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Is That Cat Chow or Chicken Fried Rice?

Take Slate's ingredients quiz.

Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011, at 6:45 AM

Consider the cheese curl, or the microwavable dinner, or beef jerky. These foods are not just tasty: They are scientifically optimized to be shelf-stable, perfectly consistent in taste from serving to serving, filling, addictive, savory, and cheap. Achieving all those goals requires more than a handful of pantry items—it requires state-of-the art production techniques and a serious helping of laboratory chemicals. So while most of us could identify our favorite homemade dishes from ingredients alone (olives, garlic, capers, linguine … sounds like puttanesca!), we would be hopelessly lost trying to recognize our favorite snacks.

Nevertheless, Slate challenges you to do just that. We give you a list of ingredients; you select the correct grocery-store foodstuff from a lineup. (If you're right, your guess will turn green and you'll be able to move on to the next set of ingredients; otherwise, it will turn red. Keep trying until you get it right.) At the end of the quiz, you can compare your results with those of other Slate readers.

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Annie Lowrey, formerly Slate’s Moneybox columnist, is economic policy reporter for the New York Times.

Will Oremus is a Slate staff writer. Email him at will.oremus@slate.com or follow him on Twitter.