Food & Drink
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10.26.06
On NPR today, reporter Don Gonyea recounted his trip to the 8th Congressional District of Wisconsin — a heavily Republican district that Gonyea describes as “real Republican, red Wisconsin.” In the last election there, the Republican candidate received 70% of the vote; the current election is now a toss-up.
Though the report is interesting, from its small details (I love the Oneida Nation surf music) to its larger point (I love the fact that this district is now in play), what made it special was a little detail sandwiched, so to speak, amid all the political mumbo-jumbo.
The detail — the telling detail — came when Gonyea interviewed a waitress at a Green Bay restaurant called The Golden Basket:
[roughly 4:30 minutes in]
Don Gonyea: So, the next day, back in Green Bay, I hit the morning rush hour at the Golden Basket Restaurant. It’s a place not too far from Lambeau Field, where the Packers play football. Bonnie Leroy has worked here for seventeen years.
Bonnie Leroy: Well, we have eggs, meat, potatoes, toast, for $2.99. Then we also have other specials, like Mexican omelette and pancakes.
Gonyea: Leroy says candidates come in here a lot; they shake hands at election time. . . in fact, she fondly remembers the time, in 2004, when the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, complete with his Secret Service protection, stopped by.
Leroy: He brought his own food in. You know, he wouldn’t eat the food that’s here, for . . . safety reasons. It was for his own protection . . . great! great!
Whaaa? Cheney’s too high and mighty to eat the same chow as the good people of Green Bay, Wisconsin?
Really, I have no idea whether it’s common practice, among politicians, to travel with a coterie of private chefs so as to avoid sharing meat and potatoes with the hoi polloi, but perhaps we should all remember that Cheney isn’t so much an elected politician as an appointed one — a Viceroy, if you will, who is only a heartbeat away from the royal throne.
And we all know that royalty must be protected from the grave security threat posed by short-order cooks.
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09.17.06
Via Dan Rubin’s wonderful write-up and interview comes this Philly-food dispatch from legendary Chowhound co-founder Jim Leff:
I can’t entirely grasp the extent of Sid Booker’s empire, but “The Colonel of Shrimp” certainly has a lot more going on than the small bulletproof takeout window at the corner of his vast pink edifice at 4600 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA; 215-329-4455.
This window was the only portion open at midday, but it sure expelled some mean shrimp. Let me back up, though, to the moment of my arrival at Sid Booker’s Stinger La Pointe, whereupon I pulled over, whipped out my camera, and started photographing the exterior through my car window. A rough-looking fellow in a van that was randomly driving by pulled up right next to me, and, scowling in mistrust and malevolence, asked me who I’m suing. I replied sunnily that I’m not suing anyone, and explained that, I am, in fact, a food writer out to find the best shrimp in Philadelphia — and that I suspected I may have just hit pay dirt with Mr. Booker, the Colonel of Shrimp. Scowl turned to puzzlement, and then resolved into a glimmer of respect. “Man, those are the BEST MOTHERF***ING SHRIMP IN TOWN,” he hollered, driving off.
The Indian yoga masters write about “devas,” spirit guides who roam the earth directing human beings through rough times. I was sure I’d just encountered a chowhound deva — with neon wheel rims and a really, really loud stereo, no less.
Believe.
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10.05.05
This is why I have stopped eating hamburgers.
The New York Times reports that the FDA has proposed new rules on animal feed:
The Food and Drug Administration proposed new rules yesterday to prevent the spread of mad cow disease by banning brains and spinal cords from older cows in all animal feed.
“What?!” you say, half-chewed nuggets of ground beef falling from your lips. “There are digested brains and spinal cords in my Big Mac?”
Well, yes. But wait — there’s more:
But the rules are not as strict as those the agency proposed last year and never adopted, and critics promptly denounced them as inadequate.
The new proposal still allows chickens, pigs and other noncattle animals to be fed material that some scientists consider potentially infectious, including the brains and spinal cords of young animals, and the eyes, tonsils, intestines and nerves of older ones.
Cows can potentially ingest that material because they can be given chicken feed and droppings swept up from the floors of poultry farms, scrapings from restaurant plates, and a calf milk replacement made from cow blood and fat. In the rules proposed in early 2004, poultry litter and plate waste would have been banned.
Eyes? Tonsils? Intestines? Nerves? Droppings? Put that on a bun and eat it — if you haven’t already.
None of this is news if you’ve read Eric Schlosser’s excellent Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. In that book, Schlosser exposes everything you never wanted to know about the fast food industry, and were afraid to ask.
A constant theme running throughout Schlosser’s book is that the fast food industry and its Washington lobbyists have succeeded in gutting or removing many safety regulations in the United States.
If you’re wondering who, in their right mind, would sanction the feeding of animal brains, guts, and turds to animals whose stomachs were made to digest grass, or why they would want to do so, the Times article provides the answer:
Getting rid of the vertebrae, spines, spinal nerves, eyes, intestines and other potentially infectious parts of all cattle - including the meat that nerves remain attached to - would create more than two billion pounds of waste, which he said would be an environmental problem and a big expense for the industry.
[snip]
A slaughterhouse can split a fresh carcass and vacuum out the soft brain and spinal cord, he said, but renderers pick up animals that are bloated or in rigor mortis. The extra costs of removing organs “may take away the economic incentive,” he said, “and carcasses will be disposed of illegally.” It’s all about the profit margin. Never mind the health of the American consumer. And never mind accountability — since Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the human form of mad cow disease) can have an incubation period of up to thirty years, none of the people making these decisions will have to face the consequences of their actions. Instead, like the massive national debt that Bush has piled up, this burden will fall on our children, and our children’s children.
Deregulation has long been a central platform of the Republican party — conservatives argue that private industry suffers when the government imposes rules upon it. But the FDA’s latest attempt to regulate the meatpacking industry in the face of a potential public health crisis reminds us that, left to themselves, businesses will always take the easiest path, regardless of the human consequences.
If you’re surprised by the current Bush administration’s blatant cronyism, and tendency to put the fox in charge of the henhouse, you shouldn’t be — as Schlosser notes, it’s a longstanding Republican practice:
During the 1980s, as the risks of widespread contamination increased, the meatpacking industry blocked the use of microbial testing the federal meat inspection program.
[snip]
Nevertheless, the Reagan and Bush administrations cut spending on public health measures and staffed the U.S. Department of Agriculture with officials far more interested in government deregulation than in food safety. The USDA became largely indistinguishable from the industries it was meant to police. President Reagan’s first secretary of agriculture was in the hog business. His second was the president of the American Meat Institute (formerly known as the American Meat Packers Association). And his choice to run the USDA’s Food Marketing and Inspection Service was a vice president of the National Cattleman’s Association. President Bush later appointed the president of the National Cattleman’s Association to the job. The more things change, the more they stay the same. What most unites George W. Bush’s two Supreme Court nominees are their connections to corporations — John Roberts’ long list of corporate clients included the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and The Dallas Morning News calls Harriet Miers “the quintessential corporate lawyer.”
Like FloridaExGOP, I think the underlying message of both nominations is “It’s corporate rights, stupid.”
If these two nominees turn out to be Bush’s most longstanding legacy, we can look forward to a continued agenda of corporate deregulation.
And if I ever return to Burger King, which encourages customers to “Have it Your Way,” I’ll be sure to ask them to hold the tonsils and eyeballs.
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08.27.05
From The Philadelphia Inquirer
While controversy boils over Pat Robertson’s call for the assassination of Venezuela’s president this week, the Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk reports that controversy is bubbling about another one of his ventures.
Seems “Pat’s Age-Defying Shake” isn’t just a philanthropic endeavor anymore. The televangelist is looking to turn a profit from it. After four years of touting his diet shake via his nonprofit Christian Broadcasting Network and sending the recipe to any viewer who asked for it, Robertson has licensed the shake for national distribution by the General Nutrition health-food chain.
The Trinity Foundation of Dallas, a religious-media watchdog group, said Robertson improperly used his tax-exempt, nonprofit ministry to create a market for his shake. Robertson said he was merely exercising his right to engage in a business venture.
Perhaps Ninja Pat needs to shore up the war-chest in case someone decides to sue him for his assassination comments.
Or maybe he has realized that the market for his diet shake is bigger than he thought.
I, for one, would employ a food taster before giving Pat’s special recipe a try.
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03.10.05
If you’re going to be in Philly over the next few weeks, you should check out The Book and the Cook, an annual event in which prominent cookbook authors visit local restaurants and present special menus derived from their recipes. The reservation books at some of the top places fill up quickly, but it never hurts to call–there are always cancellations. Sometimes, there are even fights. Check out the schedule for the full listings.
A few years ago, my wife and I went to the now-closed Novelty, where Sara Moulton of The Food Network planned a menu. Her food was delicious, but her company was even better: she made an effort to come around to every table and chat with the diners. She was just as likable in person as she is on her show.
This year, we’ll be heading to the Sansom Street Oyster House, where John Uglesich, patriarch of the renowned Uglesich’s Restaurant in New Orleans, and author of Uglesich’s Restaurant Cookbook , will bring on the Cajun flava.
When we went to New Orleans in November, we were able to bury our disappointment at the election results in some of the best food that the city had to offer. We had many good meals, but four stood out:
Uglesich’s: At this small shack in a relatively desolate area of the city, the Uglesich family serves down-home cajun specialties with an artisanal flair. From fried-green tomatoes to Southern fried grits topped with shrimp in cream sauce, this food has to be tasted to be believed. Here are some testimonials from the restaurant’s website.
We happened to finish our meal at Uglesich’s at the end of the lunch service. John sat down with us and asked us where we were from. Upon hearing that we came from Philly, he grilled us on local restaurants, caring more about the little mom-and-pop places than the big-named hot spots. (Among the places we recommended to him was Taqueria Veracruzana). And he told us about his Book and the Cook event; we’ll see if he remembers us soon.
I can’t think of a better way to start (or end) the day than with a meal at Cafe Du Monde. Cafe au lait, beignet, hooray!
We had our best fine-dining experience at Bayona, Susan Spicer’s well-known restaurant. We liked it better than Commander’s Palace.
But the meal that blew me away more than any other was at Mother’s Restaurant, which is so authentic that it doesn’t even have a website. The special po-boy (baked ham, roast beef, debris [the roast beef which falls into the gravy in the oven]) at this cafeteria-style landmark sent shivers through my body; the jambalaya was jamba-licious (sorry); and the bread-pudding I had for dessert nearly made me faint–it was definitely one of the best desserts I’ve ever had. A giant square of bread pudding, caramelized to a dark brown on the bottom and floating in a thick caro-like syrup, it was artery-clogging eating at its finest. I dream of it still.
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02.13.05
The NY Times reports that new studies showing the harmful effects of trans fats are driving companies to look for alternatives (Fat Substitute, Once Praised, Is Pushed Out of the Kitchen).
An artificial fat once embraced as a cheap and seemingly healthy alternative to saturated fats like butter or tropical oils, partially hydrogenated oil has been the food industry’s favorite cooking medium for decades. It makes French fries crisp and sweets creamy, and keeps packaged pastries fresh for months.
But scientists contend that trans fat, a component of the oil, is more dangerous than the fat it replaced. Studies show trans fat has the same heart-clogging properties as saturated fat, but unlike saturated fat, it reduces the good cholesterol that can clear arteries. A small but growing body of research has connected it to metabolic problems.
The Food and Drug Administration has declared that there is no healthy level in the diet and has ordered food companies to disclose trans fat amounts on food labels by January 2006.
Ah, there’s the rub–it’s not the studies themselves that the companies are reacting to; rather, it’s a regulatory oversight of a government agency that is forcing the change.
The article reports that companies are having a difficult time finding substitutes:
Finding a substitute for partially hydrogenated oil is more daunting and considerably more expensive than food companies first imagined. That is because it is the perfect fat for modern food manufacturers. Produced by pumping liquid vegetable oil full of hydrogen with a metal catalyst at high heat, the fat stays solid at room temperature - an essential trait for mass-produced baked goods like crackers or cakes. But that is the very process that creates the dangerous trans fat.
The shortening-like oil is an industry workhorse. Its smoothness and high melting point make it a great medium for the creamy filling in an Oreo. In the deep-fat fryer, partially hydrogenated oil can take repeated heatings without breaking down.
It also helps products stay fresh longer on supermarket shelves. Small amounts keep peanut butter from separating. It is even found in products promoted as healthful, like Nutri-Grain yogurt bars and Quaker granola bars.
[snip]
The company tested liquid soybean oil in its Marie Callender’s frozen dinners, but the oil puddled under the roasted potatoes and the sauce slipped right off the meat, leaving it barren and dry.
“It wasn’t very appealing,” recalled Pat Verduin, senior vice president for product quality and development at ConAgra, which owns dozens of household brands, including La Choy, Hunt’s and Peter Pan.
At the Pepperidge Farm division of Campbell Soup, in Norwalk, Conn., puff pastry sheets and pot pies are causing the most trouble. Concoctions tested over the last year have made the crusts unpalatably dense and breadlike.
You might remember that a few years ago, McDonald’s made a big deal about the fact that it was going to look for healthier frying oils. We haven’t heard much about it since.
The real issue, of course, is that Americans need to cut down on the number of highly processed foods that we eat. Despite the growth of health food markets and speciality stores, I have a hard time imagining this happening on a mass scale.
If the FDA really wants to get serious about this (I’m sure that it doesn’t), it can require television commercials for companies that feature products containing trans-fats, such as french fries, to include a pharmaceutical-like warnings that describe harmful side-effects. And the packaging itself can carry warning labels modeled after cigarette warning labels…maybe something like this:
Oops–we might have to add cancer to that list. Products that stay fresh for years on the supermarket shelves are good for big business; they’re not so good for the rest of us.
We’re heading for a show-down between some of the country’s biggest companies and the Food and Drug Administration. Who do you think will win?
Contest: come up with your own warning label for that french fry image and submit it in the comments section. If you know your way around an image-editing program, and want to write the caption on the image itself, use this blank one, and email the result to me at matt AT tatteredcoat DOT com
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11.08.04
In the message I sent out to friends and family announcing this new blog, I mentioned that I was heading away for a week and wouldn’t be able to check in to see responses to my first post. But I couldn’t stay away–I’m in an internet cafe right now, and I’m going to try to get back here a couple of times this week. Blogging is fun!
About the blog: it’s looks pretty crappy right now, but I’m going to get it souped up soon after I return from this trip. I’ve been looking to do something like this for a while, because I found the movie review format of the main part of the site to be too restrictive. In fact, I haven’t posted a new review for over two years. This new format will allow me to discuss a wide range of subjects, including film, food, music, politics, and sports.
So, less than three hours after I had arrived in New Orleans, my wife and I had already gorged ourselves on muffalettas from Central Grocery and cafe au lait/beignets from Cafe du Monde. Yum. You should have seen my sugar-powder caked face as I bit into my first beignet. Our hotel is only three blocks away, which spells bad news for my recent diet.
We’re already planning a plantation tour, a swamp bayou tour, a meal at Commander’s Palace and one other restaurant whose name I have forgotten.
If you have any suggestions for things to do, or places to go in New Orleans, I’d love to hear them.
–Matt
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