Flash in the Pan

We know that food companies use high fructose corn syrup because regular sugar prices are kept artificially high in the U.S. by import restrictions. We've heard tell - over here, often from my wife, Lisa - that HFCS is really bad for you. Companies are picking up on this, but in a way that leaves me shaking my head. The other day we were in a Stop & Shop grocery store. Now, we've given up on Heinz ketchup because of the aforementioned HFCS. We had drifted over to the small natural/organic section of the store when Lisa noticed a tiny bottle of Heinz ketchup marked "organic." And, no, it didn't have HFCS. What it did have was a price tag at least double per weight of what you'd get elsewhere.

I know organic produce can be more expensive than regular. (Heck, I happen to know from practical experience that organic chicken feed is twice as much as regular.) But ketchup is not primarily sweetener. Why can't Heinz and other companies raise the product price a little and drop the HFCS? It's not like companies haven't been raising food prices anyway. Just how much more expense would it be to make ketchup with sugar as the sweetener?

Labels: HFCS, ketchup, rant

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Blitzkreig on a Bun Los Angeles has classified bacon as a "harzardous food," and now has taken to the streets, sending police to confiscate and destroy the stands of street vendors that dared sell hot dogs with bacon. (Reason.com)


• Dregs'Den Some mischief maker conned Wine Spectator into giving out an award to a non-existent restaurant. Except for the very top category, the awards are based on reviewing a wine list and getting a check for the "examination" fee. Hopefully they actually taste the wines they rate. (NYT)


• Phoney Phish A couple of teenagers got samples of fish from restaurants and shops in New York City, had the DNA tested - and found that up to a quarter of the fish was mislabled, and always as a more expensive type than it actually was. (Reuters)


• Arrested for What?? A blind Frenchman was arrested and fined ... for diving drunk and without a license. How about for driving without being able to see? (AFP)


• Making Science Work for Religion Turkish Muslims can get patches to ease their hunger during the month of Ramadan, when they are suppoed to fast. (AFP)

Labels: news, odd, weird

A case of drinks came in from the people who make Reed's and Virgil's sodas. Although I'm not typically a big fan of sodas, these are worth the purchase. They are brewed (presumably instead of adding syrup to carbonated water) and have clean, full taste. After some years of walking away from Coke, I can no longer abide the product, and never liked Pepsi. But the Virgil's Cola was outstandingly good. (The cola with Chinese herbs didn't grab me as much, but my wife liked it.) The cream soda and root beer are also admirable in their quality. The Reed's ginger-based drinks have a swaggering refinement - a kick you have to respect. Unfortunately, I didn't seem to get samples of the diet root beer or cream, which are now supposed to be naturally flavored. (I'm guessing that they use one of the sugar alcohols that have a sweet taste but no calories.) Pick some flavors up and remember why people invented soda in the first place.

Labels: beverages, reviews, soda

I was a bit surprised to see Newsweek run an article on why lobster is cheap. Of course, that is a relative question, and the author's experiece occurred during a recent vacation in Maine. In Portland, prices were apparently $5.49, which, if you know lobster pricing at all, is odd. Generally there will be several different prices: one for chicken (small) lobsters, another for pound and a half, and maybe a third price for two-pounders, and that's at a store. But, overall, pricing have been coming down a bit, and the article mentions several factors. But I found some of them stretching to make an economic point that wasn't necessarily there.

• Largely local consumption means no global market, even with international shipping. Well, at least until tourists pile so heavily onto Cape Cod that it tips into the sea.


• Lobster is a luxury, discretionary food. Historically that is pretty amusing, as at one time it was so plentiful that indentured servants coming to the colonies would have in their contracts that they could not be forced to eat the shellfish every day, because it was so cheap. But more to the point today, if it's a luxury food, by definition it is something that most people cannot afford every day, so the claim of lobster being so cheap is a bit confusing. However, if you take a one pound lobster at the prices the article quotes (I suspect they're for chicken lobsters), you're going to get maybe six ounces of meat and possibly less after the shell is gone. In other words, suddenly it's more expensive than steak. In fact, lobster meat prices, sans shell, are still pushing $30 a pound. It just takes a few lobsters, and shelling labor, to get there


• Lobster takes special equipment to cook at home. Uh, the special equipment are the same pots we use to boil pasta. Maybe he was thinking of some special lobster pot you'd get at a Williams-Sonoma.


• Distributors are pushing to keep prices down. That only works when there is a big enough haul. When lobsters are scarce, prices go to.


• Lobster remains cheap because it's so simple to produce, with few processing or distribution costs. I'm not sure that keeping a bunch of salt water recirculating because lobster must be kept alive is all that simple compared to, say, stacking wrapped steaks in a fridge.

Even 90 miles away from the coast in Massachusetts, another hotbed of lobstering, prices had been hitting almost $11 a pound. It's one of those things that varies over time and is also related to a factor he didn't mention: supply in the ocean. When lobsters are harder to find, prices can soar even at the coast. But, hey, what do I know -- I've only lived in lobster country for a few decades.

Labels: prices, seafood, shellfish

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Brain Food Some researchers think that the development of cooking may have been the springboard for a rapid increase in brain mass 2 million years ago. (LiveScience)


• No Litreing The owner of a Polish restaurant in England is in legal trouble because he serves Polish beer in .3 and .5 litre sizes instead of in pints. (Daily Mail)


• Domain Dispute Wine producers in St. Emilion are fighting with each other over whose products get to be called Bordeaux. (NYT)


• What Did You Call It? Chinese foods are often difficult to translate, as there may be no English equivalents, and a single region like Sichuan may have thousands of unique dishes. (Financial Times)


• No, He's Our Boxer Both Pepsi and Coke have erected promotional tents outside the home of an Olympic boxer from Thailand, where the athlete's father says both can stay as long as they don't start fighting. (Reuters)


• Vodka on the Rocky Sylvester Stallone is signed up to promote a Russian vodka. (Reuters)


• Barter Bar An English pub is bartering drink for ingredients that can be used on its menu. (AFP)


• Pricey Grapes The Japanese, again showing their proclivity for spending a bit too much on fruit, put Ruby Roman grapes on auction that fetched as much as $30 a single globe. (AFP)


• Way the Cookie Crumbles The company that owns Mrs. Fields, purveyor of cookies, as well as TCBY frozen yogurt has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Or, as a news report put it, the company says that it needs more dough. Sounds like someone without enough culture sporting a chip on his or her shoulder. (UPI)

Labels: news, odd, weird

Last week, Whole Foods had to recall a whole lot of ground beef because of E. coli contamination. This week, the Washington Post has a story on what happened. The problem, it seems, was that the ground beef was made from cuts of meat that could also have been used for steaks and roasts. USDA restrictions on contamination of such meat are looser because if there is E. coli, it's probably on the outside and going to be destroyed as you cook. But with ground beef, the bacteria get incorporated throughout the mixture, allowing some to keep some distance from the heat, and potentially making people sick.

Coleman, a trusted supplier for Whole Foods and many other retailers, had sold its beef business and the right to sell under the Coleman Natural Meat brand on June 1 to Meyer Angus Natural. Coleman said Meyer hired Nebraska Beef to process its meat. Meyer did not return phone calls.

The E. coli strain that sickened the Whole Foods customers matches a strain found in primal cuts that Nebraska Beef produced on July 8, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As a result, Nebraska Beef on Friday recalled 1.2 million pounds of beef, its second recall this summer.

But so far as I can see, that's not the end of the story for consumers. Have you ever ground your own high-end hamburger, or maybe made some sausage? This story is certainly giving me second thoughts.

After the 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak that killed four children, the USDA declared it illegal to sell ground beef and any beef products intended for use in ground beef that are contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. But consumer advocates and meat inspectors have long criticized the USDA for not enforcing that policy equally when it comes to primal cuts even though they are sometimes used to make ground beef.

The beef industry has argued that steaks and roasts should be treated differently because they are less likely to make people sick.

It's the less likely wording that bothers me. How much of a chance should I and my family have of getting sick to preserve the profits of a corporation? Up until now, I had assumed that all meat would be treated the same. But it isn't, and the processors cannot have any idea of what consumers ultimately might be doing with their purchases. That should be clear on labeling, because clearly there aren't any stores that can be certain of what they have. If labeling is a burden, too bad. Being dangerously sick is even more of one.

Labels: E. coli, food safety, meat

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• PC Over Easy Someone has built a gizmo to plug into a computer's USB port and cook an egg in seven minutes. And people say I have too much time on my hands. (Engadget)


• Overtones of Electrons Spanish scientists create an electronic tongue to test wines. (Engadget)


• Nosh-a-Matic A company has created a line of vending machines specifically for kosher food. (NYT)


• Olympic Meals A number of the 40,000 restaurants in Beijing are creating sport-related dishes for the Olympics, including "abalone shaped like a rowing boat with asparagus oars." (Reuters)


• Barbecue Is Dangerous Two people were arrested for using barbecue equipment as a weapon. (AP)


• Killer Dish A U.K. celebrity chef apologized for recommending the use of the toxic and hallucinagenic henbane as a good ingredient for summer eating. Apparently he confused the names of two plants. (Reuters)


• Telltale Sign Teens accused of robbing a vending machine led police to themselves with a trail of Cheetos. (AP)


• The Crunchless Flick An increasing number of movie theaters in Britain are banning popcorn. (AFP)


• Where's the Bathroom? A 25-year-old man had twice the blood alcohol level considered lethal after 20 liters of beer. (AFP)

Labels: news, odd, weird

I was a bit surprised and tickled when a family friend brought over a couple of bottles of Monty Python's Holy Grail ale. The g and r are crossed out on the label, so you have Holy Ail as a result. Apparently the beer "was commissioned to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Pythons." If you're a Wickan, you may not appreciate the "tempered over burning witches" line at the bottom. Actually, I wasn't too crazy about it, but did like the rest of the label. The brew is a bit on the bitter side, but well rounded and enjoyable. I hear it's good with spam, spam, spam, eggs, and spam.

Labels: ale, beer, beverages, product, reviews

When a sample bottle of 2005 Vale do Bomfim Reserva Douro DOC, a Portuguese wine from Dow, came in, we decided to bring it along with us to some friends and test it there. Don't make the mistake we did of immediately pouring it into a glass and drinking, because the result was unpleasantly astringent. But given a few minutes to breathe, it's a dry, rich, pleasant red with lots of fruit (no more details there - I'm not an olafactory greengrocer). We had it with grilled food and the wine held up well. A bottle will run about $12.

Labels: beverages, product, reviews, wine

A brief review of great value wines: Barefoot Cellar's merlot and cabernet are worth getting. Don't let the oversized bottle and low price per volume ($13 in my area) fool you. These wines have great character and balance, and are pleasant even a few days after you opened one and popped the cork back in. I came across them by accident in a liquor store and, cheap person that I am, decided to give the merlot a shot. Because they are so drinkable, they become fabulous wines for cooking, as you get quality without feeling that you must carefully meter when you deglaze a pan or add some to a sauce. I haven't had any of their other wines (there's a good number), but given my experience so far, I'd try them with some degree of confidence.

Labels: beverages, product, reviews, wine

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Chinese Kugel For religious Jews visiting China during the Olympics, there is exactly one kosher restaurant. An hour after eating, you feel like doing a mitzvah. (Crispy on the Outside)


• Chef Gorten A new restaurant trend: use frozen fish to lower global warming. (Washington Post)


• Menu Groupthink A new raw foods restaurant looking to open in Washington, D.C. is using the "wisdom of crowds" to create the concept, look, and name. (Washington Post)


• Am I Crispy Yet? A new alarm clock cooks a strip of bacon to wake you to the smell of breakfast. BYOE (bring your own eggs). (Geek.com)


• Please Sir, May I Have Some More? Between 1970 and 2006, the average American was eating 1.8 more pounds of food per week. (NYT)


• Why Are You Wearing Two Dresses? A Cleveland clothing store has opened a bar in the middle of its sales floor. (AP)


• Take It Inside Beijing authorities are banning streaking, drinking, and sleeping outdoors during the Olympics. Could it be that the three activities are related? (Reuters)


• McVroomManila police will power their squad cars with a mix of diesel and old McDonald's fry oil. Presumably officers will have the option to supersize their ride into an SUV. (AFP)


• Well Aged Someone found the world's oldest surviving bottle of Veuve Cliquot in a sideboard inside a Scottish castle. (AFP)

Labels: news, odd, weird

While traipsing about my media intake, I came across the site for the Orwell Prize for political writing. On the site is an entire article, scanned or photographed from the original manuscript, that Orwell wrote about British cooking, and which includes some of his own recipes. The article was never published (a problem with the recipes not taking post-war food shortages into account), and includes some of his own recipes.

Labels: authors, celebrities, recipes