foodmuseumblog

Peanut Eaters---Explore This List

If you buy peanutty "health" bars, cookies, crackers and more, you may want to avoid the items on this massive list generated at the FDA website. All involved contaminated peanut products from the now legendarily reckless Blakely, GA processing plant of the Peanut Corporation of America.

"All Natural;" "No Preservatives!" Caveat Emptor, Shoppers.

Yeah, right.  In quotes, that's what it says on a 12 oz carton of grape tomatoes I bought recently. Yep, from Mexico, and distributed by Legend Distributing, Glendale, AZ. ( Not local!)

Anyway under those statements it reads, " Coated with food grade petroleum-based wax to maintain freshness."  Does not "maintain freshness" imply "preservatives?"

OK.   So I Googled the wax and was oh so reassured to learn that the Bush-era FDA says it is healthy for humans to eat. ( And it's applied in tiny amounts, people, so...)  The very same FDA that ignored repeated nasty inspection reports re the Peanut Corp of America plant in Blakely, GA.

I am returning the 'maters. I should have read the fine print in any case. And I should have snagged some cans of organic toms instead.

Guilt.

NB  Not all FDA employees are snakes and charlatans. Their budgets have been cut, they don't have enough inspectors, and so on.   Grrr..........

( Photo above from website re food poisoning--http://www.foodpoisonblog.com/articles/foodborne-illness-outbreaks/)

Dirt, Rust, Grease, Even Salmonella--Thank You, P.Nut Corp. of America!

The Peanut Corporation of America plant in Georgia has finally been closed. Within its less than pristine walls, salmonella invaded the plant's industrial peanut paste, and then turned up in over 125 products, making 500 people ill across the country, and, apparently, contributing to the deaths of seven people.

According to a piece in the NYT by Roni Caryn Rabin, "The processing plant in Georgia that produced peanut butter tainted by salmonella has a history of sanitation lapses and was cited repeatedly in 2006 and 2007 for having dirty surfaces and walls and grease residue and dirt build-up throughout the plant, according to state health inspection reports.

Inspections of the plant in Blakely, Ga., by the state agriculture department found areas of rust that could flake into food, gaps in warehouse doors large enough for rodents to get through, unmarked spray bottles and containers, and numerous violations of other practices designed to prevent food contamination."

The state does its inspections for the FDA, a government entity that did not act on these reports, nor on other writeups done in 2008.  The corporate legumes responsible--Peanut Corp is based in Lynchburg, VA, ---clearly were not into self-regulation, that glorious cornerstone of free enterprise. Nor were they available to the Times for comment.

PC's website still proclaims: "Processor of the World's Finest Peanut Products."  OY.

ps   I love peanuts, peanut butter, and last month ate an incredible piece of chocolate cake glazed with peanut frosting. Superb. Yum. Either my tum is made of steel, or the peanut product involved did not originate in Blakely.

UPDATE, Jan. 27    The aforesaid Peanut Corp apparently shipped scungy peanut material knowingly, according to this report in the WaPost.

Simple Gifts

At yesterday's informal open house  at the White House, President and Mrs. Obama greeted a few hundred visitors, including campaign volunteers. One of the guests was Michele Hardman. According to this piece by DeNeen L. Brown in the WaPost,

"Michele Hardman, 51, of North Barrington, Ill., stood near the gate with tears running down her cold cheeks. She said she had wanted to give the Obamas a sack of flour, so they would never go hungry. A box of salt so they would have salt-of-the-earth people around them and a penny so they would never be poor. The Secret Service would not allow her to take those items in." 

Flour, salt--with a little water, soon the Obamas could have been baking flatbread!

Instead, Ms Hardman was allowed to give the new president a lei, which he swiftly donned.

Bowls, and Cherry Trees

 Though one commentator mentioned they were surrounded by persimmons, the Lenox crystal bowls presented to the new President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, and his veep, Joe Biden, at the Senate luncheon on January 20, actually depict cherry trees.

Most of the Washington cherry trees are ornamental, a gift from the nation of Japan, but still, we like to think of fresh yellow and deep red fruit, cherry pie, and the terrible almost-fake cherries in those ginger ale Shirley Temples.

Viewing the White House through the cherry trees? Nice.

( Photo via http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/01/61364092/1)

More On Inaugural Eats

Ever- alert Son of Foodie sent me this link to a video on The (UK) Guardian site that lets you, the lucky viewer, see how to make the seafood stew with shrimp, lobster and scallops destined for Obama's Inaugural lunch in Congress on Tuesday.

And for uber-detail on all things foodie that can be linked to the O, take a gander at Obama Foodorama. ( Tks to fellow blogger Kathy who writes the terrific What Do I Know?  in the UK, along with others, who notified me about this.)

Food for Thought: A Contrast in Pilots

Yesterday, within hours of each other, two individuals in charge showed their stuff. Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, III, drawing on years of training and experience, made a swift decision to land his crippled US Airways plane in the Hudson River, three minutes after takeoff from La Guardia. His astonishing skill, and his presumed calm, confident leadership, preserved the lives of everyone on board. And insured the safety of untold New Yorkers as he guided the huge plane into a slim ribbon of water in midtown Manhattan.

The other individual in charge? Incompetent, disingenuous, and pathetic.

People recognize what is palpable, genuine and substantive. We say goodbye and good riddance to a fear-full era of flabby, faux leadership. We embrace "the real stuff."

We welcome cooperation and self-lessness--witness the efforts of New York's ferry pilots, tugboat captains, random boaters, emergency personnel of all stripes, working together. We salute guts and discipline--witness the way the downed plane's crew and passengers reached safety.

We revel in the best that human beings can be.

Yes, There is Honor Among Seeds(persons!)

Barbara Melera of Landreth Seeds ( January 14 entry) spoke with us this morning and said that Comstock, Ferre and Co., of Wethersfield, CT, claims to be the "oldest continuously operated seed company " in the USA.  Established in 1820, Comstock, Ferre began as the Wethersfield Seed Company. According to its website, " Customers who visit our store will find rows of old oak rocker bins and tin lined oak drawers which to this day hold our seed stock."  This implies the company has been in the same building--food heritage site!--since the start.

That still makes Landreth  "the oldest seed house in America." Bloomsdale, the Landreth home, which burned down about 1902, used to be part of a spread of 550 acres along the Delaware River.  It claimed the biggest barn in North America at one time, built in 1810, and bought by the family in the 1840's.

As is often the case,  the farmland was sold to developers over the years.

Which is why we at The FOOD Museum are dedicated to the entire topic of food heritage. Visit some relevant areas of the website here.

( Photo is of Comstock, Ferre and Co.)

Anticipating Growth: Seed Catalogs and Presidents

Even though many seed catalogs are now available on-line, I still feel the need to clutch them in my hands, dogear the pages, spill coffee on them, rip out certain bits. Maybe I should plant a few trees each spring to replace those that went into creating my beloved catalogs.

As I was meandering among them on line, placing my orders for catalogs,  I discovered that Landreth Seed is , in fact, a food heritage company. Established in 1784 in Philadelphia by a Brit named David Landreth, the business flourished quickly.

As the History section of the company website states, "...( Landreth's)  reputation grew steadily and soon he numbered George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Bonaparte (Napoleon’s brother) among his customers. In 1798, he introduced the Zinnia into the United States from Mexico. In 1811, he introduced the first truly white potato. Prior to this introduction, potatoes had been yellow. In 1820, he introduced the tomato, known then as The Love Apple, and later perfected the first variety of yellow tomato.

"...the D. Landreth Seed Company is the fifth oldest corporation in America. Among its many historic claims is the fact that the company sold seed to every American president from George Washington to Franklin D. Roosevelt."

And we trust that soon Landreth will resume its commerce with Presidents of the United States and become involved in the establishment of a kitchen garden on the White House grounds for Mr. Obama and his family, guests, and staff.  We have just emailed Landreth on this issue.

ps  Go on.  Check your dog's ears to see if they truly express the action "to dog-ear" a page. My terrier's do. So there!

(Freezonian peas from the on-line Landreth catalog.)

Women Who Know Beans

 As a volunteer at a women's shelter in the late 1980's in the Denver area, retired social worker Jossy Eyre  observed that many of the women she worked with lacked any means to be self-sufficient. They had inadequate education, poor work skills, and many were utterly depressed. 

She had a notion. She spent $500 of her own money on beans, and involved two women in creating packets of 10 Bean Soup. That first year the women prepared and sold over 50 packets of the soup mix to area health food stores.

Last year the Women's Bean Project sold products worth $750,000, enough to meet 60% of the endeavor's budget requirements. The 20 year-old project offers women over 21 up to 6 months of training and experience to help set them on the road to independence.

The WBP mission:  "The Women's Bean Project is a social enterprise that offers a transitional job in gourmet food manufacturing designed to provide immediate income, arrange support services to overcome barriers to employment, and teach the job readiness skills needed to get and keep a job. Program participants come from backgrounds of chronic unemployment and poverty, and the program helps them develop the work and interpersonal skills needed to function independently in the workplace and community.

But the Women's Bean Project does not hire women to make and sell bean products. We make and sell bean products to hire women."

"A Brace of American Birds..."

Yes, the incoming Prez, Veep, and assorteds, will dine much as Lincoln did way back when, as the guests of the Senate, following the swearing-in at noon on January 20.  Accompanying the "brace" or pair of birds on their plates will be something that seems to flirt dangerously with cloying, "molasses sweet potatoes."
The Senate Inaugural Committee has posted this and other menus on-line, along with recipes, for those of you wanting to play along at home.

Old Lobster Freed; Lame Duck Awaits Rescue

An alert diner at New York's City Crab and Seafood restaurant apparently tattled on management who had been featuring a recently-caught 140 year-old lobster in its tank. Tattled to PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, that is.

According to a story in Reuters, "The 20-pound (9-kg) lobster was caught off the coast of Canada about two weeks ago and bought for $100 (65 pounds) by City Crab and Seafood to become its mascot, said manager Keith Valenti.

"We bought a big lobster, started taking pictures with kids and it worked out real well," said Valenti, adding it was a "no brainer" to return the old crustacean to the ocean."

If only PETA would take  immediate action to free the lame duck in the White House.

Impoverished Americans Headed for Obesity?

We were doing just fine in our headlong rush to obesity before the financial meltdown, thank you.
But apparently, according to this Reuters piece,  "Things are going to get worse," ( Adam Drenowski) told Reuters in a telephone interview. "Obesity is a toxic result of a failing economic environment."
Dare I say maybe ignorance is involved as well?

Drenowski is director of the Nutrition Services Program at the University of Washington.
He went on to say that "... it was possible to eat in an affordable and healthy way, partly by relying on the basic foods which saw America through the Depression of the 1930s. The answer lies in affordable but nutrient-rich foods such as ground beef, beans, milk, nuts, cheese, carrots, potatoes, canned tomatoes, soups, and rice," he said, calling it "a diet for a new Depression."

Eggs? Tofu? Quinoa? Sweet potatoes?  Cooking at home? Homemade soup? And bread?
Sheesh.

In These Troubled Times, Birds Dig Seed from Wal ($#@!*&) Mart, Too

Wild bird boutique shoppes have their place, for those with abundant disposable income--a few years ago I enjoyed checking out the merchandise at my local Wild Birds Unlimited but I rarely bought anything from them until the big twice a year sales. Now they are gone, not done in by finances, but moved out of town, and I relish cobbling together bird fodder from my local supermarket, the horse supply place in rustic Corrales, NM, and, the big W.

Yes---20 pounds of black oil sunflower seed is about $15, when purchased from the right place at the right time. Then I toss in the more pricey proso millet and sometimes cracked corn, to make my own "gourmet" mix.

( Full disclosure--Bird pictured was photographed in Belgium by old friend R.G., who had been out to buy birdseed, emailed me, and prompted this Post. )

Pondering The Potential Bully Pulpit on Food

Now that Laura Bush has provided so-called "everyday" china for the incoming First Family to use, so that they need not fear breaking any of Nancy Reagan's red-rimmed porcelain, we can begin to ponder how influential the Obamas will be when it comes to the nation's dietary choices.

While the prior residents of the White House in recent years have been ( relatively) healthy and fit-- Bill Clinton's combination of a jog followed by a McD's stop notwithstanding---Barack Obama seems like a prez whose sensible opinions on many topics, including eating, will be noted, and perhaps, taken to heart. On the campaign trail he exhorted parents to turn off their tv's and read to their children. ( Did you, America?)

We now know well that he's a workout wonk, who neither over eats nor (over)drinks. And he and Michelle are fond of high end Italian cooking.  

Obama evidently likes to drink water. Now if he would just add a fat "no, no!" tax to every humungous soda sold in this country, we might be able to afford national health.

 ( Tks to AP Photo/Marvel Comics for this image found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/08/obama-spiderman-to-team-u_n_156329.html. For more on the cover story visit Marvel here.)

Giving ( and Getting) Chicks for Christmas

Thank you to the farmers plus (little) one of Summit Springs Farm, Maine, for the gift in our names of a flock of chicks to a deserving family somewhere in the world. Thanks to Heifer International for making such gifts available.  That's all lovely. ( And as we adore hens, and labored hard to move the happy hens of SSF in their insanely heavy coop this past summer, the gift is especially appropriate.)

But it started me wondering about this: 

• How are such chicks are transported?--not to mention goats, sheep and cattle.
• How do the impoverished folks who receive these animal donations feed said animals?
• Is there an equivalent effort to send people live plants/seeds to plant and nurture?

Animal rights groups have been critical of Heifer because they think the entire planet should stop eating meat altogether, an utterly unrealistic notion, especially in areas where people eat little meat but need what they eat for basic nutrition.

Perhaps I should know the answers to these ponderings, but as yet I do not.
Anyone??

( Pic from Heifer.org.)

Food News from Gaza--Dwindling Daily Bread

According to this from the UK, 17 Israelis, of them nine civilians, were killed by Hamas rockets in 2008. That's in one year.  In the past 10 days, about 512 people in Gaza have been killed by Israeli air raids.

Can you say "disproportionate response?"  According to many international politics gurus  this has always been Israel's military policy.

Naturally, after the lengthy blockade and current events, people in Gaza are hungry. This report from the United Nations is dated January 02, 2009:

"No wheat grain (has) entered Gaza since the beginning of the hostilities resulting in the closure of all mills. Mill owners confirmed that the Ministry of National Economy in Gaza ordered them to allocate the available wheat flour to bakeries and distribute it under its supervision (instead of them selling it on the market). As of today, fewer than 20 bakeries throughout the Gaza Strip are operational, due to lack of flour and cooking gas."

As I read about Hamas rockets and Israeli war planes, setting aside who is right and who is wrong,  I picture medieval soldiers catapulting huge stones, darts and spears at fortified castles. Why are we still engaged in this sort of nonsense in the 21st century?

Apparently it is unthinkably harder, more complex, and more time consuming to sit down around a table and talk over differences, possibly fortified with tasty powerful food, than it is to slaughter people and destroy property.  ( Mind you, I know that professional diplomats and peace keepers have tried to do this, off and on, for decades. )

But without the support of the world's leaders, the diplomats' tortoise-like efforts will make little headway against the weaponed-up hares.

( Photo of Palestinian baker thanks to BBC-UK, http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_5375000/5375686.stm)

Eat Less, Move More, Be Happy in 2009

"Diets" don't work but eating well/differently/less does. You knew this, right? Also, moving about rather than lying around like a bored teenager, keeps your body happy. Maybe not "thin," but happy.
Also--women who have had no boobs to speak of other than during pregnancy who gain a tad extra in later years suddenly enjoy having breasts. What's wrong with that?

And, to repeat----From the NYT last July: "The New England Journal report also affirmed something many women have believed all along — that low-carb diets work better for men than women. Male low-carb dieters lost about 11 pounds, compared to about 9 pounds on a Mediterranean diet. Women low-carb dieters lost only about 5 pounds, compared to about 14 on the Mediterranean diet."

Let's face it--Anyone eating Mediterranean style will be delighted and delightful, over the long haul.

Also--anyone deciding to put his/her gym membership on hold until the outdoor pool reopens will find delectation at the local community center--damn fine use of taxpayer dollars--where the fitness paraphernalia is available free.

As for the two boxes of Trader Joe's seasonal peppermint cookies still lurking in my pantry, shall I give them to Goodwill?!