Fergie's Tech Blog

Off Topic: Mmmm, Tasty Chemicals

Image source: Damien Donck for Newsweek

As Steve Ettlinger dropped down a Wyoming mine shaft, plummeting 1,600 feet in an open-mesh cage, he wondered how many other food writers had ever donned hard hats and emergency breathing equipment in pursuit of a story. But it was too late to turn back. He'd promised his editor a book tracing the ingredients in a Hostess Twinkie to their origins—and one of them was down this shaft.

At the bottom, he and his hosts climbed into an open Jeep and hurtled for 30 terrifying minutes through pitch-black tunnels. Their destination: the site where a mineral called trona—the raw ingredient of baking soda—was being clawed out of a rock face by giant machines.

posted by Fergie @ 2/25/2007 09:06:00 PM