Maybe the real gold is the muffins we ate along the way
If you can't win a medal, might as well start a food trend #muffinman
Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome to The Boil Up, The Spinoff’s weekly food newsletter.
If I’m honest, the Olympics aren’t for me. I am so happy for those athletes doing crazy things with their bodies on the world stage, but I don’t personally feel called to watch them. However, I do enjoy that for the two weeks the Games are on, relatively normal people (depending on country/sport) become the biggest celebrities. Take sharpshooter Yusuf Dikeç who became a global sensation not for taking the silver medal for Turkey, but for doing so in a T-shirt, no protective gear or special equipment, one hand in his pocket like he just happened to come across this pistol and target while out taking a stroll, and why not take a shot?
However, the real star for me and every other chronically-online food-lover has been the Olympic Village muffin, a mass-produced, chocolatey treat which rose to fame after Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen posted a review on TikTok – and then another, and another. At the time of writing, Christiansen has posted 16 separate chocolate muffin videos, including the initial meal review video that started it all. In most of them, he has dark chocolate ganache stuck to his lips and nose, like a lanky, Nordic Bruce Bogtrotter.
Why has Christiansen’s muffin content gone viral? What is it about this sweet treat that has so captured the masses? I can understand the allure of Olympic Village dining hall content: here is an opportunity to see Olympians – people operating at the peak of human athletic potential and so rendered godlike for this one fortnight – experiencing something surreal and yet utterly banal, occupying a space that looks like a giant conference centre, interacting in a way that feels closest to school camp, with delegations clustered at their own tables like students sitting in cliques, feeling like losers when Serena Williams walks by.
But why the muffin? I’ve spent more time pondering this muffin than I probably should, but my thoughts have led me to a humble place. The chocolate muffin is an unassuming, ubiquitous foodstuff. It’s hard to mess up; even a bad chocolate muffin is pretty good. And it’s easy to get right, even to excel at, which the Olympic muffin has done by way of a rich fudge centre – not ganache, not molten lava cake, but a fudge sauce injected post-bake, according to Kassie Mendieta of @ibakemistakes after watching every taste-test, looking at every photo from every angle and studying an unsubstantiated ingredient label. Years of developing her own recipes and watching Claire Saffitz’ legendary Gourmet Makes series prepared Mendieta with the investigative and culinary skills to reverse-engineer a recipe for the Olympic muffin that is accessible for home cooks – that is, doesn’t require any of the industrial scale ingredients used by the likes of Coup de Pates, makers of the original Olympic muffin.
Mendieta’s recipe includes such specific notes as wrapping in plastic wrap and freezing after baking to mimic the qualities of a mass produced, pre-baked muffin that is shipped frozen and defrosted onsite. For “fresh is best” fanatics, this sounds counterintuitive to making the best muffin, but Mendieta is not writing a recipe for the best muffin, it’s a recipe for the Olympic muffin.
Without trying to, I’ve heard a lot of hot takes about the Olympics. Everyone seems to have an opinion about which sports do or don’t deserve to be included. As an Olympic-agnostic, I’ve always stayed out of these conversations, but all of that’s changed this year because of the muffin. I imagine people watching their favourite sports, whether it be rowing or pole vaulting or horse dancing, and suddenly I understand: they must feel how I do when I read Mendieta detailing how she used a precise combination of black and Dutch-processed cocoa to make the muffin just the right shade of brown. I guess everyone can get into the Olympics, you just have to find your sport.
Weekly bites
I’ve started to wonder if I should cease reporting on restaurant closures here as they’re coming so thick and fast, but each one represents many livelihoods lost as well as the ebbing pulse of our country’s hospitality scene. The latest loss is Madame George – a well-loved K Road spot serving modern Peruvian kai alongside extremely good cocktails – who announced their immediate closure via Instagram on Tuesday.
We’ve just published another completely subjective and extremely useful guide from Nick Iles AKA Two Bear Sandwich Club, this time covering the best spots in Pōneke to get mapo tofu, the ultimate in wobbly, comforting, aromatic winter fare. (NB: Speaking of restaurant closures, any other Aucklanders out there still lamenting the loss of the vegetarian mapo tofu from Peach Pit? There was something so special about having a bowl of perfect fries, a natty wine and a mapo tofu – you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone eh.)
And in other Olympic food news, in case you missed it, Italian gymnast and silver medallist Giorgia Villa is not only sponsored by Parmigiano Reggiano, she also regularly posts photographs of herself enjoying a post-workout cheese snack, or even utilising wheels of parmesan as gym equipment. In an age of “performance food” and biohacking, it’s refreshing to see a young athlete holding an actual piece of food rather than a tub of powder.
More-ish:
Putting this last so no one is put off their post-workout parm/mapo tofu/choccy muffin. The most recent news out of the Paris Olympic Village is that athletes have allegedly found worms in their food – at least, according to British swimmer Adam Peaty, although no photographic evidence has been shared.
Correction: A Weekly Bite in last week’s Boil Up incorrectly said Inca Ponsonby opened “right off the back” of True Food and Yoga’s liquidation. Inca Ponsonby in fact opened in 2021, with True Food and Yoga going into liquidation in 2018. Inca Newmarket opened in 2019.
Snack Review
Aji Black Knight Black Cheese Cracker 180g for $4.19 at Jadan Supermarket Dominion Road (these are hard to find online but this is them)
My beloved local market, Jadan, has recently renovated its fruit and vege section, the flow on effect of this being more space in the main market for new products, including a new South Asian aisle and plant-based meat section including vegan lap cheong and vegetarian goose! This week’s snack is not from one of these – although watch this space – but from the much-expanded biscuit and cracker selection.
Searching the shelves for an interesting and savoury-ish snack to bring along to tennis, I was drawn to the Aji Black Knight Black Cheese Crackers because there were only a couple of boxes left, which I figured was a good sign. Scanning the English-translated ingredients label, I was intrigued to find the crackers were naturally coloured with “Eight Black Grains,” most of which were not, in fact, grains: black rice, black beans, rye, black sesame, black wolfberry, mulberry, black fungus, black date. Knowing this, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised to discover the crackers were kind of sweet, hardly savoury at all. Instead, they had a kind of milky, barely-there flavour that would lend itself well to pairing with something strong and salty, like a blue cheese, or even something sweet – you could make a very chic mini ice cream sando with these.
As each of my tennis-playing friends took turns sampling the crackers (we’re always short a racket or two, which allows for sideline snacking), I gathered a selection of positive comments – no one had anything bad to say about this snack. Commentary included the aesthetic – appreciation of how the satiny black wrappers match the texture of the cracker itself, of the charcoal colour with its subtle, artistic dabs of orange, these elements combining with the perfect rectangular form to create something that looks like a tiny slate plate and wouldn’t these be cute as little canapés? – as well as the eating experience, with one person making a favourable comparison to Cheds, albeit with a far subtler flavour. All in all, an oddly compelling snack with seemingly endless potential. 8/10
Mā te wā,
Lucinda