Tag Archives: food chain

A History of Hamburger E. Coli Outbreaks | Lucky Peach

Leave a reply

E. coli O157:H7 did not burst onto the scene in the early 1990s, as many in the big food business like to think. It slowly crept into our food supply, spreading in the enormous feedlots that began to dot the U.S. landscape during the last century. The bacteria is now endemic and can be found in cows, sheep, and wild animals such as boar, elk, and deer. As few as fifty E. coli O157:H7 bacteria are enough to cause human illness—and as many as 100,000 can fit on the head of a pin.

Once this strain of E. coli makes it into our small intestine, it can damage the intestinal wall, causing severe cramping and bloody diarrhea. In some instances, the toxin that the bacteria releases gets into the bloodstream, damaging red blood cells and causing severe complications like kidney failure, stroke, brain damage, and death.

via A History of Hamburger E. Coli Outbreaks | Lucky Peach.

The Miracle of Preserves – The New York Times

Leave a reply

For as long as I can remember, I have had an unfathomably strong affection for pickles and potted meats and jellies and jams. I was thrown into the preserving pond early. I sat as a toddler, I am told, several summers running, in the cool shade of a tidy old trailer in Canaan, Me., playing with snails as the mobile home’s fleshy mistress, Louise, taught my mother to select cucumbers and beets and pole beans from a dense trailer-­side garden — packing them into heavy glass jars and then gently heating them in a worn tin pot.

I don’t think I ever tasted any of Louise’s many preserves. (‘‘Oh, they were terrible!’’ my mother tells me. ‘‘Horribly sweet.’’) The omission might help account for my obdurately romantic view of what the British writer Hugh Fearnley-­Whittingstall refers to as the ‘‘extended family we call by the rather austere name preserves.’’ All preserves strike me as good. They reach me at such childish, religious depths that I have wondered if, even before Louise’s trailer and my rapturous secondhand consumption of jarred delicacies in books, some supernatural pickle pot or jelly didn’t offer me a miraculous taste of itself in a dream.

If cultivating soil was what let humans settle, it was harnessing bacterial cultures that let us unmoor.

I have felt lucky, as a grown person, to discover that this thing I loved in innocent abstraction had real importance. Salting and drying meat and fish helped human beings to last through long winters, sea voyages and treacherous overland trails. If cultivating soil was what let us settle, it was harnessing bacterial cultures and sugar, salt, acid, fat, sun and wind to paralyze microorganisms and save food from decay that let us unmoor, discovering all the world that was not visible from our cabbage patches. Basque cider allowed seamen to cross oceans. Dutch pickled herring fueled the exploration of the New World. Vikings spread cod in the riggings of their ships to dry and stiffen in the cold wind, then traded on it as they battled through Scandinavia, the Mediterranean and Central Asia. Cheese was first a way of preserving milk; wine, of grape juice; sauerkraut, of cabbage; prosciutto, of pork. In this sense, all preserved things are additionally miraculous, in that they all are also ways of storing other things: part vessel, part content

via The Miracle of Preserves – The New York Times.

Seven Lobster-Buying Tips | Lucky Peach

Leave a reply

In “Lucky Peach #13: Holiday,” Peter Meehan wrote about his annual Christmas party—where, among many other things, he makes the lobster rolls from Jasper White’s book Lobster at Home. The front matter of the book, about how to shop for and kill lobsters, is succinct, spot-on, and very useful! We’ve published his rules for purchasing live lobsters below. (And after finishing that, you can check out his recipe for lobster rolls here.)

Source: Seven Lobster-Buying Tips | Lucky Peach

How To Make Chocolate | Lucky Peach

Leave a reply

It’s easy to forget that chocolate is a fruit. It’s born on a tree and undergoes several steps that transform the bitter, astringent seed into the rich, flavorful bars that we know.

Let’s take a little time to ponder the botanical story of chocolate and retrace the journey from its tropical origin. The cacao tree (officially, Theobroma cacao; theobroma translates as “food of the gods”), was classified in 1753 by Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus. The most recent genetic research points to the upper Amazon rainforests of South America—near present-day Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru—as its origin. It grows only within a narrow latitudinal band, between 20˚N and 20˚S of the equator. From its origins in South and Central America, cacao cultivation now spans the circumference of the globe within its tropical range. West African countries, namely Ghana and the Ivory Coast, currently provide about 70 percent of the world’s cocoa supply.

The cacao tree is fairly small, commercially bred to grow roughly 9 to 12 feet high. Like grape vines, cacao must often reach six to seven years maturity before producing a full yield of fruit. Its fruit, the cacao pod, develops from flowers that blossom directly from the trunk and thicker branches of the tree, reaching maturity in five to six months (thus sometimes allowing for two harvests per year). Each individual bean is comprised of an outer shell, the germ, and the nib. Conveniently, one pod’s worth of beans produces a 100-gram bar of chocolate.

via How To Make Chocolate | Lucky Peach.

 

Greek villagers’ secret weapon: Growing their own food – Business Insider

Leave a reply

Ilias Mathes has protection against bank closures, capital controls and the slashing of his pension: 10 goats, some hens and a vegetable patch.

If Greece’s financial crisis deepens, as many believe it must, he can feed his children and grandchildren with the bounty of the land in this proud village high in the mountains of the Arcadia Peloponnese.

“I have my lettuce, my onions, I have my hens, my birds, I will manage,” he said, even though he can no longer access his full pension payment because of government controls imposed six days ago. “We will manage for a period of time, I don’t know, two months, maybe three months, because I also want to give to our relatives. If they are suffering, I cannot leave them like this, isn’t that so?”

The production of food and milk gives villagers in many parts of Greece a small measure of confidence — and a valuable buffer. But that doesn’t mean the financial cut-off doesn’t cause headaches. Some in Karitaina have to pay 40 euros in taxi fares to get to and from the nearest banks just to withdraw 60 euros, the maximum daily amount for those with bank cards.

The bus to Megalopoli, the town with the bank, was shut down — a victim of austerity. Many of those who used to drive are now too unwell to do so. The majority who live here are retirees, shrouding the town in eerie quiet broken only by the constant birdsong and the sporadic shouting of people arguing about the financial crisis at a vine-shaded cafĂ© in the town square.

via Greek villagers’ secret weapon: Growing their own food – Business Insider.

 

Greece

DOH Announces Chilly Regulations About Freezing Raw Fish Before Serving – Eater NY

Leave a reply

It’s not all bad news, thankfully — tuna and shellfish are okay.

The New York Department of Health and Mental hygiene just announced new regulations that will require restaurants to freeze many types of fish for a minimum of 15 hours before serving them raw, to kill off bacteria. The Board of Health approved these regulations in March, and they will go into effect next month. Presumably, these new rules were change how a lot of restaurants — especially sushi bars and any places serving crudo or ceviche — store and prepare their fish. It will no doubt also inspire some major menu changes throughout the city, especially at the pricey fish restaurants.

As the Times points out, many high-end restaurants freeze their best fish as a safety precaution. Sushi Zen vice president Yuta Suzuki tells the paper: “We purposely deep-freeze at negative 83 degrees, and we use one of those medical cryogenic freezers.” The amount of time the fish should be frozen to meet the code depends on the temperature and the storage method. The NYT notes that shellfish, fresh-water fish, and “certain types of tuna” are exempt from the rule. And James Versocki, a rep for the National Restaurant Association, tells CBS: “Most grade sushi that restaurants serve are not impacted by this…You know your yellow and bluefin and tuna, they’re allowed to be served raw because they don’t generally have these parasites in them.”

DOH Announces Chilly Regulations About Freezing Raw Fish Before Serving – Eater NY.

When You’re Eating Chilean Sea Bass, You’re Actually Eating Patagonian Toothfish

Leave a reply

 

Have you ever heard of Patagonian toothfish? Well, chances are, you’ve eaten it — only when you ate it, it was called Chilean Seabass.

Yes, that’s right, Chilean Seabass is just a more “friendly” name for the Patagonian toothfish. The name under which it’s marketed was changed in 1977 by fisherman Lee Lantz , to make it sound more appetizing to the American market. Although the fish isn’t always caught in Chilean waters, and a toothfish isn’t technically even a bass, the term Chilean Seabass had “broad resonance among American seafood eaters.”

While the name change has certainly helped the Patagonian toothfish become more popular (there was a major Chilean Seabass boom in the ’90s), it has also led to overfishing of the species. Without strict government regulation, sustainability hasn’t been a top priority and many fishermen have been fishing in areas where they shouldn’t be. Had this fish not been renamed to make it more marketable, would the demand have been as high and led to overfishing? Probably not.

It may seem odd that a fish’s name was changed to make it sound better, however it is actually more common than you may think. Monkfish was originally called Goosefish, Sea Urchin used to be called Whore’s Eggs and Orange Roughy was Slimehead.

via When You’re Eating Chilean Sea Bass, You’re Actually Eating Patagonian Toothfish.

EDIBLE FLOWERS becoming more available and sought after

Leave a reply

From our friend across the “pond”

In Issue NÂș6 we are celebrating the ingredient EDIBLE FLOWERS. We meet the wonderful Jan Billington, an organic flower farmer in Devon who believes that edible flowers should not just as a pretty addition on the side of a plate. The lovely Johanna Paget, communications manager at the Soil Association will be popping by to explain the importance of good/organic/healthy soil. The talented Matthew Mason, Head Chef at The Jack in the Green, talks about his love for good local ingredients and shares a couple of incredibly tasty summer dishes. Plus, barbecue expert Marcus Bawdon will be showing us how to cook up some tasty wood-fired recipes. We take a look at the Kitchen Table Projects, a brilliant new London-based initiative that is passionate about helping artisan food producers get their product out there. All this on top of the usual good stuff you’ve come to expect!

READ ISSUE NÂș6: groweatgather.co.uk/

via EDIBLE FLOWERS on Vimeo.