Watson: The Most Gifted Digital Chef Using Butternut Squash
May 30, 2014
Does silicon have taste buds? Do algorithms sniff the essence of Kentucky barbecue?
I read a darned amazing article called “I Tasted BBQ Sauce Made By IBM’s Watson, And Loved It.” The write up reports that IBM and partner Co.Design used the open source, home grown code, and massive database to whip up a recipe for grilling. IBM is going whole hog with the billion dollar baby Watson, which is supposed to be one of IBM’s revenue fountains any day now.
According the write up, which may or may not have the ingredients of a “real” news story:
Most BBQ sauces start with ingredients like vinegar, tomatoes, or even water, but IBM’s stands out from the get go. Ingredient one: White wine. Ingredient two: Butternut squash. The list contains more Eastern influences, such as rice vinegar, dates, cilantro, tamarind (a sour fruit you may know best from Pad Thai), cardamom (a floral seed integral to South Asian cuisine) and turmeric (the yellow powder that stained the skull-laden sets of True Detective) alongside American BBQ sauce mainstays molasses, garlic, and mustard.
And most important for the grillin’ fans in Harrod’s Creek, the author used the Watson concoction of tofu. I am not sure that the folks in Harrod’s Creek know what tofu is. I do know that the idea of creating a barbecue sauce without bourbon in it is a culinary faux pas. Splash tamarind on a couple of dead squirrels parked above the coals, and the friends of Daniel Boone may skin the offender and think about grillin’ something larger than a squirrel.
The author who is scoring the tofu and broccoli treat reports:
I test it again and again. Finally I just slather my plate in the stuff. It’s delicious–the best way I can describe it is as a Thai mustard sauce, or maybe the middle point between a BBQ sauce and a curry. Does that sound gross? I assure you that it isn’t…But as I mop my plate of the last drips of Bengali Butternut BBQ Sauce, contemplating the difference between a future in which computers addict us to the next Lean Cuisine and one where they attempt to eradicate us with Terminators, Napoleon’s old adage comes to mind: An army marches on its stomach. He–or that–who controls our stomachs controls it all.
Yes. From game show win to a tofu topping, IBM Watson is redefining search, corporate strategy, and the vocabulary of cuisine for tofu and broccoli lovers. Kentucky frshly killed and skinned grilled squirrel may not benefit.
Anyone who suggests that vendors of information retrieval technology have lost their keen marketing edge, you are not in touch with butternut squash and reality. Should the digital chefs Put Kentucky bourbon in Bengali Butternut BBQ Sauce? Myron Mixon, the winningest man in barbecue, may say, “That’s what I am talkin’ for my whole hog.” Couild IBM sponsor the barbecue cook off program? Mr. Mixon may be a lover of tamarind and tofu too.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2014
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