Specifically-picky eaters and their inventions

Shirley S. Wang, writing in the Wall Street Journal, reports on people who are specifically picky about what they want to eat — and about how inventive some of those people become:

Everyone has their favorite parts of favorite foods—think the "Seinfeld" episode about muffin tops or people who eat only the middle of an Oreo. Increasingly, food fanatics are finding each other online and going to great lengths to get their favorite parts.

There are Facebook pages that focus on favorite parts of food, like "Oreo company needs to bottle the middles and sell it" and "I love sticking my finger in the cake and eating the frosting." More than 1,000 people like the page, "I love saving the marshmallow in my lucky charms cereal to eat at the end."

Some are even turning their passion into products that make it easier for others to get that best bite….

When it comes to brownies, the battle line often is drawn between lovers of the corner pieces and those who want the middles. Tara Millspaugh, a 39-year-old who works in biotech, refuses to eat the gooey center pieces and had all but given up baking brownies until she discovered a pan that fashioned every square to come with a dense, chewy edge: the Edge Brownie Pan [pictured here]. Now she makes them regularly and gives the pans as gifts….

(Thanks to investigator Vaughn Tan for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS: The patent (US #6412402) for the edge-pan.