# Starbucks updates the idea of "real cooking" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2015, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617 "2015-07-19T17:08:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/21 "2015-07-20T19:01:01Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > If something is false in the specifics, it is false. Saying otherwise is like saying Bill Clinton didn’t cheat on his wife with Monica Lewinsky because only oral was involved. I don’t quite agree with this (and please remember that I am allergic to bee stings). I read all the way through that Snopes article and gleaned this much: There was research that showed that just-add-water cake mixes were emotionally unsatisfying to some number of women who had at least tried them. Experience also showed that cakes with fresh eggs were objectively better than cakes with dried eggs already in the mix. Cake mixes did change to require fresh eggs. It seems entirely possible that both of these previous facts had influence on this change. The above-noted research also changed the way manufacturers marketed cake mixes and the cake baking process in other ways. So there was some truth to **Amateur Barbarian** ’s summary of events, even if it is not perfectly accurate. In any case, it was only an illustration of a type of marketing behavior, and was not offered as proof or even argument. So lighten up, Francis('s). ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/22 "2015-07-20T19:16:45Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Cake mixes did change to require fresh eggs. It seems entirely possible that both of these previous facts had influence on this change. Except, of course, if you actually read the story and note that not all of the brands took out the artificial eggs, and that one of the brands that didn’t became one of the top two brands. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/23 "2015-07-20T19:41:59Z")
> [@bump](#): > > … But yeah, the whole Starbucks thing is 100% marketing BS. “Hand steeped?” Is there any difference between that and a machine that would dispense an exact amount of grounds, steep it in cold water for a precise amount of time, and then strain it? … > I don’t begrudge the marketing people their inanities; they have a living to make, and that’s how you do that particular job. Who I do begrudge are the simpletons out there who swallow this stuff hook, line and sinker. > “By Hand” is about as meaningless as “Natural” is, yet it appeals to people’s notions of not being cold, soulless, mechanical or artificial, when it actually means nothing of the sort. IMO, the whole organic food movement and anti-GMO business are just an extension of this kind of thinking, and equally flawed and incorrect. I have to agree that the ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ claims tend to be so much hog-wash, in many cases. The appeal is, as you point out, to “notions of not being cold, soulless, mechanical” and so forth. I do think that the Starbucks ad campaign that Am.Barb. brought to our attention is about something _else_, though. Starbucks has always been about “aspirational” fantasies about being An Important Person Who Thinks Nothing Of Paying $7 For A Cup of Coffee…fantasies of being a one-percenter, in other words. And what characterizes One-Percenters?.. among other things, _that they get waited on by “less-valuable” people_. That barista who is striving to please you is a tribute to your own importance. The Starbucks site ballyhooing the “Small-Batch Cold Brew Coffee” says: > [@](#): > > 20 hours. That’s how long your barista gently slow-steeps the coffee in cool water… [http://lp.starbucks.com/coldbrew](http://lp.starbucks.com/coldbrew) Ah, yes…my barista…so very, very anxious to please me! So anxious, that he-or-she is careful to _gently_ slow-steep my coffee…ah…I am SO worth it!.. What a load. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/24 "2015-07-20T19:52:41Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Ah, yes…my barista…so very, very anxious to please me! So anxious, that he-or-she is careful to _gently_ slow-steep my coffee…ah…I am SO worth it!.. > > What a load. Particularly since cold-steeped coffee should be banned by an Act of Congress (using the authority of the General Welfare clause). ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/25 "2015-07-20T19:52:56Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Starbucks has always been about “aspirational” fantasies about being An Important Person Who Thinks Nothing Of Paying $7 For A Cup of Coffee…fantasies of being a one-percenter, in other words. The recent movie _Dope_ had a parody _Starbucks_ location called _Seven Bucks._ ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/26 "2015-07-20T21:13:57Z")
I want to know why _20 hours_ in particular is the magic number? Seems like by varying the grind and the amount of water, etc… you could probably do it in 24 hours, which seems to me, like a much more logistically reasonable time frame. You put it in for your shift at 8 am, and get it out the following morning at 8. Unless it’ some kind of beginning/end shift thing, where a shift puts the cold-brew in at the end of a 4 hour shift, and retrieves it at the beginning of the same shift the following day. So the morning shift puts theirs in at 9 am as they leave, and it’s done at 4 am the following day. The next shift puts it in at 1 pm, and retrieves it at 9 am as they show up, and so on and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/27 "2015-07-20T21:52:57Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I find Starbuck’s current push to be in much the same vein. In the same vein as what–as marketers reformulating cake mixes to require fresh eggs, as a result of research showing that requiring fresh eggs would lead to customers having a greater emotional investment in the end product? That makes total sense. People nitpicking you on the details are being annoying and should stop. The details are very interesting, mind you–I love nerdy food history stuff. But impugning your integrity because your analogy, while fundamentally sound, overstated some details about the analogized case, is obnoxious and unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/28 "2015-07-20T22:02:52Z")
:dubious: "The key marketing innovation that Dichter’s analysis spurred was not the fresh-egg cake mix, but rather the repositioning of cakes as merely one element of a larger product, an overall creation that entailed a much greater degree of participation and creativity from homemakers and emphasized appearance over taste: “Dichter rightly perceived the overwhelming weight of the moral and emotional imperative to bake cakes from scratch. His research spurred countless ads and magazine articles aimed at persuading women to differentiate between the plain cake layers — “merely step number one,” according to Living — and the finished masterpiece. “Now, success in cakemaking is packaged right along with the precision ingredients,” Myrna Johnston assured readers of Better Homes & Gardens in 1953. “You can put your effort into glorifying your cake with frosting, dreaming up an exciting trim that puts your own label on it.” For modern women, these authorities proclaimed, the real art of baking began after the cake emerged from the oven.’” If Starbucks were advertising their cold-brew as the annoying Step 1 we’ve already done for you, then I’d consider it comparable. I’d say what Starbucks is doing is closer to “genuine corinthian leather” territory. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/29 "2015-07-20T22:24:29Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > In the same vein as what–as marketers reformulating cake mixes to require fresh eggs, as a result of research showing that requiring fresh eggs would lead to customers having a greater emotional investment in the end product? It wasn’t a result of such research. It was a guess. It turned out that cake mixes with a fresh egg made a better cake. **AB** stated that cake mixes were something of a flop until then. That is wrong. He also stated that the fresh egg recipe didn’t make much difference in the end product. That was also wrong. You’re a teacher. I hope you don’t teach your students that being wrong on the details is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2015, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/30 "2015-07-20T22:47:45Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > The recent movie _Dope_ had a parody _Starbucks_ location called _Seven Bucks._ 😃 …and I’d purely _guessed_ at the current price of their base-product. But, seriously. What they’ve made massive profits from is the human propensity to want to feel Special and Important (_'of course I deserve this pricey cup of coffee!–I work hard and I’m a member of the elite, and this proves it…_’ etc. etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/31 "2015-07-21T01:30:53Z")
I like eggs. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/32 "2015-07-21T01:48:01Z")
What are the flavours of the cakes in the Snopes link? ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/33 "2015-07-21T01:52:03Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I guess what I find amusing here is that Starbucks, the behemothic McDonald’s of coffee, has turned up the “little corner cafe with an owner that really, really cares about _you_” channel. With national advertising. Not the first to do so, by any means (_cough apple cough_) but the recycling of the handmade/homemade/Real Ingredients by Real People sort of trope is… entertaining. I realize that it’s basically obligatory to include a dig at Apple in any thread that mentions marketing, but when exactly did Apple “[turn] up the little corner cafe with an owner that really, really cares about _you_ channel”? ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/34 "2015-07-23T19:50:13Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > So accuracy - as in quoting, context, outcome - is important? I never would have guessed. > > But I’ll watch my grammar carefully, too. You need to watch you’re spelling too because it is spelled “grammer”. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/35 "2015-07-24T00:42:09Z")
The psychologist said that maybe making the housewife add an egg would make her feel better about making a mix. He didn’t showmit to be true. The Snopes article then goes on to note that the two leading brands was one with dried eggs and the other requiring the addition of a fresh one. So if the egg adding made anyone feel better it didn’t translate into sales. And now back to Starbucks bashing. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/36 "2015-07-24T02:22:46Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Now I see an add for their fruity drinky thing of the week, with the cutline, “_Your barista_ hand-shakes it 10 times to release the subtle flavors” or some such. Not nine times, not 11 times…10 exactly, bitches! That commercial made me do a :rolleyes: myself. It is, however, less cringe-inducing than the old commercial advertising some fast-food company’s “scratch-made” biscuits, which to me sounded as if the baker had a dermatological condition. Yeech. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/37 "2015-07-24T04:51:31Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Not false except in the specifics; I should have known better than to stick to the “everybody knows” version. Most such stories from the old days are a polished distortion of an underlying truth. Most food products, especially these days, have marketing/behavioral engineering far exceeding this homely little legend. Yes, “not false in the specifics” in much the same way that the claim “I spent the afternoon ballooning over the Serengeti with the Dalai Lama” is also not false except in the specifics. ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/38 "2015-07-24T06:16:25Z")
I would assume that the bit about handmade cold brewed is to make it clear that it is made fresh in house. As opposed to made in some factory, packaged and shipped. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2015, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617/39 "2015-07-24T07:26:58Z")
> [@Penfeather](#): > > Yes, “not false in the specifics” in much the same way that the claim “I spent the afternoon ballooning over the Serengeti with the Dalai Lama” is also not false except in the specifics. I hope you saw some elephants. The Dalai Lama seems a pretty cool old guy, and I expect the sight of a bunch of African elephants with the balloon’s shadow drifting silently over them would move him to a deep philosophical insight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starbucks-updates-the-idea-of-real-cooking/725617.md?page=1)