Ezra breaks up with Cooks Ill.

Ezra Klein has broken up with Cooks Illustrated. He suspects they've not been honest with him in telling tales of the process they go through to arrive at the perfect recipe.

I haven't broken up with Cook's yet; I'm still using them for their recipes. But I'm not in love anymore. Not since I heard one of their writers/editors on Lynne Rossetto Kasper's radio show, The Splendid Table, doing a comparison of canned chicken noodle soup. I listened intently when I was done gasping in surprise that they were giving us permission to eat CANNED soup. In their test, the only Campbell's soup they used was the cheap original, and they panned it for its crazy yellow color and lack of vegetables. It was so completely unfair to compare that soup to, say, the Progresso offering, since they're not offered at the same price. Campbell's has a Chunky chicken noodle soup that would have made a more fair comparison since it's closer in price, and its quality is considerably better.

I'd long suspected that Cooks gets paid off for its product and food comparisons to make up the revenue they're missing from not taking advertising. Several years ago, I had tried using Cook's Ill's recommended brand of canned tomatoes and wondered how it had gotten higher marks than my usual brand. I thought it was just me, that I didn't have the palate to be a foodie. But that travesty of a test for the chicken noodle soup told the full tale.