Overthinking Movies: The Blueberry Muffin Scene In Casino

Just how long would it take to make sure an even number of blueberries are in each muffin?

UPDATE (3:30pm 11/19/2024): Please read the update(s) on the bottom of this post for important new developments.

In the Martin Scorsese film Casino, there is a scene where Robert De Niro’s character, Ace, becomes annoyed that his muffin does not have enough blueberries. He storms into the hotel kitchen and orders the pastry chef to ensure that all blueberry muffins have the exact same number of blueberries.

The pastry chef, baffled, responds, “Do you know how long that will take?”
Ace replies, “I don’t care how long it takes.”

This raises an intriguing question: how long would it take?

With the help of my robot slave, ChatGPT, I calculated the time required.

The casino in the film, the Tangiers, is based on the Stardust, which was once the largest hotel in Las Vegas. When it opened in 1958, it had 1,065 rooms. By the 1990s, it had 1,500 rooms. While I couldn’t find the exact number of rooms during the late 1970s and early 1980s—the period in which the film is set—a nine-story tower was added in 1976. Splitting the difference, I estimated the hotel had around 1,200 rooms during this era.

The hotel served hundreds of guests daily through buffets, casual dining venues, and room service. Blueberry muffins were a staple breakfast item, though there were also other types of muffins. Let’s assume blueberry muffins accounted for 25% of all muffin sales.

Buffet Sales: Let’s say 1,000 people visited the breakfast buffet each day, and 10% of them took a blueberry muffin. That’s 100 muffins.
Coffee Shop Sales: The casino also had a 24-hour coffee shop. Let’s assume it sold 300 muffins daily, 25% of which were blueberry. That’s 75 blueberry muffins.
Room Service Sales: For 1,200 rooms, if 5% of guests ordered breakfast with muffins, that’s 60 orders. Assuming 25% included blueberry muffins, that’s 15 muffins.
Event Sales: Let’s add 25 blueberry muffins daily for events and miscellaneous situations.

Total: This brings us to 225 blueberry muffins per day.

Time Required

How long would it take to ensure each of these 225 muffins had the exact same number of blueberries?

Let’s assume each muffin requires 15 blueberries:

1. Counting Blueberries: At a speed of 1 second per blueberry, this takes 15 seconds per muffin.

2. Placing Blueberries in Batter: Arranging the blueberries evenly takes another 20 seconds per muffin.

3. Corrections: Fixing any mistakes adds 5 seconds per muffin.

In total, it takes 40 seconds per muffin to ensure uniformity.

For 225 muffins:
40 seconds × 225 muffins = 9,000 seconds, or 2 hours and 30 minutes.

And that’s just for blueberry muffins. This time could increase or decrease depending on the chef’s efficiency or whether the policy is expanded to other types of muffins (like poppy seed muffins, which would be a nightmare to standardize).

This estimate assumes one pastry chef. If multiple chefs worked on this task, the process would be faster, but the total labor hours—and cost—would remain the same.

Not very smart, Ace!

Update 1: A lot of blueberry truthers in the comments here!

• While there is probably a machine that can parcel out 15 blueberries at a time in the modern kitchens of today, we are talking about a kitchen in 1980.

• Just putting the blueberries on top of the batter in the muffin tray and then stirring it will not lead to an even distribution of blueberries throughout the height of the muffin.

• Even if you do not care that the blueberries will all only be at the top of the muffin, you will still have to spend time counting the blueberries.

• Counting the blueberries alone is an additional 3,375 seconds, or 56 minutes and 15 seconds. I contend that even at this level, you will have one: had to spend an hour on it, and 2: completely failed to actually accomplish the spirit of the directive, which is that the muffins should be consistent.

• If the mafia tells you to put an even number of blueberries in the muffins, and you play fast and loose with that by just doing the bare minimum, you are going to get killed, and even the police are going to be like, “well, they should have seen that coming.”

• GOOD DAY.

Update 2: IMPORTANT UPDATE

A very nice Twitter user named Conrad Truedson sent me a screenshot of the relevant page of the nonfiction book that Casino is based on.

The real-life inspiration for Ace did not, in fact, demand that every muffin have the same number of blueberries. Instead, he ordered that each muffin must contain a minimum of 10 blueberries. This is much easier to achieve in practice than an exact count for every muffin.

Instead of counting and placing blueberries meticulously, the chef would only need to ensure that each scoop of batter contains at least 10 blueberries.

Let’s assume this process takes 5 seconds per muffin since it is easy to grab a bunch of blueberries and feel confident that you have at least 10 in your hand.

Then the chef will still need to sprinkle the blueberries on the batter so that they are distributed equally, which we will liberally say takes another 5 seconds.

• For 225 muffins per day:
  225 muffins × 10 seconds = 2,250 seconds, or 37 minutes and 30 seconds daily.

This budgets probably too much time for this process. This isn’t france where people are too lazy to work. This is America. It probably only take 3-5 seconds. And once this has been done a lot the chef will be very used to it and might be able to grab-sprinkle +10 blueberries in only 2 seconds flat.

But even if it takes 10 seconds, 37 minutes and 30 seconds is a much more reasonable amount of time, especially when you consider the fact that we probably have more than one person helping with this.

And you know what? I regret adding that 5 seconds for sprinkling. Because the sprinkling is something that should have been happening already. The sprinkling is how you ensure the even distribution of the blueberries, no matter the number. It should not be considered a new task as it should have been included in the original time for the production of the muffins.

So, if it’s just those 5 seconds which are new (and in reality it might be less than that) then we’re talking only an extra 1,125 seconds, or 18 minutes and 45 seconds.

(I want to stress again that this is the upper limit of added time. In reality, this could be much less. Maybe even milliseconds to let your mind be sure that there are more than 10 blueberries in your hand.)

Not only does this change the game, but, in fact, I would argue that this more reasonable number is so much more reasonable that Ace (and the man who inspired him) were correct in demanding this change!

Indeed, perhaps the real story here is how Hollywood plays it fast and loose with the truth!