Archives for the 'slashfood' tag
Should We Try to be Like Cuba?
That’s the question Slashfood is asking, citing a Philly Inquirer article that, hyperventilating, calls the backward island nation’s urban farming program “a stunning success.” Via Slashfood:
Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer had an article praising Cuba’s urban farming program for being able to supply much of Cuba’s vegetables. It also provides 350,000 jobs with considerably high pay. Futhermore, it has increased food options for a country that was heavily dependent on a diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe. With a population that is 80 perecent urban, it would only make sense for them to develop an urban agricultural agenda.
Since the majority of people in the United States live in urban areas, it seems like this model might help relieve the current food shortages. Can cities like New York City adapt the Cuban program?
Heavens to Mao no! No, no no!
As an urban farmer in America–I think my 625 sq. ft. or so plot qualifies me, over my dead body will or should any “program” force us to de-industrialize and become a nation of urban farmers. Small businesspeople, of which farmers are a subset, indeed form part of the backbone of our economy. But so too do the researchers, investment bankers, universities, professional sports teams, and corporations.
Every society strives to emerge from subsistence farming. The principal struggle of man over the millennia has been to move from the forest to the farm to the cities–and not so we can farm some more.
Take Ireland, once a nation of potato farmers. When blight struck, millions died tragically in an horrendous famine. People couldn’t wait to leave. Many emigrated.
It wasn’t until Ireland started to become a technologically advanced society that people wanted to live there–and showed it by immigrating to the country.
We don’t want to mimick Cuba in this or any other of its backward policies. No country does. No country should.
UK Grocer Tells Shoppers to Leave Kids in Car if Buying Booze
England has to be about the most horrid place to live these days.
Tesco is refusing to sell alcohol to parents shopping with their children under rules designed to tackle underage drinking.
The supermarket has told cashiers not to supply alcohol if they suspect an adult is buying the drink for an underage youth.
Staff have been told to “err on the side of caution” when interpreting the policy, leading to cases of parents out shopping with their children being told to put alcohol back on the shelves.
Tesco says it believes parents will support the policy and it would rather apologise where it has misjudged the situation than sell to underage drinkers.
[...]
A Tesco spokesman said: “I can understand the frustrations of the customer but I think that any reasonable parent would understand the problem and support our policy.”
I’m guessing Tesco’s a bit mistaken on this one. As in people are just going to buy their booze–and groceries–elsewhere. More here from the Telegraph.
[Via Slashfood.]
‘Major League Eating: The Game’
In what gaming and food fans like me will no doubt consider the best news in both since the debut of Burgertime in, um, 1982, Mastiff games is planning to release a competitive-eating game on May 12. Just in time for me to finish finals and spend my entire summer playing! From the punny press release:
…Major League Eating: The Game, will makes its debut as an exclusive on WiiWare™, Nintendo’s new downloadable game service for the Wii™ console, which launches May 12 in North America. The game will make extensive use of the Wii Remote™ to simulate the fast and furious action of a professional eating competition.
“Watching Major League Eating is like watching poetry in motion” says Bill Swartz, Head Woof at Mastiff. “Professional gurgitators have the grace of ballerinas yet the brute strength, mental focus, and intestinal fortitude to push their bodies and minds as hard as athletes in any other extreme endurance sport. Victory is sweet and defeat can be well, really, really messy. It’s an experience we’re proud to help bring into the home.”
The game features the world’s greatest gurgitory athletes competing across a variety of foods and venues. Built much like a classic fighting game and deeper than a Chicago style deep-dish pizza, MLE: The Game requires players to master a smorgasbord of offensive and defensive weapons including bites, burps, belches, mustard gas and jalapeño flames while cramming and chewing food at a world-class pace. It’s not for the faint of heart, the slow of reflex, or those with an overly strong aversion to a Technicolor reversal of fortune.
Ah, yes. The “reversal of fortune”, also known as booting or — in keeping with the “Major League” theme — hurling.
Screen capture via Slashfood, which has more on the game.
Play Burgertime online here. And isn’t it about time you picked up a Wii?
