The Times Magazine’s annual examination of “big ideas” brings news of some culinary innovations such as a food-processing technique that helps farmed fish taste more like wild fish (encouraging fast-food companies to make the switch to the former) and packaging that will allow us to tell whether supermarket meat is rotten, which is of no consequence to those in another article who practice “vegansexuality” by forgoing liaisons with carnivores. The most curious item, though, explores French Culinary Institute head Dave Arnold’s ingenious method of combining two of our favorite things — booze and pickles — by pickling cucumbers with a martini’s worth of gin and vermouth. Watch the video and you’ll see the dapper Arnold use a vacuum machine to turn the cucumber opaque while gin rushes into its air holes — easily the hottest thing in mixology since the “hard shake.”

The Edible Cocktail
Tell-Tale Food Wrapping
Vegansexuality
Fish-Flavored Fish [NYT]