livejournal.com]

My vote is with How Stuff Works, and not just because that's how I originally voted in the poll. :-) (It isn't often that I fail a Cooking Lore role, so I was quite saddened by the initial feedback.) According to Wikipedia, "They are made of a corn mixture which is ironically shaped into the form of rice kernels and toasted.". However, if you look at the cereal ingredients (http://www.kelloggs.com/cgi-bin/brandpages/fileBlob.pl?md5=0b64bdbe61118087b05084a4d8ae51c5), there's no corn in them, aside from a tiny amount of corn syrup, less than the amount of salt.

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

*nods* I checked in that order too, actually -- wikipedia, then the box of krispies sitting on top of my fridge...

So is How Stuff Works a usually accurate source?

[praetorian42.livejournal.com]

Puffing is not totally implausible, as the other ingredients in the Rice Krispies could be dissolved in the water that the rice was soaked in beforehand. However, I'm skeptical because the Krispies don't actually seem puffed at all. Even if you toasted them after puffing, I think that you'd find they would be more uniform in consistency (and hence wouldn't "pop"), and that their shape would be more regular.

Despite the expert disagreement, I'm going to stick to my guns. I don't see a puffed rice product taking on the flattened shape that a normal Krispie has (and is explained perfectly by the pressure-grinding / toasting process that is common to other cereals). And as well I don't see a puffed rice product being able to foster the signature "pop".

[praetorian42.livejournal.com]

Also, an old version of the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rice_Krispies&oldid=52655454) tends to agree with me. In the talk section, an unnamed person who works for Kelloggs and has poor grammar mentions something about a "rice boil", which also supports my argument.

This is quite the conundrum!