Are Beer Sommeliers the Next Big Thing?

Talia Baiocchi

http://eater.com/archives/2012/05/03/are-beer-sommeliers-the-next-big-thing.php

May 3, 2012

Having an intimate knowledge of both wine and beer is becoming increasingly difficult; focusing on one or the other is becoming far more practical.  With the rise of craft beer and the increase in artisan imports available, the beer world has become so vast and diverse that it’s difficult to both master it while maintaining an encyclopedic knowledge of wine.  Craft beer has also presented new challenges that commercial beers did not.  Craft beer, like wine, is prone to variation—in batches down to individual bottles—as well as flaws that are harder to detect if you aren’t familiar with how they manifest in beer.  Ray Daniels, a longtime veteran of the industry, started to notice the term “beer sommelier” thrown around with greater frequency back in 2006 and dreamt up a certification program and a new name—Cicerone—that would help separate beer sommeliers from wine sommeliers.  Since he founded the Cicerone Certification Program in 2008 the program has anointed four Master Cicerones, 400 Certified Cicerones, and more than 1400 Certified Beer Servers.  It’s hard to imagine that less than ten years ago, beer was merely an afterthought on restaurant lists.  Unless someone puts the brakes on the craft beer movement, we are likely to see more of this beer sommelier (sorry Cicerones, it sounds better).

Where Next for Natural Sweeteners?

Elaine Watson

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Market/Special-edition-Where-next-for-natural-sweeteners/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK92R3CLGB%2FYAWWNFQjfIqD1P

May 8, 2012

Naturally-Positioned Sweeteners to Lead Market Growth

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Market/Naturally-positioned-sweeteners-to-lead-market-growth-Report/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK931vTrhHLoGlLgWBHzv%2FuXN

January 5, 2012

MONK FRUIT: Premium-priced, but do you get what you pay for?  It might not have garnered as much publicity as stevia, but monk fruit (luo han guo) has found a niche within the all-natural market.  Dairy and beverages are proving the most popular application areas for monk fruit sweetener Purefruit.

OATS: New oat-based sweetener OatSweet is being marketed as more cost-effective than cane sugar, honey, or stevia without the negative associations of high-fructose corn syrup, and with flavor and texture characteristics that improve upon agave and rice syrups.

STEVIA: Sweet Green Fields plants its first commercial stevia crops in North Carolina and Georgia.  Taste issues and high costs repeatedly have been raised as possible obstacles to widespread acceptance of stevia-derived sweeteners, but one of the many new suppliers entering the market claims that these are no longer the hurdles they once were.  PureCircle released an analysis of it carbon and water use throughout the supply chain, which it claims could help food and beverage manufacturers to meet their own sustainability targets.

STEVIA AND BEYOND: While stevia is beginning to take off in a number of baked goods and snack categories in the US, Asian and South American markets, some other emerging ‘natural’ sweeteners look ready to take it on.  A new market research report claims that the US alternative sweeteners market will grow by 3.3% a year to reach about $1.4bn in 2015—and naturally positioned sweeteners like stevia and agave nectar will lead the way.  The report explores the market for sweeteners other than sugar and high fructose corn syrup, looking at historical market data to 2010, as well as forecasts through 2015 and 2020.

2012 James Beard Awards: The Big Winners

J.M. Hirsch

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/james-beard-awards-2012_n_1499238.html?ref=food

May 7, 2012

The James Beard awards honor those who follow in the footsteps of Beard, considered the dean of American cooking when he died in 1985.  Monday’s ceremony honored chefs and restaurants; a similar event on Friday was held for book and other media awards.  The James Beard Foundation named Christina Tosi as rising star chef of the year, an honor earned largely by her knack for crafting unusual sweet treats—including soft serve ice cream made from milk flavored by breakfast cereals—and the almost fanatical following they have generated.  Tosi oversees desserts, breads and ice cream for David Chang’s Momofuku restaurant group, and is best known as the woman behind his Momofuku Milk Bar.  The Foundation’s outstanding chef award went to Daniel Humm, the chef behind New York’s Eleven Madison Park.  Eleven Madison Park is best known for its tasting-style menu that lists dishes only by key ingredients and encourages diners to work with the chef to create individualized meals.  Boulevard restaurant in San Francisco was named outstanding restaurant of the year.  Opened on the San Francisco waterfront in 1993, Boulevard’s cuisine blends regional American cooking with French style.  The best new restaurant award went to Grant Achatz’s second—and wildly different—Chicago restaurant, Next, which has come to be defined as much by the food served there as by the way it handles “reservations”.  You don’t reserve tables at Next. You purchase tickets, much as you would for a concert.  The group’s Lifetime Achievement award this year went to Wolfgang Puck, the pioneer of California cuisine.  Puck has won multiple honors from the foundation over the years and is the only chef to have twice received its Most Outstanding Chef award.  The organization’s Humanitarian of the Year honor went to Chicago chef Charlie Trotter.  Trotter was chosen for his work with children, including raising $3 million via The Charlie Trotter Culinary Education Foundation to help pay for needy students to attend culinary school.  The Bear Foundation also named its top regional chefs around the country: Bruce Sherman of North Pond in Chicago (Great Lakes region); Maraicel Presilla of Cucharamama in Hoboken, NJ (Mid-Atlantic); Tory Miller of L’Etoile in Madison, WI (Midwest); Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern in New York (New York City); Tim Cushman of O Ya in Boston (Northeast); Matt Diullon of Sitka & Spruce in Seattle (Northwest); Matt Molina of Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles (Pacific); Chris Hastings of Hot and Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, AL (South); Hugh Acheson of Five and Ten in Athens, GA and Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta (Southeast); and Paul Qui of Uchiko in Austin TX.

It’s a Tie! Hopkins and Acheson Both Win Beards

John Kessler

http://blogs.ajc.com/food-and-more/2012/05/07/its-a-tie-hopkins-and-acheson-both-win-beards/?cxntfid=blogs_food_and_more

In the biggest surprise of the evening, Georgia chefs Linton Hopkins and Hugh Acheson tied for Best Chef, Southeast, at the 2012 James Beard Awards Monday night at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall.  The two have gone up against each other for the past five years for this coveted award, only to lose to other nominees from the region.  Hopkins said he was thrilled with the outcome because it underscores the camaraderie among chefs.  “This is a collaborative business,” he said.  “In a sense there should be more ties.”  For Acheson, it was his second James Beard Award this year.  On Friday he was awarded a citation for his cookbook “A New Turn in the South” at the Book, Broadcast and Journalism Awards dinner.

James Beard Foundation Announces 2012 Book, Broadcast & Journalism Award Winners

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/james-beard-foundation-2012-journalism-awards_n_1495026.html?ref=food

May 7, 2012

The James Beard Foundation has announced the winners for its book, broadcast and journalism awards for 2012.  Big winners include “Modernist Cuisine,” which won both the Cookbook of the Year and the award for Cooking from a Professional Point of View.  Food 52 and Gastronomica both won for Publication of the Year.  The judges for the book awards (more than 40 in total), broadcast media (more than 28) and journalism awards (more than 70) are comprised of various editors, authors, journalists and professors.  All nominees were based on works published or broadcasted in 2011.

Pink Slime: BPI to Close 3 Plants Over Uproar

Grant Schulte

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/pink-slime-bpi-plants-close_n_1499231.html?ref=food

May 7, 2012

On May 25, 2012, Beef Products Inc. will close processing plants in Amarillo, Texas; Garden City, Kansas; and Waterloo, Iowa.  About 650 jobs will be lost.  A plant in South Sioux City, Nebraska will remain open but run at reduced capacity.  The company suspended operations at the three plans in March amid public uproar over its meat product dubbed “pink slime.”  The company paid its workers during the suspension.  Company officials had hoped to recover but have since realized that doing so wasn’t possible in the near future.  The public backlash against the product offers an important lesson to other food makers in the social-media age, said Marion Nestle, a nutrition and food-studies professor at New York University.  She noted that past food controversies, such as criticism of trans fats, took years to surface as major public issues, whereas social media enabled the campaign against “pink slime” to quickly attract widespread public attention.  Nestle also said BPI misinterpreted the public concern as a food-safety issue, instead of recognizing that critics were focused on not knowing what was added to their food and the belief that they were deceived.

13 Disturbing Facts About McDonald’s

Gus Lubin

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/04/30/13-Disturbing-Facts-About-McDonalds.aspx#page1

April 30, 2012

McDonald’s just reported its first quarter financial results on April 20.  The global fast food chain generated $6.54 billion during the period and delivered earnings per share of $1.23.  Global comparable sales increased 7.3 percent.  The restaurant giant has grown through the recession and recovery.  Here are 13 shocking facts about America’s most popular fast food chain:

1. Daily customer traffic (62 million) is more than the population of Great Britain.
2. Sells more than 75 hamburgers every second.
3. Feeds 68 million people per day, about 1% of the world’s population.
4. $27 billion in revenue makes it the 90^th-largest economy in the world.
5. $8.7 billion in revenue from franchise stores alone makes it richer than Mongolia.
6. Hires around 1 million workers in the US every year.  This estimate from Fast Food Nation assumes a 700,000 domestic workforce with 150% turnover rate.
7. 761,000 employees worldwide; more than the population of Luxembourg.
8. According to company estimates, one in every eight American workers have been employed by McDonald’s.
9. Sharon Stone worked at McDonald’s before she was famous, as did Shania Twain, Jay Leno, Rachel McAdams and Pink.
10. It is the world’s largest distributor of toys, with one included in 20 percent of all sales.
11. For the next three years, McDonald’s is going to open one restaurant every day in China.
12. The only place in the lower 48 that is more than 100 miles from a McDonald’s is a barren plain in South Dakota.
13. Americans alone consume one billion pounds of beef at McDonald’s in a year—five and a half million head of cattle.

Local Food Index Ranks Vermont at Top, Florida at Bottom

Lisa Rathke

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/08/local-food-index_n_1499379.html?ref=food

May 8, 2012

MONTPELIER, VT—A committed “locavore,” Robin McDermott once struggled to stock her kitchen with food grown within 100 miles of her Vermont home.  She drove 70 miles to buy beans and ordered a bulk shipment of oats from the neighboring province of Quebec.  Six years later, she doesn’t travel far: She can buy chickens at the farmers market, local farms grow a wider range of produce, and her grocery store stocks meat, cheese and even flour produced in the area.  A bakery in a nearby town sells bread made from Vermont grains, and she’s found a place to buy locally made sunflower oil.  Nationwide, small farms, farmers markets and specialty food makers are popping up and thriving as more people seek locally produced foods.  More than half of consumers now say it’s more important to buy local than organic, according to market research firm Mintel.  But with no official definition for what makes a food local, the government can’t track sales.  And consumers don’t always know what they are buying.  A supermarket tomato labeled “local” may have come from 10, 100 or more miles away. Two of the more common standards used by locavores are food produced within 100 miles or within the same state that it’s consumed.  A new locavore index ranked Vermont as the top state in its commitment to raising and eating locally grown food based on the number of farmers markets and community supported agriculture farms (CSAs) where customers pay a lump sum up front and receive weekly deliveries of produce and other foods.  Vermont has 99 farmers markets and 164 CSAs, with a population of fewer than 622,000 (USDA and census figures).  But the bottom of the index raises questions, Florida, which produces much of the nation’s citrus, strawberries and tomatoes, was in the bottom five with only 146 farmers markets and 193 CSAs for 18.5 million people.  The locavore movement grew out of consumer concerns about how and where food is produced, following episodes of contamination in spinach, meat and other foods.  People committed to it buy locally produced foods to support farmers because the food is fresher and to reduce the environmental effect of trucking it across country.  “But there’s more to it,” said Jessica Prentice, a San Francisco Bay-area chef who coined the term locavore.  “Really what it’s about is moving into a kind of food system where you’re connected to the source of your food,” Prentice said.  “You’re buying from people that you know or can meet and you’re buying food grown in a place that you can easily drive to and see.”

Top Food Trends from the 2012 NRA Show

Bret Thorn

http://nrn.com/article/10-trends-2012-nra-show

May 7, 2012

Low pricing was not the top priority for restaurateurs attending the 2012 NRA Show in Chicago, May 5-8, said suppliers who were displaying their wares at the annual event.  Quality, not price, was the first concern—a change in attitude from recent years—as those operators sought to distinguish themselves from the competition.  Here are the top 10 trends for this year’s show.

1. Super-premium Ibérico de Bellota—Spanish pork from free-range hogs that had fattened themselves on acorns for at least 18 months.
2. Miniature or single-serving desserts.  Slightly unusual flavors, such as ginger, pomegranate-berry or English butter toffee caught restaurateurs’ attention.
3. Indulgent desserts.  Sheet cakes, premium ice cream and big cookies garnered interest.
4. Customizable coffee.  Single serving, pour-over coffee and the machines that take out the guesswork and eliminate the need for trained baristas.
5. Southeast Asian flavors.  From coconut milk to sweet chile sauce.
6. Sustainability. Restaurateurs wanted to know origins of everything from coffee to seafood and vegetables.
7. Molecular for the masses.  Such as caviar-like pearls of balsamic vinegar or hot sauce that burst in your mouth.
8. Better-for-you items.  Examples: Kefir, green tea-based sodas, juice drinks with “superfruits”.
9. Convenience solutions.  Thaw-and-serve items—bread, pastry, potpie and proteins form pork to textured soy.
10. Hypoallergenic food.  Products with virtually nothing controversial (nuts, eggs, dairy, gluten) in them.

Pet Food Recalled After Salmonella Outbreak

Sarah D. Bunting

http://shine.yahoo.com/pets/pet-food-recalled-after-salmonella-outbreak.html

May 4, 2012

Diamond Dog Food: Salmonella in Dog Food Sickens 14 People in US

Jeffrey Collins and Heather Hollingsworth

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/salmonella-dog-food_n_1496356.html?ref=food&ir=Food

May 4, 2012

Food Politics: The Latest Pet Food Salmonella Recall

Marion Nestle

http://www.foodpolitics.com/2012/05/the-latest-pet-food-salmonella-recall/

May 8, 2012

Fourteen people in at least nine states have been sickened by salmonella after handling tainted dog food from a South Carolina plant that a few years ago produced food contaminated by toxic mold that killed dozens of dogs, federal officials said Friday.  The nine states with reported cases are Alabama, Connecticut, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  The dog food, which is subject to recall, is distributed in as many as 16 states and Canada. This isn’t the first time kibble has caused an extended salmonella outbreak among humans, 2006 and 2007 saw salmonella passed around 70 people in 19 states thanks to contaminated kibble.  Kibble by definition is cooked to the point of losing most of its original nutrients.  If it’s cooked enough to be “kibbled,” how can it possibly still have salmonella?  Canned pet foods are sterile.  Dry kibble is not.  It may be sterile at the point of extrusion, but it is a perfect growth medium for bacteria.  It is nutritionally complete.  Although some nutrients are lost during processing, the product formulas compensate for such losses.  That is why dogs can survive on “complete and balanced” dry foods.  If the factory is contaminated with Salmonella, the bacteria can fall into production lines and get packaged into the kibble bags.  Dogs are relatively resistant to Salmonella and usually do not show signs of illness from eating contaminated kibble.  But humans who handle the food or the dog can acquire the bacteria and get sick.  This makes dry dog food a potentially hazardous product, one best kept away from people with weak immune systems such as young children and the elderly.  If pet foods are not forced to be produced under strict food safety measures, humans and the human food supply are also at risk.

Mad Cow Disease Investigation: USDA Quarantines Two Farms, Offspring Euthanized

Tracie Cone

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/04/mad-cow-disease-investigation_n_1477400.html?ref=food

May 2, 2012

FRESNO, CA—Investigators looking into California’s first case of mad cow disease say they have tracked down at least one of her offspring in another state.  Since there is no live test for the disease also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the offspring was euthanized and brain samples were sent to the national laboratory.  The test was negative, officials said Wednesday.  The dairy where the diseased cow was found and another associated with it are under quarantine, which is standard procedure.  The USDA has declined to name the dairies or the state where the offspring was found.  USDA officials also said on Wednesday that within the last two years, the diseased cow gave birth to a stillborn calf.  They did not say how that carcass was disposed.  Officials also are investigating the calf ranch where the diseased cow was raised before she was sold into dairy productions.

When He Dined the Stars Came Out

Pete Wells

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/dining/craig-claiborne-set-the-standard-for-restaurant-reviews.html?_r=1&ref=dining

May 8, 2012

On May 18, 1962, readers of The New York Times woke up to learn that of all the Chinese restaurants in the city, “there is probably none with a finer kitchen” than Tien Tsinm in Harlem.  The same article praised four other places to eat, including Gaston, on East 49^th Street and Marchi’s on East 31^st Street.  The author of these judgments was Craig Claiborne, the newspaper’s first food editor.  Some American writers had nibbled at the idea of professional restaurant criticism before this, including Caliborne who had written one-off reviews of major news restaurants for The Times.  But his first “Directory to Dining,” 50 years ago this month, marks the day when the country pulled up a chair and began to chow down.

2012 Daytime Emmy Award Nominations Announced

Raphael Brion

http://eater.com/archives/2012/05/09/2012-daytime-emmy-award-nominations-announced.php

May 9, 2012

The 39^th Annual Daytime Emmy Award Nominations were announced today.  Here are the nominees in the foodosphere:  Giada De Laurentiis’ Food Network show Giada at Home leads the pack with five nominations.  Rachael Ray has three nominations (including Outstanding Talk Show Host and Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling).  Sandra Lee has two (including one for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup).  The Martha Stewart Show was nominated in the Outstanding Lifestyle Program category.  The Food Network’s Thanksgiving Live! Hosted by Alton Brown received a nomination, and Chicago chef Rick Bayless has two (including Outstanding Lifestyle/Culinary Host) for his PBS series Mexico One Plate at a Time. Up for “Outstanding Culinary Program” are Bobby Flay’s Barbecue Addiction, Giada at Home, Guy’s Big Bite, and Sandwich King. Up for “Outstanding Lifestyle/Culinary Host” are Giada De Laurentiis, Rick Bayless, Nate Berkus, Paula Deen and Sandra Lee.

Chefs and the Charcuterie Gap

Cathy Barrow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/chefs-and-the-charcuterie-gap/2012/05/07/gIQAZIRqAU_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

May 8, 2012

While restaurant chefs enhance their menus with house-made, artisanal meats, culinary schools are just beginning to respond with the broader kind of training required.  Most of the schools in the States educate students on the cuts of meat, portioning and buying, as well as garde manger, literally “keep to eat,” which includes pâtés and fresh sausages.  But one chef said that a chicken was the only animal he learned to break down at culinary school.  Neither charcuterie nor whole-animal butchery garner much, if any, class time.  At the CIA, certain instructors are known to add to the prescribed curriculum here and there.  Should a group of students wish to study charcuterie, for example, they are likely to learn through experimentation as part of an unofficial “club,” with a faculty adviser looking on.  When there is no such club, student chefs are left to create their own opportunities.  And those, due to economics and demand are few and far between.  Asked why the CIA does not offer charcuterie classes, chef Mark Erickson, provost, replied that “schools expose the students to cuisine and technique.  We’re talking broad coverage versus deep knowledge.  European apprenticeships are the place for this deeper study.”  In the US there are few nationally revered, deeply cultural or established roads to artisanal cured-meat production, although Virginia’s country ham tradition is one notable exception.  The road to cured meat begins in the butcher shop where bits and pieces are destined to become charcuterie.  Yet neighborhood butcher shops seem to be closing, coincidental with cutbacks in the meat industry.  Beyond trendiness, savvy restaurant chefs are motivated to butcher whole animals and make their own charcuterie because it makes plain economic sense.  Chef-restaurateur Deihl, nominated for a James Beard award this year, bought hams at a very good price because his farmer told him it’s the hardest part of the hog to sell.  In fine dining, ham has no real application, and it takes forever to cure; so he turned it into salami, sopressata, mortadella, speck, using an abandoned walk-in freezer that he cobbled into a curing chamber.  In a perfect world, Deihl would “open a butcher shop working with whole animals, use the trim and buts and pieces for an American ‘junk food’ restaurant, serve the most amazing hot dogs and bologna sandwiches, then take the center-cut meats and use them in a fine-dining restaurant,” he says. “Yeah, that would be perfect.  And then I would send all the compost and scraps right back to my farmers.”  Consumer requests for more local, grass-fed, pastured meats are driving a resurgence in butchery in some independent groceries.

World’s Most Expensive Ingredients

http://shine.yahoo.com/photos/8-world-most-expensive-ingredients-slideshow/-photo-2332498-192300653.html

May 3, 2012

Most Expensive Fruit: Yubari King Melons.  Yubari is to melons what Kobe is to beef. This particularly tasty melon cultivar is a cross between two cantaloupe varieties.  Yubari melons are often sold in perfectly matched pairs.  The choicest melon pairs have been auctioned in Japan for as much as $26,000, but a standard Yubari melon costs between $50 and $100 in Japanese department stores.  The melons must be grown in Yubari to bear that name, and the small town produces only a limited number of these cult items each year.

Most Expensive Fungus: White Truffles

The white truffle is found almost exclusively in the forests of northern Italy between the months of September and December.  They retail for $7 to $11 per gram, or $3,000 to $5,000 per pound.  No one has succeeded in cultivating white truffles, so the supply is extremely limited.  The only way to source them is to forge within their limited natural habitat with the help of specially trained pigs or dogs.

Most Expensive Poultry product: Swiftlet Nests

More expensive by weight than any single bird are the nests of the high-flying swiftlet species, who forge these small, cuplike structures from strands of their saliva.  The nests dissolve in broth to create the gelatinous texture of bird’s nest soup, a Chinese delicacy, and are touted as valuable sources of nutrients.  Swiftlet Nests retail for approximately $1,000 per pound, which is roughly $20 per nest.  Nests must either be foraged from the hard-to-reach interiors of caves or culled form custom-built houses that require a significant up-front investment.

Most Expensive Pantry Staple: Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale

Genuine traditional balsamic vinegar, or balsamico tradizionale, is made from late harvest white Trebbiano grapes that have been boiled down to form a concentrated must.  The must is then placed in a series of cloth-covered barrels, allowing water to evaporate over time.  The product must be made in either the Modena or Reggio Emilia provinces of Italy.  Each province has its own consortium of experts who approve the balsamic before sealing.  The best balsamicos will typically set you back around $200 for 100 milliliters, more $60 per ounce.  Balsamico tradizionale must be aged for a minimum of 12 years, and the best are aged for 25.  Due to all the evaporation and concentration over the years, it takes a very large volume of Trebbiano grapes to create one small bottle of elixir.

Most Expensive Coffee:  Kopi Luwak

Kopi luwak, or civet coffee, is coffee that has passed through the digestive system of a nocturnal catlike animal called a civet.  Wild civets, found predominantly in Asia and Africa, eat the fruit of the coffee plant as part of their natural diet and then excrete the beans in their dung.  These beans, having fermented by the animal’s stomach acids and enzymes, are purported to produce smoother, less bitter coffee.  Kopi luwak retails for as much as $500 per pound.  Not only must each bean make it through the digestive tract of a civet, but it must also be collected by a forager then cleaned and roasted.

Most Expensive Meat: Jamón Ibérico de Bellota

Jamón Ibérico de bellota refers to the cured leg of a pata negra pig that has been raised free-range in the old-growth oak forests of western Spain.  The pigs eat a diet rich in acorns wild mushrooms, herbs, and grasses, yielding meat that’s richly flavored and low in saturated fat.  Each ham is cured for a minimum of two years.  A 15-pound bone-in leg of jamón Ibérico de bellota retails for $1,300, or $87 per pound.  The acorn-rich forests of western Spain make up an ecosystem that exists nowhere else in the world, and each pig requires at least 2 acres of land for ample foraging.

Most Expensive Spice: Saffron

Saffron is derived from a type of crocus that grows most extensively in the Mediterranean and Middle East.  Its brightly hued threads are graded for quality by the Switzerland-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which ranks the product on a scale from 0 to 250 based on color, fragrance, and taste.  “Coupe” saffron, which carries an ISO grade of 190 or greater, retails for $10 to $15 per gram with the highest-grade coupe saffron reaching almost $30 per gram.  The labor-intensive picking, cleaning, sorting, and toasting of these tiny saffron stigmas is top blame for the staggering price tag.  It takes a football field-size plot of saffron crocuses to produce just 1 pound of saffron threads, which must be picked immediately upon blooming.

Most Expensive Seafood: Sturgeon Caviar

Sturgeon caviar is the salted eggs, or roe, of the massive sturgeon fish.  The world’s most expensive caviar comes from the beluga species of sturgeon, but imports of this variety have been banned form the US since 2005 in order to protect the endangered fish.  Farmed osetra sturgeon caviar is currently the highest-end sustainable option on the U.S. market, prized for its firm, juicy eggs and nutty flavor.  Osetra caviar retails for up to $12 per gram for the choicest grades, which translates into roughly $500 per serving.  It takes the female osetra an average of 10 years to produce her first eggs, at which point she may weigh hundreds of pounds, which means that farming the roe is a long, expensive undertaking.

Thebraiser.com Launches Next Week

http://thebraiser.com/

May 10, 2012

Launching next week, this new platform from Dan Abrams–of Mediaite fame–promises to cover the “facts, feuds and food” of the culinary scene (read: Page Six in chefs’ whites). The site will feature mostly chefs who are already household names, including Mario Batali and Bobby Flay, from a lifestyle point of view. Don’t expect recipes, but keep an eye out for entertaining mudslinging.

Domino’s Launches Gluten-Free Pizza Crust, With A Catch

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/dominos-gluten-free-pizza-crust_n_1496408.html?ref=topbar

May 7, 2012

Domino’s Pizza has launched a gluten-free pizza crust available at all of its nearly 5,000 stores in the US.  It is the first major national delivery chain to offer a gluten-free crust.  Because the gluten-free crust is made in a facility where there is gluten present (like in the ovens), the company doesn’t recommend the crust for those with severe cases of celiac disease.

Preparing for Sodium Regulation

Lisa Jennings

http://nrn.com/article/preparing-sodium-regulation

May 7, 2012

Sodium in the diet is a likely next target of federal regulation, but research that points blame at the restaurant industry may be somewhat exaggerated.  In an educational session at the National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel show in Chicago on Saturday, NRA dietitian Joy Dubost and Adam Drewnowski, director of the University of Washington Center for Obesity Research, questioned whether regulation of sodium on restaurant menus would help more people meet the daily recommended limits—a goal very few appear to reach currently.  Some researchers point to a statistic that the restaurant industry share of the average American’s food dollar is about 48 percent, but that doesn’t correspond with calories.  Americans are believed to consume about one-third of their daily calories outside the home, but that figure also includes a host of non-restaurant sources, such as vending machines and convenience stores.  In one long-term study that looked at 19,000 people under age 20, only 9 actually met the recommended guidelines of 2,300 milligrams.  Research on sodium levels in certain foods also fails to consider how frequently people eat those foods as well as portion sizes.  CDC in Atlanta, for example, estimates that about 40 percent of sodium in the diet comes from 10 commonly eaten foods.  The Top five are bread, cold cuts, pizza, fresh poultry and soups. The CDC estimates that only about 25 percent of sodium and calories in the average American’s diet come from restaurants, where 66 percent comes from grocery stores.  Still, Dubost said the US Food and Drug Administration has called for comments on regulating sodium in restaurants.  “This is on the government’s radar,” she said.  The NRA has responded by arguing that any efforts should be made voluntary, and that any approach to reducing sodium on menus should be incremental, to allow consumer palates to adjust to less salt.   Education is critical said Dubost.  “Consumers aren’t necessarily concerned about sodium the way government and public policy is,” she said.  Should restaurants be working to reduce sodium on their menus?  Yes, said Dubost.  Public health may be getting ahead of the science, but regulations are coming down the pipeline.

For Mother’s Day, Honoring These Women of Culinary Substance and Sustenance

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/mothers-of-substance-and-sustenance/2012/05/08/gIQABdRDBU_print.html

May 8, 2012

Whether you learned kitchen craft at the elbow of a family matriarch or have come to understand the significance of food through the printed word, chances are good that women you’ve never met have imprinted on your culinary DNA.  Here are just a few of the many, some perhaps lesser known these days, who continue to inspire us.

Florence Lin. Lin, born in the port city of Ningbo near Shanghai, is America’s doyenne of Chinese cooking.  In 1968, Lin was one of the principal consultants for Time-Life’s groundbreaking “Cooking of China” volume in its “Foods of the World” series.  During the 1960s she co-founded the Chinese Cooking School at the China Institute in New York.  Her classes were so famous even Julia Child attended.  She also poured her knowledge into five other cookbooks.  At age 92, Lin continues to disseminate her vast culinary knowledge, teaching her granddaughter to cook a few of her favorite classic Chinese dishes.

Marion Cunningham. Cunningham contributed recipes to the Food section of The Washington Post, published on Wednesdays and Sundays.  Her recipes were grounded in common sense and American tradition.  Cunningham didn’t transition from full-time housewife to cooking teacher until she was almost 50.  She went on to famously revise “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook” (1996) for a new generation of readers and to become an advocate for simple home cooking.

Maida Heatter. Virtually unchanged since 1956, her kitchen has been the scene of baking, exhaustive recipe testing and writing for her 10 books about baking.  Now 97, Heatter credits her mother, Sadie, as a source of culinary inspiration.  She was discovered by Craig Claiborne in 1968.  Her first book contract soon followed.  Her style has been characterized by a delightful mix of down-home favorites and classic European cakes and pastries, many of them new to American readers.  Her clear, detailed directions have made more than one critic observe that her recipes make readers feel that she’s standing beside them.

Rachel Carson. Every time we eat organic, pesticide-free fruits and vegetables, we owe a small debt of gratitude to Rachel Carson, a one-woman firebrand who took on the government and powerful agricultural interests to break the dark spell that chemicals had on a postwar America.  With her groundbreaking book “Silent Spring,” written in 1962 two years before her death, Carson wanted us to understand one thing: Humans, no matter how evolved, are not separate from nature.

Sharon Herbst. She wrote cookbooks, but her most important book didn’t include any recipes.  It is a thick, paperback guide that has helped standardize the culinary lexicon of newspapers, magazines, television shows, and Web sites since its first edition in 1990.  The book is now in its fourth edition, the updates for which were finished by her husband Ron after Herbst’s death from ovarian cancer.

Madeleine Kamman.  A rabid perfectionist, Kamman was the real deal: a French chef.  Yet she never achieved the popularity of Julia Child, an American who cooked French food.  Brought here from France by her American husband, she set out in the early 1960s to teach culinary arts to home cooks.  By the year 2000 she was running a celebrated cooking school in Napa Valley for professional chefs who came from all over the country to learn at her side, had eight books to her credit and had hosted a cooking show on PBS from 1984 to 1991.  Now 81 she lives in Vermont.

Betty Fussell.  Fussell understood early on that people have deeply personal responses to food, and that writing about food would be a significant contribution in the realm of American culture.  The list of publications her work has appeared in speaks to the quality of her prose, which is wonderfully vivid and well researched.  Her 2008 book, “Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef”, was well ahead of the pendulum swing toward renewed interest in that topic.  By next year she hopes to finish her 12^th book, “How to Cook a Coyote,” which has to do with being at the bottom of the predator chain.  She will turn 85 in July.

Study Links Volatile Corn Prices to Climate Change

Sarah Hills

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/Study-links-volatile-corn-prices-to-climate-change/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GIN_FNUd&c=vlyaQkNPK93buOr42nB7jUGz5ByeAVbE

April 25, 2012

Corn price volatility is predicted to increase sharply over the next 30 years, with climate change the leading factor, according to a study published in April in the journal Nature Climate Change. Commodity price volatility is influenced by a number of factors, such as oil prices, but researchers from Stanford and Purdue universities reports that “US corn price volatility exhibits higher sensitivity to near-term climate change than to energy policy influences or agriculture-energy market integration.”  The study, called “Response of corn markets to climate volatility under alternative energy futures”, focuses on the US.  But Thomas Hertel, a distinguished professor of agricultural economics and study co-author, says that such factors are being echoed across the globe.

Over 100 CA Chefs Sign Anti-Foie Gras Ban Petition

Paula Forbes

http://eater.com/archives/2012/04/30/over-100-ca-chefs-sign-antifoie-gras-ban-petition.php

April 30, 2012

California Foie Gras Ban: Local Chefs and Activists Fight for Repeal

Robin Wilkes

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/california-foie-gras-ban_n_1466066.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 30, 2012

The Coalition for Humane and Ethical Farming Standards (CHEFS) delivered a charter to California State Assembly Speaker John Perez on Monday urging legislators to reconsider Senate Bill 1520, California’s controversial ban on foie gras that will take effect on July 1.  More than 100 of California’s most famous chefs signed the charter, including Thomas Keller, Vinny Dotolo, Tyler Florence, Michael Mina, Michael Chiarello and Mark Gold.  One notable signature that was missing was that of Wolfgang Puck.  Writes the LA based chef, “The science is so clear that countries throughout Europe, as well as in Israel—which used to be the world’s No. 4 producer—have banned force-feeding for foie gras.”  In the charter, CHEFS proposed that foie gras remain legal, but suggested a number of strict regulations including hand feeding, a cage-free environment by 2017, regular visits from animal health care professionals, USDA inspections at the time of slaughter and living conditions that maximize mobility and comfort and minimize stress.  The ban, approved in 2004 by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, prohibits force-feeding birds, a regular practice in the foie gras industry.  Force-feeding engorges the liver of a duck or goose by pumping feed into the bird’s esophagus via a metal tube.  Animal rights groups have criticized the practice.  When the ban was signed into effect, producers were given a window to come up with alternative production methods, but the window closes on July 1.

Transatlantic Beef Trade War Comes to End

Nathan Gray

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Business/Transatlantic-beef-trade-war-comes-to-end/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GIN_FNUd&c=vlyaQkNPK90fIIKUNW4CDpEyuYn9U38J

April 30, 2012

A deal between the Council of Europe, the USA and Canada will see the long dispute over the presence of hormones in imported beef come to an end. The US and the EU have engaged in a long-standing and acrimonious trade dispute over the EU’s decision to ban the import of meat treated with certain hormones.  The EU said the decision to ban such products was due to perceived health risks and a lack of evidence for their safety.  All of the banned hormones were licensed for use in the US and in Canada.  In response, the US and Canada imposed duties on some products originating in member states such as Roquefort cheese, chocolates, jams and fresh truffles.  The new proposals will allow the US and Canada to boost their imports of hormone-free beef into the UE by 28,200 to 48,200 tons by August of this year—while the EU is allowed to keep its ban on imports of hormone-treated beef.  The US and Canada have already suspended duties on the previously ‘blacklisted’ products.

Fast Food TV Ad Familiarity Linked with Obesity in New Study

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/fast-food-tv-ads-obesity_n_1465157.html?ref=food

April 30, 2012

A new study by the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that young people who recognize fast-food brands when certain cues are erased—like McDonald’s golden arches and KFC’s logo—are twice as likely to be obese as those who recognized only a few.  Participants in a national sample of 3,342 youths aged 15 to 23 were shown 20 still images culled form television ads for top fast food restaurants.  Brands were digitally removed form the images, and individuals were asked if they remembered seeing the ad, if they liked it and if they could name the restaurant brand.  According to a release from the study:

Results showed that about 18 percent of participants surveyed were overweight, and 15 percent were obese.  The percentage of youths who were obese was significantly higher among those who recognized more ads than those who recognized few ads (17 percent vs. 8.3 percent).  Even after controlling for the variables listed above, youths who recognized many ads were more than twice as likely to be obese compared with those who recognized few ads.

The researchers were quick to note, however, that more research is necessary to fully understand the relationship between fast food and obesity.

London Olympics 2012: UK Doctors Blast McDonalds’ Sponsorship

Maria Cheng

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/london-olympics-sponsor-mcdonalds-doctors-blast_n_1467109.html?ref=food&ir=Food

LONDON—McDonald’s is a sponsor for the London Olympics—and a British doctors’ group says that’s sending the wrong message in a country with ballooning obesity.  The fast-food giant will soon be opening its largest franchise in the world, a two-story cathedral-like restaurant that seats 1,500 customers, at London’s Olympic Park.  McDonald’s will be the only restaurateur allowed to sell brand-name food at the games and there will also be a separate McDonald’s within the athletes’ village—in addition to three others at the Olympic Park.  Alongside McDonald’s, Coca-Cola has the exclusive right to sell non-alcoholic drinks at Olympic venues.  Heineken has been named the games’ official beer.  Terence Stephenson, a spokesman for the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges, said, “It’s very sad that an event that celebrates the very best of athletic achievements should be sponsored by companies contributing to the obesity problem and unhealthy habits.”  The group is calling upon the British government to restrict advertising by McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Heineken during the Olympic Games in London (July 27 to August 12).  But that’s unlikely to happen.  In a statement, a spokesman for the organizing committee said,  “Sponsors provide a huge amount of the funding required to stage the games.  Without our partners such as McDonald’s, the games simply wouldn’t happen.”

Seasoning Tax.  Will Marking Up Sugar and Salt Make Us Healthier?

Alice Park

Time Magazine

May 7, 2012

In recent years, health officials have turned to the tariff system to curb public consumption of fat, sugar, salt and more.  With the obesity epidemic now claiming 34% of US adults, legislators are proposing taxes on the added sugar in products like sodas and the salt in snack foods like potato chips in the hopes that higher costs will change people’s eating habits and improve their health.  At least that’s the theory.  But while so called sin taxes may fuel funds to fight obesity, they may not necessarily have the desired effect on our eating habits.  Even if a salt tax helped people avoid buying chips, for example, they might make up for the sodium deficit with extra helpings from the saltshaker at the table.  Which is why sin taxes have traditionally worked better for the tax taker than the sinner.

Salmonella Outbreak Widens, 200 Sickened in 21 States

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2012/04/salmonella-outbreak-widens-200-sickened-in-21-sta.aspx

April 30, 2012

ATLANTA—The CDC announced a second strain of Salmonella has been identified in a multistate outbreak most likely caused by contaminated frozen raw yellowfin tuna product commonly used in sushi.  The latest CDC report confirmed 200 people in 21 states and the District of Columbia have been sickened by Salmonella Bareilly and Salmonella Nchanga.  Earlier this month, Moon Marine USA Corp. (also known as MMI) of Cupertino, CA, issued a recall of frozen raw yellowfin tuna product.  Investigation is ongoing into individual food items and their sources.

Researchers Warn of Irreversible Tooth Damage from Sports and Energy Drinks

Nathan Gray

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Researchers-warn-of-irreversible-tooth-damage-from-sports-and-energy-drinks/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GIN_FNUd&c=vlyaQkNPK90qDqK7RoFMWLJok398WJUN

May 2, 2012

A study published in General Dentistry reports that an “alarming” increase in the consumption of sports and energy drinks, especially among adolescents, is causing irreversible damage to teeth.  Researchers led by Dr. Poonam Jain from Southern Illinois University, USA report that the high acidity levels in the drinks erode the glossy outer layer of enamel on the tooth.  Jain revealed that damage to the tooth enamel was evident after just five days of exposure to sports or energy drinks—though energy drinks showed twice as much damage to teeth as sports drinks.

E. Coli Testing: USDA To Speed Up Investigations of Deadly Bacteria In Meat

Sam Hananel

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/e-coli-testing-beef-usda_n_1471533.html?ref=food

WASHINGTON—The government plans to speed up the process for tracking E. coli in meat, a move that will help authorities more quickly find the source of bacteria outbreaks and hasten recalls of tainted food.  The new Agriculture Department program announced Wednesday would begin tracing the source of potentially contaminated ground beef as soon as there is an initial positive test.  Once a batch of meat tests “presumptively positive” for E. coli, the USDA can immediately begin efforts to link products, companies and the pathogen to the source supplier and any other processors that received the contaminated meat.  Current procedures required USDA officials to wait until additional testing confirms E. Coli before starting their investigation. Under the new process, government officials could trace the source of E. coli 24 to 48 hours sooner.

School Breakfast, the New Food Fight

Mark Bittman

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/school-breakfast-the-new-food-fight/?partner=rss&emc=rss

May 1, 2012

Of the two edges of the sword of America’s malnutrition—hunger and obesity—the latter is by far the more prevalent and deadly.  In New York City perhaps 2 percent of children have “very low food security,” which might mean vitamin deficiencies, a day without food, a loss of weight, a month of being hungry.  Meanwhile 40 percent of New York’s public school students are overweight or obese, and 2,000 New Yorkers die each year from obesity or overweight-related conditions.  All of those deaths are preventable.  No one should belittle even a little hunger, but this why-do-we-even-have-to-talk-about-it comparison of it and obesity is germane because the city’s Health Department recently suspended expansion of the Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC) program, which serves free breakfast in the classrooms of 381 of 1,750 public schools.  But the school system already offers every kid, all 1.1 million of them regardless of income, the opportunity to have free breakfast in the school cafeteria.  BIC simply puts that breakfast on every kid’s desk.  The ostensible rationale for BIC is not to provide free school breakfasts to food-insecure kids, since such a program already exists, but to reduce the stigma of going to claim breakfast in the cafeteria.  If my memory serves me, the stigma of being an overweight 8-year-old is at least as bad as having skipped breakfast at home and having to get it at school.  A serious program for healthy kids might offer occasional snacks of apples, carrots and celery instead of boxed cereal or a cheese sticks, both common BIC options.  Part of why that doesn’t happen is because perversely named “specialty crops” (you call them “fruits and vegetables”) aren’t supported by the Department of Agriculture in the same way as commodity crops like corn.  Fruits and vegetables in the classrooms would benefit only the kids.  The people who really benefit from BIC are the companies that market that food and that stand to increase their sales by billions of dollars if BIC were to become a national mandate.  And though the work of anti-hunger organizations like Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is essential, some of their financing comes from the likes of ConAgra, Kraft, Tyson and the National Dairy Council.  This is complicated, but the vast majority of kids do not need more calories, and the real battles should be to subsidize healthy food, discourage junk, eradicate junk food advertising to children, preserve and expand beneficial food assistance programs, and have food policy determined by experts and citizens rather than by corporations and the elected officials who are in their pockets.

Because Explorers Need New Horizons

Jeff Gordinier

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/dining/at-wd-50-wylie-dufresne-is-shaking-up-the-entire-menu.html?_r=2&ref=dining

May 1, 2012

Wylie Dufresne is about to make some drastic changes at his Lower East Side restaurant WD-50.  At age 41, Dufresne, a chef whose entire career has been built on exploration, theory and risk now plans to administer something of a scorched-earth shock at WD-50.  Starting on May 10, every item on the restaurant’s current menu will, as if subjected to a chemistry experiment, evaporate.  “We’ve scratched the whole game plan,” Mr. Dufresne said, as he described the changes ahead for this nine-year-old Manhattan vortex of avant-garde cooking. “We’ve never in the history of the restaurant flipped the entire menu.”  “I’m doing this for creative reasons.”  In essence Mr. Dufresne explained he and his highly skilled, intensely collaborative team were at risk of winding up in a state of suspended animation.  Being tethered to older dishes can make it harder for people to notice that you are still exploring new territory.  And exploring new territory has always been his core mission.  He intends to do even more of it by stripping away the á la carte menu at WD-50 and offering diners a choice between two tasting menus.  The primary one, priced at $155, will consist of a dozen or so courses, each of which will not only be new to the restaurant, but, as is usually the case with cuisine de Wylie, also new to human civilization itself.  This spring, in the first version of that menu, diners will find red-hued noodles fashioned form lobster roe, and shiny-skinned lamb sweetbreads in puddles of a sauce made of buttermilk and nasturtium blossoms.  “One of his primary joys is really challenging his clientele,” said Mark Ladner, the chef at Del Posto and one of Mr. Dufresne’s closest comrades in the New York cooking scene.  “There’s art, and there’s commerce, and Wylie prefers to pursue more of the art than the commerce, which is admirable,” Mr. Ladner said.  Wylie seems to know that in the past he might have laid on the “mad scientist” shtick a bit too thick, and that not every experiment resulted in triumph.  Ask him about the new menu, and the chef will still gamely explain how he and his crew use vacuum pressure to press the essence of pistachio oil directly into pores of zucchini.  The science hasn’t gone away.  But you may notice that Mr. Dufresne is a tad more muted about it.

Taste for Pork May Be Determined by Genes, Study Finds

Rachel Tepper

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/pork-genes_n_1472431.html?ref=food

Researchers from Duke University Medical Center, Monell Chemical Senses Center and three Norwegian institutions asked people with different variations of an odor receptor gene to rate the taste and smell of several pork meat samples.  The particular receptor is sensitive to androstenone, a steroid similar to testosterone found in male pigs.  Those with one version of the gene rated the pork samples more favorably in taste and smell than others, leading scientists to conclude that genetics play a significant role in how we perceive what’s delicious.  Participants had wildly different reactions to androstenone.  While some subjects are insensitive to androstenone, others are highly sensitive and will react negatively upon exposure.  Androstenone in meat has been associated with flavors described as urine-like, etching (ammonia), pungent and sour.  The study also cites a recent survey that identifies 39 percent of Norwegian consumers as sensitive to the compound, with negative reactions to higher levels of it.  But most people in North America and Europe don’t notice androstenone at all, because male pigs are usually castrated and the concentration of the compound is quite low as a result.  The researchers suggest meat with less androstenone might sell better in the marketplace.  Still, taste can’t be explained by one single variable.

Edible, Water-Soluble Wrapping: Is This the Food Packaging of the Future?

Chris Perez of Apartment Therapy

http://www.thekitchn.com/is-this-the-food-packaging-of-the-future-170506?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+apartmenttherapy/thekitchn+(TK+Channel:+Main)

May 1, 2012

Food packaging contributes to a lot of the waste in our homes, and it’s something most of us just accept.  Monosol is aiming to change that by offering edible, water-soluble wrapping.  Monosol is something in between the edible wrapper we get wrapped around a Coolhaus sammie—our favorite ice cream spot in Austin—and the soluble detergent pacs you’ve likely used in your dishwasher.  The new packaging technology–composed of FDA-approved edible polymers that have an undetectable taste and smell—is ideal for items we dissolve in water anyway.  Monosol is expected to hit the market soon, so it may not be long before we start to see the wrapping in our grocery store in products like hot chocolate, instant coffee, oatmeal, pasta and more.

Ghostwriter Dustup

Michael Ruhlman

http://ruhlman.com/2012/04/ghostwriter-dustup/

April 12, 2012

A lot of my friends emailed me last month asking what I thought about the stink bomb Julia Moskin dropped on the cookbook world in her bitter account of chefs not writing their own books (or sometimes not even reading them) and the dustup that followed.  So this is for my friends who asked.  There are varying tiers of ghostwriting, and I’ve done it on many of them, so much so that I can’t do it anymore.  There’s pure ghostwriting: talking to a chef, crafting his or her thoughts into readable prose that sounds like the chef (and hopefully getting at least some acknowledgement within the book).  Then there’s ghostwriting in which the writer, who, from hard work and often actual experience on the line and in the field, helps to shape the material, enhancing it with his or her own hard-earned intelligence.  This kind of writer deserves to be on the title page of the book, if not on the cover.  I have one thing to say about chef cookbooks and ghostwriting or collaborating and where the line is, and it’s important: I am aware of only one, one, chef cookbook that was written word by careful word by the chef herself in the solitude of her home.  Judy Rodgers.  Her Zuni Café Cookbook is fabulous.  If there is any other chef out there who has written every word of his or her cookbook, please email me, as I’d love to add your name to the list and buy your book.  (Update: two people have commented that Mollie Katzen wrote and illustrated the phenomenally successful Moosewood Cookbook, presumably while cheffing at the collectively-owned, Ithaca, NY, restaurant in 1977, long before the celebrity chef era.)  My career as a “ghostwriter” began with The French Laundry Cookbook, which, being a reporter, I reported.  I hung out.  I interviewed purveyors.  I spent hours in the kitchen.  I suggested I could learn the fish station.  I wrote the whole thing in the third person.  At our first meeting Thomas Keller said, “I want this book to tell stores.”  I said, “That’s my line of work.”  And that’s what I did: I wrote a completely unconventional third-person cookbook.  The editor insisted it must be in Thomas’s voice.  It must be coming from him directly.  So I rewrote it–the whole thing.  Thomas and I talked about cooking and I thought, that is fabulous, we need to highlight this and call out that!  Tools of refinement (Thomas’s very words!)  I’m not sure he was aware how special it all was, but me, just out of culinary school and a brief stint on a grill station at a popular Cleveland restaurant, I thought, mother lode. Thomas’s knowledge and experience combined with my recognizing what needed to be out there.  Then it was mercilessly, savagely edited.  Good call for the book from Bramson on all counts, right decisions made in every way.  Susie Heller did all the recipes and we get billing on the title page.  Thomas is second to none. Period.  My response to Moskin’s piece?  We stay in situations with our own consent.  You don’t like it, leave.  If it ends badly, learn from it and share what you know. Period.  Which is what Moskin did.  So, thanks to her for that.  My advice to young writers lured into writing a cookbook “with” an up-and-coming-hot-new-restaurant-chef-in-discussions-with-FN-repped-by-WM with the promise of more and better work, only to find out the chief is egomaniacal and disrespectful: Unbuckle and roll because that car’s on its way off the cliff.  Bottom line to young writers and chefs: Work hard with good people. They’re out there in abundance.

Oregon Health Officials Suspect Two More Illnesses Linked to Outbreak of Raw Milk from Wilsonville Farm

Lynne Terry, The Oregonian

http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2012/04/oregon_health_officials_add_tw.html

April 30, 2012

More Illnesses Linked to Raw Milk from Oregon Farm

Gretchen Goetz

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/05/more-illnesses-linked-to-raw-milk-from-or-farm/#.T6LLzistjWE.email

May 1, 2012

Oregon health officials suspect two more illnesses are part of a raw milk outbreak traced nearly three weeks ago to a farm near Wilsonville.  William Keene, senior epidemiologist with Oregon Public Health, said the two adults had both consumed raw milk from Foundation Farm, including one person who continued to drink it after being warned about the outbreak.  Keene said the two had contracted infections from two different pathogens—Campylobacter and Cryptosporidium—making 21 likely cases in the outbreak.  Nineteen others were infected with E. coli.  One of the worst foodborne pathogens, E. coli O157:H7 was on rectal swabs from two of the farm’s four cows.  Milk and manure from the farm also tested positive for the same bacteria.  But as no testing was done for Campylobacter or Cryptosporidium, epidemiologists cannot say whether these latest cases can definitely be traced to the farm.  According to Keene, Cryptosporidium and Campylobacter repeatedly turn up in raw milk, along with other harmful bacteria.  Foundation Farm had a herd-share operation for a least a year, selling parts of cows to 48 families.  In return, they had regular access to the raw milk.  Owners of the farm provided Oregon health officials with contact information for the families and advised them of the outbreak.  Just under 3 percent of Oregonians drink raw milk, according to a survey by Oregon Public Health.  They tend to be passionate about it, despite public warnings.

The Meat Mystique.  A Food Lawyer Comments on Regulating Fraud in America

Jason Foscolo

Meatpaper Magazine

Spring 2012

In 2007, a large Midwestern supermarket chain stood accused of intentionally misleading several hundred tons of beef over a period of five years.  In a coordinated campaign designed to lie to its customers, several butchers employed by the chain relabeled low-cost generic beef as “Black Angus,” a breed-specific, premium-pricing claim that fraudulently drew millions of dollars form its unwitting customers.  Such wide-scale frauds are easy to pull off because of how we buy and eat meat.  Commodity production strips meat of distinct characteristics, morphing living tissue into interchangeable cuts of anonymous protein.  Through the cellophane, a typical shopper can identify species only: beef, chicken, pork.  According to a recent study by the nonprofit Oceana conservation group anywhere from 25% to 75% of fish sold as filet or as processed product has been intentionally mislabeled in order to capture a premium price.  Meat fraud hurts consumers once because they do not get to experience what they pay for.  A fraudulent sale hurts producers of premium meats twice: through the fraudulent sale itself and through the loss of a customer’s confidence in the quality of the product.  Meat fraud has greater relevance now that farmers are diversifying their products in order to capitalize on the increasing curiosity of consumers.  Marketing distinctive breeds of meat is a way for independent ranchers and farmers to stand apart from the commodity producers that grow the vast majority of protein.  From the prospective of one of these independent producers, meat fraud is agricultural robbery.  Small-scale farmers and ranchers have to invest time and money in order to be different, and maintaining high esteem for a breed is the only way to cover the higher costs of alternative husbandry.  Producers will never recoup the increased expenses of niche production if a breed cannot maintain the mystique that justifies the higher price.  Federal labeling regulations can help producers build and maintain some of this aura.  In order to make breed-specific marketing claims, the seller must seek preapproval form the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS).  Breed claims must be substantiated by documents like certificates of pedigree or veterinary records.  The system is not crook-proof.  Documents can be forged.  Meat can be relabeled after it leaves the abattoir.  Investigating and prosecuting these regulatory crimes is a low priority.  Breeders associations have stepped into the breach where government regulation falls short of protecting a breed’s reputation.  But only the most well organized associations manage to take the step from encouraging better breeding practices to preventing counterfeiting.  The American Angus Association uses the widely known “Certified Angus Beef” program to create a category of premium quality within the Angus breed.  Unlike simple breed names, the business practice of culling and premium branding a meat product can be trademarked.  “Certified Angus Beef” works a lot like a free-floating brand.  Beef is big business, but niche-market livestock species also have their own certification programs.  Like Certified Angus, certified Berkshire pork is analyzed and graded for fat content and genetics at the point of slaughter.  The Berkshire Breeders Association tracks the flow of product from farm to grill, licensing processors, packers, wholesalers and retailers to participate in the premium pipeline.  The Berkshire program places a unique emphasis on the 100% pedigree of the pork that enters its pipeline.  Product counterfeiting is a crime that is as old as the hills, but a transitioning food culture has given meat fraud new relevance.  The best chance the consumer has of getting the label to tell the truth about the product behind the cellophane is to buy into a discretely pipelined, certified brand.  Or you could just buy your meat with the head still on.

50 Most Notable Drinks of the Moment

Imbibe Magazine

May/June 2012

There’s always something tasty brewing in the world of drinks, and we’re giving a special shout-out to 50 of our favorite libations of the moment.

1. Sanbitter.  Alcohol-free aperitif.  Bottled by San Pellegrino since 1961.
2. Serious Cider.  A “real cider” craze has been sweeping the nation.
3. Lagrein.  A little-known red and rosé wine grape grown in northern Italy’s Alto Adige region–dark yet delicate, savory and fruity.
4. Cognac.  Making a comeback one hundred years after it was last en vogue behind the bar.
5. The Buffalo Trace Single Oak Project.  Buffalo Trace Distillery hand-selected 96 unique American Oak trees and cut each one in half to create 192 distinctive wood samples, each fashioned into a barrel and filled with whiskey.
6. Living Drinks.  Most high-end grocery store refrigerated beverage cases offer a wall of fermented kombucha teas of every herbal or juicy persuasion.
7. Canned Craft Brews.  Canned craft brews have been slowly making their way to the masses over the past few years, but suddenly, that trickle has turned into a wave.
8. New Quinquinas. An aperitif-style wine flavored with the bitter bark from the cinchona tree.
9. Wine under $10.
10. Oolongs from Naivetea.  Oolongs sourced from small-production tea farms across Taiwan.
11. Coffee Liqueurs.  Small-batch coffee liqueurs.
12. Blueberry Soda.
13. The wines of Eastern Europe.  Vintners in Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, and even Bulgaria and Serbia produce top notch bottles.
14. Mead.  A new audience is discovering the ancient honey wine and boutique meadery operations opening across the country.
15. Anything by Arianna Occhipinti.  She is a force when it comes to natural, organic and biodynamic bottlings.
16. Low Alcohol Cocktails.
17. Amaretto.  Bartenders are rediscovering the liqueur as a cocktail ingredient.
18. Afrique Coffee.  Some of the profits go back to the African coffee-growing communities.
19. Sudachi Juice.  Native to Japan, and similar in flavor to the Mexican lime but with added notes of cumin, lemongrass and white pepper, it makes a great match in cocktails with tequila and gin.
20. Domestic Cab Francs.  Cab Franc is the signature red wine grape of France’s Loire Valley and an integral part of Bordeaux blends.
21. Japanese iced Coffee.  Cold brewed.
22. Carbonated Cocktails.  Fun with fizz.
23. Gin Rickey. A simple mixture of gin, soda and fresh lime juice.  Dates back to the late 19^th century.
24. Txakolina (pronounced chalk-o-leena).  Summer white, traditional peasant wine from Spain’s northern Basque region.
25. Bird Rock’s 50/50 Blend.  The blend combines regular and decaf beans for the great flavor with only half the caffeine.
26. Café Cortado.  Native to Spain.  Roughly equal parts espresso and steamed milk.
27. Sparkling Red Wines.  A diverse and underrated category of wines.
28. Blended Cocktails.  When you get back to basics, a good blended drink is nothing to be ashamed of.
29. Real Peach Brandy.
30. Boozy Milkshakes.
31. Licorice Teas.  Made from the root of the licorice legume.  Dates back centuries and across cultures.
32. Swizzles, Smashes and Cobblers.  Old-school cocktails to keep us cool.
33. Coffee form Papua New Guinea Baroida.  Baroida farm has been in the Colbran family since the 1960s and has quickly become a darling of US roasters and competitive baristas since 2010.
34. Drinking Vinegars.  Vinegar-based syrups (AKA shrubs).
35. Canadian Whisky.  Until recently Canadian whiskeys have flown under the radar.
36. Honey-Infused Spirits.  We’re seeing more honey-sweetened spirits than ever before.
37. Fruit Beer.  Tart, acidic fruits work great in barrel-aged and wild sour beers to accentuate and add perceived sweetness to those beers.
38. Jam Cocktails.  Jam as a cocktail element is an ingredient that’s popping up more frequently on bar menus across the country.
39. Bottled Cold-Brews.
40. Non-Infusion Limoncello.  Instead of infusing lemon peels, the whole lemon is suspended over the liquor, a style that was popular during World War II.
41. The Beers of Brouwerij Bockor.  A small family-run brewery founded in 1892 and passed down from father to son for five generations located in the rural village of Bellegem, Belgium.
42. Navy-Strength Gin.  19^th Century British Royal Navy ordered its gin to be strong enough that if it were to spill on a ship’s gunpowder supply, the powder would still fire.
43. Charbay Release R5.  Napa Valley’s Charbay Distillery has run the beer through its copper pot still to make a new kind of whiskey.
44. Rhum Agricole.  Rum made with fresh-pressed sugarcane.
45. Summer Punches.
46. Gluten-Free Beer.  Beer without barley or wheat.
47. Frozen Hot Chocolate.  Blended, frozen hot chocolate reported to have been served in the White House nearly 60 years ago.
48. Fresh Ginger Ale by Bruce Cost.  Now he’s bottling the stuff.
49. Better Mocktails.
50. Wallet-Friendly Scotch Whiskies.

Hot subject this week:  Mad Cow Disease in the U.S.

April 24, 2012:

Case of Mad Cow Disease Is Found in U.S.

Stephanie Strom

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/health/case-of-mad-cow-disease-is-found-in-us.html?_r=1

Mad Cow Disease Confirmed in California Dairy Cow, USDA Says

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/mad-cow-disease-california-usda_n_1449871.html?ref=food

Mad Cow Disease Found in California: What Are the Risks to Humans?

Amanda Chan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/mad-cow-disease-variant-creutzfeldt-jakob-disease_n_1450195.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 25, 2012:

Mad Cow Disease Discovery In California Was Stroke of Luck

Tracie Cone and Gosia Wozniacka (AP)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/mad-cow-disease-discovery_n_1451645.html?ref=food

South Korea Retailers Halt US Beef Sales Over Mad Cow

Youkyung Lee (AP)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/south-korea-mad-cow-beef_n_1451735.html?ref=food

USDA Confirms Mad Cow Disease in CA Dairy Cow

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2012/04/usda-confirms-mad-cow-disease-found-in-ca-dairy-c.aspx

April 26, 2012:

Mad Cow Disease Case Won’t Impact Processors—American Meat Institute

Mark Astley

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/Mad-cow-disease-case-won-t-impact-processors-American-Meat-Institute/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK91TSzU8Q%2BVEeBVeJQMKE0MC

April 27, 2012:

Mad Cow Disease: Holstein with BSE Was Euthanized after Going Lame

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/holstein-mad-cow-disease_n_1458550.html?ref=food

The US Department of Agriculture announced on Tuesday that it had identified a case of mad cow disease in a dairy cow in central California.  The cow “was never presented for human consumption, so it at no time presented a risk to the food supply or human health,” John Clifford, chief veterinary officer at the USDA, said in a statement.  Dr. Clifford also noted that milk does not transmit BSE. The New York Times reported that the animal had been picked up from the farm and taken to a rendering plant, which noticed some of the signs of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and notified USDA inspectors, Dr. Clifford said in a brief interview.  A conflicting report by writers for AP said that the cow had died at one of the region’s hundreds of dairies, but hadn’t exhibited outward symptoms of the disease.  But when the animal arrived at the facility with a truckload of other dead cows on April 18, its 30-month-plus age (10 years, 7 months) and fresh corpse made her eligible for USDA testing.  “We randomly pick a number of samples throughout the year, and this just happened to be one that we randomly sampled,” Baker Commodities executive vice president Dennis Luckey said.  “It showed no signs” of disease.  An updated report on HuffingtonPost.com on April 27, said that the California dairy cow found to have mad cow disease had been euthanized at the Dairy after it became lame and started lying down, federal officials revealed in their latest update on the discovery.  The samples went to the food safety lab at the University of California on April 18.  By April 19, markers indicated the cow could have BSE.  It was sent to the USDA lab in Iowa for further testing.  On Tuesday, federal agriculture officials announced the findings: the animal had atypical BSE.  That means it didn’t get the disease from eating infected cattle feed, said John Clifford, the Agriculture Department’s chief veterinary officer.  Atypical BSE cannot be transmitted by contact among cows, and experts say it’s unclear whether this rare type of BSE ever has been transmitted from a cow to a human by eating meat.  According to Dr. Clifford the Agriculture Department is sharing its lab results with international animal health officials in Canada and England who will review the test results.  Federal and California officials will further investigate the case. State and federal agriculture officials plan to test other cows that lived in the same feeding herd as he infected bovine, said Michael Marsh, chief executive of Western United Dairymen, who was briefed on the plan.  They also plan to test cows born at around the same time the diseased cow was.  According to the Wall Street Journal, US cattle futures plummeted to a 10-month low after USDA confirmed the case of mad cow disease.  June contracts fell to the lowest point since the contract began trading.  Major export markets for US beef, including Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Canada and the European Union (EU), have promised to continue to import the product.  However, two South Korean retailers have stopped sales of US beef and Indonesia has temporarily suspended shipments.    South Korea’s No. 2 and No. 3 supermarket chains, Home Plus and Lotte Mart, said they halted sales of US beef to calm worries among South Koreans.  Within hours Home Plus had resumed sales and cited a government announcement of increased inspections.  Lotte kept is suspension in place.  South Korea imports US beef from cows less than 30 months old.  Japan, the world’s third-largest consumer of US beef and veal, restricts its imports of US beef to cows of 20 months or younger.  But the latest mad cow case may jeopardize moves to expand American beef sales in Taiwan, where the government recently sparked protests by allowing sales of US beef containing ractopamine, a growth additive.  There was no immediate response from China’s government.  Beijing no longer has an outright ban on US beef but exporters have been unable to overcome continued barriers involving inspection of the meat.  According to the CDC in 2011 there were only 29 worldwide cases of BSE, a dramatic decline and 99% reduction since the peak in 1992 of 37,311.  Prior to the most recent discovery, there have been three confirmed cases of BSE in cows in the US—in a Canadian-born cow in 2003 in Washington state, in 2005 in Texas and in 2006 in Alabama.  Both the 2005 and 2006 cases were also atypical varieties of the disease, USDA officials said.  The mad cow cases that plagued England in the early 1990s were caused when livestock routinely were fed protein supplements that included ground cow spinal columns and brain tissue, which can harbor the disease.

Whole Foods Seafood Ban: Unsustainable Fish No Longer Sold Include Skate and Atlantic Cods

Rachel Tepper

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/whole-foods-seafood-ban-sustainable-fish_n_1446071.html?ref=topbar

April 23, 2012

A Ban on Some Seafood Has Fishermen Fuming

Abby Goodnough

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/to-new-england-fishermen-another-bothersome-barrier.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120422

April 21, 2012

As of Earth Day 2012, the organic and natural food superstore Whole Foods no longer carries fish considered unsustainable.  The sustainable seafood rating systems used by Whole Foods were devised by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch and Blue Ocean Institute.  The ratings are based on how abundant a species is, how quickly it reproduces and whether the catch method damages its habitat.  Whole Foods has already stopped selling orange roughy, shark, Bluefin tuna and most marlin.  Starting Sunday, gray sole and skate, common catches in the Gloucester and other New England ports, will no longer appear in the grocery chain’s artfully arranged fish cases.  Atlantic cod, another New England staple, will be sold only if it is not caught by trawlers, which drag nets across the ocean floor, a much-used method.  The company had originally planned to stop selling “red-rated” fish next year but moved up its deadline.  The other fish it will no longer carry are Atlantic halibut, octopus, sturgeon, tautog, turbot, imported wild shrimp, some species of rockfish, and tuna and swordfish caught in certain areas or by certain methods.  Although the new policy will affect fishermen nationwide, the reaction from Gloucester and other New England ports may be the unhappiest.  New England has more overfished stocks than any other region, according to federal monitors, and its fishing industry has bridled—and struggled to survive—under strict regulations.  Some question the need for grocery stores to reject certain American-caught fish when the government has already imposed its own conservation measures.  Many of the nation’s fishermen now operate under federally created systems that allocate a yearly quota of fish.  And for some stocks, the quotas are being reduced; fishermen are facing a 22 percent cut in the amount of Gulf of Maine cod they can catch.  In New England, some areas are closed to fishing for part or all of the year; in others, only certain kinds of gear can be used.  “We have the strictest management regime in the world,” said David Goethel, a fisherman from Hampton, NH and a member of the New England Fishery Management Council.  “So using the word ‘sustainable,’ maybe it looks good in your advertising.  But, without being too harsh, it means absolutely nothing.”  But Ellen Pikitch, director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, said “Whole Foods is setting a good example by offering fish from relatively well-managed fisheries.  It’s too bad that more New England fish don’t qualify, but over time, such market forces should help bring these fish back—both in the ocean and to the Whole Foods seafood counter.”  Other chains are making similar moves.  But in Gloucester, anyway, some fishermen are taking the Whole Foods decision more personally.

Would You Like a Bad Farm Bill—Or a Terrible One

Twilight Greenaway

http://grist.org/farm-bill/would-you-like-a-bad-farm-bill-or-a-terrible-one/

April 23, 2012

Senate Panel Approves Five-Year Farm Bill

Erik Wasson

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/224057-senate-panel-approves-farm-bill-

April 26, 2012

The Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday approved a new five-year farm bill over the objections of Southern senators in a 60 to 5 final vote.  Four Southern Senators voted against it supporting the rice and peanut lobbies who strongly oppose the farm subsidy changes in the bill arguing that it leaves their producers without a safety net.  Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) voted against the bill expressing concerns about cuts to food stamp funding in the legislation.  Overall the bill cuts $24.7 billion in funding over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  It eliminates traditional direct payment farm subsidies and creates new crop insurance plans to reduce risk to farmers.  Democratic aides say Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has committed to bringing the farm bill to the floor even if House leaders stall on it. It’s nothing compared to what the Republican-led House of Representatives is cooking up.  (Both sides of the bipartisan Ag Committee are supposed to start working toward a consensus during a mark-up session on April 25-26.)  The House’s version of the bill would cut $180 billion from farm bill programs over the next decade.  According to the Associated Press, that would include a whopping “$134 billion, or an average $13.4 billion a year, from the food stamp program.”  The current bill expires in September, and a final draft must be put in motion by Memorial Day if we’re going to get any bill this year at all.  These proposed food stamps cuts may just be a way for the GOP to stall or slow down the process.  But if SNAP cuts like this did go through, the impact would be huge: One in six Americans—50 million people—now rely on food stamps.  The GOP’s proposed cuts may make the Senate farm bill draft appear moderate by comparison, but both are a far cry from any of the hopeful versions released by Good Food Movement organizations.  National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), perhaps the closest thing the Good Food Movement has to a lobby, is putting muscle behind two small marker bills that could add some small bright spots to the final 2012 Farm Bill: the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act and our Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act.

US Asparagus Industry, Crushed by Imports, Sees Signs for Strong Year

Shannon Dininny

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/us-asparagus-industry_n_1448375.html?ref=food

April 24, 2012

PASCO, Wash.—Asparagus farmers, crushed for decades by a flood of South American imports, have begun to expand production again in the hope that healthy eating trends and demand for homegrown vegetables will help bolster prices and sales of their stalks.  US asparagus production is still only a third of what it was 25 years ago, thanks in part to a pair of federal policies meant to combat drug trafficking and improve economic trade.  A 1991 law exempted some crops, including asparagus, from tariffs to help Andean countries expand their alternatives to drug crops.  Three years later, the North American Free Trade Agreement gradually reduced taxes on asparagus, boosting shipments from Mexico.  For an industry on the verge of disappearing, 2010 marked a rock-bottom year, said Alan Schreiber of the Washington Asparagus Commission.  But in the past two years, he said, asparagus growers have halted promotions early because demand for fresh asparagus has been so high that it’s all been sold.  To meet that demand, Washington farmers planted more new asparagus fields this year than the state has seen in a decade.  Growers in California are replacing old plants with new ones but don’t expect to add a lot of acres.  Some in the industry credit Americans’ efforts to eat healthier with the increased demand for asparagus.  Others say a price drop caused by a bumper crop in Mexico this winter enticed more people to buy fresh asparagus.  Gary Larsen, a grower near Pasco, Washington, believes the key to the future is in new varieties that allow farmers to grow more on the same amount of land.  But he’s also not convinced the industry is turning around just yet.

Citrus May Be Key to Drinking Water Purification

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2012/04/cirtus-may-be-key-to-drinking-water-purification.aspx

April 18, 2012

BALTIMORE—Water-related disease is a serious concern globally as many countries struggle to access clean drinking water; however, new research published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene suggests the humble lime may provide an inexpensive and quick method to purifying water.  Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have discovered adding lime juice to water treated with a solar disinfection method removes detectable levels of harmful bacteria such as E. coli significantly faster than solar disinfection alone.  One method of using sunlight to disinfect water that is recommended by UNICEF is known as Solar water Disinfection (SODIS), which requires filling 1 or 2 L polyethylene terephthalate (PET plastic) bottles with water and then exposing them to sunlight for at least 6 hours.  In cloudy weather, longer exposure times of up to 48 hours may be necessary to achieve adequate disinfection.  The preliminary results of the Johns Hopkins study show solar disinfection of water combined with citrus could be effective at greatly reducing E. coli levels in just 30 minutes.  In addition, the 30 milliliters of juice per 2 liters of water would not be prohibitively expensive or create an unpleasant flavor.

Farmers’ Marketing. Look Closely. That Box of Produce May Not Be So Local

Salma Abdelnour

Time Magazine

April 16, 2012

Community-supported agriculture (CSA) started as a way to get communities to support local agriculture by asking consumers to pay a few hundred dollars up front for a season’s worth of produce.  As the number of CSAs has increased from two New England farms in 1986 to an estimated 6,000 today, the emphasis has been on local produce—which, in addition to growing the local economy, helps reduce the environmental costs of shipping food long distances from industrial suppliers to stores.  But as companies try to capitalize on the trend of farm shares, the movement risks coming—one might say—full circle.  Some enterprising chain supermarkets are selling produce from their local suppliers in CSA-style boxes, skimming off a margin of the farmers’ sales along the way.  Based in Carnation, Washington, Full Circle initially marketed itself as a CSA.  But as the company expanded—it now delivers food from about 200 farms on the West Coast and Mexico to more than 18,000 customers in four states—critics balked: How can you ship California peaches to Alaska and still call yourself a CSA?  So the company relabeled itself as a “farm-to-table organic delivery service.”  California’s Farm Fresh to You and New York’s Urban Organic likewise traded the local farm share’s direct-to-customer model for a network of farms and doorstep delivery.  That kind of convenience has undeniable appeal.  With traditional farm shares, customers have to show up at a certain and place every week to get their produce, often from the farmers themselves.  Even though for-profit companies like Full Circle see themselves as partners of CSAs, they also make it tempting not to shop directly from local farms.  That’s why nonprofits like Farm Fresh Rhode Island—a group that unites the state’s farmers’ markets—are responding by boxing up produce, free of charge to the growers, and delivering it to customers who don’t have the time (or the transportation) to get to pickup sties.  They also offer boxes that combine produce from local farms that sell at certain farmers’ markets, and all the revenue goes straight to participating farmers.  For people committed to eating local without making the sacrifices farm shares usually entail, it’s getting easier to have your local kale and eat it too.

Monthly Foodie Market Goes Weekly

Atlanta Magazine

May 2012

Last year Michaela Graham moved from San Francisco back to Atlanta, where she previously lived for nearly two decades.  She decided on a professional makeover: foodie entrepreneur.  In February 2011 Graham founded the Atlanta Underground Market, a roving monthly pop-up event that featured more than forty vendors serving dishes as disparate as Filipino chicken adobo, collard green spring rolls, and gingered carrot cupcakes.  The first event held at Sweet Auburn Curb Market attracted more than a thousand attendees, and the numbers stayed steady over a year’s run.  Graham staged the final Market gathering in March so she could concentrate on a more ambitious project.  Last month she launched the Atlanta Nosh, an event held every Sunday at the far north end of Atlantic Station.  More than 100 vendors (mostly caterers, private chefs, and entrepreneurial home cooks) serve a global lineup of specialties, but the array also now includes prepared foods such as jellies, salsas, and mac and cheese packed to take home.  Graham orchestrated a panel of judges, pulled from past Market attendees, to select the culinary mix.

Chestnut Tree Huggers

Sharon Shapiro

Atlanta Magazine

May 2012

Two of Georgia’s most famous farmers—former President Jimmy Carter and Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell, who has a 2,000-acre tree farm in middle Georgia—have become spokespersons for the American Chestnut Foundation.  Since the early 1900s, an Asian fungus has virtually eliminated 200 million acres of American chestnut trees that once ran from Maine to Florida.  Blight-resistant seeds have been created by cross breeding American saplings with disease-resistant Chinese chestnuts—retaining most characteristics of the native species.  Restoration chestnuts have been planted in at least forty Georgia orchards.  Carter and Leavell have both planted seeds, which appear to be thriving.

Cheap Shrimp, Funded by Human Trafficking and Environmental Destruction

Sara Parsons

http://www.good.is/post/cheap-shrimp-funded-by-human-trafficking-and-environmental-destruction/

April 24, 2012

Forget cheeseburgers and French fries—the new American meal of choice is shrimp.  American shrimp consumption has increased by more than 300 percent since 1980.  Most shrimp consumed in the US doesn’t come from American waters.  About 90% of it originates at farms in Thailand, Vietnam, South America, and China.  Using aquaculture to mass-produce the crustaceans has dropped prices to all-time lows, but increasing evidence suggests that the savings to consumers are fueled by human rights abuses and environmental disasters at shrimp farms.  Major seafood suppliers have been accused of engaging in “debt bondage,” a form of human trafficking in which an employer keeps a percentage of employees’ pay to cover expenses incurred by bringing migrant workers to other countries and illegally confiscating passports from 2,000 migrant workers.  Many workers receive only half the pay and wages they were promised, and were not provided with lodging or transportation. In many regions of the world shrimp farmers cut down and remove mangroves in order to construct shrimp ponds.  About 70% of the world’s mangrove forests have disappeared in the last 40 years, due in part to the rise of shrimp aquaculture.   Shrimp farmers regularly feed their crustaceans fishmeal made from ground-up fish, a practice that depletes ocean ecosystems of fish stocks.  It takes about three pounds of fish protein to make one pound of shrimp—a ratio that does not add up to a sustainable food source.  Many shrimp farmers regularly treat their produce with antibiotics and other chemicals in order to prevent infections and disease.  Some shrimp aquaculture operations are taking steps to go greener by cutting back on wild fish feed and using organic feed.  Organizations like the UCFW are making strides toward exposing human rights abuses.  But make no mistake: Shrimp farming has a long way to go to become ethical and sustainable.  Consumers can avoid unsustainable shrimp by purchasing the wild stuff with a higher price tag.

Atlanta Food Truck Park & Market Grand Opening

http://clatl.com/gyrobase/atlanta-food-truck-park-and-market-grand-opening/Event?oid=5219394&mode=print

April 26, 2012

The Atlanta Food Truck Park & Market, 1950 Howell Mill Road, kicks off with a grand-opening event on Thursday, April 26, at 5 p.m. with a variety of entertainment including the city’s best food trucks, live music, bocce ball, cornhole, a kid’s fun zone and more.  Atlanta’s first seven-day-a-week food truck park will be home to food trucks serving breakfast lunch dinner and late night; weekly live entertainment; and a weekend farmers’ market.

FDA NEWS RELEASE

FDA Issues Draft Guidance on Nanotechnology

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm301125.htm#.T5lJUqzwT3k.email

April 20, 2012

Nanotechnology in Food: FDA Proposes Rules for Monitoring Food Safety

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/21/nanotechnology-food-fda_n_1441197.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 20, 2012

Two draft guidance documents that address the use of nanotechnology by the food and cosmetics industries were issued today by the US FDA.  Nanotechnology is an evolving technology that allows scientists to create explore, and manipulate materials on a scale measured in nanometers—particles so small that they can not be seen with a regular microscope.  The technology has a broad range of potential applications, such as the packaging of food or altering the look and feel of cosmetics.  Regulators are proposing that food companies that want to use tiny engineered particles in their packaging may have to provide extra testing data to show the products are safe. FDA has previously stated its position that nanotechnology is not inherently unsafe; however, materials at the nano scale can pose different safety issues than do things that are far larger.  Both guidances encourage manufacturers to consult with the agency before taking their products to market.

Today in Food Finance: Nutella Is Not Broccoli

Rebecca Stropoli

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/today-food-finance-nutella-not-broccoli-162956191.html

April 27, 2012

Nutella Lawsuit: Ferrero Settles Class-Action Suit Over Health Claims for $3 Million

Rachel Tepper

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/nutella-lawsuit_n_1457183.html?ref=food

April 26, 2012

Ferrero, the manufacturer of the chocolate-hazelnut spread, Nutella, has agreed to a $3 million settlement in a lawsuit calling foul on the product’s purported health benefits.  Athena Hohenberg, a San Diego mom who believed that Nutella was a great dietary choice for her four-year-old daughter, filed the lawsuit in February 2011.  Hohenberg claimed the company’s advertising—particularly giving TV-ad viewers the idea that Nutella was part of a nutritious breakfast—led to her erroneous perception.  When she realized the spread is about as healthy as your average Snickers bar, she decided it was time to get even—and get cash.  About $2.5 million of the $3 million will be spread out among class-action claimants.  Ferrero will also have to change its marketing and labeling to clear up any possible misconceptions about the health benefits of its product.

Animal Antibiotics: FDA Asks Drug Companies to Limit Overuse Amid Health Concerns

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/animal-antibiotics-fda-livestock_n_1417655.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 11, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP)—The FDA called on drug companies Wednesday to help limit the use of antibiotics in farm animals, a decades-old practice that scientists say has contributed to a surge in dangerous, drug-resistant bacteria.  The FDA has struggled for decades with how to tackle the problem because the powerful agriculture industry argues the drugs are a key part of modern meat production.  Under the new FDA guidelines, the agency recommends antibiotics be used “judiciously,” or only when necessary to keep animals healthy.  The agency also wants to require a veterinarian to prescribe the drugs.  They can currently be purchased by farmers over-the-counter.  The draft recommendations by the FDA are not binding, and the agency is asking drug manufacturers to voluntarily put the proposed limits in place.  Drug companies would need to adjust the labeling of their antibiotics to remove so-called production uses of the drugs.  Production uses include increased weight gain and accelerated growth, which helps farmers save money by reducing feed costs.  The FDA hopes drug makers will phase out language promoting non-medical uses within three years.  But some health advocates said they do not trust the drug industry to voluntarily restrict its own products. FDA officials said that a formal ban would have required individual hearings for each drug, which could take decades.  The rollout from FDA comes at an unusual time in the agency’s attempts to curb antibiotic use in animals.  Last month a federal court judge ordered the agency to take action on its own 35-year-old rule that would have banned non-medical use of two popular antibiotics, penicillin and tetracycline, in farm animals.  The FDA issued the rule in 1977 but never enforced it, following vigorous pushback from members of Congress and lobbyists for farmers and drug makers.  The agency was given 60 days to appeal.

Total’s Elgin Platform Gas Leak: North Sea Fish Tasted by Scottish ‘Sensory Testers’

Raphael Satter

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/totals-elgin-platform-gas-leak_n_1417370.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 11, 2012

LONDON—Scotland has called in taste testers to sample the fish found near the site of Total’s North Sea gas leak, an unusual gastronomic exercise intended to provide reassurance to Scottish seafood lovers.  The government says specially trained “sensory testers” at the Aberdeen, Scotland-based Marine Scotland Science organization sniffed and tasted seven different species of fish collected near Total’s leak-stricken Elgin platform earlier this week.  Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead announced their verdict Wednesday in a statement on the government’s website.  “They are untainted by hydrocarbons,” he said. Full chemical testing of fish collected from around the platform is still being carried out.  Seawater and sediment samples are also being examined.

“I Am a Dumpster Diver, and I Eat Trash”

Nathan Pipenberg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-daily-collegian/dumpster-diving-trend_b_1417514.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 11, 2012

If you really check out a dumpster, there’s one discovery that will stick with you after the smell washes away and you accept your questionable habits—there’s a lot of food in those things.  Good, clean, healthy food that we can eat.  And it ends up in the trash every day.  Dumpster diving, also known as urban foraging, is the process of sifting through trash, usually behind restaurants and supermarkets, in search of food.  It’s gaining traction in the US as more people realize just how wasteful we can be.  I decided to give it a shot.  At the end of the night, I was the proud possessor of a bag full of smoked cheeses, fresh bread, cookies and pastries.  I didn’t take anything that wasn’t still in its packaging or double-bagged, separated from the rest of the dumpster’s contents.  It was inside clean packaging, safe enough that I could even persuade my mom to eat one of the bagels I found.  It is really eye-opening to see just how much food is wasted.  In one dumpster alone, there were at least five trash bags brimming with baked goods.  In another, I found bags stuffed with meatballs, lunch meats and veggies that never made it onto a sub.  According to the EPA, Americans throw away 33 million tons of food each year.  To break it down, that averages out to every person in the country taking one pound of food and tossing it in the trash every day.  (Nathan Pipenberg is a junior majoring in journalism and international politics who is Wednesday contributor for The Collegiate)

Eat Less Meat to Halt Climate Change

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2012/04/eat-less-meat-to-halt-climate-change.aspx

April 13, 2012

Meat Consumption Needs 50% Reduction to Meet Climate Change Target

Caroline Scott-Thomas

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Science/Meat-consumption-needs-50-reduction-to-meet-climate-change-target-says-researcher/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK92WMLo94DB1cjh9PAme65t4

April 16, 2012

Meat consumption would need to be reduced by 50% per person in order to meet nitrous oxide reduction targets set out in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) draft report, according to a new study led by Dr. Eric Davidson, president and a senior scientist Woods Hold Research Center.  Nitrous oxide is the third highest contributor to climate change behind carbon dioxide and methane.  The main sources of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere are the spreading of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers onto agricultural soils and the use and storage of livestock manure.  The nitrogen contained in fertilizers and manure is broken down by microbes that live in the soil, and is released into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide.  In order to reduce emissions, it will be necessary to apply certain changes to the food production process.  Dr. Davidson believes that this can be achieved through improved management of fertilizer and manure sources, as well as through reduction of the developed world’s per capita meat consumption that will relieve pressure on fertilizer demand and reduce growth in the amount of manure produced.

Gluten Free ‘Does Not Have Long Term Legs’, Says Trend Expert

Caroline Scott-Thomas

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Market/Gluten-free-does-not-have-long-term-legs-says-trend-expert/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK93%2FGBxdrocQ0qGx9GTVEKmj

April 13, 2012

The popularity of gluten free foods is set to taper off within the next two or three years, claimed Dr. Elizabeth Sloan, president of Sloan Trends, at the recent Research Chefs Association conference in Texas.  Celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder triggered by gluten, is estimated to affect about one in every 133 Americans, and the only treatment currently available is complete gluten avoidance.  But a market boom in recent years for gluten free foods is thought to have been driven by a number of other factors, including the families of those with celiac disease also eating gluten free foods as they have become more palatable, non-celiac consumers finding abdominal symptoms are eased when they eliminate gluten from their diets and others who perceive gluten free foods to be generally healthier or less calorific (often erroneously).  Despite this wide base of consumer interest, Sloan thinks the market is about to slow down.  Citing Hartman Group research, Sloan said that only 22% of consumers buying gluten free products are buying them intentionally because they are gluten free.  Secondly, she said that the gluten free market is far larger than warranted by the proportion of Americans who require gluten free foods.  “It is a very good and very strong market, but right now it’s still out of proportion,” she said.  Sloan is just the latest food industry trend-watcher to express doubt about the potential longevity of the gluten free market.  For food manufacturers looking for the next big dietary trend to back, Sloan advises that the rise of plant-based diets may be a safer bet.

Yellowfin Tuna Sushi Salmonella: 20-State Outbreak Causes 116 Illnesses, 12 Hospitalizations

Will Lester

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/yellowfin-spicy-tuna-sushi-salmonella_n_1428116.html?ref=food

April 14, 2012

Spicy ‘Tuna’ Rolls Linked to Huge Salmonella Outbreak

Paula Forbes

http://eater.com/archives/2012/04/16/spicy-tuna-rolls-linked-to-huge-salmonella-outbreak.php

April 16, 2012

Yellowfin Tuna Recalled Over Salmonella Bareilly Outbreak

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2012/04/yellowfin-tuna-recalled-over-salmonella-bareilly.aspx

April 16, 2012

‘Tuna Scrape’ Recalled After Salmonella Bareilly Outbreak Sickens 116

Mark Astley

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/Tuna-scrape-recalled-after-Salmonella-Bareilly-outbreak-sickens-116/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK91xbvSY3VxEL0urkQDCAIHp

April 17 2012

Call it the “pink slime” of the sea: Nakaochi Scrape AA or AAA, which is yellowfin tuna that “is scraped off the fish bones and looks like a ground product,” has been linked to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened over 100 people across 20 states. Reports of the foodborne illness caused by salmonella Bareilly have mainly come from the Eastern Seaboard and South, though cases have been reported as far west as Missouri and Texas.  No deaths have been reported.  The California company that makes the product has voluntarily recalled the fish, which was sold to restaurants and grocery stores for use in sushi, mostly spicy tuna rolls.

Microscopic Hollow Salty Balls Are Gaining Momentum in the US, Says Tate & Lyle

Elaine Watson

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Market/Microscopic-hollow-salty-balls-are-gaining-momentum-in-the-US-says-Tate-Lyle/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK912Qwk%2BjXGoz3ZWkoZuyZCs

April 16, 2012

The microscopic salt crystals at the center of a sodium reduction licensing deal between Tate & Lyle and UK-based firm Eminate are starting to attract significant interest Stateside.  It is well known that the smaller the crystals, the higher the salt perception.  However, simply grinding salt to make the particles smaller does not deliver as the tiny particles quickly lose their free-flowing properties and stick together.  Soda-Lo, which is engineered using a patented process that re-crystallizes salt to create free-flowing, microscopic hollow balls just 5-10 microns which are a fraction of the size of standard salt (c.200-500 microns), deliver an intense, salty hit on the taste buds, and can still be listed as ‘salt’ on labels.  In the UK, where Soda-Lo was first launched, the biggest successes have been in the bread and bakery sector, but extensive trials have also been conducted with cheese, vegetarian sausages, crisps, sauces, soups, breakfast cereals, muffins, pizza bases, rice snacks and bakery pre-mixes.  The results in bread have been particularly encouraging, enabling plant bakers to make significant sodium reductions without impacting volume, texture or weight.

Hot Sauce Production the 8^th Fastest Growing Industry In the Country, Report Says

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/hot-sauce-production_n_1431772.html?ref=food

April 17, 2012

What does hot sauce production have in common with self-tanning, pilates studios and online eyeglass sales?  All of these are among the top 10 fastest-growing industries in America, according to a new report from IBIS World.  Hot sauce comes in at number eight, right above green and sustainable building construction and right below social network game development.  The explosion of hot sauce sales can be traced to demographic shifts, immigration and the growing popularity of spicier ethnic food in the US, Canada and Japan.

Chia Seeds Move Beyond Faddish Past in Bid for Mainstream Acceptance

Joe Satran

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/chia-seeds_n_1419525.html?ref=food

April 16, 2012

Chia seeds are beginning to gain recognition as one of the world’s healthiest foods.  The seeds, which are completely tasteless, are high in protein and fiber and contain incredibly high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids.  The shelves of Whole Foods are brimming with chia-packed products, from juices to energy bars.  What makes the transformation so remarkable is that for centuries, almost no one was even aware that chia seeds were edible.  Chia had been the third-most important crop for the Aztec empire, after corn and beans.  But because it was used in Aztec religious ceremonies, conquistadors suppressed its cultivation by all but a few remote tribes for 500 years.  In the late 2000’s two high-profile supporters of Chia emerged.  Dr. Mehmet Oz started promoting chia as a “superfood” on “Oprah.”  The chia was featured in Christopher McDougall’s “Born to Run,” a best-selling inspirational tract for runners.  Chia sales skyrocketed.  As the chia market became more competitive, people began to make bold claims about the seeds’ benefits.  Many started to say that chia seeds help people lose weight, increase energy and that they lower cholesterol.  The problem was that controlled studies continually failed to bear those claims out.  For that reason, those who market chia seeds have shifted their focus away from specific health claims and toward simple statements about the uncontroversial nutritiousness of the chia seed.  In Australia, the seeds’ appeal stretches far beyond health food nuts and athletes.  They’re included in foods as pedestrian as mass-market white bread.  But before that can happen in the US, many argue that the supply of chia—currently dominated by The Chia Company and small farms in Latin America—needs to become more reliable.  Enter Kentucky Chia, founded by a group of business students at the University of Louisville with the goal of making chia into a commodity crop.  The company holds the patent for a new strain of chia that can be grown in the US, which was developed using a process that accelerates genetic mutation using gamma rays.  (The technique does not technically qualify as genetic modification, but it’s close enough to unnerve traditional chia fans.)  Kentucky Chia hopes to start selling its chia as horse feed in 2013.  But CEO Zack Pennington says that’s only the beginning.

Chili Pepper Fences Keep Elephants at Bay

David Moye

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/elephants-chili-pepper-fences_n_1428898.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 16, 2012

Elephants never forget—especially about the burning intensity of chili peppers.  And that fiery fact is helping farmers in Tanzania, who are being forced to deal with rebounding elephant populations coming onto their land and eating up their crop.  Electric fences have been deemed too dangerous and expensive, but farmers have found good results from a lower-tech solution: chili peppers mixed with engine oil—a spicy concoction that sticks to fences, even in heavy rain.  The spicy strategy is being rolled out across Tanzania and other parts of East Africa, but since it’s possible the elephants will adjust to the chili, experts are studying other methods to truncate the animals’ damage.  One method is to set up lines of beehives spaced around fields.  Elephant expert Lucas Malugu told the Wall Street Journal that pachyderms hate being stung by bees flying up their trunks.  When an elephant goes where it shouldn’t, the villagers “shake the hive and release the bees, sending the elephants running.”

Dark Meat Getting a Leg Up on Boring Boneless Breasts

Marshall Eckblad

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304587704577333923937879132.html

April 15, 2012

Poultry companies that spent decades breeding top-heavy birds to satisfy America’s craving for chicken breasts are hunting for solutions as consumers cluck for more dark meat.  Demand for legs and thigh cuts is climbing as diners tire of white meat and TV cooking shows tout dark meat’s richer flavor and softer texture.  Sales also are benefiting from growing exports to foreign markets that favor chicken on the bone, and from rising immigrant populations in the US.  Rising demand for dark meat is helping the poultry industry recover from a disastrous 2011, measured by losses at publicly traded suppliers, by countering weak prices for white meat.  Tyson Foods Inc., the nation’s largest chicken producer by volume, is developing more products made from dark meat than ever before, including a new line of chicken sausages.  Still chicken companies face limits to how much further the trend can go.  After all, there hasn’t been any change in the number of thighs or legs on each bird.

‘Pink Slime’ Controversy Stokes Clash Over Agriculture

P.J. Huffstutter and Lisa Baertlein (Reuters)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/pink-slime-food-safety-farm-bill_n_1428245.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 16, 2012

There is a fight under way in the American heartland that reaches into corporate boardrooms.  Farmers and agribusiness are on one side and food safety groups and animal-rights organizations are on the other.  The fight is fueled, in part, by politicians eager to court influential backers during an election year.  Farm groups, too, want to be heard as Congress picks up its review of the federal farm bill.  And although food-safety activists and animal-rights organizations have different agendas, they both agree on one thing: much of the public is unaware of what happens to their food before it arrives on their plate.  The recent furor over so-called “pink slime” beef filler underscores how social media has given activists and consumers a powerful weapon to influence that process.  Using tools such as Twitter and the threat of spending boycotts, consumers and activists pressured retailers to abandon Beef Products Inc.’s ammonia-treated lean, finely textured beef.  The new battle cry for food activists is, “What do you have to hide?”  Stung by the setbacks, farm groups and agribusiness heavyweights are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on political campaigns to block critics from stepping inside barns.  Tech-savvy farmers have launched social media campaigns about farm life and trained their peers on how to tweet critical food bloggers.  Critics are equally determined.  Activists are pushing for legislation that would bar farmers from housing pregnant sows in certain types of crates.  A recent victory: the United Egg Producers (UMP) joined forces with the Humane Society.  The longtime adversaries together petitioned Congress to amend existing egg inspection laws to require all farmers to adopt larger standards on cage sizes for egg-laying hens.  Fast-food giant McDonald’s has started using cage-free eggs in the US and has promised to ask its pork suppliers to stop buying from farmers using hog gestation stalls. Worried about a repeat in other agricultural sectors, the industry is battling back.  Much of that fight has resulted in legislative efforts to block or restrict undercover investigations on farms—or to force activists to quickly turn over evidence of potential wrong-doing to local authorities.  But critics are keeping the pressure on corporations through shareholder activism.  The Humane Society is snapping up shares of agriculture and food companies to press them to change corporate purchasing practices.  The Humane Society’s stock portfolio today includes more than 80 publicly traded companies, nearly double the number it held two years ago.

Salt Levels in Fast Food Vary from Country to Country, Study Finds

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/salt-fast-food-country-united-states-sodium_n_1429503.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 17, 2012

Global Salt-Reduction Efforts Are Inconsistent

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2012/04/global-salt-reduction-efforts-are-inconsistent.aspx

April 17, 2012

A new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reveals that the salt levels in fast food are not identical from country to country.  And in general, fast food in the US and Canada has more salt in it than fast food in the United Kingdom and France.  The study included menu items from Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, Burger King (or Hungry Jack’s, as it’s known in Australia), Subway and Pizza Hut.  The researchers looked at salt levels of a variety of foods, including salads, pizzas, French fries, sandwiches, burgers, chicken items and breakfast foods, which were collected from the companies’ websites in 2010.  In general, the researchers found that the chicken menu items had the most salt and salad items had the least salt.  A McDonald’s spokesperson told Reuters that the study uses data from 2010, and McDonald’s has since lowered its sodium levels in their chicken items by 10 percent.

41% of Americans Eat Pizza Once a Week

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2012/04/41-of-americans-order-pizza-once-a-week.aspx

April 16, 2012

CHICAGO—Americans love their pizza—so much so that 41% of consumers report eating pizza at least once a week, compared to just 26% two years ago.  According to the Pizza Consumer Trend Report, pizza consumption has increased as leading players revamp menus to include more innovative specialty pizzas, gourmet ingredients and items beyond pizza that help operators drive traffic.  Interestingly, 68% of consumers order carryout pizza once a month or more, followed by 45% who order pizza for dine-in.  As increased consumer confidence leads some to trade up within the pizza category others still feeling the pinch are attracted to the special offers and coupons that chains are rolling out as well as generally less expensive, yet high quality, take-and-bake and frozen pizza offerings.

Autism and Food

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/blogs/doug/2012/04/autism-and-food.aspx

April 16, 2012

April is autism awareness month.  To kick things off, CDC released some updated information on the rising prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), noting that 1 in 88 children have now been diagnosed with the disorder.  With April’s heightened autism awareness comes increased frequency of news stories touching on the subject.  For those who personally deal with autism on a day-to-day basis, the release of yet another set of study results seeking answers to the causes of ASD often brings an acute mix of optimism and apathy.  People who single out ingredients (i.e. high fructose corn syrup) in modern processed food as culprits in ASD invariably rely on anecdotal evidence—and they often have an ongoing agenda campaigning against that ingredient.  Once diagnosed, dietary adjustments have been shown to help improve the symptoms of ASD.  However, no hard science has, to date, shown any dietary connections to the causes of ASD.  CDC maintains that the only logical potential causes of ASD to date include genetic factors, the age of the parents at the point of conception, low birth weight, and some drug interactions during pregnancy.  Anything else to this point in the state of the research is pure speculation.

China Overtakes US to Become World’s Largest Food Market

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/news/2012/04/china-overtakes-u-s-to-become-world-s-largest-foo.aspx

April 11, 2012

WATFORD, UK—Fueled by rapid economic growth, population and rising food inflation, China has overtaken the United States as the world’s biggest food and grocery retail market, according to market data from food and grocery market analyst IGD.  China’s grocery sector was worth $970 billion in 2011, while US market value was $913.5 billion.  Between 2006 and 2015, the Chinese grocery market is forecast to triple in value and to be worth $1.46 trillion.  IGD predicts Brazil, Russia, India and China will make up four of the top five grocery markets by 2015.

Chocolate Titans in Fresh Antitrust Lawsuit for Alleged US Price Fixing

Oliver Nieburg

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Business/Chocolate-titans-in-fresh-antitrust-lawsuit-for-alleged-US-price-fixing/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK90xUAJLhfp1wQuqaJubtJ0r

April 18, 2012

Hershey, Nestle, Mars and Cadbury have been hit with a new antitrust lawsuit that alleges the companies conspired together to fix chocolate prices in the US between 2002 and 2008.  The Associated Wholesale Grocer (AWG), a retailer-owned cooperative that supplies retail member stores, brought the action in the District Court in Kansas.  Hershey et al. are already defendants in an on-going class action lawsuit in Pennsylvania Federal Court, which consolidates around 80 separate cases alleging price fixing.  AWG alleges that Hershey, Nestle, Mars and Cadbury worked together to artificially raise the price of chocolate on three occasions between 2002 and 2008 as growth slowed in the US chocolate market.  The companies, which account for around 76% of the US chocolate market, contend that the price increases were introduced in response to rising raw materials and supply chain costs.  AWG is relying on material collected in an ongoing investigation by the Canadian Competition Bureau against the chocolate companies that began in 2007.   The Canadian investigation unearthed letters and evidence of meetings that purportedly encouraged and showed signs of a conspiracy to fix prices.  The Canadian Competition Bureau was contacted but declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.

Jose Andres, Rene Redzepi Included in the Time 100

Paula Forbes

http://eater.com/archives/2012/04/18/jose-andres-rene-redzepi-included-in-the-time-100.php

April 18, 2012

Time has announced their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and this year, in addition to such luminaries as Louis CK, Jeremy Lin, Adele, Barack Obama, and Pippa and/or Kate Middleton, two major food world players are included: Jose Andres and Rene Redzepi.

Gulf Seafood Deformities Raise Questions Among Scientists and Fisherman

James Gerken

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/gulf-seafood-deformities-raise-questions_n_1434268.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=041912&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

April 18, 2012

BP Oil Spill Two-Year Anniversary Marked by Somber Statistics

Eric Pfeiffer

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/bp-oil-spill-two-anniversary-marked-somber-statistics-185242840.html

April 20, 2102

While the true extent of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was not known for about 4 years, the repercussions of BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico may become apparent more quickly.  The AP reports that a number of fish in the Gulf are suffering from visible maladies.  Discovering eyeless shrimp, lesioned fish and other mutated and underdeveloped seafood, fisherman in the Gulf are pointing fingers at the BP spill.  The Gulf Restoration Network’s Scott Eust explained the bizarre shrimp deformities.  “We have some evidence of deformed shrimp, which is another developmental impact.  So, that shrimp’s grandmother was exposed to oil while the mother was developing, but it’s the grandchild of the shrimp that was exposed that grows up with no eyes.”  Al Jazeera reports that both the government and BP maintain that Gulf seafood is safe.  BP released a statement last week, saying, “Seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is among the most tested in the world, and according to the FDA and NOAA, it is as safe now as it was before the accident.”  While the evidence of continued and extensive environmental damage is nowhere near conclusive, the damage appears to have extended beyond marine life to the Gulf’s deep-water coral, seaweed beds and other species of plants.  “There is lots of circumstantial evidence that something is still awry,” said Christopher D’Elia, dean of LSU’s School of the Coast and Environment.  “On the whole, it is not as much environmental damage as was originally projected.  Doesn’t mean there is none.”

Studies Question the Pairing of Food Deserts and Obesity

Gina Kolata

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/health/research/pairing-of-food-deserts-and-obesity-challenged-in-studies.html?_r=2&hp

April 17, 2012

It has become an article of faith among some policy makers and advocates, including Michelle Obama, that poor urban neighborhoods are food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables.  But two new studies have found something unexpected.  Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too.  And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.  Some experts say these new findings raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts to combat the obesity epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods.  Despite campaigns to get Americans to exercise more and eat healthier foods, obesity rates have not budged over the past decade, according to recently released federal data.  Mrs. Obama has made elimination of food deserts an element of her broader campaign against childhood obesity, Let’s Move, winning praise from Democrats and even some Republicans, and denunciations from conservative commentators and bloggers who have cited it as yet another example of the nanny state.  Helen Lee of the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, found a way to design a study that could rigorously answer the questions: Do poor urban neighborhoods lack places to buy fresh produce and is that contributing to obesity.  Dr. Lee found that poor neighborhoods had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile.  But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile.  Her study was published in the March issue of “Social Science and Medicine”.  Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation used a different design.  His study, published in February in “The American Journal of Preventive Medicine”, found no consistent relationship between what type of food students ate and the type of food nearby.  Living close to supermarkets or grocers did not make students thin and living close to fast food outlets did not make them fat.  It is unclear how the idea took hold that poor urban neighborhoods were food deserts, but it had immediate appeal.  But, Dr. Lee said, studies lending support to the idea tend to be limited by methodological difficulties.

Starbucks Is Going to Stop Using Bug Food Dye, Okay?

Paula Forbes

http://eater.com/archives/2012/04/19/starbucks-is-going-to-stop-using-bug-food-dye-okay.php

April 19, 2012

Starbucks is gong to quit using cochineal extract AKA powdered beetles to color their food.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that it was in a lot more stuff than just the Strawberry Frappuccinos everyone was complaining about.  Anyway, it’s going to take a little while to get it out of everything, so they’re thinking it’ll be totally gone by the end of June.  It will be replaced with lycopene, which comes from tomatoes.

Pink Slime Scandal Screwing Restaurants, Says Red Robin

Paula Forbes

http://eater.com/archives/2012/04/05/pink-slime-scandal-screwing-restaurants-says-red-robin.php

April 5, 2012

The “pink slime” media frenzy is now screwing over burger chains that don’t even serve the stuff.  After receiving hundreds of guest inquiries at Red Robin’s headquarters and in many of the company’s 460+ restaurants in North America, Red Robin, which has never served beef containing the ingredient, enlisted Harris Interactive, Inc. to conduct a poll on the “pink slime” issue.  The survey indicated that 88% of American adults are aware of the menace pink slime, and over half of those have “taken action” to avoid it.  Twenty-two percent said they’ve either decreased eating ground beef at restaurants or stopped eating it entirely.  Steve Carley, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers chief executive officer said, “Red Robin has had to repeatedly assure our guests that we have never purchased or served beef containing the so-called ‘pink slime.’  While this kind of processed beef has been used for many years, the Harris Interactive poll shows that consumer fears are very real, and they’re not ready to let them just fade away.  This underscores that our industry simply must do a better job of communicating the facts, educating consumers and regaining consumer trust in the quality of the food they buy.  At Red Robin, we’ll continue to assure our guests that the quality of the food we buy and serve is a top priority.”

Bacon is Getting Its Own Reality Show

Paula Forbes

http://eater.com/archives/2012/04/09/bacon-is-getting-its-own-reality-show.php

April 9, 2012

Bacon Coffin Dudes Score Reality Show

Rebecca Flint Marx

http://www.chow.com/food-news/111517/bacon-coffin-guys-score-reality-show/

April 10, 2012

According to “Deadline”, LMNO Productions is developing a bacon reality show.  It will star Justin Esch and Dave Lefkow, who apparently are better known as “The Bacon Boys” and whom you may know from such bacon-y creations as BaconSalt, Baconnaise (bacon mayonnaise that doesn’t actually have bacon in it) and even a Bacon Coffin.  Esch and Lefkow sell their bacon-y wares through their online food company J&D’s Foods (tagline: “Everything should taste like bacon”) and the show will follow the duo as they “employ guerrilla marketing stunts for their over-the-top products.”  So basically this will be a show about punking blogs by slapping bacon on everything.  Given that we have reached the point where it is now acceptable for critically lauded chefs to grub for ratings by parachuting into the jungle to participate in a sort of three-way circle jerk with foraged ingredients, it should follow that food TV’s next great hopes could be relative or complete unknowns with big personalities and little awareness of their limitations.

Applewood Smoked Ice Cubes Anyone? Exploring Smoke’s Flavor Potential Beyond Meats

Caroline Scott-Thomas

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Market/Applewood-smoked-ice-cubes-anyone-Exploring-smoke-s-flavor-potential-beyond-meats/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK900AdInQ1g67Sn6I9PcfQkp

Smoke flavors are increasing in popularity, appearing in a range of new and unusual applications, and could help to differentiate new products, according to smoke flavor specialists speaking at the recent Research Chefs Association conference in Texas.  Fifteen or twenty years ago, liquid smokes were often perceived to be bitter or acrid, but the process has been refined and different wood species are being used to produce different flavor profiles.  As a result smoke flavors are emerging as a top flavor trend.  The new product applications include cheeses, breads, and drinks such as smoked beer, cocktails, and even ice cubes.  In addition there has been an increased demand for smoked ingredients, including spices, sugar, garlic, and salt.  Specific wood smokes are also becoming more popular.  Smoke flavors have antimicrobial and antioxidant qualities (for improved shelf life) and the ability to add flavor without adding salt or fat.  But the greatest benefit for food manufacturers is the potential return on investment.  The cost of using condensed natural smoke costs a tenth of a cent to half a cent per pound for large orders.

Canada to Overhaul Meat Inspection Rules

Caroline Scott-Thomas

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Regulation/Canada-to-overhaul-meat-inspection-rules/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK90zAJ%2FqzzbVrKJ9odVwuC64

April 10, 2012

The Canadian government has announced a “substantive” overhaul of meat inspection rules, saying the move will help smaller companies gain access to the wider market, without affecting food safety.  The new regulation updates an earlier 1990 directive, and aims to bring Canadian guidelines for meat inspections in line with those in the US, as well as those of other major trading partners.  It will also bring provincially inspected meat processors under the federal inspection system.  Currently, small and medium-sized provincial meat plants cannot trade beyond the borders of their own province, unless a facility is federally registered, and at about $200 per square foot, many smaller players have been priced out of the nationwide and international markets, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).  In addition, the agency has proposed setting up a register of permitted materials and coatings for food packaging, removing multiple checks and requirements.

Concord Grape Juice Shows Brain Boosting Potential

Stephen Daniells

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Research/Concord-grape-juice-shows-brain-boosting-potential/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GIN_FNUd&c=vlyaQkNPK90kRlSUHGM1LHnDq4Hrr0Ey

April 11, 2012

Adding a glass of Concord grape juice to the daily diet may boost memory performance and boost mental function in older people with mild declines in their memory, suggests a new study.  Concord grape juice is a rich source of polyphenols, potent antioxidants that ‘mop up’ harmful reactive oxygen species that have been identified as key to the aging process.  The new study, led by Dr. Robert Krikorian from the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, adds to previous findings in both rats and humans.  The new study recruited 21 people with an average age of 76 who had mild cognitive impairment.  Participants were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo beverage or Concord grape juice at a dose relative to their body weight.  Results showed that consumption of the grape juice was associated with fewer errors in memory tasks, compared with the placebo.  In addition, MRI scans showed significantly greater activation in anterior and posterior regions on the right side of the brain.

First Food Products Featuring Novel Saffron-Based Satiety Ingredient Set for Q3 Launch

Elaine Watson

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Market/First-food-products-featuring-novel-saffron-based-satiety-ingredient-set-for-Q3-launch/?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily&c=vlyaQkNPK90Jq5gdLqV2shekJelWTORT

April 11, 2012

Satiereal, which was developed by French firm INO’Real and marketed in the US by New Jersey-based ingredients supplier PL Thomas (PLT) could succeed where other satiety ingredients have failed because it seeks to address the cause of overeating—which is not just about hunger.  People overeat due to stress, anxiety, frustration and boredom—not just because they are hungry.  The ingredient, which is claimed to curb overeating by boosting levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, is set to launch in a smoothie and a snack in the third quarter of this year.  Satiereal has been tested in a four-week pilot clinical study and an eight-week randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial published in Nutrition Research in 2010.  The study evaluated the efficacy of Sateireal on body weight changes over an 8-week period.  Snacking frequency, the main secondary variable, was assessed by daily self-recording of episodes by the subjects in a nutrition diary.  Satiereal caused a significantly greater body weight reduction than placebo after 8 weeks, while mean snacking frequency was significantly decreased in the Satiereal group as compared with the placebo group.

Employers Not Obligated to Ensure Workers Take Lunch Breaks: Court

Jason Dearen

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/lunch-breaks-employers_n_1421957.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 12, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO—The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that employers are under no obligation to ensure that workers take legally mandated lunch breaks in a case that affects thousands of businesses and millions of workers.  The unanimous opinion came after workers’ attorneys argued that abuses are routine and widespread when companies aren’t required to issue direct orders to take the breaks.  They claimed employers take advantage of workers who don’t want to leave colleagues during busy times.  But the high court sided with businesses when it ruled that requiring companies to order breaks is unmanageable and that those decisions should be left to workers.  The decision provided clarity that businesses had sought regarding the law.  The opinion written by Associate Justice Kathryn Werdegar explained that state law does not compel an employer to ensure employees cease all work during meal periods.  It stated that while employers are required to free workers of job duties for a 30-minute meal break, the employee is at liberty to use the time as they choose even if it’s to work.  The employer is not obligated to police meal breaks and ensure no work thereafter is performed.  State law has mandated meal and rest breaks for decades.  But in 2001, California became one of only a few states that impose a monetary penalty for employers who violate these laws, requiring employers to pay one hour of wages for a missed half-hour meal break.  There is no federal law requiring employers to provide such breaks.

Skittles Joins Food Brands at Center of Tragedies

Candice Choi

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/skittles-tragedy_n_1422124.html?ref=food

April 12, 2012

NEW YORK—When Trayvon Martin was fatally shot, he happened to be carrying a bag of Skittles.  Protestors carried bags of the chewy fruit-flavored candy while marching for the arrest of shooter George Zimmerman.  Mourners pinned the bright red wrappers to their hooded sweatshirts at memorial services.  Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company—the unit of Mars that owns Skittles—issued only a brief statement offering condolences to Martin’s friends and family, adding that it would be inappropriate to comment further “as we would never wish for our actions to be perceived as an attempt of commercial gain.”  Skittles isn’t the first popular food brand to find itself at the center of a major controversy.  The terms “the Twinkie defense” and “don’t drink the Kool-Aid” became part of the vernacular decades ago in the wake of tragic events.  More recently, Doritos made headlines when it was reported that the corn chips were Saddam Hussein’s favorite snack.  Although it didn’t get as much attention, it was also noted that Saddam preferred Raisin Bran Crunch for breakfast, telling a guard, “No Froot Loops.”  These cases show how millions of advertising and marketing dollars can be rendered powerless when a company’s product is swept into a big news story.  As difficult as it may be for companies to weather controversy, the uncomfortable attention doesn’t spell the end of a product.  Hostess and Kraft say they don’t have information on whether the “Twinkie” and “Kool-Aid” catch phrases had an impact on sales, but both brands clearly survived.

Pizza Sales Are Rising in the U.S., New Data Shows

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/pizza-sales_n_1421470.html?ref=food

April 12, 2012

More Americans than ever are eating pizza, according to data from consumer research firm Technomic.  A full 41 percent of respondents to a Technomic survey said they now eat pizza at least once a week, up from 26 percent two years ago.  Tiffany Hsu of the LA Times attributes the change to increased variety in the pizza sphere.  The quality of frozen pizzas has improved somewhat in recent years and customers have been enthusiastic about take-and-bake options from both supermarkets and specialty pizza chains.  Major chains, which were said to be ailing just over a year ago, have made great strides in innovation, making an effort to appeal to new customers on the high end and at the low.

Eggs: What Are You Really Getting for the Claim on Your Carton?

Kristin Kirkpatrick, M.S., R.D., L.D.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-kirkpatrick-ms-rd-ld/eggs-health_b_1404020.html?ref=food&ir=Food

Last May, the Temple Journal of Science, Technology and Environmental Law questioned whether claims on egg cartons were misleading to consumers.  The verdict? They are, causing consumers to pay more for a product that may not offer the perceived health benefits the carton claims.  Terms on egg cartons commonly refer to one of three conditions: What type of food the hen is fed, the environment in which the he lives and how the hen is treated.  In terms of hen food, a 2008 study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that when hens were fed with a diet low in imega-6 fatty acids from a young age (meaning they were eating food rich in wheat barley and milo and low in soy, maize and sunflower, safflower and maize oils) they produced eggs that may cause less oxidative damage to human health.  Concern for hens and their environment inspired the proposed HR 3798, Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012, which was introduced to Congress in January.  In the past decade, the US has seen a surge of farmers’ markets (about 3700 of them) and if you purchase your eggs from a local farm or farmers’ market, then you have direct access to the farmer to ask questions about your eggs and the hens that lay them.  If you’re purchasing eggs from a grocery store, you may need a bit more help.

Chesapeake Oysters Restoration Plan Unveiled by Army Corps of Engineers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/chesapeake-oysters-restoration-plan_n_1417362.html?ref=food&ir=Food

April 11, 2012

BALTIMORE (AP)—The Army Corps of Engineers unveiled its restoration plan for Chesapeake oysters on Tuesday, a bay-wide look that officials said moves past piecemeal efforts and selects targets for large-scale efforts.  The study takes a scientific look at where limited resources can have the most impact and is a recommendation for future work.  The Corps does not have the authority to mandate.  How land near the tributaries is being used, whether for farming, or industry or homes, was among the items considered for each tributary, along with factors such as water depth, whether the bottom is rocky or muddy, and the saltiness of the water.  The end goal is to have self-sustaining oyster populations in those tributaries.

If you’re a regular reader of Variety, you may have noticed a short piece last week concerning this year’s iteration of Food Network Star which is going to be a little different from seasons past.  Instead of judging, Giada De Laurentiis and Bobby Flay will mentor groups of finalists through the competition…and so will I.

That’s right, I’ll be entrusted with the care and feeding of 5 individuals hand picked from hundreds of hopeful applicants by yours truly.

Okay, dozens.

How, you may ask did this come to pass?  After all, I’ve never appeared in more than one or two eps a year each marked by a subtle snarkliness* that betrayed a certain sense of sullen superiority on my part.  On more than one occasion I intimated to the network powers that I felt those chosen for the competition were less than stellar stuff.

And so they kinda called me out.

As in: how would I like to be a mentor this season, able to pick and guide my own team, thus investing in my own peculiar form of culinary justice?  If…if one of my team were to be the last man standing I would be called upon to produce their (no doubt hit) show.

In other words, put up or shut up.

And so, I have chosen my team, and each and every one of them is a food anti-hero in the making…a dark star, utterly unlikely and therefore pretty much perfect.

Wish us luck.

AB out.

*Excuse the neoterism.

A botanical cousin to North America’s toxic “poison” sumac (Rhus vernix), Rhus coriaria is a shrub that grows around the Mediterranean/Middle East and in the process generates small red fruits (berries) which have long been ground into a spice used both in cooking and as a table condiment in that region. Often referred to as a “souring” spice, sumac was used as an acidic ingredient in classical Arab dishes back in the days before lemons had migrated into the area. Astringent, sour, smokey, and earthy at the same time, sumac is a very complex spice indeed. Although most American cooks encounter it sprinkled over hummus at middle eastern restaurants, it’s also a key ingredient in za’atar, a traditional flavoring mixture which also typically contains marjoram, oregano, and thyme, as well as salt and sometimes sesame seeds.

I’ve slowly introduced sumac into a wide range of applications including potato salad (zippy), olive oil (for bread dipping) and just about anywhere paprika might be welcomed. Oh, and I never, ever make hummus without it…ever. Although sumac is occasionally available in megamarts (WF) The spice house (www.spicehouse.com) is my preferred source.

Other applications:
scrambled eggs
pickles
pilaf

By the way: do not attempt to harvest your own!!! Poison sumac, the standard issue in the US, is never, ever good eats.