Every weekday, Chow Bella brings you food stories from around the world in the form of its Wake Up Call column.
Sometimes the stories are about national food trends bound for Phoenix, other times they're just plain fun, and still other times they're stories of food scene mavens caught up in scandal.
Here's a look back at the best Wake Up Calls of 2013.
The Racist Paula Deen Deposition Transcript -- And the Backlash It Caused on Twitter
In 2013, Southern chef and butter queen Paula Deen gave a videotaped deposition to a lawyer representing a former manager of Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House. The former employee, Lisa Jackson, is suing Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers, who own the restaurant for alleged sexual harassment, racism, and sexism.
As reported first by the National Enquirer, the transcript of the deposition (filed Monday in U.S. District Court) contains quite a few unflattering quotes from Deen, including that "Yes, of course" she's used the N-word.
To put it lightly, people weren't so amused. Read more here.
See Also: 5 Best Bites & Dishes of 2013
Will Ferrell Puts Out Yet Another Bizarre Guerrilla Super Bowl Ad
The principle behind this sort of advertising is fairly solid. Buying ad time during the Super Bowl, especially for a smaller company like Old Milwaukee, would be prohibitively expensive. However, if Will Ferrell approaches you to do some really weird ads on the cheap, it's not going to be terribly difficult to generate substantial social media buzz even if it airs in three markets with less than 100,000 people between them all. Read more here.
Cadbury Creme Eggs: Flavored With Dried Beaver Anal Glands?
You might want to rethink Easter candy for a minute while we drop some scientific knowledge, because according to a Huffington Post article, Cadbury Creme Eggs could contain a natural flavoring derived from the dried perineal glands of beavers. And, yeah, sometimes those glands are simply referred to as anal glands. Read more here.
Internet, Meet In-N-Out's Monkey-Style Burger
It might be because In-N-Out's menu technically only offers five items or maybe because their food is so wildly poplar yet unattainable for many, but the California-based chain's "secret menu items" has a cult following to rival the best. There are plenty of things to be discovered beyond the basics, for example did you know you can order secret sauce on the side in convenient packets? Or that you can get your fries "well-done"? And that's just the beginning. Read more here.
Vegan Couple Brings Own Pasta to Restaurant, Gets Charged Double for Order
According to an article on a New Jersey news site, a vegan couple dining out at a local Italian restaurant says the restaurant's owner charged them twice as much as they should have been charged for two pasta dinners. The owner justified the price by the fact that the couple had brought their own whole wheat pasta and asked specifically for red marinara tomato sauce, mushrooms, onions, olives, and red peppers. Read more here.
