FoodWords Between Deadlines
Tuesday, January 29
Polenta a Potential Protein Purveyor?
Okay, I apologize for the overlong reach in that title. Nevertheless, here's a good explanation for polenta's potential as a source of protein when eaten (or "consumed," in dietitian parlance) in combination with legumes or animal products to round out the protein mix. If nothing else, this story, which first appeared in the Los Angeles Times, passes on a good tip for avoiding that rancid taste that sometimes pops out when you make something from cornmeal: Buy the freshest you can find and keep it airtight in the fridge. (Unless, of course, you grind it yourself, Martha.)
posted by Unknown2:14 PM
Another reason to go grocery-shopping alone
Today's food-marketing horror note: Toys R Us is testing out toy-sales kiosks at four Giant supermarkets in Washington, D.C., and Virginia. ("Kiosk" is a little misleading here; at 600 to 1400 square feet in size, they're about the size of my house.) It's part of TRU's quest to wrest toy-sales dominance away from Wal-Mart. A TRU representative - who obviously has never had to struggle with a toy-crazed child at either TRU or the supermarket - said the typical parent goes to the grocery store 96 times a year but only 4-5 times a year to TRU. Why do you suppose that is? I guess now that TRU is looking at putting toy kiosks in stores, I can look forward to more toy tantrums, overpriced merchandise and surly store clerks. On the positive side, this might cut down on the requests to buy treats at the check-out.
posted by Unknown
Howstuffworks "How Food Preservation Works"
Another stellar presentation from the brains (Marshall Brain, that is) at HowStuffWorks.com. Topic for today: How refrigeration, freezing, canning, irradiation, dehydration, freeze-drying, salt, pickling, pasteurization, fermentation and other forms of food preservation work. The explanations are clear and in the case of current hot topic irradiation, temperate. There's a lot to go through, but if you're looking for a new way to handle your garden's overproduction, or to more successfully freeze the products from that 20-point buck you shot last season, this is the place to find it.
posted by Unknown
Stop and Smell the Marmite
If you haven't had Marmite, a peculiar vegetable-based spread, by the time you're 3, you'll probably never develop a taste for it. That would include just about the whole of the United States, save the tiny population of English expatriates who exchange addresses for and haunt the doorsteps of American shops that dare to stock the odd-smelling stuff. Marmite is celebrating its centennial this year, an occasion that will go practically unnoticed in America unless you read this article that appeared in the New York Times and presents a Yank's attempt to understand the English devotion to it. From the paper's description, Marmite approaches peanut butter in both its evocation of happy childhood and its versatility as a food ingredient. The secret recipe includes yeast and vegetable extracts, salt, niacin, spices, folic and various B vitamins, making it a staple food for polar explorers, travelers and military personnel. (As an aside, perhaps a reader in England or Australia can tell me whether it's similar to Vegemite, the Australian vegetable paste made famous in the U.S. in a song by the band Men at Work in the early 1980s.) The downside is that it tastes, at least according to one account, like a cross between cheese and shoe polish. We will delicately sidestep the temptation to link this affection for Marmite to the obvious stereotypes about the quality of English food and beg you instead to read the story. My favorite part of the story came when Marmite devotees were able to detect a minute change in the formula in one shipment, which came from a South Africa factory, and shot off outraged letters to the company. It reminded me of an incident a few years ago in which Wisconsin brandy drinkers were the only ones in the whole country to detect and complain about a subtle change in the way Korbel was blending its brandy.
posted by Unknown
Will the new M&M be pink, purple or aqua?
It's that time of the decade again, time to pick a new M&M candy color. Your choices: the pink, purple or aqua candies that previously showed up only at Easter (and Valentine's Day for the pinks). Previously color changes came in 1949, when the original violet was dropped in favor of the more boring tan (was this a social statement on the coming decade of the 1950s? No, because M&M kept red), and in 1995 when bright blue replaced tan. This time, a company rep said, no color will get bounced. You can go to the company's Web site to vote or call an 800 number (toll free in the United States). I like purple, but the bright violet from the old days and not the pastel version of today. Given the choices, I'll probably vote for pink. It seems to blend in better with the other colors, which are primary-hued. Aqua is definitely out - I've never been a fan of blue food. The polls open in March, but you can register to get an email message when they open.
posted by Unknown
Organics find mainstream market
It's something that organic growers have been predicting for at least 20 years - organically grown food will find a mainstream market if people give it time and money. This story, reprinted from the Arizona Republic and the Idaho Statesman, reports on a thriving organic farm in Idaho and ties in market data from a Food Marketing Institute report on organics. It doesn't break a lot of new ground, but it does confirm the idea that organics can take hold, at least in a vigorous niche if not all the way throughout the supermarket.
posted by Unknown
Friday, January 25
Food So Good, It's Geekalicious
Looks to me like Wired magazine found an excuse to crash the winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. Its reporter, Katie Dean, wandered the aisles looking for geek-friendly food and found ceramic knives, celebrity fund-raiser foods, gadgets for latte lovers and others with more money than sense, and salsa. Professional food-show goers will see no new ground broken here, but it's a mildly amusing read, anyway.
posted by Unknown
Thursday, January 24
eDiets.com: Top 10 Worst Kids' Foods!
Take a guess: chicken nuggets, french fries, toaster pastries, hot dogs, juice-flavored drinks, fruit leather, chips, doughnuts, prepackaged lunches and soda (pop to us Midwesterners).
Okay, I'm guilty. I let Evan have 7 of the 10 bad food (not on our list: doughnuts, juice drinks, pop). Fruit leather (fruit roll ups, I'm guessing), chips, hot dogs, maybe once or twice a month on average, although my husband does pack a small bag of Old Dutch white-corn taco chips in Evan's lunches. Lunchables (the packaged lunch), maybe three to four times a month. Pop-Tarts, on average once a week. Chicken nuggets and french fries are our biggest offenders - at least once a week, thanks to my husband's practice of taking Evan to Mac's after school if he's really ravenous.
How do I feel about this list? Obviously, a diet made up of only these items would be horrendous to health and mental well-being. NEVER to allow them? Maybe in your world, but not in mine. I find a Lunchable to be an excellent behavior motivator, and I do add in fresh fruits or vegetables to the quotient. We don't send them to school in the lunch box, though.
posted by Unknown
Monday, January 21
The Food Timeline
What came first, salt or rice as a human comestible? You'll have to click on this site to view the Food Timeline, which traces the evolution of the human diet from salt to rice to Flutie Flakes. Each food stop on the timeline is also linked to a Web site: you'd expect Snapple and Chips Ahoy to have their own sites, but popcorn.org is worth a trip, as are sites devoted to muskmelons, emmer grain and salt (which even has its own discussion group!). It's a real treasure trove for food historians, because it also includes related information such as recipes culled from their original sources. The site is developed by the Morris County Library of New Jersey who apparently were perpetually peppered, so to speak, with food-history questions by students and adults alike. (Although "pepper" as a category doesn't even show up on the timeline.)
posted by Unknown
"Moaning Shopper" Gets Bounced
Don't like the prices at your local Safeway? Keep it to yourself. This story on justfood.com, a United Kingdom food-news source, says British shopper Douglas McKinlay has been barred from his local Safeway because he moaned too long and loud about prices. ("Moaning," apparently, means complaining to the management, not standing in the aisle and emitting dolorous tones.) McKinlay said he was just registering his complaints about confusing price displays, having found earlier in his shopping career that a well-placed and well-founded complaint about being overcharged 2 pence netted his 20 pounds' worth of cakes and an apology from the manager. To add injury to insult, McKinlay says he shops at Safeway only on special occasions, that its archrival Tesco has better prices and refund policies. So there, Safeway!
posted by Unknown
Friday, January 18
Another U.S. product threatened by illegal Chinese imports: garlic
We love garlic but seem to be frightfully ignorant of its potential as contraband. The Chinese, however, are once again way ahead of us on this one. The Fresh Garlic Producers Association, however, says that cheap imports are evading a 376-percent tariff imposition by coming into the country from Thailand and Vietnam. I'll never look at 40-garlic chicken the same way again. Perhaps I should get a certificate of authenticity first? The reason for all of this, of course, is money and the growing demand for garlic. Americans eat about 2 pounds of garlic a year (happily, not all at once). One of five Americans eats garlic every day, according to the trade association.
posted by Unknown
Thursday, January 17
Waiter, Please Put a Lid on It
Look, there's nothing I can say to describe this New York Times article by William Grimes, about the growing menace of garrulous waiters, that comes close to capturing its wit and laugh-out-loud character. Here's a sample: "(T)he amuse-bouche arrives, and the first lecture begins as the waiter itemizes the ingredients in each before-dinner morsel. This performance accomplishes several things. First, it draws attention to the chef's cooking style. Second, it makes the diner feel that he is getting quite a gift. Third, it begins the important bonding process that, by meal's end, should bring diner and waiter closer than most blood relatives. The emotional outlet for this surge of good fellowship is called the tip."
posted by Unknown
'Cheeky' Naked Chef Shills for Sainsbury's
Are you a fan of Jamie Oliver, the 26-year-old Naked Chef? He does a cooking show - fully clothed - for the BBC, which is picked up in the United States on either PBS or the Food Channel, I forget which. I'm not a fan because I think he's a culinary slob, but then I feel the same way about Emeril and Nigella, so don't go by my opinion. I'm also not a thirtysomething English woman who apparently makes up a large part of Jamie's audience and also is the target shopper for Sainsbury's, one of the leading supermarket chains in the United Kingdom. Apparently, one recipe that Jamie did over the Christmas holidays was enough to cause a run on tins of goose fat in stores. Beyond that, Sainsbury's executives attribute a sales increase to his appearances in commercials and advice on product development, so they've given him four more years and 2 million pounds (I think that's about $3.5 million US) to keep it up. A Sainsbury's spokeswoman said, "People like him because he is quite cheeky. They find his passion for cooking inspiring." Well, if it gets the next generation interested in cooking, more the better.
posted by Unknown
Wednesday, January 16
FDA Warns About Asian Jelly Candies
Dangerous candy? Yes, according to the FDA, which has banned importation of candies made in Asia and sold under names such as Jelly Yum and Fruit Poppers, small, brightly colored gel candies that come in small plastic cups and often have a bit of fruit embedded in them. The fruit doesn't dissolve, and the gel is so sticky that rescue workers can't get it out of the throats of choking children. Some labels say they aren't for children under either age 6 or age 3, but others have no such warnings. Six children have died from choking in the U.S. Grocery stores have pulled them off shelves, but they continue to be sold, especially in Asian food markets. The FDA banned the importation in October.
posted by Unknown
A New Cooking Term: 'Speed Scratch'
From the people who brought you such 90s food-marketing terms as "home meal replacement" comes this first new term of the millennium: "speed scratch." It refers to those all-in-one dinner kits that give you most or all the ingredients to make a main course, like AgriLink's Voila!, Stouffer's Oven Classics and the like. For some, all the foods you need are measured or mixed and packaged; you just put them all together and shove 'em into the oven. Others require a fresh addition, usually a meat. The "scratch" part comes because you have to dirty a dish and do a little more than just open a box and stick something in a microwave.
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, January 15
Georgia Pols Want to Make Grits the State Processed Food
Now there's a legislative initiative you can sink your teeth into. Or not, since coagulated grits is (are?) one of nature's more unappetizing foods. Two Georgia politicians want to make grits the state's official processed food. "It's the most Southern of foods and deserves an honor. There ought to be a law that you have to serve cheese grits with fried fish," says one of the Georgia solons. Why grits and not barbecue? If you don't know what grits is, you either aren't from the South or haven't ever eaten at a Shoney's. This story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls it a white-corn porridge eaten at breakfast, which is probably as good a description as you'll get, except it doesn't mention the old trick of drowning grits in butter to give it flavor. However, the story's headline writer obviously has eaten his/her share of grits over the years; here's what he/she wrote: "What? No Red-Eye Gravy?" (red-eye gravy is made from meat drippings, usually ham, and coffee)
posted by Unknown
Monday, January 14
Tesco Debuts Safeway Online-Shopping Service
The British grocery chain Tesco plans to do what Webvan and other online grocery services could not - stay in business. The chain, which was once known as a bargain-basement chain until executives upgraded it a decade or more ago, bought a $35 million stake in the American chain Safeway's online GroceryWorks last year and rolled out the new version today (Monday, January 14). It claims it will succeed where Webvan failed because of its "store pick" model, in which employees fill orders from existing stores instead of a warehouse. That's not such a unique concept; it's what Peapod started out doing. I used to see the Peapod workers in their pretty spring-green aprons working the aisles at Chicago-area supermarkets. Webvan's warehouse system was legendary for its cash consumption and bad design. In Tesco's favor is its claim that it turned a profit last year, a most remarkable feat.
posted by Unknown
Questionable Milk Marketing Tactic No. 1: La Llorona Will Get You If You Don't Drink Milk
Now I have to admit to a bias here first off: I live in Wisconsin, whose nickname is "America's Dairyland," and I often chuckle at the things the California dairy industry does to promote consumption. The latest, for me, is a real head-scratcher. It has just kicked off a campaign to promote milk drinking among teens by using an old Latin American folk tale about a ghost of a woman who roams the earth looking for the two children she killed after her husband left her. If you don't drink milk, goes the commercial designed by four Latino students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, La Llorona will come after you. I don't quite get the connection, but the commercial apparently has La Llorona weeping as she sees the empty milk container in the fridge (which is, granted, a typical teen-age trick). I didn't grow up with the La Llorona myth, and I'm not Hispanic, so perhaps I'm not the best judge here, but my feelings echo those of Gabriela Lemus of the League or United Latin American Citizens who told the LA Times: "– I don't know if I'd buy milk from someone who was trying to kill me." This story is from the UK-based just-food.com
posted by Unknown
GMA Survey Reveals Consumers Confident in Food Industry
What gives you the biggest bang for your buck, household-wise? Food? Clothing? Mortgage payment? Well, this is a survey done for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, so you can guess that the answer was "food." According to a GMA news release, 48 percent of respondents say food offers the best value for their money, ahead of clothing, home electronics, furnishings, cars and over the counter drugs. People also have more favorable opinions about the food industry in general than government, fuel, automobile manufacturers, electronics, drugmakers and the stock market. Results came out at the Food Marketing Institute's annual midwinter conference in Phoenix, Ariz.
posted by Unknown
26 Million Avocados to be Sacrificed for Super Bowl
That's how many avocados the California Avocado Commission expects consumers will turn into guacamole for Super Bowl Sunday. It's enough to pave the Louisiana Superdome football field 40 inches deep, up to the waist on normal people, maybe just over the kneecaps for your average football player. In honor of the occasion, the commission came up with "Cajun Guacamole." Not sure if those two cultures are compatible; you be the judge.
posted by Unknown
Wednesday, January 9
Will Mushrooms Replace Soy as a Mock Meat?
A company called Quorn Foods (Corn?) has just received FDA approval for an eight-item line of frozen and refrigerated meat substitutes using fermented mushrooms as a base. The company has built a $150-million business in Europe and uses a patented protein that it says creates a more realistic chicken substitute than the current soy-based products in the market.
posted by Unknown
FDA Releases Food Security Measures
More government action: In response to terrorist attacks in the U.S., the FDA has come up with guidelines to protect the American food supply. Among the recommendations: "farms, restaurants and supermarkets should consider criminal background checks on employees, take care to safeguard water supplies and keep a closer eye on the salad bar. In addition, companies should be watchful for employees who stay at work after their shifts end and restrict access to computer control systems, laboratories and sensitive areas of processing plants." The FDA is also considering similar guidelines for food importers.
posted by Unknown
USDA Delays Chicken Labeling Rules
How much of that 20-ounce package of boneless chicken breasts actually is water weight added during processing? Chicken processors were supposed to begin putting that information on their labels but have been given more time to comply, according to the Associated Press. The problem is that chicken carcasses are chilled in cold water to kill bacteria after processing, which can stay in the meat after packaging. Beef and pork processors complain that chicken can therefore be sold with up to 8 percent added water weight, while their meats can't have any.
posted by Unknown
Tuesday, January 8
Quail: The Little Bird that Could
Is this the start of another food trend? A story in the current issue of Restaurant Business looks at the resurgence of interest in game birds, a result of a more adventurous dining public and a demand for meats that are lower in saturated fat and calories than domestic products. Quail's other bonus is that it's not as dry as pheasant. You can find farm-raised birds at the store, so you don't have to send your family hunter-gatherer out to bag them. Problem is, they're tiny - not only are they lower in saturated fat and calories than chicken, but you also expend more energy boning the darned things because they're so small - so you need at least two to make up a decent serving.
posted by Unknown
Dave Thomas Dead At 69
This is sad news. No matter how you feel about Wendy's food, or fast-food in general, Dave's death means there will be one less normal-looking person pitching products on TV. I think I'll have to go have my usual - a single with cheese, mayonnaise, ketchup and onion - today for lunch in his memory.
posted by Unknown
Monday, January 7
Online Grocery Slowly Gets Back on its Feet
Would you - or did you ever - pay more to have groceries delivered via online ordering? My son was an infant in 1995 when I first answered a survey question on this topic. My response was a definite "No! It's one way for me to get out of the house!" Of course, that was when he was an infant and had not yet perfected the Supermarket Screech. (Luckily for his health and my sanity, he's quite cooperative in the store.) If I had more children, or less time, I might have felt differently. The last few years saw the Web-grocery pioneers crumble under the weight of crushing inventory retrieval costs, underfinancing and bad planning. Things could be turning around for companies that get their financing, pricing and marketing strategies in tune, this story from E-Commerce Times says.
posted by Unknown
Introducing Ted Turner, bison baron
What do you do when your wife divorces you and you lose your job at the top of a media empire? You go into the restaurant business, of course. This story from the MSNBC.com site describes how media king Ted Turner plans to open his first Montana Grill in Columbus, Ohio (also known as Fast Food Central, it's the home of the Wendy's burger chain and the Max & Erma's sit-down chain among others). The menu specialty: bison with everything. Ted, the nation's largest bison rancher, is part of a cooperative that will sell meat to the chain. But, the menu will also include standard fare such as chicken, beef, fish and "comfort food." Will this spur the national appetite for bison, which really does taste a little like beef, but with less fat? The market is depressed right now, and other bison producers are skeptical that it could make a difference ... but don't forget what Ted did with that obscure little cable-TV station he used to own in Atlanta ...
posted by Unknown
Friday, January 4
AlterNet -- So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?
This article, from E Magazine and reprinted on AlterNet.org posits that because meat-eating wrecks the environment, brutalizes animals, exacerbates poverty and endangers human health, no good environmentalist can justify a diet that includes meat. If you agree with this premise, you'll find lots of supporting information. If you disagree, you'll find an equal number of statements to argue with. No word on whether the no-meat litmus test should also be extended to leather footwear and dairy products.
posted by Unknown
Thursday, January 3
Harrods' Food Hall Slated for Chicago?
Astonishing! Chicago's Block 37 retail development might be the site for Harrods' first incursion into the U.S. gourmet market with its fabled food hall. Gourmet News magazine is e-reporting this development but cautioning that it's based on "news reports" from The Scotman that "suggest" plans are in the works. This lifelong Midwestern snob says, "In Chicago? Not New York? Wow!" Of course, if it's true, it means one of two things: One: Harrod's is more likely to stand out in the Chicago gourmet market than in New York, where it would compete with the likes of Zabar's and Dean & Deluca. Or, two: Harrod's is following that great theater tradition of opening out of town before heading to Broadway (make your mistakes somewhere else first).
Well, who cares what the reason is. As long as they come. And, where is Block 37? Apparently the long undeveloped block (I think they meant "vacant") across from Marshall Field's wonderful flagship store on State Street. Field's has a food hall of its own, which Dayton's moved from the Seventh Floor to the basement and added lots of selling space after it bought the store (Dayton's has now renamed the whole chain Field's, for those of you keeping score at home). Hmmm.
posted by Unknown
Study: Poorer Neighborhoods Have Fewer Supermarkets
One would be tempted to say, "So what else is new?" but this report is good fodder for people who are trying to bring full-service supermarkets into underserved areas. One interesting point is that while predominantly white neighborhoods have more supermarkets, other neighborhoods had more specialty markets, such as meat markets and flower/vegetable markets. I know I would rather shop in a small specialty store, but then I know I'll pay more than I would at a supermarket, and that poses a real hardship for inner-city and underserved neighborhoods. Can a supermarket survive and thrive in an inner-city area? Probaby better than the suburban guys in suits and ties at the corporate office think.
posted by Unknown
