Quick Bites
North Korea’s first beer celebrated in absurd 3-minute ad. [Reuters]
Least shocking thing ever: USDA organic labeling scheme is a failure. [MSNBC]
Stodgy Brit slags bacon. [Times of London (HT Jake Dupont)]
Bittman and Jose Andres blather about sustainability for an hour. [Slow Food LA]
Hindu extremists toss pig on mosque construction site in India. Riots ensue. Can retaliatory cow tossing be far off? [CNN]
Kitchen Confidential clone doesn’t quite cut it. [The Onion]
Vintage Saltines Ad Is Krispy on the Outside
Two Stories
Baylen’s post brought to mind a pair of stories:
During her illness, my mom was drawn to alternative cures. Polystyrene, chemicals, poisons in the environment — these were the responsible forces. Not age nor race nor luck of the draw. Some malicious third party had brought sickness upon her.
She visited once and picked cautiously at the meal I served. I learned she only ate organic. The additives, the pesticides! These had infected our civilization, laid waste to our populace. Someone on TV had said so.
The next time I was more selective in my preparation. Her visits to Connecticut were a rare thing; maybe a year had passed but she had lost ground. I served spaghetti with homemade sauce.
Look Mom, I said as I set the plate before her. Eat up! The pasta, the sauce — the entire meal is organic.
“Pfft,” she said. “Fat lot of good that did me.”
Next she took a vegetarian cooking class. Meat was the culprit! The additives, the hormones! These had provoked her cells to rebel, gave a reason to the mindless wave chewing through her body, reducing her organs and bones to Swiss cheese.
They made split-pea soup in class. “This is good,” she said to the instructor, “But you know what would make this even better?”
No. What?
“Ham,” she said.
Europe Lifts ‘Wonky’ Ban on ‘Bonkers’ Regs (or is it ‘Bonkers’ Ban on ‘Wonky’ Regs?)
British grocers and tabloids helped lead the charge to lift a decades-old European Commission ban on imperfect-looking foods, according to The Sun.
Sainbury’s spokeswoman Lucy Maclennan said: “We are delighted to have played a part in winning the wonky veg war against these bonkers EU regulations.”
Tesco spokesman Adam Fisher said: “It’s not before time. We welcome this move.”
And last night it was predicted the change could see some prices fall by 40 PER CENT.
More here. We here at Crispy let you know about plans to lift the ban last June.
The Auld Alliance
In Slate, Mike Steinberger details how McDonald’s has captured the French wallet. It’s a fun, informative read, an excellent lesson in marketing and good leadership, and reminds me of one of my favorite movies, Billy Wilder’s ever wonderful One, Two, Three!
Crispy Supporter and person of Frenchness Veronique de Rugy shares her thoughts here.
Unlike Vegans, Carnivores Don’t Need Meat and Greet
Friday Food Song: Liquor is Quicker, but Candy IS Dandy.
I just found out that whoever declares these things has declared June as National Candy Month. It’s a pity that I just found this out, because I could have a lot to say on the topic of candy….so perhaps it’s a blessing that I just found out.
Either way, it does mean I could choose one and only one candy song for this last Friday in June. Boldly ignoring the obvious, I give you the second most obvious–a lyric of joy from the time before excise taxes when candy was fun and made you so happy that your hair curled.
Mini Robot: You Want Cream and Sugar with That?
Dan Snyder Kills the Tailgate Party
Via realredskinsfans.com: Dan Snyder Kills the Tailgate Party.
In some way, it was inevitable. That is, the demise of the tailgate bacchanalia that was the one redeeming feature of attending a game at Fed Ex Field. The stadium is generally a nightmare for fans to get to and fro and once they are in it the prospects are not much better: long lines for food and drinks, bad beer and a puzzling inability to keep the women’s rooms stocked with toilet paper.
The uber fan tailgate was the one great thing that made the trek worthwhile versus watching the game on my HDTV. And The Danny, the Darth Vader of Redskins fans, has killed that.
Under new rules intended to ease the flow of parking, the Skins have outlawed tailgates that take more than one parking space and will relegate those loyal fans to the outermost lots. From the Wa Post:
The Washington Redskins will restrict large tailgate parties in the FedEx Field parking lots this season, limiting tailgates using more than one parking space to “the back” of parking lots, the team said in a statement. The team also said that drivers of all vehicles will be directed to specific areas of the lots instead of being allowed to choose their own.
“The most significant new procedure will have parking attendants directing fans who wish to tailgate in more than one space to the back of lots, where they will be allowed to occupy two spaces until required for additional vehicles,” the team said. “Fans who wish to only park, or tailgate within their single parking spot, will be directed to the front of lots, filling the lot from front to back.”In the past, early-entering fans were greeted by something of a free-for-all in the empty lots, leaving a chaotic checkerboard pattern as fans gradually staked out spots and erected tents, grills and buffet lines. The parking lots have traditionally opened four hours before kickoff, but hundreds of fans lined up outside the gates before dawn for the chance to stake out prime spots, with several large tailgates appearing each week in the rows closest to the stadium.
The system also led to fans spreading out over multiple spaces early in the morning, tying up spaces and contributing to gridlock when later-arriving cars pulled in. But to many fans, the system helped foster a community atmosphere, with tailgates springing up all over the massive expanse of asphalt, mapped out by an honor-system geography under which the same families would grab the same spots nearly every week.
What the Wa Post omits is that those folks who took the primo spots to tailgate are the most elite long-term season ticket holders also known as the most loyal fans. To deny them this tradition does not seem to be a smart business move, but The Danny is not very smart about business save the Internet bubble sale of his marketing company which, unfortunately, gave him enough money to buy the Redskins. His ventures since have been failures. Six Flags is not doing too well and neither are the Redskins.
My great memories of the now-outlawed tailgates feature my friend Brooke’s family, who have been season ticket holders for a long time. They would line up a couple of SUV’s and grills and also deep-fried a turkey. If Danny wants to outlaw this, I want to outlaw Danny.
http://realredskinsfans.blogspot.com/
David Kessler is Back, And Can’t Resist the Chocolate Chip Cookie So He Wants to Outlaw It
David Kessler, the FDA head under Clinton, has re-emerged as a fervent voice about food. His latest argument is that the sweets industry has addicted the US population. His book argues that the food industry has addicted the US population to foods that corporations sell.
As a person who watches all of the ads but still has no interest in sweets I am unconvinced and think this is really about his own penchant for sweets that he cannot control. So regulate and outlaw them! Use government force to control Kessler’s own weaknesses!
As head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. David A. Kessler served two presidents and battled Congress and Big Tobacco. But the Harvard-educated pediatrician discovered he was helpless against the forces of a chocolate chip cookie.
In an experiment of one, Dr. Kessler tested his willpower by buying two gooey chocolate chip cookies that he didn’t plan to eat. At home, he found himself staring at the cookies, and even distracted by memories of the chocolate chunks and doughy peaks as he left the room. He left the house, and the cookies remained uneaten. Feeling triumphant, he stopped for coffee, saw cookies on the counter and gobbled one down.
“Why does that chocolate chip cookie have such power over me?” Dr. Kessler asked in an interview. “Is it the cookie, the representation of the cookie in my brain? I spent seven years trying to figure out the answer.”
I don’t know why the cookie makes Kessler crazy but please don’t try to regulate everyone else’s cookie experience based on your own cookie dysfunction, Mr Kessler.
FDA Hearts Cheerios
Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal=Lipitor? The FDA says yes, the editorial board of The Washington Times says no:
The latest verdict from the Food and Drug Administration is that Cheerios is a drug. Parents, then, must be drug pushers.
The FDA sent a warning to Cheerios maker General Mills Inc. that it is in serious violation of federal rules.
“Based on claims made on your product’s label, we have determined that your Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease” the FDA letter said. “[Cheerios] may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application.”
The kicker? The FDA doesn’t actually contest Cheerios’ cholesterol-lowering claims. This is all just bureaucratic turf defense. No one contends that General Mills is lying, or that people are being misled—well, no one except the folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who exercised their usual rhetorical restraint and called Cheerios “21st-century version of snake oil.” But someone at the FDA got a bee in their bonnet (maybe that bee that advertises Honey Nut Cheerios?) and now General Mills will have to spend many, many thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours to defend their right to publish a true claim on their own cereal boxes.
Standing the Heat
TIME Magazine (not Time but TIME!) has a review of five new books, fictional and non-, about life in a restaurant’s back office. Writer Lev Grossman frames his roundup in “the post-Bourdainian era:”
It was invisible then. Now we recognize it right away: this is Anthony Bourdain’s world. … He changed our whole cultural idea of what a kitchen is. Pre-Bourdain, it was a warm, cozy, maternal place. Now it’s a profane, brutal, masculine crucible, where human frailty is rendered away like so much tasty bacon fat.
A fun read even if you have no intention of picking up the books discussed.
Golly, That’s a Lolly
If you’re ever in the vicinity of the Mall in Washington, DC, you will likely see children (and several adults) chowing down on the ice cream replica of Spongebob Squarepants. If you’re near Parliament in London, you may see women licking this
I leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide who hath chosen the better part.
Reminiscing About Tea Times
Rachel Laudan, a historian and excellent blogger and writer who lives in perhaps my favorite place on earth (Guanajuato, Mexico), has a great post up reminiscing about her early childhood memories of tea-making. A snip, culled specifically for the Crispy audience due to its regulatory focus:
My grandparents always had at least a hundred cows in milk. But they were now all Friesians (Holsteins) because the British Milk Marketing Board paid by volume not fat content.
Well, now, we couldn’t drink that kind of milk, could we? So my grandparents had a dear little Channel Island cow that gave the most glorious rich milk. It was a bit of an indulgence, I realize in retrospect. An “old chap,” one of the farm workers who was now past heavy work, had to milk her by hand morning and evening. What the cost per pint can have been I cannot even imagine.
But if you just like evocative writing, too, there’s this:
My grandparents bought a selection of different teas from Stokes the grocer in the town three miles away. Depending on their preference for the day, different proportions were spooned from different caddies in a flat caddy spoon and added to the pot. Then came the boiling water, and water for the water pot too, and tea cozies to keep them warm.
Then the whole equipage was carried up the couple of steps to the breakfast room (they ate almost all meals in the breakfast room because the dining room filled up with farm paperwork).
I’ve got some of my own tea memories. My dad drank about fifteen cups of Salada per day from one of a variety of ample chowder-cup style mugs, two teabags per cup, steeped four minutes, with enough milk that the drink looked more milk than tea in the end. (He’s since switched to Earl Grey, but the routine’s the same.) My mom, on the other hand, takes hers with sugar in a proper teacup, one tea bag dunked fourteen times in rapid succession just after pouring so she could drink it just off the boil.
Me? I preferred coffee. (Still do.)
I don’t know Stokes or a flat caddy spoon from my arse, but all I know from reading Laudan is that I want to know them both. And the water pot and tea cozies. More here.
Michelle Obama’s WH Farm
I have mostly jealousy when I think about or discuss Michelle Obama’s small WH farm. How the heck is her mini-farm about a month ahead of mine when we live only a few miles apart and planted at the same time?
